I see a lot of discrimination against male nelfs in game, and i dont understand it. They have the best bow animation with a HUGE bow, similar to troll but without the annoying toes. They have the best death animation by far. They spin jump! They look pretty good in all gear, wide shoulders, visible boots and gloves with large hands (again, big weapons). Shadowmeld is amazing. They are also extremely rare… 99% of nelf players roll female… you have the unqiueness factor as a male.
The only downside i see are the casting animations. They cant have it all i guess. I don’t think they deserve the hate they get for having 1 small downside.
As a player who’s worn out the spacebar on a number of keyboards, I feel qualified to field this one.
I’d say the overall stereotype for male Nelfs is that they’re at least a little wacky or flaky. I think it has a lot to do with Nelf being a common race for Alliance hunters, so those reputations have always overlapped somewhat.
Adding to that, with the male model being so tall it’s easier to notice when they’re doing something unusual, and the animations sometimes have a floppy, Roger Rabbit quality to them, so it’s easy to identify them with a mental image that’s less than dignified.
Also add that the flip side of having relatively visible and cool-looking gear models is that those options also attract a lot of players who are really into the superficial appearance as opposed to racial abilities or whatever else. Back in the early days, you used to see a lot of male Nelf hunters or warriors with names like Legollas or Xsephirothx, and they didn’t always leave a stellar impression.
So, rounding up the above points, we have an archetype of the goofy male Nelf hunter Lègòlas, jumping up and down in melee range, whiffing with the axe he rolled on because it looks awesome, while his pet is mysteriously out of LoS and appears to be taking damage somewhere.
This is a really good explanation and makes a lot more sense. I will say the male nelf in your avatar looks very dignified (at least while he’s standing still), and i am glad you’re out there breaking the stereotypes!
A Hunter in pvp backpedaling and keyboard turning reminds me of a Male night elf. Their goofy shoulder rotating annoys me and their updated models make them look like play-doh
The male nelf model is the worst model in the game. They’re goofy. Hands are too large, ultra roided muscles, horrible faces, sharp hips. They dont look like elves at all. Pretty bad. Worse than gnomes, and that’s saying something.
All the night elfs I’ve ever played have been female avatars. I blame the original cinematic and the druid that transforms into a cat. In 2004 it was pretty First saw that at a movie theater I believe tho it sounds crazy. Advertising a video game in a trailer at the movies?
Oh they still out there unable to let go. Just like me.
Yep. My first toon was in in 2009 Wrath and I made a NE male hunter. Yes it was due to the LotR Legolas stuff. I actually named my character my first name with -olas at the end ha
Interesting. I always thought Blood Elves had more of that LOTR elf feel. I think blood elf males have more of a Legolas vibe, but that’s just me.
I do however think the bow animation for male nelf is top tier on Alliance. Female bow animation is great but the bows looks so tiny on their character, whereas the male nelf bow is huge and looks very powerful.
Belves are much more similar in appearance to the classic Tolkein elves, but since they weren’t playable until TBC, LotR fans in Vanilla would make Nelfs for their Legolas inserts.
I’ve always had a couple of gripes with the Nelf models, namely clipping things with the ears and hair, but it’s not a huge deal, and I think they mostly look pretty decent. I’m not a fan of ears sticking out of helmets, especially hoods. In retail, I would always scan for models that didn’t show the ears, and sometimes it would be just certain recolors of certain item models, and they would change from time to time. For example, there was a time when the TBC S1 PvP Warrior helmet showed your ears, but the T4 PvE red version hid them. I usually just go with the sentinel-style visor for retail transmogs, or as an RP hat in Era when I’m not in combat.
I don’t remember exactly when it was, but there was a period where there was some mixup that made male nelfs use the wrong shield model, so our shields shrunk and it looked really bad for a couple of expansions. Any kind of buckler looked like a wristwatch, and your hands would stick out beyond pretty much every shield. For a while, the only shields I thought looked good on nelf males were the hugely oversized car-door shields.
Eekamouse put it well. Weird animations + proportions, they definitely contribute to a wonky look. Some of their animations are cool, though, we see this in twin emperors in AQ40. Weird proportions, but they have cool 2H sword animations. Casting not so much. Also not lore accurate for anyone who does care for that, night elves were a inversion of the typical tribal warring culture, the women were the physical warriors. Now if only they had bigger hips…
Swifty was also a + and - for night elf male culture, when he was better than the average player by far he was cool back in original vanilla, then there was after the skill floor got raised and the theory that the YT personality isn’t the real Swifty due to skill degradation comparison. Swifty either way as a personality was cooler as a hero with no face compared to the ‘influencer’ camera culture that removed the fable and myth 4th wall. Celebrities and all this suffer from this, too, to the degree that they’re accessible to everyone and trying to get brownie points or removing the mystery from them, they are less special.
No male nelf hate from me. Love those sexy bad boys. Don’t know why people don’t recognize how hot they are. Burly, feral looking elf hippies. Whats not to love?
My hunter is a night elf (it fit the theme I had in m8 d for the toon.) However, I don’t like the ears… they look like big rubber dongs. And they bounce when you run.
First saw that at a movie theater I believe tho it sounds crazy. Advertising a video game in a trailer at the movies?
that’s why