High Elves are Blood elves

[Deleted]

Similar but different. The Nightborne are similar but different to the Night Elves.

The Void Elves are similar but different to the Blood Elves.

Similarity IS clearly an issue, otherwise they would have just given you High Elves and the Horde a renegade faction of Night Elves.

Void Elves seems like a failed compromise between pro- and anti- High Elf squad or simply they for some reason thought that it would be much better to make vanilla High Elves edgier for the playable race. Because Ion before did tell that they knew about the desire for High Elves:

"Blizzard has acknowledged the interest of the players in high elves as a "sub race" of sorts, along with mag'har orcs, dark iron dwarves, and other minor races"

Now that they've introduced an 'improved' High Elf model to Alliance, Ion doesn't see a reason for High Elves because for him they are redundant and that's what he said. His point was not similarity but redundancy.

[Obelisk Kai]

Void Elves seems like a failed compromise between pro- and anti- High Elf squad or simply they for some reason thought that it would be much better to make vanilla High Elves edgier for the playable race. Because Ion before did tell that they knew about the desire for High Elves:

"Blizzard has acknowledged the interest of the players in high elves as a "sub race" of sorts, along with mag'har orcs, dark iron dwarves, and other minor races"

Now that they've introduced an 'improved' High Elf model to Alliance, Ion doesn't see a reason for High Elves because for him they are redundant and that's what he said. His point was not similarity but redundancy.

You are splitting hairs too finely, trying to parse the words of an individual off the cuff to see subtleties of meaning that aren't there.

Blood Elves ARE High Elves, and Void Elves are another type. It's the simplest interpretation and likely the correct one.

[Jastall]

As far as the Warcraft universe is concerned, it is first and foremost a game that is enjoyed by players; their enjoyment is the paramount concern rather than arbitrary restrictions because...'reasons'.

- - - Updated - - -



By that logic every player desire is catered for if you move the goalposts sufficiently.

You're being deliberately obtuse as to why people have been requesting High Elves for years just you can act like a smug shithead about it.

You can play a High Elf. You just gotta roll Horde.

[Obelisk Kai]

You can play a High Elf. You just gotta roll Horde.

Well I guess that sums up the anti position quite nicely.

I salute you for distilling a thousands of posts over many years into one line.

(Not taking the piss, genuinely do. That is literally why we are against playable High Elves, such a redundant ask. It never needed this much detail or time).

[Andromedes]

but we also can play void elves already, they are called blood elf shadow priests, yet they will be released as a separate playable race.

[Deleted]

You are splitting hairs too finely, trying to parse the words of an individual off the cuff to see subtleties of meaning that aren't there.

Blood Elves ARE High Elves, and Void Elves are another type. It's the simplest interpretation and likely the correct one.

If it's the simplest interpretation, why then you had to misquote the statement in order for your interpretation to make sense?

Really, there is nothing to interpret there. Blood Elves are pretty much High Elves. Void Elves are another flavour of High Elves. If Void Elves are *another* flavour than Blood Elves are also as such. Hence Blood Elves are a type of High Elves and Void Elves are a type of High Elves. It's simple logic. "Pretty much" =/= "Identical", "another" means another. How this all means High Elves = Blood Elves =/= Void Elves is beyond me. I am not sure if you are genuinely trolling or your bias is that big.

Not taking the piss, genuinely do. That is literally why we are against playable High Elves, such a redundant ask. It never needed this much detail or time.

That's not true. You just simply don't want someone who wants to play a race they like to play them. That's the only real reason to be so much against High Elves that you would post about it on every opportunity. Nothing will happen if High Elves are added beyond those who want to play them playing them. You personally would not lose anything and wouldn't be affected by it in any way. Hence you are simply trying as hard as you can to deny people what they want. That's it.

[Obelisk Kai]

If it's the simplest interpretation, why then you had to misquote the statement in order for your interpretation to make sense?

Really, there is nothing to interpret there. Blood Elves are pretty much High Elves. Void Elves are another flavour of High Elves. If Void Elves are *another* flavour than Blood Elves are also as such. Hence Blood Elves are a type of High Elves and Void Elves are a type of High Elves. It's simple logic. "Pretty much" =/= "Identical", "another" means another. How this all means High Elves = Blood Elves =/= Void Elves is beyond me. I am not sure if you are genuinely trolling or your bias is that big.

You are trying to imply the following.

Void Elves are another flavour of High Elf, this implies there is difference albeit of degrees.

Therefore, you seem to be saying, Blood Elves are ALSO another flavour of High Elf. This again implies another difference of degrees.

Yet if Void Elves can be an Allied race, with their small variation from the High Elves, then surely the High Elves can also be an allied race due to their difference from the Blood Elves.

Now what Ion actually said was that High Elves=Blood Elves and Void Elves are different by degrees from the High/Blood Elves. And how do we know he meant this?

Because the context of his response was a clear rejection of playable High Elves. In fact his statement only makes sense in the context of that rejection, by emphasising that Blood Elves ARE identical to High Elves. It is Void Elves that have moved away from the template.

It is sad we have to overanalyse and over explain what was a very straightforward, clear cut phrase because of a determination to find rhetorical loopholes that you feel may, if sufficiently twisted, reveal a path to playable High Elves.

That's not true. You just simply don't want someone who wants to play a race they like to play them. That's the only real reason to be so much against High Elves that you would post about it on every opportunity. Nothing will happen if High Elves are added beyond those who want to play them playing them. You personally would not lose anything and wouldn't be affected by it in any way. Hence you are simply trying as hard as you can to deny people what they want. That's it.

I would be against sharing Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, Tauren and Forsaken in equal measure.

I was against giving the Alliance a Thalassian model. I was against the Horde receiving a Kaldorei model. I was against neutral Pandaren.

We play a game of two factions, and that game is strongest when those two factions are as distinct as possible. Yet players such as yourself cannot accept the story has moved on, has progressed. Your side complain that the Alliance does not match the Tolkien stereotype and then deride as 'bad lore' anything that has moved the possibility of playable High Elves further away.

If your side wanted an honest approach, they should have argued for Blizzard to abolish the faction wall like so many MMOs have done so you could play an elf with your Alliance friends. That way everyone could have grouped together, Orc with Dwarf, Troll with Gnome, Forsaken and Draenei.

But no, the High Elf fans just HAVE to have only one race, the Horde's only attractive race. No calls for playable Grimtotem Tauren or your own cartel of Goblins, just the pretty, pale skinned, super sexy Elves. And as soon as they have that, as soon as they have a race that is a carbon copy of the Horde's most playable race, then everything will be fine or fair. Never mind the people who argued against this in the name of maintaining their faction's integrity. Never mind that maybe, just maybe, the Horde should be allowed to have something nice and pretty that the Alliance, with it's surfeit of attractive races, doesn't have? Horde can't play Humans, the most popular race in the Alliance. Horde can't play Draenei either. Horde will soon be able to play a Night Elf variant, but you are getting a Blood/High Elf variant in compensation for that...more's the pity for everyone.

Year after year, expansion after expansion, the same empty meaningless whine couched in terms of 'but let me play what I want to play' with no regard given to the game's story, which is held in contempt because it didn't allow you to play a blue eyed elf with Aragorn from Stormwind and Gimli from Ironforge. Just because pro High Elfers hold the game's story and systems in such disregard because it frustrates them doesn't mean the rest of us have to agree.

And when after a decade of complaints Blizzard finally gives you the damn model, you all have the sheer neck to turn around and screech that it's not good enough.
Never mind one of the Alliance's Allied race slots was given over to race crafted for you. Never mind that something else far more interesting could have been put in it's place, if not for this endless campaign. Never mind that the devs have now come out and basically said your dream isn't happening because what do they know? You can open dozens of threads on multiple fora and spam the same complaints again and again and again and again under the naive belief that because they gave in on classic servers they'll give in for you.

The harsh truth is these topics are a complete waste of everyone's time now. You got Void Elves. That's the end of it. Everyone except the most extreme pro High Elfers get this. They aren't giving you a carbon copy of the Blood Elves because if they were ever going to, they already would have instead of Void Elves. They certainly aren't going to give you High Elves in future because beyond this group of extremely noisy fanatics who can't let this go, the vast majority of the Alliance probably won't be impressed by the forced fanfare of Blizzard giving you the option to play a Thalassian Elf for the second time and a model that's been available in the game for nearly eleven years.

I am denying you nothing. If you wanted to play a High Elf the option was always there. YOU chose not to do it. And I resent you trying to undermine the faction divide at the heart of this game because you didn't like how the story progressed.

[Fyersing]

There are physiological differences, but similar to the differences between green and brown orcs, they're largely cosmetic.

There was a time, back when the RPG sourcebooks were still considered a viable source for new lore, when it was indicated that the blood elves as they currently appear are essentially the first stage of their evolution into a distinctly seperate species from high elves, a result of tapping into fel energy to feed their addiction. Their generally ruddier complexion and darker or warmer hair colors were sited as examples at the time, along with their shining green eyes, and certainly this was reflected in-game, especially with the old high elf and blood elf models in Classic.

Of course, even setting aside retconning, it's most likely that even if the blood elves were once on the path to becoming a new species, the cleansing of the Sunwell likely halted that process, if not reversed it.


That being said, if Blizzard were willing to introduce the high elves as an Alliance Allied Race, I think it would have been just as easily justified as Lightforged draenei, Highmountain tauren, and Dark Iron dwarves.

• Since high elves and blood elves differ culturally, they can easily be given different customization options, including different hairstyles and jewlery. They could expand also customization for both races by adding tattoos. Not only would this help distinguish them visually, it would be a chance to give them both more personality; perhaps the blood elves could tend toward runic brands and battle scars, while the high elves would have more elegant woads.
• In terms of physiology, the existing differences could be reinforced and exaggerated, with high elves tending towards pale skin and fair hair. Given that they've been disconnected from the Sunwell, it could also be argued that they may not appear as physically robust as blood elves, being more lean and lithe.
• In terms of silhouette -- nevermind that the other Allied Races don't have very distinct silhouettes without their Heritage Armor -- it's simple enough to create a new silhouette by altering their builds, hairstyles, and posture. I mean, consider for a moment how distinct the silhouettes of the 26 characters in Overwatch are, and then realize that 23 of them all belong to just a single race: human.

Of course, this is just me being a bit of a devil's advocate. I think with their decision to add the void elves it's obvious that they wanted to do something a bit more overt. But I think if everyone is honest with themselves they'll agree that the distinction between high elves and blood elves is ultimately not that different from the distinction between night elves and Nightborne or mountain dwarves and dark dwarves.

This is basically my understanding, as well. The only thing worthy of fussing over, insofar as Void Elves go, is with Blizzard not taking this opportunity to shore up some of the confusion on the subject cross-factionally. It would take someone in Creative Development a couple hours, at most, to come up with a scenario whereby all of the existing Alliance-aligned High Elves were converted into Void Elves (preferably, by force).

As an off-the-cuff, would it really be that unbelievable for Alleria Windrunner to facilitate a unification between the various groupings of High Elves, Void Elves, and Blood Elves who've defected from Quel'thalas? She is more-or-less a folkhero to all of them, as well as being the most venerated sister to factional leaders on either side of the red-blue divide. She would be an idyllic leader for any one of the groups, including Blood Elves.

It would be an interesting, from a literary perspective, if the initial questing experience explained that Alleria was beginning to supplant Lor'themar Theron in the eyes of the people (including some dissident Blood Elves). The entirety of the High Elves (Silver Covenant, specifically) rallies behind her, as well as her cadre of Void Elves and a few rogue Blood Elves -- all under the impression that she will restore Quel'thalas, and all denizens irrespective of their political leanings, to it's former glory. It's all bells and whistles, sunshine and praise, until everything gets horribly derailed.

As they've gathered (Alleria with the Void Elves, Vereesa with the Silver Covenant, Aethas with some dissenting Blood Elves) to formalize their union under a single banner, they're struck by an ironic tragedy -- someone (Locus-Walker? Shadowguard? Ethereum? Insane Void Elf?) has been planning for this, and somehow manages to fully corrupt the entirety of the group. They're all "Void Elves", now.

This would solve a couple important issues.

1) The discussion of playable High Elves, at least the traditional iteration, evaporates entirely. The "original" High Elves will have ceased to exist, visually, because they're now all a sickly shade of white/gray -- they will, however, retain their original caricatures allowing for people to actually be playing as the sub-faction they've been asking for almost daily for over a decade.

2) This would cement the Blood Elves as being the group most closely resembling the cultural tendencies of the original inhabitants of Quel'thalas, before the Third War. This is important, because it should shore up a whole bunch of the sentiment which suggest that "true High Elves wouldn't ever go Horde, therefore Blood Elves aren't legitimate" discussions.

[Deleted]

It is sad we have to overanalyse and over explain what was a very straightforward, clear cut phrase because of a determination to find rhetorical loopholes that you feel may, if sufficiently twisted, reveal a path to playable High Elves.

You know what's sad? That after me pointing out that you are misquoting Ion, you still continue to do it. You are not fooling anybody by claiming that Ion said that High Elves and Blood Elves are identical, you know. You are also not fooling anyone by claiming that Ion didn't say that Blood Elves are a flavour of High Elves. I've put the quote a few posts above. Everybody can see it if they don't know what exactly Ion said. You don't need to lie.

But you know what's really sad? It's that I consider that it's possible that you seriously believe that Ion literally said that High Elves and Blood Elves are identical and that his statement doesn't mean that Blood Elves are a flavour of High Elves. I mean, you are so obsessed with the issue, your signature is even devoted to it, so your bias might be that strong.

I would be against sharing Orcs, Goblins, Trolls, Tauren and Forsaken in equal measure.

I was against giving the Alliance a Thalassian model. I was against the Horde receiving a Kaldorei model. I was against neutral Pandaren.

Then you lost this fight. There are already Neutral Pandaren, there is a Night Elf model in the Horde, there are literally Blood Elves in the Alliance now. But as I see, instead of accepting your loss, you still continue with this nonsense, because if you didn't get what you wanted, then no one can.

We play a game of two factions, and that game is strongest when those two factions are as distinct as possible. Yet players such as yourself cannot accept the story has moved on, has progressed. Your side complain that the Alliance does not match the Tolkien stereotype and then deride as 'bad lore' anything that has moved the possibility of playable High Elves further away.

Not sure what lore are you talking about, but last time I checked High Elves received more screentime and relevance than some actual playable race both in Alliance and in the Horde and have been one of the more prominent driving factions of Alliance x Horde conflicts in multiple expansions. High Elves ARE part of the story, they ARE already everywhere, the only difference is that they aren't playable. So if you have any problems with the factions being more and more similar, you should complain to Blizzard, not to those who accept the way this story is presented and just want a natural progression of that - that one of the more prominent Alliance races would become playable.

If your side wanted an honest approach, they should have argued for Blizzard to abolish the faction wall like so many MMOs have done so you could play an elf with your Alliance friends. That way everyone could have grouped together, Orc with Dwarf, Troll with Gnome, Forsaken and Draenei.

But no, the High Elf fans just HAVE to have only one race, the Horde's only attractive race. No calls for playable Grimtotem Tauren or your own cartel of Goblins, just the pretty, pale skinned, super sexy Elves. And as soon as they have that, as soon as they have a race that is a carbon copy of the Horde's most playable race, then everything will be fine or fair. Never mind the people who argued against this in the name of maintaining their faction's integrity. Never mind that maybe, just maybe, the Horde should be allowed to have something nice and pretty that the Alliance, with it's surfeit of attractive races, doesn't have? Horde can't play Humans, the most popular race in the Alliance. Horde can't play Draenei either. Horde will soon be able to play a Night Elf variant, but you are getting a Blood/High Elf variant in compensation for that...more's the pity for everyone.

Year after year, expansion after expansion, the same empty meaningless whine couched in terms of 'but let me play what I want to play' with no regard given to the game's story, which is held in contempt because it didn't allow you to play a blue eyed elf with Aragorn from Stormwind and Gimli from Ironforge. Just because pro High Elfers hold the game's story and systems in such disregard because it frustrates them doesn't mean the rest of us have to agree.

And when after a decade of complaints Blizzard finally gives you the damn model, you all have the sheer neck to turn around and screech that it's not good enough.
Never mind one of the Alliance's Allied race slots was given over to race crafted for you. Never mind that something else far more interesting could have been put in it's place, if not for this endless campaign. Never mind that the devs have now come out and basically said your dream isn't happening because what do they know? You can open dozens of threads on multiple fora and spam the same complaints again and again and again and again under the naive belief that because they gave in on classic servers they'll give in for you.

The harsh truth is these topics are a complete waste of everyone's time now. You got Void Elves. That's the end of it. Everyone except the most extreme pro High Elfers get this. They aren't giving you a carbon copy of the Blood Elves because if they were ever going to, they already would have instead of Void Elves. They certainly aren't going to give you High Elves in future because beyond this group of extremely noisy fanatics who can't let this go, the vast majority of the Alliance probably won't be impressed by the forced fanfare of Blizzard giving you the option to play a Thalassian Elf for the second time and a model that's been available in the game for nearly eleven years.

Alliance got their pretty Elves, got the model that they wanted. But basically no one who asked for High Elves is happy. Maybe, just maybe, what we wanted was not just a Blood Elf model? I mean, this debacle with Void Elves, who instead of shutting people up made people cry for High Elves even more, should have taught people like you the lesson that maybe what they said why they wanted it is actually why they wanted instead of just assuming 'they just want a Blood Elf model' and their explanations aren't genuine. But you clearly didn't get this lesson, hope Blizzard is smarter than you.

I won't answer your whining about how you don't want others to play your pretty race. You here just sound like a little kid.

I am denying you nothing. If you wanted to play a High Elf the option was always there. YOU chose not to do it. And I resent you trying to undermine the faction divide at the heart of this game because you didn't like how the story progressed.

Again, resent Blizzard, it's them who have given High Elves such a huge role in multiple expansions.

[Obelisk Kai]

I won't answer your whining about how you don't want others to play your pretty race. You here just sound like a little kid.

This is all High Elf fans do. Year on year. Thread after thread on multiple forums. What else is this endlessly ignored request but the longest whine in wow?

'Please oh please give us our high elves!' and thirteen years you still can't take no for an answer.

You can't even take close enough for an answer.

Void Elves are the end of it. Why can't you grasp the blatantly obvious? Why must we all descend into these tedious arguments arguing over the minutiae of a developer's speech contractions when the intent is clear?

[Zulkhan]

That's not true. You just simply don't want someone who wants to play a race they like to play them.

Not sure if it's deliberate or genuine denseness but you're pretty much ripping your eyes out to not see the obvious for what it is. Because yes, you can pretty much play an High Elf on the Horde side.

Like seriously, go and point me one thing High Elves do offer that Blood Elves do not. Please, don't tell me the fucking eyes because no one sane would lose his mind over that.

I'll give you the answer myself: it's the faction. That's it. That's all. That's the only thing Blood Elves lack: being Alliance.

Nothing will happen if High Elves are added beyond those who want to play them playing them. You personally would not lose anything and wouldn't be affected by it in any way.

Despising the idea of "new races" that are "new" in absolutely no shape or form is a right none of your annoyance can deny. Not the fault of such people if you're a big fan of a concept many other people loathe.

Catering nostalgia is somewhat bearable when it comes to lore but in terms of gameplay is horrible. In the High Elf case, fully satisfying bland nostalgia feelings is simply detrimental from a gameplay standpoint.

[Deleted]

This is all High Elf fans do. Year on year. Thread after thread on multiple forums. What else is this endlessly ignored request but the longest whine in wow?

'Please oh please give us our high elves!' and thirteen years you still can't take no for an answer.

People are fans of a race and want to play it. It's pretty logical they will continue to ask for it. Especially considering that Blizzard are prone to change their opinions. Even Void Elves are Blizzard mistakenly thinking that they are finally answering this call, although they've completely misunderstood what they were asked for.

You can't even take close enough for an answer.

Void Elves are the end of it. Why can't you grasp the blatantly obvious? Why must we all descend into these tedious arguments arguing over the minutiae of a developer's speech contractions when the intent is clear?

Because Void Elves are not what people asked for. Imagine that after people asking Blizzard for straight orcs for so many years, Blizzard goes like "we hear, we listen, we will answer your request, but we decided to add a little cool twist and made orcs hunched backwards instead." Do you think if this happened players would be satisfied and stop asking for straight orcs?

[Obelisk Kai]

People are fans of a race and want to play it. It's pretty logical they will continue to ask for it. Especially considering that Blizzard are prone to change their opinions. Even Void Elves are Blizzard mistakenly thinking that they are finally answering this call, although they've completely misunderstood what they were asked for.



Because Void Elves are not what people asked for. Imagine that after people asking Blizzard for straight orcs for so many years, Blizzard goes like "we hear, we listen, we will answer your request, but we decided to add a little cool twist and made orcs hunched backwards instead." Do you think if this happened players would be satisfied and stop asking for straight orcs?

Some people asked for a duplicate of a Horde race and got a 95% copy.

Frankly it's more than I think you should have and I think you should be thankful you got as far as you did.

And the straight backed Orcs is a dumb comparison. If Orcs had always had an option to have straight backs, but we had refused to use it because it didn't meet our specifications exactly, THEN you'd have a case.

As it is, your problem is the fact the Elves are on the Horde.

Lots of players like races on the other faction, but they choose not to play as them for one reason or another.

You've clearly made your choice. Time you owned it.

[Deleted]

Some people asked for a duplicate of a Horde race and got a 95% copy.

Frankly it's more than I think you should have and I think you should be thankful you got as far as you did.

And the straight backed Orcs is a dumb comparison. If Orcs had always had an option to have straight backs, but we had refused to use it because it didn't meet our specifications exactly, THEN you'd have a case.

As it is, your problem is the fact the Elves are on the Horde.

Lots of players like races on the other faction, but they choose not to play as them for one reason or another.

You've clearly made your choice. Time you owned it.

The race I want to play is in Alliance, not in Horde. I do not want to play a Blood Elf.

And the example with orcs was to show you why the complains still exist as strong as ever despite the implementation of Void Elves.

[Garfurion]

Not sure if it's deliberate or genuine denseness but you're pretty much ripping your eyes out to not see the obvious for what it is. Because yes, you can pretty much play an High Elf on the Horde side.

Like seriously, go and point me one thing High Elves do offer that Blood Elves do not. Please, don't tell me the fucking eyes because no one sane would lose his mind over that.

I'll give you the answer myself: it's the faction. That's it. That's all. That's the only thing Blood Elves lack: being Alliance.

Maybe part of the problem is not that the Blood Elves lack being Alliance but that the Alliance lacks a "race" that is first and foremost magically oriented. Draenei are more associated with the Light and the Naaru then with Arcane magic. Their capital is alien looking as are they. Humans are the race every other race is compared to and their "magical" city Dalaran is neutral. Highborn Night-Elves look just like any other Night-Elf and Night Elven culture is nature oriented (and they live in a tree). Gnomes are a technological oriented race, Dwarves are mountain dwelling miners, Worgen and Pandaren have no strong association with magic either.

Of the announced allied races none offers this either. Lightforged are light oriented, Dark-Iron are dwarves and the Void-Elves are void oriented and lorewise will probably be seen as outcasts similar to death knights, demon hunters and warlocks.

Nightborne and their association with Suramar could have filled this niche in the Alliance but they join the Horde. Hence people keep asking for High-Elves who are associated with magic and are visible as part of the Alliance.

This doesn't mean Blizzard should give Alliance playable High-Elves but until they give the Alliance something better these requests will keep appearing every time a race is added.

Maybe instead of Void-Elves they should have given the Alliance a Blue/Red dragonkin race based on Alexstrasza's humanoid form (Elvish with Horns and pale/pink skin colors).

[Al Gorefiend]

Wow I learned something new today.

So high elves are blood elves? So Jaina actually wasn't racist during the purge of dalaran? She just targeted members of an enemy faction?

Whoa. No idea.

So all these people on this forum who say "For the Horde!" Then you look at their character and they main a blood elf, they aren't actually Horde players? Just posers??

Whoaaa

[Zulkhan]

The race I want to play is in Alliance, not in Horde. I do not want to play a Blood Elf.

No, your issue is that the race you want to play is playable on the Horde and not the Alliance.

Sorry but this bullshit doesn't fool anyone, not when you conveniently ignored my post and the question it bore.

Nightborne and their association with Suramar could have filled this niche in the Alliance but they join the Horde. Hence people keep asking for High-Elves who are associated with magic and are visible as part of the Alliance.

This doesn't mean Blizzard should give Alliance playable High-Elves but until they give the Alliance something better these requests will keep appearing every time a race is added.

I really doubt High Elves are desired for nothing more than nostalgia, mostly because "High Elves touch my WC2 feels" has been a way more redundant and blatantly outspoken reason than "I want a magical race really bad". Still, even assuming High Elves are desired by some people for that reason, they thrown their chips on the wrong candidate all along: the High Elves the Alliance players see around are basically all rangers, the magical aspects of their race entirely belong to Blood Elves (aka, the natural continuation of the High Elf kingdom and the ones that hold Quel'Thalas) with all their Magisters and Sunreavers. High Elves are so dramatically poor on that field that they have to leech a Human-based magi organization off.

If a magical-oriented race is what Alliance players want than High Elves are a dead end. Anyone who genuinely wants that shouldn't demand High Elves, he should demand that Dalaran drops its neutral nonsense and joins the Alliance once and for all. This expansion and its bigger-than-life war between the factions would be the perfect chance to do that.

[Zulkhan]

And Draenei are Eredar, just with a different name to separate themselves from the fel-corrupted.

The more you know.

Man'ari Eredar are not tainted with slight Fel corruption, they're fucking Demons.

[Beloren]

I'll give you the answer myself: it's the faction. That's it. That's all. That's the only thing Blood Elves lack: being Alliance.

Indeed, and they get this in the void elves who are now high elves politically. So why aren't these guys more happy. They got their wish - but it didn't come in the pure form they wanted? They don't even know the full deal yet. I don't get it.

[TristanTaylor]

I couldn't read all of the posts, there was a lot of stuff in them, so I'm sorry if this has been suggested already but.....At this point couldn't we get "High Elf" visual characteristics in both Night Elves and Blood Elves in the enhanced customization?

So Blood Elves were High Elves, but weren't High Elves just Night Elves that used Arcane magic, and thought themselves better than the other Night Elves, even so far as considering themselves Highborne. Night Elves blamed the Arcane with bringing about the Burning Legion, so they banished the "High Elves"(Arcane users), some of whom ended up in Arthas way and after like 90% of them were killed renamed themselves Blood Elves, specifically the ones under Kael'Thas rule. At the same time, Elisande walled off Suramar and they ended up changing due to their well of power into Nightborne(former High Elves). Some time later the Night Elves realized that Arcane wasn't entirely what drew the Burning Legion to Azeroth so they welcomed back any High Elves that wanted to return and teach them Arcane magics. Along the way some High Elves also became Naga (with Queen Aszhara) and Satyr(also some of her followers, I believe)