This also seems to fail to take into account the addition of…10? 11? playable races since Cataclysm - which means each individual races share of the pie can only ever really decrease.
This seems to assume that disliking you is irrational, which many would strongly disagree with.
That’s not really the issue with it. The issue is that the Cenarian Circle dominates the Nelf content we have, when there is little to none as it relates with the Sentinels, Wardens, or the Sisterhood… Which is the dominate culture in Night Elf society.
It’s like if Earthern Ring was the only content orcs got… People would be quick to discount it.
I think it would be fair to say Night Elves have had a decade of mixed positive and negative content. I haven’t done a tally as to whether they’ve had MORE content related to them than any other race over the course of the last decade, but I’ll bet they’re in the top three.
When I first ran these numbers, I expected to see the residuals decline in BC with the introduction of Blood Elves and Draenei for this reason. Initially, they did, but as was demonstrated before, the trend reversed itself until about mid-2010, and it’s important to keep in mind that these races were and remain strong competitors to Night Elves. This was one thing that surprised me about that data when I went to run it - and it refutes this point.
So, the reversal tells me that there’s more to the story than an increasing number of slices. As do the classic numbers where additional races are not a factor.
One final thing to point out about additional races - if you look at the 2019 distribution of races for retail, the new races still command an extremely small share of the pie, and this includes allied races at the time.
The golden age for night elves was before all the posts crying about them made everyone hate their community
Probably, but I think that we would agree that developer attention is not necessarily a good thing. We saw that with the Horde in BFA, did we not?
I won’t disagree with that. The Cenarion Circle definitely seems(seemed?) like the safe way to create inclusive nelf-themed content, and not focusing nearly as much on the rest. And I can understand people being sick of focusing on just one aspect of a theme.
I just can’t get behind it meaning that it’s not night elf content, when really it’s the overindulgence of one specific type of it.
and nelves still get more story than others
Agreed, but nor is it necessarily a bad thing. Some of the narrative attention Night Elves have received strikes me as good (Azsuna, for instance).
Getting off track here but the comparison of the Cenarion Circle to the Earthen Ring and Vashj’ir is a silly comparison because most Cenarion content takes place in a zone full of Night Elf trees and Night Elf buildings and Night Elf Gods. Vashj’ir has no orc structures, orc aesthetics, orc characters - in fact, a good chunk of it is just more Night Elf! Hell, the Earthen Ring was founded by Tauren.
The Night Elf domination of Druidism is far beyond even Orcs domination of Shamanism. I’d argue even Humans don’t have that level of stranglehold over the Light anymore.
Azsuna is something that I put in the neutral content column, which I understand is frustrating, but it doesn’t do anything with the playable race, it doesn’t further its interests, and it doesn’t mend its problems. It’s certainly something that goes after that theme and those aesthetics, but not the choice in what to play.
Hey - you said this Forum is majority Horde - which I disagreed with. You didn’t say majority irrational - which cuts through both Factions, and I would agree with.
No offense, but even if they disagree with you, they still count as Alliance Posters and Players. This forum hardly feels dominated by Horde.
No one ever accused it of being dominated by rationality. We all a little crazy.
We can’t know. Reddit analysis of something they can’t know using only the information they wish to include is nonsense. It seems a fool’s errand and a boondoggle to use such information to prove a point.
We can’t know why people stopped playing, or unsubbed, or who they like. Blizzard has the accurate information and they keep that to themselves. So any other “educated guesses” are merely answers in search of questions.
For example: In Legion, I mained a Night Elf Druid. I loved Suramar. Before Legion wrapped up, I was so disgusted with the way the Horde was being treated (Stormheim) I swapped my Main to a Troll on the Horde.
Malfurion is my favorite Character, and Maiev is up there. As is Jarod. But Genn’s free use of Alliance forces for his vendettas against Anduin’s orders disgusted me.
My only Night Elf Character, my Main, became a Troll because of my disgust with Genn and the Alliance as some hegemonic boss of the Horde. But that doesn’t show up in these " Reddit Methodologies".
That’s fair… But honestly… Is it really a lot to ask that the Night Elves have their own content for once? If we want to include Cenarian Circle content as nelf content, that just means all out content is holding hands and cooperating with the other faction, and when it isn’t, our zones are getting burned and raided by the other faction. THOSE victories always happen off screen, usually confirmed in a dev’s twitter post years after the fact.
So saying Cenarian Circle content is nelf content is willfully dismissive of the actual problem. Yet, Horde players are still crying that they might have to do something for Tyrande in Shadowlands.
It’s neutral content in the sense that both sides can quest there. But are you seriously arguing that it is not Night Elf-related narrative attention? Because I chose my words carefully there.
It is an illumination of Night Elf history.
As far as what counts as Racial Content…
I consider the whole Isle of Queldanas and Sunwell Patch Blood Elf content, even though everyone can do it, and there is little if any content exclusive to Blood Elves.
As well as blood elf history - but the more important piece here is that it doesn’t have any relevance to what the playable faction is doing. They’re not there, they aren’t touched by the content, it changes nothing about them going forward. Accordingly I do take that weight away.
Edit: @ Cursewords - I’m sorry, but your objection previously isn’t good enough. If you are arguing that the redditor was wrong, then you need to explain what makes the model unsuitable - not that the whole enterprise of data analytics just “doesn’t work” for something like this.
We’re arguing over what is and isn’t X content, but worth remembering the root point of the argument was that attempting to calculate the effect Night Elf content has on the Night Elf playerbase is worthless if you arbitrarily decide not to include content that heavily involves Night Elves aesthetically and thematically just cause of your own personal categorizations. Because if the content has an effect - that content does too. It’s insane to suggest it would not.
There’s one instance in the data that I see this happening - and you see it in Night Elf interest being positively correlated with Illidan around the BC timeframe, and what happens when you remove him as a factor in the BC era. Other than that, I’m not seeing this effect.
Except it is not arbitrary. Kya has explained her reasoning several times now, you just don’t like the answer. But defining terms is the most important step when it comes to any quantitative analysis.
That was my point about the methodology. It seems wholly off the wall. I read it as:
“If we count the Reddit polls and Google searches but exclude stuff I dont want to count… then I am right about something we can never prove!”
Again, I agree with Kyalin’s overall point. The Night Elves have had it pretty bad, and they haven’t had a Golden Age in decades. A few bright spots, but they have mostly been on the receiving end of more pain then good.
But the nutso methodology detracts from that point.