It’s not easy to get a true picture of the demographics for race and class popularity but there are some fairly good approximations out there. They all show the same basic information.
The Alliance is mostly Humans and Night Elves.
The Horde are predominantly Blood Elves, with no second race even coming close.
While there’s a little more racial balance among the Alliance with at least two vying for the top place, the Horde seems to have a better balance of class adoption, compared to what the Alliance has. This graphic by Reddit user Quasiwave is typical of the estimates, and is based on a large sample size of characters.
I may play Blood Elves when playing Horde, but I don’t think it adds to the game to have such a one sided racial imbalance in the faction. If the story reflected the characters in-game, Silvermoon City would be the Horde capital, with Orgimmar a medium sized Orcish city and quest hub. Were it not for the NPC population Orgrimmar would be just a pile of Blood Elves looking very out of place.
From a game play perspective it doesn’t make much difference. A big fearsome Orc is no more powerful than a wiry little elf. Is that part of the problem? Should there be more benefits and costs to playing different races to make them more compelling (and realistic)? Should Orcs be better warriors, Trolls better Hunters, and Blood Elves better mages? Maybe, or maybe attempting to deal with racial imbalances would just lead to greater class imbalances.
The Alliance isn’t so bad off, having two popular races, which fits into most Alliance lore where those races are primarily driving the story, though the Dwarves are a little under represented with Worgen and Void Elves much more popular. Gnomes don’t get a lot of love either but they’ve been basically a side act from day one, so that’s to be expected.
I doubt those who focus primarily on M+ or raiding will be bothered by this, but for those who focus on story, adventure, and RP, does it matter to you that the game reflects the story? If so what do you think would help correct these imbalances?
same with the blood elf racial remove one beneficial buff/add rage energy runic power ect…
you know how good is that on mob or players with a shield or a buff from another class
No. God no. Let people choose their race based on aesthetics please. Blizzard knows very well what was going to happen when they introduced Blood Elves to the Horde. It was intentional. It balanced out the faction population.
Something I rarely stop to think about, but thanks for the work you put into the post. Your information made for a nice read, and a distraction from the usual stuff on the boards.
The data looks like the bias is partly due to poor race/class options in DH and pallies. If Blizzard wanted to encourage racial balance they’d open up more race/class choices. Of course then there are even more enormous lore issues with the DH. (Which IMO have a sketchy story in the first place.)
I agree Alliance makes more sense lorewise, although again part of the night elf popularity comes from DH and druids. It looks like human is the most popular choice if all races are available, with elves second.
