- "Remember how quiet it was before the elves came? I miss that."
The Blood elf controversy involves players who have voiced objection to blood elves feeling it will ruin the atmosphere of the Horde. Others think it makes little sense that the New Horde would let in such a corrupt race and feel this upsets the balance between the Alliance and Horde. The latest controversy involves their torture and exploitation of a Naaru and the hidden leper gnome sweatshop in their Capital showing Thrall and Cairne's apparent indifference.
A defensive argument for the inclusion of blood elves Edit
While the feeling of the general public is that the blood elves are evil, most of these opinions are drawn from what they have previously observed from their experiences in playing as the human-blood elf campaign in WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne, who accepted Vashj and Illidan's ideas of obtaining magic at almost any cost, even consorting with upper-level demons.
However, it is important to remember that the playable blood elves in Burning Crusade will not be the same as the playable blood elves in previous Warcraft titles. These blood elves draw their energies from demonic pests and mana beasts, the equivalent of rats or lesser rodents. Many are unaware of what happened to Prince Kael'Thas and his accompanying strike force (the blood elves of The Frozen Throne) through the Dark Portal in search of a cure - this will probably be a major factor into why both Alliance and Horde will be able to battle him in the Tempest Keep. The playable blood elves of Burning Crusade were the great majority of the blood elf military, who Kael'Thas sent to reclaim Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon City.
The Sin'dorei bring with them a rightly feared and legendary arcane heritage, and the newly formed Blood Knights. With the reclamation of Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon City, they also bring yet another Horde presence to a continent that is generally thought of as Alliance territory. Now there are two major powers on the Eastern Kingdoms that can act as buffers, supply centers and headquarters against Ironforge and Stormwind in case the Alliance initiates another Great War. (This balances with the Draenei, whose territories are off the coast of Kalimdor, a Horde-dominated continent).
From a strictly practical gameplay perspective, a Sin'dorei Paladin makes a tremendously versatile addition to any party. In PvP the Paladin can be very powerful in comparison to other classes, and in PvE their ability to both heal and engage in melee combat means that they can serve equally well as either a main healer or main tank.
The ulterior reasons are sympathy. Although all the races of the Horde wisely note the blood elves' reputation as being reckless and dangerous, there are those within the Horde who view them as a race also in need of help. Orcs, no strangers to the debilitating effects of fel power, are surprisingly accepting of the Sin'dorei, and many older orcs who have experienced demonic corruption firsthand are fierce supporters of the blood elves. Blood elves hate unlife in all its forms, but in regards to the Forsaken, blood elves are generally willing to accept an uneasy truce, possibly facilitated by Sylvanas Windrunner, who was slain defending Quel'thalas against the Scourge and later raised as an undead, leading the Forsaken. While the alliance between blood elves and the forsaken is uneasy at best, it is strong enough that the Undercity and Silvermoon have opened a translocator between the two cities, making safe travel possible without low-ranked blood elves having to traverse the hazardous Plaguelands. This allows the once land-locked blood elf homeland unfettered access to the rest of Azeroth. As for the Illidari alternative, which many players have argued in favour of as a more suitable faction for the Blood Elves, this was most likely not exploited due to Blizzard's desire to retain a two faction model for the game. Time will tell how well the race integrates in the Horde.
The "Common" controversy Edit
A popular lore argument is "How can the blood elves suddenly forget Common upon joining the Horde?"
Traditionally Common is usually treated as universal language in earlier Warcraft games, novels, and in the current RPG, and is known by most races and factions in some form (Common, Nerglish, Undercommon, Low Common, etc.). Even individuals and races that had never previously encountered members of other races are capable of having conversations due to a universal knowledge of Common. According to the RPG blood elves know Common, and it is one of their two main languages, which also includes Thalassian.
However, some see the above argument in itself as flawed, because they have seen no evidence in need of retconning to show that most elves even know Common to begin with. They believe although there are undoubtedly blood elves who do speak Common (as well as Orcs who spoke Common, Humans who spoke Orcish, etc.), they may not be the majority. They believe that the blood elves who know the language are usually commissioned officers, delegates, diplomats, veterans from the Second War, or defectors from the Third War. Quel'Thalas has always been an insular nation, and officially severed all ties with the Alliance immediately following the Second War.It is possible as a result, that there are very few ordinary blood elves who speak Common. Elves who are the most likely to know Common are usually loyalist high elves who stayed with the Alliance even after Quel'Thalas seceded, and many veterans of the previous wars have already died. Much of the current blood elf population are those who remained in Quel'Thalas throughout the WarCraft storyline.
There are many who have not seen any race aside from their own prior to the Horde induction, so it could be much less likely for them to speak Common. As with most of the other playable races, new blood elf characters are probably young enough to have never seen battle when they first start out. Also, after severing ties with the alliance, it is likely that the use of common has been outlawed among blood elves and are encouraged to speak Thalassian in order to preserve cultural identity. One wonders then, why the Blood Elves did not learn the language of the faction of which they'd been members for much longer than the Horde but reverted this stance with the Horde, or why this speculative desire to retain their racial identity did not, in the same vein, preclude them from learning Orcish.
However, the basic reasons remain decisions largely for the sake of competitive gameplay. Blizzard goes to great lengths to promote tension between factions, and discourages fraternizing and communicating with the opposing faction. Having a language barrier promotes this, especially when applied to PvP servers. This language barrier may not actually be present in non-game materials (novels, etc.).
The language barrier also extends from Blizzard's experience by letting undead speak Common — players displayed a noted (almost repulsive) lack of maturity with this ability, and Gutterspeak was the result.
Why hunters and not warriors? Suggested gameplay and lore reasoning Edit
This is no longer an issue as Blood Elves can now be warriors. Prior objections included their slender physiques (if so, how could Gnomes be Warriors? This objection has many weaknesses to it) and the lack of penetration the class had had in High Elven culture. It should be noted that again, this argument could be leveled against Priests, perhaps with even greater force (particularly if one goes by the lore of the Broken) - particularly followers of the Holy Light - and that, though the High Elves did not include many pure Warriors per se, they always had a warrior tradition in the form of the Spellbreakers, and now in the form of the Blood Knights. Moreover, Rangers are also trained to fight at close range, and combined with High Elven skill in the blade and bow and their high agility, there is little reason to preclude it as a playable choice, all this presuming blood elf have a high elf heritage.
There has been an ongoing complaint over the new changes done to blood elf models, and specifically the choice to bulk up male blood elves. The current models stand slightly straighter and have bigger biceps than the old models. The official CM response by Nethaera stated that the change was made in order to make male blood elves look more menacing and masculine to the opposite faction, and the answer was met with heavy criticism. Many fans decried this as unwarranted machismo and stereotyping, as these players wanted a slender male model available to the Horde faction. There have been ongoing petitions and forum threads since the change asking for a revert to the old model, and calling for a change in the male blood elf's stance and voice responses to remedy their perceived lack of masculinity instead of a physical change.
It has pointed out that prior to this model change there have been reports of skeletal tearing (the model's skeletal frame poking out of the skin) during movement. The increased number of polygons, biceps size and general size of male blood elves appears to have repaired the problem.
Defenders have also pointed out that there have been promotional pictures showing very bulky and muscular blood elves. These were done by Samwise Didier who typically draws all males in exaggerated fashion, even the traditionally slender trolls, and so it would be foolish to leave Blood Elves particularly slender, especially based on this concept art. Blood Elves, it is argued, could still do with improved toning to match their increased muscularity.
The most controversial facet of the blood elves is their ability to become paladins. It should be noted, however, that of all the controversy, this one is the most credible lore-wise. The ability balances the right of the draenei to become Shamans, an action Blizzard took as part of a way to clarify the role of the Shaman in lore. As high elves many were members of the Church of Light many became priests and a few became paladins. ( ) ( ) (. After the Third War, most of high elves became blood elves not the majority, and soon the race began to lose its light given powers. Thus they needed to find a new way to access the Light. They did this by sapping )Light energy from the captive naaru M'uru held beneath the Blood Knight headquarters.