I can see high elves existing in both Factions

[Mace]

Alliance never helped the blood elves, the draenei did and then they left the blood elves alone. If you ever played the belf starting zone you would know the dead scar can't be fixed. Blood elves are never going neutral for gameplay alone. Lorewise you can thank garithos, Jaina and the stupidity of the kirin'tor. There is no need or good reason for the belves to go neutral, which is just a sloppily hidden plea for high elves. Your ship sailed in burning crusade.

well, they have to keep blood elves in the horde, even though they keep teasing an alliance switch, blood elves carry the horde mostly atm, so making them neutrally accessible to both factions will not bode well. Which is why high elves can not be playable on the alliance until that issue no longer becomes relevant. But high elves can be availalbe on the horde.

Furthermore, i think it would be awesome for the horde to get Vrykul, I would love that, although Kvaldir are looking like the option atm.

For the alliance, Shoc's Azotha idea and half elf presentation seems the best way forward. I'd run with that.

- - - Updated - - -

Too much of the game is based on 'horde or alliance' for multiple factions to be feasible. Besides, look right now at how much content is shared between factions and how much is faction specific? That faction specific content that's already in the minority outside of lower levels will soon be watered down even more if they tried to split races into their own factions. While always love content that fleshes out races more, I don't think creating new factions will do any good for the game in the end.

I wasn't talking about creating new factions as much as using the individual races as factions instead of merely races. That is what they are afterall... think about it, they have their units, they have sub-races, they have sub-factions... you could present most of the activity and quests in wow related to main theme and racial and class themes. They will still be mass grouped into horde and alliance, but that emphasis would be secondary to your race except for the big plots, and even in the big plots, you will still get racial development.

This way the horde and alliance continue to operate, but they don't feel like 2 nations, they feel like what they were meant to be, an alliance of races that occassionally band together for bigger threats.

Like this you can play a more racial focus to the conflict too. You can always have some cross faction conflicts, but they don't have to involve the whole horde mobilising against the whole alliance, it could be two races that have beef, and their closer friends may chip in to varying degree. Beauty is that being in the horde, any horde player can join the fight, but the story would have only the relevant race and their closer friends involved - which gives it a more race focus, within the context of the horde/alliance -

it's greater nuance, without reducing all the races to just the horde race and the alliance race. - which is waht it feels like.

[Zulkhan]

meh, yeh, they should, altho i think it would be more interesting if they got high elves also on the horde, I don't see a problem with high elves being both on the horde and alliance if you write it correctly - and it will provide the blue eyes, but i'm cool either way.

What High Elves are apart the blue eyes? Just a bunch of people that made different life choices, choices that don't matter anymore. Between having Blood Elves getting blue eyes and High Elves joining the Horde the difference is substantially null. Even if you had High Elves joining Quel'Thalas, they wouldn't look any different from a Blood Elf who simply got blue eyes.

All these things could occurr with barely any degree of story concerning them.

[Mace]

What High Elves are apart the blue eyes? Just a bunch of people that made different life choices, choices that don't matter anymore. Between having Blood Elves getting blue eyes and High Elves joining the Horde the difference is substantially null. Even if you had High Elves joining Quel'Thalas, they wouldn't look any different from a Blood Elf who simply got blue eyes.

All these things could occurr with barely any degree of story concerning them.

yeah, but i was thinking more in terms of as a sub-race or a sub-faction. High elf afterall is a different ideal, and a different philosophy, they could make the two a bit more distinctive. It's like highborne, they are a sub-faction amongst the night elves even though they look identical. Besides they can still alter the high elf appearance, they could revert the high elf male back to the TBC alpha/beta proportions, make them skinnier like the nightborne look like skinnier night elves.

I would be cool with that, afterall high elves are blood elf group lore.

[Magnagarde]

Adding the blood elves/elves to the Horde was a paradoxal lore move by Blizzard. The story behind their admission to the Horde is that the survivors of Lordaeron lead by Garithos wronged Kael'thas in and around Dalaran(the blood elves didn't stand behind their prince later on either, but thats shoved aside aswell and forgotten). According to this, they can't forgive humans(ie Stormwind) because of what their kin(Garithos) did to them, but they can forgive the Horde's trolls and become their allies even though their kin was a millenia-long threat to the elves, with which they've had bigger wars than with any other race on Azeroth. On top of that, it was the humans that helped them get rid of this threat.

The blood elves were added to the Horde because of balancing, not because it makes any sense. High elves should be an option for Alliance players to chose as a playable race.

[Shibito]

Let it go you wont get high elves, why is it every week a new alliance fanboy making high elves posts.

[Friendlyimmolation]

Adding the blood elves/elves to the Horde was a paradoxal lore move by Blizzard.

Just because you can't/refuse to accept something doesn't make it a paradox.

The story behind their admission to the Horde is that the survivors of Lordaeron lead by Garithos wronged Kael'thas in and around Dalaran(the blood elves didn't stand behind their prince later on either, but thats shoved aside aswell and forgotten).

Perhaps actually reading up on the story before spewing headcanon ? All the Blood elves were behind him, he only took his elite force to outland to secure it for them. The rest of the Blood elves were preparing to follow.

According to this, they can't forgive humans(ie Stormwind) because of what their kin(Garithos) did to them,

yet again you forget the Alliance sent spies and sabetours to Quel'thalas under false promises of friendship while the Blood elves were struggling against the scourge. And over time the younger elves forgave them, thank you to proudmoore and the Kirin'tor for showing humans as psychos and drove them fully back into the Horde.

but they can forgive the Horde's trolls and become their allies even though their kin was a millenia-long threat to the elves, with which they've had bigger wars than with any other race on Azeroth. On top of that, it was the humans that helped them get rid of this threat.

Since you apperantly know next to nothing on trolls, I will once again point out that darkspear look almost nothing like forest trolls of Zul'aman. And you have completley misjudged the elves. The Overwhelming majority of them never cared for the humans in the first place, and used them as meatsheilds against the trolls.

The blood elves were added to the Horde because of balancing, not because it makes any sense.

just because you can't understand, doesnt make the story bad.

High elves should be an option for Alliance players to chose as a playable race.

only in your wildest of dreams.

[Magnagarde]

Just because you can't/refuse to accept something doesn't make it a paradox.



Perhaps actually reading up on the story before spewing headcanon ? All the Blood elves were behind him, he only took his elite force to outland to secure it for them. The rest of the Blood elves were preparing to follow.



yet again you forget the Alliance sent spies and sabetours to Quel'thalas under false promises of friendship while the Blood elves were struggling against the scourge. And over time the younger elves forgave them, thank you to proudmoore and the Kirin'tor for showing humans as psychos and drove them fully back into the Horde.



Since you apperantly know next to nothing on trolls, I will once again point out that darkspear look almost nothing like forest trolls of Zul'aman. And you have completley misjudged the elves. The Overwhelming majority of them never cared for the humans in the first place, and used them as meatsheilds against the trolls.



just because you can't understand, doesnt make the story bad.



only in your wildest of dreams.

It is a paradox.

The current story is that the blood elves can't forgive the Alliance what Jaina did with the Kirin Tor, even though she no longer has anything to do with the Kirin Tor, but they could forgive the Horde what Garrosh did because hes no longer part of the Horde.

They are still trolls. Are you saying they can't forgive humanity because humans look the same? There is no viable storyline that would make the elves hate Stormwind.

Its not my wildest dream or wish or whatever, it just doesn't make sense. Its a paradox in and paradox out from whichever point in time you look at it.

[Friendlyimmolation]

The current story is that the blood elves can't forgive the Alliance what Jaina did with the Kirin Tor, even though she no longer has anything to do with the Kirin Tor, but they could forgive the Horde what Garrosh did because hes no longer part of the Horde.

Jaina isn't the only fault the Alliance has done against the Blood elves, something you are apparently pretending never has happened. The Horde unlike the Alliance, fixed it's problems. The Alliance did not.

Its not my wildest dream or wish or whatever, it just doesn't make sense. Its a paradox in and paradox out from whichever point in time you look at it.

It is not a paradox, you just are refusing any point that contradicts your want of High elves.

[Zulkhan]

According to this, they can't forgive humans(ie Stormwind) because of what their kin(Garithos) did to them, but they can forgive the Horde's trolls and become their allies even though their kin was a millenia-long threat to the elves

The Darkspear trolls have literally nothing to do with the Amani trolls and there's nothing they have to be forgiven from. Their respective societies aren't barely related by times elves didn't even exist. All the Blood Elves had to overcome was bias and prejudice but that's all.

On the other hand, humanity is divided in different kingdoms but they were always quite close with each other, they even united and formed the first Alliance. Between Arthas, Garithos, the Kirin Tor turning a blind eye to their very council member (Kael'thas) and the events of TBC, the Blood Elves couldn't simply trust them anymore. The Purge of Dalaran reinforced these beliefs just when Lor'themar was desperate enough to give the Alliance another chance.

[Combatbutler]

The quest within itself could be a sort of nomadic trial where you are looking for a way to concentrate the way you siphon your energies from the restored sunwell to cure the fel that caused the green eye'd corruption, or it could simply be you've been restored so much by the purified sunwell now your eye's have returned to their former glory.

The blue eye color is a game mechanic as well, high elves had many different eye colors, blue, green brown etc.

[Magnagarde]

The Darkspear trolls have literally nothing to do with the Amani trolls and there's nothing they have to be forgiven from. Their respective societies aren't barely related by times elves didn't even exist. All the Blood Elves had to overcome was bias and prejudice but that's all.

On the other hand, humanity is divided in different kingdoms but they were always quite close with each other, they even united and formed the first Alliance

Stormwind was destroyed at the time they formed the Alliance of Lordaeron and by the time it became as glorious as it is today, all the other human kingdoms got destroyed, were walled off or had no effect on the plot(ie Stromgarde destroyed, Lordaeron destroyed and occupied by the Forsaken, Gilneas walled off, Kul Tiras not even present).

Just as the Darkspear trolls never had anything to do with what happened to the blood elves, that much the humans of Stormwind didn't have anything to do with any of it either, but one have presumably wronged the elves because of what their kin did, while the other have got nothing to do with what their kin did.

Some of plots at the beginning of TBC were just a story manipulation by Blizzard to somehow justify something they knew wasn't written well, but had to be done to balance the factions out(ie the Alliance wanting to invade Quel'thalas, which makes no sense really). The fact that its official quest lore doesn't mean that the manipulation is less obvious.

It is not a paradox, you just are refusing any point that contradicts your want of High elves.

I wouldn't play as an elf even if I could, presuming I was creating an Alliance character. The high elves should be available to the Alliance as a playable race from a lore standpoint, but are not due to faction balancing purposes.

If you are unable to realize that Blizzard made the blood elves(the Forsaken aswell) part of the Horde due to faction balance, then there is no point talking about it with you any longer.

[Friendlyimmolation]

I wouldn't play as an elf even if I could, presuming I was creating an Alliance character. The high elves should be available to the Alliance as a playable race from a lore standpoint, but are not due to faction balancing purposes.

Lore standpoint shows that the race moved on. From a lore standpoint that race is fucked, and the largest group of them is a small militant faction in Dalaran.

If you are unable to realize that Blizzard made the blood elves(the Forsaken aswell) part of the Horde due to faction balance, then there is no point talking about it with you any longer.

This is known, but your approach to it and suggested fix where it isn't needed is laughably bad.

[Zulkhan]

Stormwind was destroyed at the time they formed the Alliance of Lordaeron and by the time it became as glorious as it is today, all the other human kingdoms got destroyed, were walled off or had no effect on the plot(ie Stromgarde destroyed, Lordaeron destroyed and occupied by the Forsaken, Gilneas walled off, Kul Tiras not even present).

Dwarves and most Humans always held a distrust towards elves because of their reclusive nature, they never saw them as reliable allies and while this wasn't entirely misplaced, it always conditioned their opinion of them. Garithos was just a bigoted, extremized representation of that.

Dalaran was literally the only place in which High Elves were held in high regard and yet they turned their back on the very elven member of their Council the moment things got tough.

Just as the Darkspear trolls never had anything to do with what happened to the blood elves, that much the humans of Stormwind didn't have anything to do with any of it either, but one have presumably wronged the elves because of what their kin did, while the other have got nothing to do with what their kin did.

High Elves and Amani Trolls were never allies, they were enemies as long as they knew each other. Blood Elves had no reason to distrust Darkspear Trolls since they were never allied with trolls before, they could only have a strongly misplaced bias based on their enmity with the Amani. When it comes to humans Blood Elves couldn't simply trust them any longer because they have been long time allies that betrayed their trust too many times. Wherever this is the actual truth from an absolutely objective standpoint is another matter, but Blood Elves aren't unjustified in feeling this way.

Some of plots at the beginning of TBC were just a story manipulation by Blizzard to somehow justify something they knew wasn't written well, but had to be done to balance the factions out(ie the Alliance wanting to invade Quel'thalas, which makes no sense really). The fact that its official quest lore doesn't mean that the manipulation is less obvious.

It is manipulation, like it was manipulation having the Horde clash with the Night Elves for goddamn lumber and use this as whole justification for the elves to suddenly throw out of the window their way of life and join one of the two superpowers of Azeroth. In both cases there's a degree of logic, but not Night Elves nor Blood Elves possessed any established build up to push the first or the latter towards Alliance and Horde respectively. However, we can at least say that Blood Elves were definitely established as a race that thrown their ties with the Alliance out of the window, which kinda gave validation to the events of TBC, further reinforced with Night Elves becoming part of the Alliance, considered the grudge and distrust they held against them and outright warned their new allies of how unreliable and dangerous Blood Elves were.

From that point, all you had to do is pushing the Horde as the faction that didn't care about any of the Blood Elf's past history, willing to help them against the Alliance's distrustful actions, in no different manner from how the Alliance backed up the Night Elves in their quarrels with the Horde.

[Magnagarde]

From that point, all you had to do is pushing the Horde as the faction that didn't care about any of the Blood Elf's past history, willing to help them against the Alliance's distrustful actions, in no different manner from how the Alliance backed up the Night Elves in their quarrels with the Horde.

I never said that forcing the Night Elves into the Alliance made sense either because it really did not.

The point is the inconsistency. The Amanis and Darkspear are trolls(I know they are not the same tribe, but they are the same race), just like Stormwind humans and the survivors of Lordaeron are humans. If one can't overcome one kin's actions and judges the entire race because of that, how can it overcome the other kin's actions? If Jaina wronged the blood elves, how can't they get past it now that she is no longer the leader of the Kirin Tor, just like they got past what Garrosh was doing because he is no longer the leader of the Horde. If they got over the fact that orcs tried to sack Quel'thalas and burned their forests with the assistance of the trolls, then they should also get over whatever an individual human decided to do to them and go along with the rest of humanity(these trolls/orcs are for the most part not the same ones they are allied with, but neither are all humans the same as those that wronged them). These are all holes in the story riddled with inconsistency from Blizzard's side.

Blizzard had to come up with Alliance invasion plans on Quel'thalas in the case of the blood elves joining the Horde in TBC. They can come up with anything they want, but the manipulation of the storyline is clearly visible. They could make a questline where some ogre tribes from Draenor save Anduin's life while hes visiting Karabor and the ogres could join the Alliance because of their disliking for what the Iron Horde did to them. It would be a story, but clearly a pretty bad one, as is the case with the blood elf story.

As I said, I know very well that there is no changing this because they're clearly set on keeping it this way. I am just pointing out how they've been tryharding to keep this plot together and that they only reason why they've gone with it in the first place is balancing.

[Rhlor]

Considering how large the Blood Elves population is in-game, this wouldn't be too far fetched.

lady liadrin

[Zulkhan]

The point is the inconsistency. The Amanis and Darkspear are trolls(I know they are not the same tribe, but they are the same race)

They're not only different tribes, they're geographically unrelated in every possible way. They even look different, Jungle and Forest Trolls are so apart by each other from such a long time that they're almost like different races, much like the Ice Trolls of Northrend.

just like Stormwind humans and the survivors of Lordaeron are humans. If one can't overcome one kin's actions and judges the entire race because of that, how can it overcome the other kin's actions?

The Humans pretty much united as one when they became an Alliance, they shared similar politics and mindset, especially regarding the elves. Alleria Windrunner shown to hold an incredibly low opinion of humans in general in Beyond the Dark Portal. It's not about forgiveness, is about distrust.

If Jaina wronged the blood elves, how can't they get past it now that she is no longer the leader of the Kirin Tor, just like they got past what Garrosh was doing because he is no longer the leader of the Horde.

Because the Kirin Tor already "wronged" them in their eyes when they turned a blind eye towards Kael'thas and the Blood Elves when Garithos condemned them to death for pretentious reasons. Did you read Lor'themar's short-story? Rommath was enraged by Aethas' proposal of joining the Kirin Tor again and only the circumstances convinced Lor'themar to accept such proposal. And then they had Jaina, the new appointed leader of the Kirin Tor, threatening and killing people left and right without the Council even trying to reason with her, that maybe a more diplomatic approach to handle the Sunreaver situation should have been more logical. Much like they did with Garithos, they simply let Jaina do her thing (even though she didn't possess the authority to act in such way) and let the events unfold. If that's not the straw breaking the camel's back I don't know that could it be. You surely cannot realistically expect them to ever rejoin Dalaran after their previous, reluctant attempt of doing that ended the way it ended in MoP.

They got over Garrosh's actions for two reasons:

1- the Alliance proved (once again) to not be a trustworthy option in their eyes;
2- Garrosh and the loyalists that shared his bigoted views wronged more than just the Blood Elves, Garrosh and his Kor'kron eventually became acknowledged by the whole Horde as a corrupt power within the organization itself, with Vol'jin leading an united rebellion against them.

If they got over the fact that orcs tried to sack Quel'thalas and burned their forests with the assistance of the trolls, then they should also get over whatever an individual human decided to do to them and go along with the rest of humanity(these trolls/orcs are for the most part not the same ones they are allied with, but neither are all humans the same as those that wronged them). These are all holes in the story riddled with inconsistency from Blizzard's side.

Again, the comparison doesn't fit. You can ally with past enemies as long these prove to be trustworthy, but after a while you can't ally anymore with an organization that have always been (from their perspective) an untrustworthy ally to begin with. You simply don't feel safe knowing they could drop the ball at any occasion. Lor'themar tried to overcome this feeling because the Horde under Garrosh's command was just too awful to stick around it, but history literally repeated itself with the Kirin Tor not saying a word while Jaina literally purged Lor'themar's people from Dalaran. In the meanwhile, Vol'jin reached Lor'themar who shared the same disdain for Garrosh and offered him a chance to overthrow him and restore the Horde to what it used to be.

It doesn't feel to me like that huge of a stretch for Lor'themar to accept Vol'jin's idea and support his rebellion, especially with the bridges built towards the Alliance burnt by the Alliance itself.

Blizzard had to come up with Alliance invasion plans on Quel'thalas in the case of the blood elves joining the Horde in TBC. They can come up with anything they want, but the manipulation of the storyline is clearly visible. They could make a questline where some ogre tribes from Draenor save Anduin's life while hes visiting Karabor and the ogres could join the Alliance because of their disliking for what the Iron Horde did to them. It would be a story, but clearly a pretty bad one, as is the case with the blood elf story.

Considered how Sylvanas herself was part of the Horde already and Night Elves had a 10.000 years long grudge and bias towards anything Highborne-related, it's hardly a stretch for the Blood Elves to lean more towards the Horde rather than the Alliance. There's indeed manipulation, like there always be, but it doesn't mean the manipulation makes no sense. Much like the Night Elves, we could point out what doesn't look convincing of them joining the Alliance but we could also point out why there are a few legitimate reasons for them to do so.

As I said, I know very well that there is no changing this because they're clearly set on keeping it this way. I am just pointing out how they've been tryharding to keep this plot together and that they only reason why they've gone with it in the first place is balancing.

Even sustaining the argument that Blood Elves joining the Horde was a stretched storytelling attempt, there's no "tryharding" involved in keep the plot together. If anything, Lor'themar looking at the Alliance as desperate alternative is proof that they don't need to make the Blood Elves look like an unfittingly die-hard Horde race to "keep the plot together" and indeed made quite sense. However, it made as much sense for Jaina to screw up things, given her personal bias and tragedy, and so the Kirin Tor behaving much like they behaved with Garithos (they turned a blind eye).

[Zandalarian Paladin]

lady liadrin

And yeah, they exist, although in this particular case we're speaking of a paladin. Their eyes are not blue, but yellow because of the light.

[Beloren]

I'm going to put my hat in the ring and say that blizzard should give half-elves and a half-orcs, as a race or a sub-race , probably bet as a sub-race and make them available to both factions.

They can make the half-elf quite attractive too - that way players on the alliance don't have to feel they should have high elves, and blood elves can have high elves as a sub-race or just a blue eyed version of blood elf available.

Half-elves would have normal eyes, like humans, but you will be able to vary their ear/eyebrow lengths from full elven to full human - they will have a different set of faces, different silhouette too, different idle stance - (they could give them more human like bodies but elven faces - a little slimmer than human, but less pristine then blood elf. That should work for everyone I think.