I’d agree with this the blood elf/high elf schism largely starts from whether they were in Quel’Thalas and then whether your elf was vegan or not*.
I think it’s worth mentioning that culturally there may be a lot more divergence between the two now. Given that it has been remarked that blood elves have become incredibly somber as a people and shun ostentatious displays.
*Though these became wretched and there is one survivor. Could you roleplay as one that left the lodge prior? Meh. Whatever.
Kul Tiran humans losing all of their determination and willpower because they’re not mainlander humans with the [Will to Survive]
Conversely, mainlander humans cannot punch because only kul tirans have that as a racial.
Also regarding the age old (and invalid) complaint of “there are too many of this race compared to their representation in lore” - how many worgen are there compared to humans? I’d say they’re roughly on equal footing playerbase wise, but non-cursed humans are WAY more commonplace in the world of Azeroth than people who got bit by a furry or drank the forbidden wine.
Let me see.
This character’s faith was incompatible with reconciling the abhorrent actions of Teldrassil and the attempted genocide of the Kaldorei people.
Political rivalry between her House and a more powerful House that was determined to have her killed.
Being an outcast and often removed from the streets of Silvermoon for continuing to preach the Church’s message after the fall of Quel’thalas in an attempt to help people suffering withdrawl symptoms and the subsequent rejection of the Church and the Light by many in Sin’dorei society.
Her Fiancé dying as he defended Silvermoon City.
Her defection to the Alliance during the Nazmir campaign of the Fourth war.
She lived amongst Humans for 60 years in Stratholme working for the Church.
Her goals and political leanings are more centered Alliance ideals.
A huge disliking of Undead of all kinds, Forsaken included.
A more nuanced philosophical and Academic pool to do research on.
A functioning Government.
Just a few reasons Alisinya lives in Stormwind working for the Silver Hand.
And I love this character so damn much. She’s my baby!
Blood Elves were put onto Horde to attract Alliance players to balance the playerbase out more.
Blood Elves at one point made up 50% of Argent Dawn’s (and many more) Horde population.
Blood Elves aesthetics and awkward positioning inside the Horde has always come across as forced and disingenuous (much like the Forsaken).
Blood Elves have flirted with the idea of abandoning the Horde before, weirdly under the less omnicidal dictator, but this was pre-Danuser too.
Blood Elves have far more in common with the Alliance over a longer history of time. Teenage rebellious vendetta phase (TBC) aside, once the Sunwell was turned back on there was no real reason to remain inside the Horde, aside from liking the #TheAntagonist aesthetics.
Blizzard adds the means to have proper looking High Elves (probably done directly to appeal to people in the wake of their cube-crawling milk-stealing scandal) onto the Alliance after years of saying “No High Elves for Alliance”.
The result is a complete collapse of Horde RP within a year since they were introduced.
The majority of Blood Elf roleplayer are Elf roleplayers, not Horde roleplayers. Elf roleplay has always been more conducive to the Alliance.
On top of that the absolute dumpster fire the Horde is lorewise (that still hasn’t been resolved since BFA and probably never will), I do not blame people for mass desertion in general from playing “We’re doing 20th century Germany speedrun any% war crimes.”
Do not be concerned about the number of High Elves, be concerned about the number of Blood Elf players that are still around.
I’m concerned by the amount of anonymous people posting bait on Classic characters.
There’s nothing convenient about trying to RP on a scarcely populated faction. Maybe when Blizzard commits to more cross-faction availability that can change, but we’re not there yet.
Yeah, I wonder why anyone would ever enjoy RPing a race that´s effectively exiled from their homeland and would find the lack of huge city and multiple smaller towns to be something good.
After all, the goal of RP is to be the epic winner, right?
Nooooo, I can´t have jewelry!
/e dies of death
More accurate to blood elves taught by Rommath who was in turn taught by Illidan.
Now if only there was a group of Thalassian elves who never got to learn that, that would be interesting…
Also, imagine thinking racials are important for RP.
Yeah, because that´s something that has huge impact on one´s RP.
OK, Syndrome, except there´s at least (and this is absolute minimum that relies on interpretation of one TBC quest saying “there are thousands Sunfury attacking Kirin´var” meaning that there were exactly 2000 Sunfury and they commited their entire army to this one battle) 1400 high elves.
The entire population of Stormwind in RP at any evening is not even 10% of that.
Have you heard of the high elves?
You’re probably an older player I imagine? Or from the server during another time? If you played back in the day things aren’t quite the same. Don’t mind the forum regulars. Generally speaking, the game is a trash fire so at this point caring about this is like arguing about the colour of the curtains while the sun is blotting out. The number of people roleplaying high elves is at the bottom of the list of things I dislike about the current state of the game it really isn’t what I would call a problem.
Oh my God, it looks as if I wrote it. Love your points so much, you basically voiced what I was thinking, haha. I’m so happy to see this thread, you cannot imagine how.
Look, people here will talk (and they have already done it, I see) nonsense, harrass and gaslight you, because you dared to step foot into the forbidden topic and insult their sacred subject. For some reason some races (like the notorious High elves) have privilege, while some (like the Undead) are frowned upon. Why? I wish I could understand.
High Elves are like a magnet for toxic RPers. People will defend this race and justify anything in a belittling, humiliating way, so it’s pointless to even try to use valid arguments here.
If I tried to explain why people pick Void elves, then I’d say that they have better racials (for non rp activities), better hair textures, and access to a larger RP community on this server (cuz Horde is less active in casual rp) . Apart from that… I am absolutely clueless why people are so obsessed with High elves. Void elves - yeah, they’re cool intriguing folks, High elves… Just like you, I wonder how Blood elves lose to them.
For me overpopulation of high elves is annoying and immersion-breaking. For the toxic people here it’s perfectly fine, because it’s a sacred subject. Don’t let these people bring you down and know that there’s someone out there who wholeheartedly supports you and your pov. I wish I got a comment like this when I was saying these things back then, but I can still help you. Peace 
Because lore.
I hope you find it.
Same reason as why you are RPing a Darkfallen…?
Or why I am RPing a Night Elf.
They just feel a connection to the race…
I suppose the Blood Elves making up 50% of the Horde is not immersion-breaking?
This reminds me of a guy I once spoke to in-game who decided that I was a weak person for enjoying high elves LOL this was years ago and I still wtf over it.
I think there’s value in pointing out just how badly Blizzard has screwed up, at least from a roleplaying perspective.
High elves aren’t an official playable race. They’re a relatively small selection of customisation options for void elves, an allied race, that allows them to look almost identical to one of the core playable races, blood elves. This isn’t a problem and I’m not using this to say that people shouldn’t roleplay high elves, but I want to point out the hoops that need to be jumped through to play a high elf instead of a blood elf.
However, it sounds like high elves are currently more popular than blood elves in the roleplaying scene.
This is despite the fact that blood elves were playable for over a decade before the high elf options for void elves were introduced. You would’ve thought this would have led to people becoming attached to their blood elf characters, or to the Horde community, but apparently not.
This is despite the fact that when compared to blood elves, high elves are generic, at least in my opinion.
While the blood elves went through a period where they sought to survive by any means necessary and went through the whole Kael’thas and the Burning Crusade arc, the high elves simply… remained high elves.
I could go into detail, but I’m trying not to focus on my own opinion on high elves. My point is: I would have thought that the relatively complicated and unique blood elves would have drawn more interest than the relatively plain high elves.
Despite all of this, it seems like the roleplaying community prefers high elves over blood elves to the point that Silvermoon City, once one of the most prosperous hubs of the Horde, is now apparently dead.
So that’s why I’m asking why this happened and why I want to know how Blizzard screwed up, to the point where what was previously the most popular race Horde-side is no longer attractive to the roleplaying community in any shape or form, and people would rather jump through all of the hoops required to roleplay a high elf instead.
Is it due to their handling of the Horde? Is it due to the writing of the blood elves? Is it due to people just wanting to play elves in their most vanilla and traditional form, and not wanting anything more complicated than that?
Probably a mix of all of this.
Also, blue is objectively a nicer colour than red sage nod.
High Elves scratch my standard Elf itch. They’re a mix of Warhammer’s Asur and the Elves of Tolkien and that’s ultimately what I find most appealing about Elves, even if it is very generic; I don’t need some complex story weave of mana struggle, especially not due to how absolutely forced the entirety of TBC’s story was as a whole.
No, what you always try to promote as “lore” is your own point of view and personal preferences. The overwhelming amount of High elves is lore, an Undead in the Horde is suddenly not. One example you can give is lore, my five examples are rare exceptions. And so on.
The matter of question is not why some people rp a certain race, but rather why so many people rp them. The Darkfallen are, surprisingly, extremely rare, and I wish we could see more of them. But 9 out of 10 void elves that I see are “high elves”, and it’s really freaky. To me and the OP this race is less interesting than their twin brethren from the Horde (or from the Alliance too, in my case). That was the question
Bless this comment 
Another friend detected, haha. /hug
I also think Blizzard screwed up when they added Void elves to the Alliance, just because how important this race’d been to the Horde. And then they added these non-void customizations and just made it 1000 times worse. Bad decision and its evident destructive consequences for the horde population. Sad.
This. This is the whole issue. They never should’ve pulled Void Elves out of their behinds and never should’ve dangled High Elves infront of Alliance players and High Elf fans since WoTLK with Silcer Covenant as the Alliance faction.
I would’ve preffered a Night Elf vs Blood Elf rivalry, and instead have all High Elf become Blood Elf or have a small subsection work together with the Night Elves(for example every 15 sentinels(or more), you’ll have 1 High Elf Ranger, etc?)
To harken back to what you actually said before you once again try to twist it:
What I succeed at promoting as lore is the fact that undead will universally meet a lot more prejudice than high elves will.
With that said there is no overwhelming amount of high elves and only a portion of undead, namely the Forsaken, are accepted as part of the Horde.
The only reason you’re in here to begin with is because you’re so incredibly butthurt that people don’t subscribe to your constantly unsubstantiated fantasy.