Something about high elves .. that just does it for me

[ravenmoon]

in-game i mean. not sure what it is, is it the lore, or the blue eyes, or that peaceful night elf tone of voice giving them a non-arrogant feel.. but it just makes me always wanna have one every time i come across them in game.

latest yearn elf - Vyrin Swiftwind at the Farstriders lodge in Loch Modan. The weird thing about it also is that it doesn't take away from liking blood elves. Blood elves genuienly feel different and have their own sterner appeal, But then i'm a race-aholic -- playing tons of races.

I keep wondering if blizzard should change anything about them if they become playable - I'd say no, keep them with night elf emotes, blood elf models but with blue eyes, not sure if it might help to reduce the bulk of the males back to TBC beta male models, but i won't change the fems.

I also don't think blizz will make high elves playable until they are confident that thier inclusion won't drain the horde numbers, and that will only happen when either faction numbers are no longer an important factor to the game or they found another way to keep the horde popular by doing something like making humans available on the horde say as forsaken vampires or something cool like that. Horde version of worgen.. in that they look human but they're unliving and have a vampire form, they probably use a healthy version of the forsaken model or a human version of the blood elf model rather than use the stormwind model and like worgen, in combat they can go vampire form growing fangs claws and eyes glowing red,

Note though, high elf and vampire humans won't be a full fledged new race, i can only ever see them being included as sub-races because while both would be exciting to have, i don't think they wrrant a full race spot - as they are too similar to existing races even if the vampire humans don't use the stormwind human model but a humanized forsaken or blood elf model.

Well that's it, I still like them - but i do understand without a major shake up like introducing sub-races or giving the horde an alliance race in return or something major like allowing anyone to choose factions, we won't see them as playable in wow's lifetime.

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wow, an honest topic about high elves, and no one takes.

[Thage]

Honestly, high elves would work well enough as a human subrace if they ever put subraces in, considering that high elves are currently a guest-race of several human nations (most notably Dalaran and Stormwind, though there was a respectable amount of them in Theramore according to the lore before its destruction). Given Dalaran's renewed commitment to the Alliance, and the Silver Covenant's militant stance, one could argue it's currently the biggest group of them left. So assigning them under Human, and setting their starting reputation with Silver Covenant to Friendly, could work if they put in subraces.

I don't think there would be enough model work involved to warrant making high elves an entirely-separate race on the character select screen; we'd see outcry from Horde players for Alliance favoritism (taking the most popular Horde race and putting it on the Alliance) and from Alliance players for lazily recycling models. That being said, the pandaren do sort of set a precedent; mayhap Blizzard could make Ogres a Horde race and migrate Thalassian Elves to the Neutral banner, with existing blood elves kept on the Horde and newly-created elves given the choice to play as high elves or blood elves on creation.

[ravenmoon]

Honestly, high elves would work well enough as a human subrace if they ever put subraces in, considering that high elves are currently a guest-race of several human nations (most notably Dalaran and Stormwind, though there was a respectable amount of them in Theramore according to the lore before its destruction). Given Dalaran's renewed commitment to the Alliance, and the Silver Covenant's militant stance, one could argue it's currently the biggest group of them left. So assigning them under Human, and setting their starting reputation with Silver Covenant to Friendly, could work if they put in subraces.

I don't think there would be enough model work involved to warrant making high elves an entirely-separate race on the character select screen; we'd see outcry from Horde players for Alliance favoritism (taking the most popular Horde race and putting it on the Alliance) and from Alliance players for lazily recycling models. That being said, the pandaren do sort of set a precedent; mayhap Blizzard could make Ogres a Horde race and migrate Thalassian Elves to the Neutral banner, with existing blood elves kept on the Horde and newly-created elves given the choice to play as high elves or blood elves on creation.

yeah, i agree, firstly. There is still alot that we don't know about the current state of the high elves, we can't rely on reasons like they are guest race of several human nations when it's possible to write a change to that

e.g. Dalaran currently seems very much a mixed high elf/human thing - after the 3rd war, a lot of hte human population vacated, remember it was severely damaged/destroyed by Archimonde, it was also refuge for mages and magic users fleeing the scourge, many of which were high elf, it could turn out that post 3rd war dalaran is majority high elf

e.g. 2. Highborne have returned, and in cataclysm both the horde and alliance help the highborne reclaim their city Eldre'thalas or Dire Maul, and it's not as odd as it sounds because both the horde and alliance help Vol'jin rid Zul'Gurub of the Hakkari priesthood, the highborne city could easily become the new haven for all the high elves who fled Theramore, there is a short story somewhere that talks about many high elves leaving Theramore over the years looking for new home and drawn to the night elf forests and their moonwells which slate their magic addiction. It stands to reason that Eldre'thalas (Dire MAul) becomes a high elf haven joining their kin, afterall all high elves are highborne from a night elf perspective, as well as being descendants of them. high elf is a thalassian translation of highborne a darnassian word.

So that's just 2 avenues of establishmen.

And i agree, there is not enough to make them a full race in terms of model .. even though blizzard could, which is why i can only see them coming in as a sub-race. And yes blizzard could do to the elves what they have done to the Panderan, but I kinda feel that because blood elves are sooooo popular, that would only work if someting equally attractive from the alliance side had a horde version, and the best candidate by far is human.

high elves would be an alliance version of blood elves, and vampires would be horde version of humans. Again these vampire humans would be a sub-race of forsaken. they'd look human, although they'd be unliving. Again they'd use an existing in game model, my recommendation would be to use a humanized version of either the forsaken or the blood elf. it means a skinnier human with a fully fleshed forsaken face. They'd use the forsaken animaitons for fighting and casting, but be uprgiht and have no undead bits. They'd look human, htey'd be from human, but they won't be quite, they'd be vampires, and like worgen in combat you'd be able to bring the fangs and claws out.

Now something like that is really cool I feel, and the only thing cool enough to off set high elves been available on the alliance as a playable sub-race.

[Thage]

I mean, the problem with that is the closest thing we have to vampires in WoW are the san'layn and they were pretty much wiped out in 3.3. Aside from that, the lore behind the san'layn is closely tied into the blood elves' mana addiction--the Scourge simply redirected their hunger for draining mana to blood instead. Your idea would still require a good bit of model work; at that point you may as well add in Ogres as a concession to the Horde since most requests for playable high elves come with Horde included in the deal.

If there had to be a one-to-one exchange, a closer equivalent in regards to model work would be the leper gnomes, of which there are several known to be affiliated with the Forsaken and whom are shown no particular bias or discrimination that the Forsaken don't show to pretty much everyone who isn't one of them. You could replace their Escape Artist racial with a small disease DoT, as I'm sure they would be the sort to carry plague-sprayers around with them for science (gotta test its effects on various species, after all).

[Deleted]

If Alliance gets high elves instead of a original race I will quit WoW forever. Ultimate laziness detected.

[Seezer]

I farted just now

[ravenmoon]

I mean, the problem with that is the closest thing we have to vampires in WoW are the san'layn and they were pretty much wiped out in 3.3. Aside from that, the lore behind the san'layn is closely tied into the blood elves' mana addiction--the Scourge simply redirected their hunger for draining mana to blood instead. Your idea would still require a good bit of model work; at that point you may as well add in Ogres as a concession to the Horde since most requests for playable high elves come with Horde included in the deal.

If there had to be a one-to-one exchange, a closer equivalent in regards to model work would be the leper gnomes, of which there are several known to be affiliated with the Forsaken and whom are shown no particular bias or discrimination that the Forsaken don't show to pretty much everyone who isn't one of them. You could replace their Escape Artist racial with a small disease DoT, as I'm sure they would be the sort to carry plague-sprayers around with them for science (gotta test its effects on various species, after all).

this is one of the few instances laziness pays off you could say, but then, creative development usually leave a lot of details vague.. we hardly know anything about the darkfallen, for all we know they could have only been a handful, and yet in WotLK we see tons of them in ICC and all of a sudden san'layan, 3 and a queen, who's to say there aren't more, who's to say some didn't survive teh encounter and begin powerplays, making new san'layan elves and somehow crossing the process over to humans making vampire humans... that's all in the realm of the possibility, if they wanna make it so, they will is waht i'm saying.

Ah, i see what you mean about Gnomes, but then, whiles it makes sense because you already see leper gnomes in the amongst the forsaken and blood elf areas, it's hardly the same thing, i'ts making the least popular alliance race available to the horde while making the most popular horde race available to the alliance, you gotta see a problem with that.. it's not going to be no where near as popular, and whiles i fully expect we might see leper gnome sub-race, it's not in the same league of cool as high elves or vampire humans.