Horde won the development battle for the elves.

[Beloren]

Face it.

• We've got the major positive and great elven developments since wow began.
• The blood elves have come leaps and bounds
• The best of the night elves, their ancient civilization and their biggest arcane group we also got.
• We've got both Suramar AND Silvermoon, - we have the cities and the infrastructure.

So come over to our side.

• Night elves have been terrible in wow, look at them now homeless on top (losers!).
• Void elves really are a token, they are a handful of blood elves, that's it - a token.
• High elves when they are appear are ALWAYS in relation/retaliation to Blood elves, they are always supporting blood elves by making us look better and showing how good we are, they serve no purpose but to make us look good.

I know some of you interpret it as blizzard teasing you with high elves, its not, high elves are part of the blood elf story, if you look closer High Elves only serve to make blood elves look better.

Night elves are there to make other races look better too, they are the expendable arm of the alliance when blizzard want to show some progression for humans or how badass goblins or blood elves or orcs are - as they don't effect humans, so ngiht elves get trashed and look rubbish so humans can look good.

- - - Updated - - -

Face it - but I need to rip the band aid off.

Elven development race was won by the horde as far back as TBC, and everything in BfA underlines it. Don't get me wrong, Alliance will get some elven development, but it's token, Void elves are token, night elves are victims. The horde is led by an Elf, the forsaken and the blood elves are the smartest groups on the horde, most progressive, compared to night elves and high elves in the alliance who keep needing rescuing. We have the civilization of the High elves and the civilization of the night elves, basically all the night elves have would be wild woods, the high elves have to keep sharing with humans and both are defined and determined by the needs of humans.

On the horde the blood elves are shown to be independent clear thinkers, they certainly help and develop horde progress, nearly always they are shown in WoW they are shown as either very dangerous or a group that gets it done, look at how awesome Suramar and the nightborne are, we get both.. both!

Elvendom is the home of the horde. Not sure what fantasies you alliance fans are facing, but do what I have done, if you love elves, come to the horde.

[ManiaCCC]

As a horde player, I wish we would never win anything elven related. Elves are cancer of the horde. Seriously.

[Darththeo]

As a horde player, I wish we would never win anything elven related. Elves are cancer of the horde. Seriously.

So you would be okay with losing the bulk of your player base to the Alliance?

[Sigxy]

I absolutely think that Blood Elves and Nightborne are the best elves at the moment. Nightelves could've been better but so far Blizzard doesn't make a whole lot of 'great spotlight' moments for them and often just make them look bad or lose something... and high elves? The two most important high elves, the two Windrunners (Dishonorable mention: Sylvanas can be included if you want since it's the same case) have Humans as love interest and.. uh.. I don't know what else they got going for them. Being around as a counter-Blood Elf situation..?

[ManiaCCC]

So you would be okay with losing the bulk of your player base to the Alliance?

Absolutely. Horde was fine before, even with the super ugly hunched races everywhere.

[gcsmith]

Wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard focused horde here. They did it back in Cataclysm.

[Deleted]

I am a horde player and actually I agree almost 100%

And please, Malfurion was always written as oh-so-powerful druid, but he has shown nothing but being pathetic and blind crazy old guy.
And Tyrande? One of the most annoying bitches there are.

Look at BElves. We have Rommath, Halduron, Liadrin and the badass Lorthemar who just dumped shit on void Alleria.
Did I also mention Nightborne? <3

[Mace]

Well blizzard could write a far more balanced story, but they have shown no sign of it. So I'd have to agree with the OP here, which is why all my elf characters will be horde next expac even though he has stated he will try a void elf.

The night elves look weak and terrible, to get them anywhere on par with the horde elves, they'd have to engineer a victory against them which I don't see happening, further they'd have to raise up the highborne amongst the night elves to replace the nightborne they lost to the horde - i don't see that happening either because of the few highborne, except if they restore the FArondis ghosts by some Elune miracle which I don't see happening. THey'd also have to give the night elves Suramar, or at least engineer a situation which they share it with the nightborne - but such a move would mean engineering a direction for the night elven races that is not really engaged in the faction conflict but has a focused enough and shared goal that supercedes the conflict. I don't see this happening either although I firmly think it's the most appropriate, exciting and suitable development both for said night elf groups and the factions too.

Also they'd have to develop the high elves and the void elves as their own group - give them a city or a story that though connected strongly to the blood elves, also has things happening of their own. They won't give them Silvermoon, the next best alternative would be to give them something like Skywall or Dalaran, but they won't give them either. Skywall would be the obvious choice as Dalaran is more a world city centre.

Too many ifs and shifting around, there really isn't anything in the 14 years of wow that has shown me blizzard willing to develop the alliance elves, it's all centred around the horde for the elves. It's also weird that it is the elves that should have a strong identity on both factions rather than the humans.

It really makes it awkward as blizzard keep forcing human and orc themes, yet the major playerbase goes elven. All because they really make the elves enticing, but that's not a bad thing, as long as people keep playing right?

[cityguy193]

Lorewise, it seems that void elves have much more room for story development

[Andromedes]

Lorewise, it seems that void elves have much more room for story development

those 20 who got transformed into half ethereals? they are already doomed to extinction.

[Mace]

those 20 who got transformed into half ethereals? they are already doomed to extinction.

Indeed, they're token. I was looking at the majority of the posts, and the saddening truth is that it's not even on the alliance fans' radar. They've been royally screwed over on the elf front, but can't see it in this mad vain pursuit of high elves which as OP points out have spent the last 14 years augmenting the blood elf story, lore and making them look awesome. There is no civilization development, assets, culture, nothing, like Illidari, they are an even smaller elite force that will have almost no relevance once we defeat the void - I won't count on blizzard doing anything with them when the bulk of the race has such a power base and actual civilization in Quel'thalas on the horde side.

[Aeula]

I... literally just saw this thread on the EU general forums...

That said...

Night Elves are in the shitter due to incompetent, toothless leadership that sold her people out to a 'High King'.

High Elves are basically Humans in elven skin and will likely, and indeed should, go extinct soon.

Blood Elves finally started to get interesting again in MoP with the whole war on the Isle of Thunder and the capture of the blood golems, but they've been stagnant ever since, receiving no actual lore beyond Liadrin and the Paladin pals helping everyone. That might change in BfA or... the Void Elves could get all the development. Wouldn't surprise me.

Nightborne just got introduced. They're everything good about Night Elves with the added bonus of them not being chained to the Alliance. The downside is that Blizzard fucked up when making their faces and they look hideous and nothing like the NPC's in Legion, also I can't see how their lore can advance from here. Their main story is 'done' and very much anchored to Suramar, they don't have any goals and so far we haven't seen much from them. It seems like they might be put to the wayside in BfA.

And then there's the wild card: Void Elves. Honestly, despite hating the traitors, I think these elves actually bring the most to the table right now. They're a direct window into Void lore, something that hasn't had much exploration. They also seem to grab that power hungry, selfish vibe the Blood Elves used to rock, just without the loyalty to their race.
I don't think they're token at all, I did at first but after looking at what's been revealed on the PTR, I genuinely think Blizzard wants to do something new with them and that has convinced me to have one as my main Alliance alt in BfA. I want to see where they're going to take this.
Out of all the Elf races I reckon Void Elves will be the one that gets the most development in BfA, I get a sense Blizzard are really liking what they've done with this race. I just hope they don't cave to those fucking High Elf beggars and ruin their Aesthetics by making them look like High Elves.

So overall I'd say Alliance will get the edge from Void Elves alone.

[Mirishka]

Unpopular opinion: some of you are waaaaaaaaaaay too into this 'horde vs alliance' thing. I get having a preference but all of these wannabe-analytical topics about 'Horde gets X thing thus is superior to Alliance Y thing because of this list of shit that is actually just, like, my opinion man' are just insane.

Alliance has elves. Horde has elves. Any superiority between the two, in terms of lore or models or whatever, is 100% subjective.

[Jazzhands]

Some people's desperation to "win" will never cease to amaze me.

[Beloren]

I... literally just saw this thread on the EU general forums...

That said...

Night Elves are in the shitter due to incompetent, toothless leadership that sold her people out to a 'High King'.

High Elves are basically Humans in elven skin and will likely, and indeed should, go extinct soon.

Blood Elves finally started to get interesting again in MoP with the whole war on the Isle of Thunder and the capture of the blood golems, but they've been stagnant ever since, receiving no actual lore beyond Liadrin and the Paladin pals helping everyone. That might change in BfA or... the Void Elves could get all the development. Wouldn't surprise me.

Nightborne just got introduced. They're everything good about Night Elves with the added bonus of them not being chained to the Alliance. The downside is that Blizzard fucked up when making their faces and they look hideous and nothing like the NPC's in Legion, also I can't see how their lore can advance from here. Their main story is 'done' and very much anchored to Suramar, they don't have any goals and so far we haven't seen much from them. It seems like they might be put to the wayside in BfA.

And then there's the wild card: Void Elves. Honestly, despite hating the traitors, I think these elves actually bring the most to the table right now. They're a direct window into Void lore, something that hasn't had much exploration. They also seem to grab that power hungry, selfish vibe the Blood Elves used to rock, just without the loyalty to their race.
I don't think they're token at all, I did at first but after looking at what's been revealed on the PTR, I genuinely think Blizzard wants to do something new with them and that has convinced me to have one as my main Alliance alt in BfA. I want to see where they're going to take this.
Out of all the Elf races I reckon Void Elves will be the one that gets the most development in BfA, I get a sense Blizzard are really liking what they've done with this race. I just hope they don't cave to those fucking High Elf beggars and ruin their Aesthetics by making them look like High Elves.

So overall I'd say Alliance will get the edge from Void Elves alone.

funny I copied this post from there too, but I agree with Alan except the blood elves. Nightborne really are Blood elf clones. Just the night elf version which held far more value on their side than us.

[Arrashi]

And god, i wish we lost it.

[Stelio Kontos]

I might try a Void Elf a bit, but otherwise, I generally don't like Elves, so I'm fine letting the Horde have the Elf focus.

Have fun with the fancy bois, Horde!

[StationaryHawk]

[*]The best of the night elves, their ancient civilization and their biggest arcane group we also got.

Arguably, the ones that would have sat beneath a bubble until Azeroth crumbled out from beneath them are not the best night elven civilizaiton had to offer.

[Mace]

Arguably, the ones that would have sat beneath a bubble until Azeroth crumbled out from beneath them are not the best night elven civilizaiton had to offer.

Well considering they are the last of the night elven civilization, I would say the horde got the only night elven civilization. Remember the alliance night elves had no civilization during the long vigil, they didn't rebuild anything, it was only after WC3 that Darnassus was built and it's now been destroyed with the rest of their lands gone, so I'd pretty much say they have the only night elven civilization too. With no city or lands - they have no assets, nothing. Just a little man power that can be absorbed into the human army till they're pretty much extinct. The nightborne on the other hand seem vibrant and upcoming, full of motivation and determination to mark their place in the world with nobility and strength.

The alliance night elves are a beaten folk, witht he legion gone, the night elf civilization can fluorish again, but on the horde via the nightborne. The night elves will become more of a token group like the void elves are.

- - - Updated - - -

And god, i wish we lost it.

Don't, you will get many more players coming in. Void elf is a fad, unsustainable in lore, and once people play, they'll get bored and realize blood elves have a lot more substnace to them lore wise. Illidari will have no story focus in BfA, they'll fade, void elves will become obsolete and irrelevant, and those who were fadded with them will come back to the blood elves, swelling the ranks of the horde even more.

This is a good thing, blizzard would have reversed the great alliance/horde imbalance in classic.

[Kithelle]

snip

They're in the shitter because of shitty writings....every where you go if you involve humans they're written out to be the *supreme beings* even if they're inferior they somehow always win. It's a boring formula that has been used over and over again in all kinds of media...