Why Blood Elves will NEVER be neutral, and High Elves will NEVER be alliance.

[SodiumChloride]

Yeah, and I am talking EU servers. I gave you the two raiding PvE realms in EU. One is a server 99% horde, the other one 99% alliance. If you roll there (which by default isn't suggested, since they have log in queues) you're going to meet a faction imbalance and this imbalance has been there for many, many years. It won't get solved either.

Now, lets say all these US servers of yours have faction imbalances of say 33% vs 66%. Do we see on a 1:2 horde realm it is impossible to roll horde? No? We don't see that, do we? And that is another reason why your argument is a pile of bullshit.

Why would a new player roll to a full server with log in queues when all other realms don't have log in queues. If I were wanting to play on a high pop realm I'd roll on those high pop ones without a queue.

Even on near dead servers, if it's a PVE server, chances are it will be Alliance dominated. On these near dead servers is where Horde can least afford to lose players.

97% or 98% or 99% is irrelevant; it is close to each other. And nobody really gives a rat on these PvE realms about the faction imbalance cause world PvP doesn't matter. I already told you that twice, and twice you ignore it with your own ramblings.

I backed it up 2 posts back but yeah some people are just on special salts.

OMFG if you "told" me it must be true!

I know what you "told me" and I'm TELLING YOU, YOU ARE WRONG. Balance does matter on PVE realms! To be more specific, since you have trouble getting it, population matters.

Look, if BEs get split, no matter how you cut it, the Horde population is going to drop across the board. That is fact. That also is not acceptable for PVE servers. And that is that.

[Gothicshark]

dark trolls>Night elves>high elves
trolls predate titans and their creations

One Faceless one Remembers Goblins. implying from before the titans, but it is not confirmed. As to Trolls, or their progenitor race being from before the Titans, it's all speculation, since nothing has even been said in game to confirm that.

which humans would side with the horde though?

Kingdom of Lordaeron- is now called Forsaken.
Kingdom of Alterac - Sided with the Orcs in the start of the second war, was invaded by the Kingdom of Stromgarde.

I would welcome Dark Trolls into the alliance. They helped the nightelves back in the day, and they have some hella awesome concept art.

As would I, personally I would love for more player faction race combos.

I don't think pseudo-science means what you think it means.

If that isn't enough said, consider the following:
Counter Arguments
Debunked: Debunked:
Not an argument:
Debatable:
Debunked:
Valid Point
Debatable
Some Other Great Points Made By Other Posters:
My conclusion is this:
Sources:

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status.

Your opening post is acting like your "OMG I don't want Allience to have Blood Elves Thread" Is based on rational thought and not just one in a long list of "Fan Ficts". This thread is pseudo-science because of the presentation of Hypothoses as fact. Also just because Dev person A said "X" doesn't mean "X" is true.

Yes, they want to make money,

everything past that point is pointless, Blizzard will go towards the greater profit.

Just because players demand something doesn't mean it will happen.

Panda-men, Monks. And the worst exspansion yet. Disagree.

Why? What?
You just went full fanfiction on me.

Every single thread which makes a case for or against anything which might be possible in WOW is "Fan Fict" this thread is no differant.

I literally have no idea what you just said.

It says, this thread is pointless, because we have a new Hig Elf Allience thread every week, and it is all meaningless dribble. We have 2-3 years before we hear another exspansion announcement. Guess what, no one outside of Blizzard has any clue what they will actually do.

Definitely not. There are more non-faction races with storylines and plots than there are the other way around. High Elf lore is the same as Blood Elf lore. Whenever Blood elves have plot development - there's high elves right there too.

Warcraft 1: Orcs vs humans - only races in the game.
Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness - added High Elf, Forest Troll, Ogre, Dwarf, Goblin, and Gnomes.

The High Elf was Allience, and many people want that. Also Ogres, since Allience High Elves and Ogres are not Playble as of yet.

No idea where that progenitor race idea is coming from.

Since there is no actual set in stone lore about the Begining of the Troll/Elf race. There are a few contradicting bits in game.

All we know for a fact is Elves and Trolls are related. We do not know when or where they started, but we do know from elves, that the species evolves rapidly to new envioments. And they have knife Ears.

There are however a few tid-bits which wet the appitite for where they came from.

A: the link between Night Elves. Dark Trolls, and Trolls has been made clear.
B: Only 1 NPC speculates that Trolls could predate the Titans.
C: Old God servants include insects that look like Night Elves.
D: Mogu Females look Like Troll Females, Mogu Arcitecture and Troll Arcitecture are very similar.

Goblins aren't related to trolls or elves. Bronzebeard's theory is they're very distantly related to Pygmies (who are in turn distantly related to Troggs). Kajamite mutated them into their current form.

No one is sure where Goblins come from, only two source of ancient lore on Goblins, "War of the Anciencts" Deathwing used Goblins to bind the metal to his body. So they were around 10k+ years ago. And a Faceless one master over naga reconzied the Goblins, in such a way to indicate that long ago it saw when they were first creaed. No Clue if that was pre or post Titan.

Trolls became night elves, who split into highborne and blood elves. Highborne split into highborne and high elves. High elves split into blood elves and high elves.

Yes for the most part this is the accepted idea, which has not yet in game been verified. Chris Metzen in an interview said this was the case. However until they put it in game and set it properly into lore, it is unverifible.

Half Elves are hybrids. Not a race.

In terms of game mechanics they are a Race. In many game systems Half-Elves have very differant racials than Humans and Elves.

2 confirmed player races. 1 unplayed elf race.

When you realize that Trolls are an Elf race, or you can say Elves are a Troll race if you are more comfortable then you have to realize that the World of Warcraft has:

3: Human Races (Humans- Kingdom of Stormwind, Forsaken - Kingdom of Lordaeron, Worgen - Kingdom of Gilneas)
3: (Elf/Troll) Races (Night Elves, Darkspear Trolls, Blood Elves)
5: Titan Races (Humans, Forsaken (Undead Humans), Worgen (Werewolf Humans), Dwarves, Gnomes)
2: Alien Races (Orcs, Draenei)
2: Beastman races (Tauren, Pandaren)
1: origin overlooked (Goblins)

You're really really stretching the facts to suit your argument. Which is closer to the actual definition of pseudoscience.

Doing nothing differant than what your first post is doing, with a lot less arrogance.

[Potassiumgluconate]

Gothicshark you make my brain bleed. I'm pretty sure you're the timecube guy.

[plantation]

I think everyone forgot the game logistics behind Blizzard not making blood elves a neutral race.

[Deleted]

Even on near dead servers, if it's a PVE server, chances are it will be Alliance dominated. On these near dead servers is where Horde can least afford to lose players.



OMFG if you "told" me it must be true!

I know what you "told me" and I'm TELLING YOU, YOU ARE WRONG. Balance does matter on PVE realms! To be more specific, since you have trouble getting it, population matters.

Look, if BEs get split, no matter how you cut it, the Horde population is going to drop across the board. That is fact. That also is not acceptable for PVE servers. And that is that.

Your facts are fabricated due to the abuse of bath salts.

Faction imbalance is near irrelevant (*) on PvE realms and not near as important as it is on PvP realm. If you play on on a PvP realm which is 1:2 alliance:horde chances are the world PvP is usually in favor of the horde. If you see an alliance player there is usually 2 hordies next to him. Alliance player soloing a rare? Kill him and steal the tag/loot. Up for ganking some dude? 2v1 is getting you a sure win. This does not happen on a PvE realm. Nobody gives a flying fuck about PvP on a PvE realm. I very much doubt you ever played on both type of realms.

(*) and as far as it is relevant the importance of it is far below the importance of a new race in the next expansion.

[SodiumChloride]

Your facts are fabricated due to the abuse of bath salts.

Mature.

Faction imbalance is near irrelevant (*) on PvE realms and not near as important as it is on PvP realm. If you play on on a PvP realm which is 1:2 alliance:horde chances are the world PvP is usually in favor of the horde. If you see an alliance player there is usually 2 hordies next to him. Alliance player soloing a rare? Kill him and steal the tag/loot. Up for ganking some dude? 2v1 is getting you a sure win. This does not happen on a PvE realm. Nobody gives a flying fuck about PvP on a PvE realm. I very much doubt you ever played on both type of realms.

(*) and as far as it is relevant the importance of it is far below the importance of a new race in the next expansion.

Whatever man. I have said all that can be said. I have clarify my position and justified them the best I can. If you want to pull a "vaccines cause autism", all you man.

[Lothaeryn]

Blood elves going neutral would utterly destroy the horde, itd create faction imbalance the likes of which would doom us all to an eternity of hardmode horde and E.Z alliance.

If one single race on an entire faction is the sole reason for any form of feasible 'balance' for this game's factions, then that should be a huge red flag for blizzard that something about the Horde is clearly lacking.

Saying that the world is going to end because one single race will be available to both factions is like saying the Alliance would plummet if Draenei females were playable as Horde, there is no evidence to support either theory and it is asinine to assume such a small feature being locked to one faction is the only thing holding back the floodgates for a mass exodus from one faction to another.

I honestly don't even see why another thread was opened just for this discussion alone, we already have another thread which has gone on for hundreds of pages discussing this very topic.

[Willias]

If one single race on an entire faction is the sole reason for any form of feasible 'balance' for this game's factions, then that should be a huge red flag for blizzard that something about the Horde is clearly lacking.

Actually, it's not too unusual for multi-faction MMOs to have this problem. Generally the "prettier" or more "human-like" race gets a significantly higher portion of the playerbase, meaning the more human-like faction has more players than other factions. That doesn't say that the Horde is lacking, that shows that players just tend to stick with whatever is most attractive or most similar to being human.

On PvP servers in EverQuest, players tended to favor Elves or Dark Elves (iirc, Dark Elves were most common, and no surprise there, when in basic clothes female dark elves had on the skimpiest outfit).

In Dark Age of Camelot, players favored Albion over other realms (had nothing but human races) and then Hibernia after that (had elves). Midgard was the lowest populated Realm (and no surprise there, one race was human, other three races were Troll, Kobold, and Dwarf).

[Talen]

Even on near dead servers, if it's a PVE server, chances are it will be Alliance dominated. On these near dead servers is where Horde can least afford to lose players.

And those servers are also the servers where faction balance is largely irrelevant. Faction balance is, after all, only an issue where the factions interact.

In other words...the neutral AHs and PvP. And neutral AHs can also attract players from the more populous faction. As far as PvP is concerned...world PvP isn't an issue because, you know, PvE realms - so the only factor faction balance can really affect is wait times for BGs and so on. Which is also cross realm.

Or did I miss an interaction?

All of which means...faction balance is important on PvP servers. And on those servers, if we believe the information available, then the Horde tends to dominate.

I know what you "told me" and I'm TELLING YOU, YOU ARE WRONG. Balance does matter on PVE realms! To be more specific, since you have trouble getting it, population matters.

Yes. On PvE realms, population does matter. Not inter-faction balance...population. Population provides a sense the world is full and active, and ensures aspects such as the AH work well and are't empty. It affects the ability to join guilds and run raids...everything you do in your own faction.

Which is why Blizzard have brought in cross realm and VRealm technology. To help address issues with low populations on servers.

Look, if BEs get split, no matter how you cut it, the Horde population is going to drop across the board. That is fact. That also is not acceptable for PVE servers. And that is that.

PvE servers won't be affected. The various cross realm technologies will see to that. At worst, they'll hugely mitigate any negative impact but we can rest assured, AHs wil still be visited. And on PvP servers, Horde tends to dominate.

Your population argument only really works if you treat individual servers as having any major importance...and they really don't. Not any more.

Now, if you can present a valid argument which shows why balance on an individual server is still important, it'd be nice to hear.

All of which leaves us with the one population argument that in this case matters.

If playable High Elfs are ever brought in as an Alliance race - will people leave the game?

EJL

[Deleted]

Mature.

Whatever man. I have said all that can be said. I have clarify my position and justified them the best I can. If you want to pull a "vaccines cause autism", all you man.

Notice I used that argument after you resorted using words entirely comprised out of CAPITAL LETTERS together with BOLD.

Fact of matter is, PvP servers (or virtual clusters as they are more like now) are mostly slightly favored towards horde. Faction balance matters on these because faction balance affects the world PvP. PvE servers, it does not matter (I admit a minimum cap on population per faction does matter but that can be mitigated in different ways; read: more merges). So an act which is going to make the alliance on a grand scale slightly more popular than the horde is not a big issue no matter how many capitals some random dude with a fancy chemical name is going to use in his post whining "YOU ARE WRONG". Your nickname itself is hilarious, pure entertainment given OP's nickname, and makes it only look as if you're his sockpuppet hence the bath salt statement.

OP resorts to similar responses. After Gothicshark makes a point by point argument relying on lore, historical facts which can be verified this is his reply:

Gothicshark you make my brain bleed. I'm pretty sure you're the timecube guy.

You and your friend possess no skill in arguing whatsoever. As soon as someone goes in depth to your points and happens to disagree with their conclusion you resort to fallacies.

[Al Gorefiend]

There are more Blood Elf players than Orcs, Troll and Goblin combined on most realms. To put into perspective how hard the Horde would be hit if.. say, 25% of Blood Elves switched factions to High Elves, its essentially removing every Goblin player off the Horde and giving them to the Alliance.

[Deleted]

There are more Blood Elf players than Orcs, Troll and Goblin combined on most realms. To put into perspective how hard the Horde would be hit if.. say, 25% of Blood Elves switched factions to High Elves, its essentially removing every Goblin player off the Horde and giving them to the Alliance.

Why would they switch in the first place. I already explained some people want to play a race which fits familiar with how healthy human beings look IRL. These people have 3 choices currently: human, night elf, blood elf.

For your argument to be true with 25% you are saying 25% of the current blood elf players decided to go first blood elf and then accepted they would be horde-only after which they accepted their choice reluctantly. I suggest it is the other way around: people first decide their faction, then look through the race options and decide. In our case they want to have a race which looks human-like. I suggest those who want to indeed play a human-like race and wanted to play alliance have already decided to go alliance and sticked with the logical option of either human or night elf.

Then there is the whole issue of faction changing and social network. I can say from my own experience it isn't easy to faction change because after you paid your 25 EUR you get rewarded by your in-game social network being useless. Not a bang for the buck...

[Yarathir]

You and your friend possess no skill in arguing whatsoever. As soon as someone goes in depth to your points and happens to disagree with their conclusion you resort to fallacies.

Your facts are fabricated due to the abuse of bath salts.

.. You what?

[Deleted]

.. You what?

I do it too (gee, once with a joke ), but I did not start with writing in CAPS LOCK, ignoring arguments, and such.

[Obelisk Kai]

There are more Blood Elf players than Orcs, Troll and Goblin combined on most realms. To put into perspective how hard the Horde would be hit if.. say, 25% of Blood Elves switched factions to High Elves, its essentially removing every Goblin player off the Horde and giving them to the Alliance.

Aesthetics are also important. Even if those who say the population shift from Horde to Alliance would be minimal (a supposition as much as saying it would be a catastrophic shift, we just don't know) we are neglecting yet another facet of this issue.

The internal effect on the Alliance.

Essentially, would it surprise anyone to see many, many characters race change to High Elf? Combined with Night Elves, already their second most popular race, between one third and one half of the Alliance would likely be slender and pointy eared.

This is not a desirable outcome by any means.

How come every facet of playable High Elves is beset by problems, look at them from any angle and you see three or four hurdles for Blizzard to overcome.

Maybe we should read something into the fact that they've not been added after nearly a decade, well, except for the time they were actually added in 2007.

[Talen]

The internal effect on the Alliance.

Is largely inconsequential.

The Alliance already has "pretty" races for its members to join. The addition of yet another won't signify a need for a major shift. Some people will indeed prefer the HElf body. And others will keep their current one. And even if it does, the ramifications are - at worst - minor.

Just as having a large number of BElfs on the Horde isn't seen as an issue, neither would a situation where there were a great many HElfs in the Alliance.

This is not a desirable outcome by any means.

As opposed to one third of the Horde being respresented by just one race?

How come every facet of playable High Elves is beset by problems, look at them from any angle and you see three or four hurdles for Blizzard to overcome.

The three or four hurdles, the "beset by problems" exists mainly because you say they do, because in your mind these issues somehow can't be solved or addressed or bypassed or worked around. The reality about these is none of the issues you've listed are that major, or that difficult to overcome. Put simply, they don't cause major issues to the gameplay, they don't require much work or thought to bypass and the major problem here would be the work involved in creating a new racial model if that was the direction Blizzard chose to go.

Blizzard can add new races. It has done so
Blizzard can provide a HElf model that retains the look of HElfs while still allowing for BElf uniqueness. It has done so with Nozdormu
Issues with population and faction ratios either don't exists or are largely addressed with new systems such as the Connected realms.
Lore issues such as population, culture, etc either work to the benefit of HElf players by providing story potential or provide enough wiggle room that problems don't really arise
There is no problem with retcons as no retcons are needed. HElfs exist, have a population, are already in the Alliance and Blizzard isn't likely - even with wiggle room - to grow their population to the extent they outnumber BElfs. Even if they did, that wouldn't be a retcon except as far as players expectations are concerned.

And so on. Even the important points you've raised are countered - the potential for faction imbalance is addressed by current VRealm systems and BElf faction uniqueness would be retained with a new model.

You can of course dismiss those points but you are still arguing about factors of the game using a model - vanilla - that hasn't existed for 7 years. I'll grant it'd be possible for Blizzard to mess things up and in that case, some of the issues you raise could indeed pose a problem. If Blizzard pushed them as a new race, with all the bells and whistles and then simply dropped a BElf with Blue eyes on the market, there'd be some justified complaints. But you aren't even willing to concede Blizzard can design a new model for HElfs.

Maybe we should read something into the fact that they've not been added after nearly a decade, well, except for the time they were actually added in 2007.

They weren't. Blood Elfs were. But Blood Elfs are not High Elfs. Same race...but a different people. You may as well call a Canadian an American.

As for not added yet....the truth is, right now, the only thing that is stopping High Elfs being added should Blizzard desire that is finding the right place and time to add them. The problem here is that when you do add a race, Blizzard likes to have some connection with the incoming story. Even the Worgen and Goblins were exploring the effects of the Cataclsym.

With HElfs, Blizzard would have to create a story where they would fit. Where their presence makes sense. But even then, the linkage may only be minor - again, as Goblins and Worgen show. The big issue is that there are probably going to other, more interesting racial choices available for Blizzard to use no matter what the theme of the XPac would be. To a degree, this kinda ruled out HElfs during TBC as HElfs weren't really in a position to be pushed as a race if they were cut off from Silvermoon. Since then, Blizzard has developed the race a lot more and it is much more able to stand on its own two feet. But there hasn't really been a point where they coudl be added; they are too scattered to showcase a story involving the Cataclysm, the entire stoiry about Pandaria revolved around how cut off it was and no races were added in the other Xpacs.

As it is, a lot of Alliance players, a lot of WOW players as a whole, would probably welcome HElfs. But would they do so at the cost of the Ethereals, as an example?

EJL

[Deleted]

Essentially, would it surprise anyone to see many, many characters race change to High Elf? Combined with Night Elves, already their second most popular race, between one third and one half of the Alliance would likely be slender and pointy eared.

It is likely people who want to play high elf are currently playing WoW, alliance, and a race a lot like high elf which means either human or night elf.

This is not a desirable outcome by any means.

There is no doubt in my mind there are undesirable effects of high elves being a race. No doubt at all. Are you overcomeable? Don't know. But the argument about faction imbalance (on PvE realms no less) is one I consider a joke for the reasons presented on the previous pages. If faction imbalance was so important as it is today Blizzard would make sure people roll alliance on PvP realm, and horde on PvE realm. They don't cause it isn't a big issue.

[CaptainV]

High Elves will be a playable race its not a matter of if but when, its likely on blizzards mind set considering when Metzen "announced" Warlords of Draenor he was bringing nostalgia lane up talking about the Old Alliance, including High Elves.

I have a very strong feeling Blizzard will add them primarily for Lore reasons more than any, plus, with the new Time-Travel gimmick you could "easily" create alternative dimension Quel'Thalas and make it a High Elf phased starting zone, with Dalaran as their capital due to the presence of Vareesa Windrunner.

I'm not saying that is a good lore to add, not even slightly, what I am saying is that fan demanded races "always" become playable, Pandaren were wanted since TBC, and Worgen/Goblins too.

Its not a matter of if, its a matter of "when" High Elves become playable, and equally Ogres for the same reasons.

They opened Time-Travel into the setting, that can of worms can NEVER be closed no matter how hard you try to ignore it.

[Traveler Voltin]

One Faceless one Remembers Goblins. implying from before the titans, but it is not confirmed. As to Trolls, or their progenitor race being from before the Titans, it's all speculation, since nothing has even been said in game to confirm that.

Trolls and tauren have been confirmed to predate titans and some bug races.

[cmats4020]

And those servers are also the servers where faction balance is largely irrelevant. Faction balance is, after all, only an issue where the factions interact.

In other words...the neutral AHs and PvP. And neutral AHs can also attract players from the more populous faction. As far as PvP is concerned...world PvP isn't an issue because, you know, PvE realms - so the only factor faction balance can really affect is wait times for BGs and so on. Which is also cross realm.

Or did I miss an interaction?

All of which means...faction balance is important on PvP servers. And on those servers, if we believe the information available, then the Horde tends to dominate.



Yes. On PvE realsm, population does matter. Not balance...population. Population provides a sense the world is full and active, and ensures aspects such as the AH work well and are't empty. It affects the ability to join guilds and run raids...everything you do in your own faction.

Which is why Blizzard have brought in cross realm and VRealm technology. To help address issues with low populations on servers.



PvE servers won't be affected. The various cross realm technologies will see to that. At worst, they'll hugely mitigate any negative impact but we can rest assured, AHs wil still be visited. And on PvP servers, Horde tends to dominate.

Your population argument only really works if you treat individual servers as having any major importance...and they really don't. Not any more.

Now, if you can present a valid argument which shows why balance on an individual server is still important, it'd be nice to hear.

All of which leaves us with the one pop[ulation argujment that in this case matters.

If playable High Elfs are ever brought in as an Alliance race - will people leave the game?

EJL

Best post on this thread dealing with the faction im/balance nonsense!