(no subject)

I've been seriously flirting with the idea of moving Thrace over to my friend's guild. A few things are stopping me, but one of the major hang-ups I'm having is this:

The Alliance is ugly.

There, I said it. The Alliance isn't nearly as pretty as the Horde. No, I don't mean just belves. I play orcs, and in my playing I've found that belf men and orc women are the best all around races for appearance (at least to me, as a mage). I'll put it this way, in terms of thinking about the races I considered switching Thrace to:

Worgen: 1% crit for 324.2 DPS
First on the list because they offer the best DPS racial of all the Alliance races (belf is by far the best mage race in the game according to most calculations). The males are right out because I don't like them personally, but aesthetically, they're not badly done as a model, but they look like crap in robes and, like tauren, no worgen can really wear a hat because they get weirdly stretched out.

So it'd be down to a female worgen. I toyed with the idea for a while, but the weird faces and the lack of appreciable hair options are a turn-off, though they have the best casting animations of all the races (IMO). I do love the way they run, and they look awesome in robes. Unfortunately, she can almost never be in her human form, which means her awesome/hokey voice goes unheard 99.9% of the time. The female worgen human form voice is my favorite Alliance side, but in her worgen form she sounds like a poor man's orc. Then I got to play with mounts with my hunter: she looks great on the sparklepony, but she looks ridiculous on a mechanostrider and she sits in the middle of the ram. Given that Thrace has a bajillion mounts, this is a big fat no.

Draenei: 1% hit for 323.1 DPS
Draenei are by far the best looking Alliance race. They have limited jokes/flirts, which is a shame, but they make up for it by having good combat vocalizations. Boy draenei are not right out, but I didn't get to play with one much in a robe, and hanging out in SW revealed no clothie male draenei (I see maybe one a day, total, and they're usually either shaman or paladins). They're top heavy, but they have an adorably bouncy gate that wins me over.

I looked at female draenei since they're fairly common, and I've played a few. I love them. They have great hair, and I'm a sucker for horns. They're not as well designed as digitigrades as the worgen are (their stomachs arch strangely) but they look pretty in dresses. They look jacked up on mounts though, their legs splay out weirdly, and I hear that male draenei can't sit on smaller mounts either. I've seen my male worgen buddy on mounts, and he isn't as big as male draenei, and he looks so silly I almost cry from laughter when he runs by on his mechanostrider (he can't ride the ram because he sits behind the saddle). Draenei: maybe.

Gnome: 5% int for 141.9 DPS
That bonus is so meager that it's almost not worth mentioning, but whatever. I like gnomes. I played a warlock when I just started out. But the model really shows its ages-- the hair is full of jaggies and the model in general doesn't fit in well when compared to the new, clean environments or newer races. I don't think I could tolerate it. They do, however, look so damn cute no matter what they're doing, and they've got an engineering bonus (I think, it may be gone now). Gnome: maybe.

Human: nothing
I have a human mage on Eonar. She has some of the best hairstyles, and no weird jaggies issues. But her run is awkward, her dance is cringe-worthy, and her emotes are atrocious. Humans also look badly aged. Male humans are the ugliest things in the game. So despite the fact that humans look best on mounts, I gotta say no.

Night Elf: nothing
I hate night elves. But looking beyond this wild, unreasoning hatred where I want to blow up all the ones I see, I can tell you that they are also pretty damn fug. The males have no faces that don't look deformed or merely unfortunate (though they do get handlebar moustaches, so... kudos?) and their proportions are just not right. Their fingers look like sausages on the ends of their ham hands. I'm not opposed to the thick legs on the women, but they also have big hands, and their hair once again suffers from some terrible jaggies issues (not all the options). They also have the most unfortunate idle animation in the world. They do, however, look good on mounts. But you'd still have to be a night elf. No.

Dwarf: nothing
My favorite race. Too bad the women have such a boring dance. I hate the men, so I guess it's fair to say dwarf women are my favorite race. They're just-- look at them! They pack a ton of awesome into a short little body! Too bad they can't find a properly fitted bra/corset/anything. Apparently they took the boob bouncing out and people complained. I was shocked that there are actually men who play female dwarves in such number to complain. But they look dated, too, which is a shame, and they're so short they have some mount issues, but nothing on the scale as the bigger races. The only reason I say no to this is because... seriously, Thrace as a dwarf?

In Sum
Nothing is as nice to play as a boy elf or a lady orc. They fit on all the mounts properly and they look awesome no matter what they're doing. I like all the other Horde races (as compared to actively disliking several Alliance races), but these two race/gender combinations are clearly superior.

I don't understand why people call the Alliance the "pretty" side. Alliance has nothing on belves, orcs, goblins, or female forsaken. They just look better as models. Horde is much prettier and appealing to my shallow desire to want something nice to look at.