Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[ls-]

How much you wanna bet if they kill her off this expansion you'll be back shouting "Horde Favoritism" the next expansion?

Oh, if we're going to kill her, people will be saying that the raid where we kill Sylvanas and another batch of prominent Horde figures is yet another example Horde bias. After all people used and still use SoO as an example of Horde bias, lol.

If we, however, don't kill her in BfA or ever, people will be saying that it's Horde bias because Blizz will once again let evul Horde character live.

#EverythingIsHordeBias

[Deleted]

I just wanted to throw this in here, instead of starting a new thread since it involves mostly all this topic going on. I know there has been tuns of poll's this was just a try at a updated one with some of the newer information from beta/novels/comic's etc and just try give a more varied variety than most other polls which are just a broad Horde and Alliance allied races. This is just Alliance It's fine if you disagree with the poll I just wanted to try see updated information.

https://www.strawpoll.me/15777306/r

[protip]

I just wanted to throw this in here, instead of starting a new thread since it involves mostly all this topic going on. I know there has been tuns of poll's this was just a try at a updated one with some of the newer information from beta/novels/comic's etc and just try give a more varied variety than most other polls which are just a broad Horde and Alliance allied races. This is just Alliance It's fine if you disagree with the poll I just wanted to try see updated information.

https://www.strawpoll.me/15777306/r

You're not going to get very accurate data from posting in this thread, just saying.

[Sigxy]

I just wanted to throw this in here, instead of starting a new thread since it involves mostly all this topic going on. I know there has been tuns of poll's this was just a try at a updated one with some of the newer information from beta/novels/comic's etc and just try give a more varied variety than most other polls which are just a broad Horde and Alliance allied races. This is just Alliance It's fine if you disagree with the poll I just wanted to try see updated information.

https://www.strawpoll.me/15777306/r

Why so many elves? :< Don't get me wrong, I love elves, but why so many elves as options?

[Zulkhan]

Reveal of Forsaken who don't want to keep fighting the Alliance and are sick of Sylvanas

No, those Forsaken simply had relatives in the Alliance and were willing to defect in order to stay with them, nevermind the fact that these Forsaken not only are a minority but a basically "erased" minority after the events of BfA.

Characters like Saurfang who actively protest or ditch Sylvanas.

That's widely unrelated.

Sylvanas' continuation of dragging the Horde into Villain territory that will inevitably swing back.

The Horde doing questionable stuff will hardly put Sylvanas in any danger if it's not going to be followed by a palpable development marking Sylvanas as an actual villain.

The main thing is that Calia was turned undead though. I mean, why the hell would they bring her back AND make her undead for any reason than that?

Who knows, to develop the "Naaru are good-intentioned tyrants" plot since Calia is more or less a pawn of them?

- - - Updated - - -

Why so many elves? :< Don't get me wrong, I love elves, but why so many elves as options?

"Snow Elves"

I fucking hope that shit ain't anything serious, because if it is...oh boy.

[FlubberPuddy]

I just wanted to throw this in here, instead of starting a new thread since it involves mostly all this topic going on. I know there has been tuns of poll's this was just a try at a updated one with some of the newer information from beta/novels/comic's etc and just try give a more varied variety than most other polls which are just a broad Horde and Alliance allied races. This is just Alliance It's fine if you disagree with the poll I just wanted to try see updated information.

https://www.strawpoll.me/15777306/r

Like a few others have stated. You won't get accurate data here.

You actually could make a thread about this like how there is a Horde one asking Horde players for their next allied race. This would probably give you a better and closer to objective look at which currently asked for allied races the Alliance players want.

I like the way you worded it though "Current asked for races" that's a good way to focus the discussion and choices.

- - - Updated - - -

Why so many elves? :< Don't get me wrong, I love elves, but why so many elves as options?

I love elves

That's why

[Sigxy]

"Snow Elves"

I fucking hope that shit ain't anything serious, because if it is...oh boy.

We're entering the realms of Elder Scrolls with how many types of elves there are. Or "Dragons & Demons" which had 18 types of elves.

There's no english version of this sadly but, they're there.

http://www.svenskarollspel.nu/wikia/...lvsl.C3.A4kten

That's why

There IS such a thing as "too much of something good". :<

[FlubberPuddy]

There IS such a thing as "too much of something good". :<

People currently asking for it at this moment, does not necessarily mean it's something that needs to be released ASAP. All it is, is letting Blizzard know "hey there's still this desire for this thing."

Whether you or others wish to believe it's a request that'll never happen is a-ok.

It still isn't going to stop those who wish to have it from requesting it. Nor will it stop those hoping for it to happen someday to continue having a hope for it even they stop talking about it for the moment.

All of this is ultimately: We'd still like High Elves. And that's information they can choose to go forward with or not in the future. It was never meant for right now.

Everyone understands Elf Fatigue. But as I told someone else, I'm happy that for sure we're not going to get more purple/blue elves if elves come around again. Especially on Alliance. That is enough to keep me happy

[Deleted]

What is the matter on BE having BE things?

Well, this is crucial.

With Blood Elves being Blood Elves again, argument of them fulfilling the same archetype is lost. With High Elves being playable - Blood Elves can not be forced to imitate classic elves anymore, and have to become unique again.

Erosion of Blood Elf concept is the other side of the coin of not allowing for playable High Elves. Reversing one of them, reverses both.

Yep, sorry @JdRobespierre - I find his argument more compelling than yours.

No need to be sorry, however You probably acknowledge, that I won't agree.

As for me - Elves who mess with forbidden magical practices, and do not stand with classical alliances are not filling the niche, and I found perfectly understandable, that they are not recognized as such.

bring nothing unique to the game

Again - fully depends on way of implementation. Concepts from begging of this thread brings quite much. And You still forgot about bonus from telling close parallel stories.

Undead Elves.

Going to be probably playable very soon. I just hope, that more altered to Nosferatu appearance, than just reskined.

Void Elves are closer to High Elves than Nightborne are to night elves. If you're honestly going to argue that they're the same, you should have no problem accepting Void Elves as a substitute. It's not a deflection, it's a issue of degree.

It's issue of different dimensions. In terms of look - Void Elves are closer. In terms of motifs and themes - they are much further.

Except that Blizzard has brought up the population issue themselves on nearly every occasion they've talked about High Elves in depth.

Well, bringing some argument do not proves yet, the brought argument was honest answer. We are already after bringing this argument, and mostly already know, that it was not honest.

This entire issue could be resolved if they adjusted the lore and gave the Void Elves Alleria's model/skins (with a sliding scale for levels of corruption).

Could not. Ass Void Elves are straight opposite of classical elf theme. It could be solves, if there was will to listen what High Elf fans actually are about.

https://www.strawpoll.me/15777306/r

As much, as I like High Elves, I have to admit, that posting such poll would be rather more honest in this thread...

There IS such a thing as "too much of something good". :<

Maybe, but there are still lacks there. There is for example no Sea Elves - and I could easily think about three different concepts of Sea Elves...

And there is no Nightfallen. Recently I got to conclusion, that if the Horde got cured Nightborne, then Alliance should got some uncured ones, as it needs something less shinny anyway.

[Hawkknight97]

I just wanted to throw this in here, instead of starting a new thread since it involves mostly all this topic going on. I know there has been tuns of poll's this was just a try at a updated one with some of the newer information from beta/novels/comic's etc and just try give a more varied variety than most other polls which are just a broad Horde and Alliance allied races. This is just Alliance It's fine if you disagree with the poll I just wanted to try see updated information.

https://www.strawpoll.me/15777306/r

Storm Elves and Snow Elves?

It would be kind of interesting to see concept art of those or unless they have same awesome concept art like this thread.

Just wondering.

[Deleted]

Storm Elves and Snow Elves?

It would be kind of interesting to see concept art of those or unless they have same awesome concept art like this thread.

Just wondering.

Well - Snow Elves could be inspired on encountered in Elder Scrolls. However there are also similar elves in old "Spellforce: the Breath of Winter". I always liked elven and dark elven architecture from this game -







I also would love to also see pure black eyes from Spelforce Dark Elves in Warcraft Void Elves, as I mentioned here in first post -





Sorry for not having awesome concepts

[Hawkknight97]

Well - Snow Elves could be inspired on encountered in Elder Scrolls. However there are also similar elves in old "Spellforce: the Breath of Winter". I always liked elven and dark elven architecture from this game -







I also would love to also see pure black eyes from Spelforce Dark Elves in Warcraft Void Elves, as I mentioned here in first post -





Sorry for no having awesome concepts

Nice. Snow Elves really do have a nice Architecture.

Also since we'll talking about Void Elf Customization like Pure Black Eyes for example then they might as well have this awesome looking concept art I found here: https://www.deviantart.com/art/Shado...duin-697203908

Yea sure its Anduin Art. But think of what Void Elves would look like if they have twisted dark void form kind of like the broken on Argus when going too deep into the void.

[Deleted]

Well... This is not exactly the look that I would give Void Elves myself, as I don't find that Voidscarred Broken especially convincing.

When I think about being overtaken by the Void, I see rather thing similar in shape to what Arrachi brought to the thread about unrepresented in WoW universe creatures, just in horror convention, than anime. I even planned to take a draw of how could it look like... Or at least like possessed Rasputin in Hellboy - with tentacles twisting under the skin.

Simple recolor is not scary enough for me

[matrix123mko]

Storm Elves and Snow Elves?

It would be kind of interesting to see concept art of those or unless they have same awesome concept art like this thread.

Just wondering.

Would be very interesting. I like when they make completely new race without previous lore. Of course, if they will make some longer background for them, like pandaren, not void elf story.

Everyone understands Elf Fatigue. But as I told someone else, I'm happy that for sure we're not going to get more purple/blue elves if elves come around again. Especially on Alliance. That is enough to keep me happy

I don't understand and I want more more elves for both factions.

[Deleted]

More elves is always fine. Just maybe not only purple ones all the time...

I was wondering already when they did Northrend - why there is no Snow/Frost Elves, if there are already Frostborn Dwarves and Frost Nymphs.

[FlubberPuddy]

Yeah I'm not saying no more elves should be added. I would personally love more elves. But we did just receive elves for both factions. Blizzard with their own decision making won't add anymore elves for a while, especially not when there's still some races that don't have their AR variant yet.

But yes as JdRobe pointed out, I was mainly talking about the oversaturation of blue/purple elves in the game. That I'm happy enough knowing that if/when another elf round of Allied Races comes again, we at least won't have to deal with blue/purple elves. Especially not the Alliance since they already have 2 kinds of blue/purple elves. A pale type (Void Elves) and a non-pale type (Night Elves).

[Xath]

Wow, this thread is still going? Hey Blizzard reps, it's me, the guy that fought for taller Zandalari and thanks for listening to us about that. Can you do me another favor, I was wondering if you could add blue glowing eyes to the Blood Elves like you did the golden ones. I think it would help you get the point to these people, and it is a simple addition, just an emission color change on a model. 320 pages so far, I don't get it.

Let me fix that for you

"Hey blizzard reps thanks for listening to me about taller Zandalari now you mind pissing off 45% of your customer base to stomp on the alliance again and say go horde? I know a lot of alliance players are quitting but not all of them have yet let's fix that"

[Deno]

Let me fix that for you

"Hey blizzard reps thanks for listening to me about taller Zandalari now you mind pissing off 45% of your customer base to stomp on the alliance again and say go horde? I know a lot of alliance players are quitting but not all of them have yet let's fix that"

Assumption in your argument: All of the alliance player base is pissed off because high elves aren't added. Common sense simply says that's BS.

[Gurluas]

There is one candidate to become Snow elves in wow, the Shandaral elves. Currently to our knowledge they all died, but what if some survived underground or in hiding?
They'd be crystallized elves, immune to the cold.

They'd be visually similar to the Crystal Dryads.


Essentially, they'd Highborne who were crystallized by the Arcane explosion but somehow survived and retained their sanity.
They'd have no problem with the Cold due to being made of crystal, since the explosion they relocated to the most remote corners of Northrend, building beautiful crystalline structures in the icy wastes.



Had we gotten this instead of Void elves I'd have been friggin happy, I love Snow elves, and they wouldn't be locked into using the Void or being emos.

[Obelisk Kai]

And what made them to stop adding VE and Lightforged Draenei?

And Mulgore Tauren, Darkspear Trolls, Gnomes, Steamwheedle Goblins, Exodar Draenei...

Is not about authority of Blizzard (shielding behind that is pity to be honest), is about looking at what exists and compare, you can't simply say the number of population of a race is a problem, and then avoid the fact that HE may be 10 or 20 times more numerous than VE.

The population issue, is not an issue anymore, at least for allied races.

Your retreat to the retort about using an authority on this matter, i.e. the author, only serves to illustrate the poverty of your own position. I make no apologies for using the sources that support my positions, nor am I going to tie my hands in this debate because the pro High Elf community has literally nothing equivalent in retort.

On every occasion Blizzard has spoken about High Elves in detail in the past decade and a half, they have pointed out their rarity and their near extinction. Two of those occasions were even post the addition of Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei.

Either you are right from your flawed observations in game and your attempt to make them square with your own pre-conceived biases, or Blizzard is correct and the reason they keep bringing up the population issue in regards to High Elves alone is that they mean what they say and there really are too few High Elves to bother about.

If and when Blizzard changes their mind on this issue, we will all know and you will be free to use that as much as you wish. However to unilaterally declare 'The population issue, is not an issue anymore, at least for allied races.' when the population issue was cited twice in the Allied Race era as one of the reasons for NOT granting playable High Elves is hubris.

You don't have the authority to make a declaration like that yet.

- - - Updated - - -

Ok great tauren and trolls got few little stories, doesn't change the fact that high elves have gotten more attention. Also again, allied races, DI dwarves are "story props" in that case.

High Elves have never gotten attention. The point is High Elves have never participated in or fronted a story that was primarily about High Elves. They have always been props to someone else's story.

And as for the Dark Iron being story props, they have several zones in classic content dedicated to them. They had the scenario in Mists of Pandaria where they attempted to prove their worth to the Alliance. Their return to Ironforge under Moira constitutes a Dark Iron storyline. None of that holds true for Alliance High Elves.

Yet this is all speculation, even if half the blood elves were to race change to high elves (which is EXTREMELY doubtful) the horde will still maintain a strong population. Blood elves are high elves, correct. High elves are also part of the alliance though, and screaming blood elf=high elf will never change that fact.

The damage is not just about the development of a potential imbalance in Horde/Alliance populations. The more profound issue is the replication of the theme of a core Horde race to the Alliance. This violates the integrity of the Horde in a game where the factions derive their distinctiveness from the races that comprise those factions. It means that a Horde race, and THE most popular Horde race, becomes de facto neutral. This is unfair to the Horde faction. It is also unfair to the Blood Elves to have a bunch of Alliance players saying that they are the 'true' High Elves and that the Blood Elves are the imposters. Say what you want about Void Elves, but nobody is ever going to call them the real High Elves.

Books too, lore. High elves are almost always around in every expansion since TBC. They're interacted with or spoken about in any current timeline book.

I gave a thorough examination of your claims and debunked them. I awaited a retort to show where I was wrong. You have instead restated your incorrect reading of the game world.

High Elves are NOT present in books that place since the TBC era with the exception of Veressa in Night of the Dragon, the sole High Elf to have any kind of role in a book (and in game for that matter). You have said High Elves have played a role in every current timeline book. Can you provide examples? Links? Page numbers for references?

As for their role in every expansion since TBC, this has been thoroughly debunked. The only time period when they may have played a meaningful role was in 5.1 and 5.2 with the purge and the Isle of Thunder, and both times were to further Jaina's story and not their own.

Great we can agree to disagree then, since this is your opinion and apparently you disregard the books. I don't however.

To restate what was said above, I have no tolerance for claims that are made without support. You made a claim, I said you were wrong and I ask you again to provide proof of your blanket statement that High Elves are in every book set in the time period since the TBC era.

It is also immensely arrogant to claim I am the one disregarding the books when you have offered no evidence to support your assertion. I own most of the Warcraft novels. I'll be able to confirm any evidence you have VERY rapidly should you supply it

Yup I do support high elves being playable, also I am not wrong about their presence...you'd have to block your eyes/ears and shout while playing this game to ignore their presence.

You are completely wrong about their presence. I am open to being proven wrong, but everything I have seen or read over the years backs up Blizzard's stance that they are a rare, almost extinct group.

So yeah, again you've proven nothing, I can see you're very passionate about your opinion on how things should be but your long paragraphs are really just your opinionated babbling as to why you don't want a certain feature...that wouldn't affect you...because you wouldn't play them anyways...
Previous presence allied races: DI dwarves, Zandalari, Magh'ar, Kul'tirans. (I'm assuming you're not including Legion)

You offer no proof. You offer no evidence. You are inventing something and insisting we agree with it based only on your word without any back up.

Me? I have back up.

From the Warcraft Encyclopedia


'In consequence, there are so few high elves left on Azeroth today that they cannot be considered a race in anything other than the biological sense.'


The Pro High Elf community hasn't a scintilla of evidence supporting it's position. You are welcome to attempt to actually prove me wrong rather than just asserting it.

As for not wanting to play a High Elf, that is a lie, I am playing one right now as my main.

They're purple/blue elves, just like night elves.

The equivalent alliance race to the nightborne would have been white skinned blood elves...with blue eyes (void elves have blue eyes), but that would apparently "destroy the faction walls and cause dire consequences"?

Void elves didn't only get "some" physical differences, they're completely different, pulled out of nowhere whereas nightborne are night elves with tattoos and a shitty selection of hair options.

Nightborne use significantly different skin tones to Night Elves.

Nightborne have noticeably thinner models to Night Elves.

Nightborne are thematically as far from the druidic, arboreal Night Elves as it is possible to get.

Void Elves use different skin tones to Blood/High Elves.

Many Void Elves possess body tentacles, which Blood/High Elves do not.

Void Elves are thematically different from the cultured, light orientated Blood/High Elves.

Both races are based on a parent present within the other faction. Both are substantially different from that parent, particularly thematically.

To deny that Nightborne are significantly different from Night Elves is an argument that can only be made when someone has an agenda, that agenda being upset at not getting Alliance High Elves.

Regarding your post about population, darkspear trolls, draenei, gnomes, void elves, LF draenei, worgen, forsaken and goblins would like a word with you. There's also something called reproduction.




Even the devs debunked that whole population argument themselves.

Firstly, and this is proving to be a pattern, provide a link or source to the devs 'debunking the population argument'. Because I can link a video from just over a month ago with the Game Director bringing the population issue up.

Secondly, all those races you listed truly are low on population. And they are on the same level as the Blood Elves.

I find this the easiest argument to debunk on the matter of population, this false equivalence with the other endangered races. It presumes High Elves are equal to those groups, when it is Blood Elves (who are also endangered) that are the equivalent. And Alliance High Elves are but a fraction of the total thalassian elf population. And if all the races you've listed have many times the population of Alliance High Elves and THEY are endangered, that means the Alliance High Elves are past the point of recovery.

As for reproduction, if you've a fantasy of Alliance High Elves having High Elf babies to create a loyal population of blue eyed, white skinned thalassian elves, you can forget it. Firstly, there are too few Alliance High Elves to form the base of a sustainable population.

Secondly, the Alliance High Elves don't appear to be interested. Remember when Elisande mentioned them in the cinematic and a lot of pro High Elf supporters got supported because her acknowledgement meant 'hooray, they haven't forgotten High Elves?'.

They focused on the acknowledgement rather than what she was actually saying, that the Alliance High Elves are degrading themselves by mingling their blood with lesser races.

Which can only mean a large number of the few remaining Alliance High Elves, including their leader Veressa, are having Half Elf children.

Or if all the high elves became void elves. It would make people sad but at least the alliance high elves would have a real conclusion other than "BLOOD ELFS R HIGH ELFS PLAY HORDE OR GTFO LUL".........or if they all died. I don't like making speculations though.

While the end of the Alliance High Elves would gladden my heart, I don't see why Blizzard should eliminate a story tool just because you can't have them as a playable race. That's entitlement gone too far.