i find the dark elves of Rift get it (not sold on the lateral ears, but otherwise...) and the elves of skyrim nail it.  many people dont realize where elves come from culturally.  they were essentially the alien/vampires of the celtic world.  powerful, caprecious, disturbing though strangely beautiful.   the vanilla elves that have dominated American fantasy are nothing but a "Safe" option for idealized alternative.

i am bored to tears by the usual presentation of elves (and orcs for that matter) but i was immensely suprised and pleased by the design choices of skyrim for both.  i hope the success of the game heralds a new age, and opens new doors for people who previously have only seen the two as sterilized cartoons.

But pwning someone's tough guy toon in full armor as an elf makes it all so much more fun.  I mean, I definitely think it's cool that games are exploring original fantasy options, but seeing big Charr fall to Sylvari and Asura players will still provide the same satisfaction.

You know what else there is too much of in online games?  Humans!

If Elves are out, does that also mean the MMO can't have a setting of the island of Numenor?   Um...weren't they humans...that woudl be ok...or not?  Sorry, have to reread the Silmarron...

The problem isn't really the elves but the fact that all MMO worlds seems to be a cheap knock off on The Forgotten realms.

FR isn't in itself that unique but it is at least well made, the knock offs are usually just bad.

Why can't we get a knock off from "A song of ice and fire", or "The wheel of time"? Or anything friggin else for that matter instead of all MMOs with the same mechanics and the same world?

I don't believe that is what the players want, I think it is just lazy devs and cowardly publishing houses, nothing else.

If you want to make a Forgotten realms MMO, license the actual product at least!!!

Originally posted by Cruoris

i find the dark elves of Rift get it (not sold on the lateral ears, but otherwise...) and the elves of skyrim nail it.  many people dont realize where elves come from culturally.  they were essentially the alien/vampires of the celtic world.  powerful, caprecious, disturbing though strangely beautiful.   the vanilla elves that have dominated American fantasy are nothing but a "Safe" option for idealized alternative.

i am bored to tears by the usual presentation of elves (and orcs for that matter) but i was immensely suprised and pleased by the design choices of skyrim for both.  i hope the success of the game heralds a new age, and opens new doors for people who previously have only seen the two as sterilized cartoons.

Actually you are confusing Elves with Sidhes and fearies.

Elves: Demi gods from Norse mytholgy. Tolkien was an expert on the subject. Most elves are from either Nifelheim (the dusk or evning elves) or Alfheim (the light or morning elves).

Sidhes: Irish powerful and often nasty beings that lives in a dimension close to our own.

Fearies: weird otherwordly beings common around the world.

It is a coomon mistake. Tolkien based his work on Norse mythology (Gandalf is based on Odin) while the other classic fantasy author Howard based his on Irirsh mythology (Conan is actually a legendary Celtic hero said to have killed Balor of the evil eye, the leader of the Fomori)...

Yoda is technically an elf. Hahaha.

Give me a decent Shadow Run mmo and I can deal with the elves... with a shotgun...

Originally posted by yaminsux

Yoda is technically an elf. Hahaha.

No, he is a muppet. Big difference.

Originally posted by SBFord

With our brand new column here at MMORPG.com, we are reaching out to those of you who are sick and tired of the traditional high fantasy MMO. Judging by a recent study, that means we're talking to a lot of you. Check out "No Elves Allowed" to find out what exactly we're talking about here. Leave us a few of your own thoughts in the comments.

Been there. Done that. Bought the Blood Elf. Can we move on? I can see some of you surreptitiously picking up those pitchforks but I'm going to say it anyway: the genre is over saturated with gnomes. You cannot turn two steps without bumping into a scantily-dressed elf. Throw a stone and chances are you'll nail a passing princess. To abuse a time-worn trope, your personal mileage may vary on the subject matter but personally, I've had enough of fantasy. We have the technology. Let's use it.

Read more of Cassandra Khaw's No Elves Allowed: The No Elves Manifesto.

 Why beat on the traditional fantasy races when it hasn't even been done correctly yet?  WHAT mmorpg has in depth fantasy races, you know, where you level a race independently of the entire world in your mmorpg and get a full in depth experience of your YOUR culture?  By the end you truly see yourself (character-wise) as the race you chose, and when you do face an enemy, it's not some instanced nonsense, it's a persistant living breathing environment.

Knock the fantasy races of tradition all you want, but don't tell me Michael Jackson dancing night elves in WoW made you think this is it.  That's like saying to hell with hamburgers because McDonald's has just overdone it.  Seriously wake up.   Look at the movie industry:  There is Star Trek, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings.  That's it.  What other epic trilogy or better exists?  Thus far, sci9-fi has fantasy beat 2 to 1. 

I say, the day a developers wakes up a dozen or so investors and creates an mmorpg that is a mix of Total War, Elder Scrolls/Skyrim, and Dark Age of Camelot, is the day everyone will be saying: gosh golly, I didn't know it could be like this.

Point is, just because the mmorpg genre has a terrible lack of fantasy sense, doesn't mean the High Fantasy Genre has been overdone. 

IT HAS YET TO BE CREATED!

/Just my 2 cents.

Its not elves I hate its every race looking human. Human with pointy ears = elf and we can claim we have two races now, Human with blue skin = generic race we just made up, Human with rocky skin texture = boulder kin, Humans who have glowing eyes, are demonkin, etc. You have to practically beg to play a Dwarf these days, I mean the Star Wars mmo doesn't even have Wookies, or any other interesting race for that matter, Human, red human, human with cloth over face, human with skin texture. blah.

Originally posted by Azaria

Its not elves I hate its every race looking human. Human with pointy ears = elf and we can claim we have two races now, Human with blue skin = generic race we just made up, Human with rocky skin texture = boulder kin, Humans who have glowing eyes, are demonkin, etc. You have to practically beg to play a Dwarf these days, I mean the Star Wars mmo doesn't even have Wookies, or any other interesting race for that matter, Human, red human, human with cloth over face, human with skin texture. blah.

Agreed, the devs could have a little more imagination.

I wish there were some alien option in MMOs were you could mix a load of parts together to make something weird looking and unisque.

At least ANET got it and revamped the Sylvari, now it actually looks alien enough to not be another elf.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Azaria

Its not elves I hate its every race looking human. Human with pointy ears = elf and we can claim we have two races now, Human with blue skin = generic race we just made up, Human with rocky skin texture = boulder kin, Humans who have glowing eyes, are demonkin, etc. You have to practically beg to play a Dwarf these days, I mean the Star Wars mmo doesn't even have Wookies, or any other interesting race for that matter, Human, red human, human with cloth over face, human with skin texture. blah.

Agreed, the devs could have a little more imagination.

I wish there were some alien option in MMOs were you could mix a load of parts together to make something weird looking and unisque.

At least ANET got it and revamped the Sylvari, now it actually looks alien enough to not be another elf.

 

Oh yes, Sylvari are much different from classic elves--they have leaves :) Nah, it is not about elves it is about fantasy mmo. We have 1000 of them and some people cant see and hear anymore same old dragon story

renaissanceOriginally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Cruoris

i find the dark elves of Rift get it (not sold on the lateral ears, but otherwise...) and the elves of skyrim nail it.  many people dont realize where elves come from culturally.  they were essentially the alien/vampires of the celtic world.  powerful, caprecious, disturbing though strangely beautiful.   the vanilla elves that have dominated American fantasy are nothing but a "Safe" option for idealized alternative.

i am bored to tears by the usual presentation of elves (and orcs for that matter) but i was immensely suprised and pleased by the design choices of skyrim for both.  i hope the success of the game heralds a new age, and opens new doors for people who previously have only seen the two as sterilized cartoons.

Actually you are confusing Elves with Sidhes and fearies.

Elves: Demi gods from Norse mytholgy. Tolkien was an expert on the subject. Most elves are from either Nifelheim (the dusk or evning elves) or Alfheim (the light or morning elves).

Sidhes: Irish powerful and often nasty beings that lives in a dimension close to our own.

Fearies: weird otherwordly beings common around the world.

It is a coomon mistake. Tolkien based his work on Norse mythology (Gandalf is based on Odin) while the other classic fantasy author Howard based his on Irirsh mythology (Conan is actually a legendary Celtic hero said to have killed Balor of the evil eye, the leader of the Fomori)...

i respect your opinion, but i am not mistaken here :)  there was quite a bit of crossover amongst those cultures, and i believe the elf meme is essentially what i describe, at least originally.  elves may have taken on a revisionist quality in the renaissance or even the victorian age, but the the Alfar were certainly dark terrors of the celtic word, or whatever word you want to apply. Sidhe, fearies, all were essentially what we mean when we say elf.   subtle differences are irrelevant to a largely illiterate people.  

whatever our opinions, i think we can agree that the namby pamby vulcans that saturate most fantasy franchises are a far cry from the from the magical powerhouses of olde.

Originally posted by Cruoris

i respect your opinion, but i am not mistaken here :)  there was quite a bit of crossover amongst those cultures, and i believe the elf meme is essentially what i describe, at least originally.  elves may have taken on a revisionist quality in the renaissance or even the victorian age, but the the Alfar were certainly dark terrors of the celtic word, or whatever word you want to apply. Sidhe, fearies, all were essentially what we mean when we say elf.   subtle differences are irrelevant to a largely illiterate people.  

whatever our opinions, i think we can agree that the namby pamby vulcans that saturate most fantasy franchises are a far cry from the from the magical powerhouses of olde.

Tolkien himself said he used Norse mythology as his inspiration for the elves. He was an expert on Norse languages and mythology.

Sidhes on the other hand comes from really old Irirsh myths like the Tuatha de Daanan, and they are frankly closer to the Norse Disirs than the elves.

Did you BTW know that the reason that the vikings had dragons in the front of their ships were to scare away hostile disir? It was a big insult to leave the dragon up while you sailed into a friendly harbor. :)

And yes, we can agree about that. I don't mind the Tolkien elves but the watered down D&D elves totally blows.

Elves as little demonic faeries with grisly appearances that rip out peoples' hearts?  Awesome!  Elves that couldn't bench press the weight of their own clothing?  Horrid.  Personally, I'm sick to death of most fantasy race portrayals. 

What kills me is that people use these templates as "instant character development."  "What do you mean, do I like stonework and tunnels?  Of course not!  I am an elf!"  It's crap.  Games need to get off Tolkien's coat tails and start creating their own worlds.  I am looking at the Rift IP, the Warhammer IP, and Warcraft 1-WOW.  Shadowrun is marginally better than most, but a lot of the classic cliche's still apply.

Ironically, the first sword-and-sorcery fantasy stories didn't even feature these other races.  To further add to the irony, Tolkien's accepted ideas were the inverse of accepted imagery for each race.

To revitalize fantasy, we need a game that hearkens each creature back to it's medieval superstitions and drops the accepted norms for each race.   To be done well, it needs to mix ideas people haven't thought of.  Palladium's version of Rift comes to mind, though it arguably strays away from fantasy. 

IMO, that's exactly what this genre needs to do... arguably stray away from fantasy.

Why all the hate about high fantasy mmos? 

We dont even have ONE single high fantasy mmo out that is is worth it to play right now...

Still waiting for EQ3! :-)

I am human in real life.. I do not mind being an elf in a MMORPG.

I disagree with this article and love high fantasy MMORPGS. What I miss in the MMORPGs is the sandbox concept in a quality game.

SWG pre CU in a high fantasy setting had been perfect! :)

Feckin Elves!! coming over here!! taking our jobs!! stealing our women!!