Originally Posted by
Mace
The irony is that high elf support would have died if horde players had gotten behind making night elves attractive - but the problem is, the playerbase don't understand compromise. They want to be completely better than their rivals and take it all.
I could easily see a night elf highborne sub-race made to look very attractive and appealing using a variation of the night elf model with cool features, cool aethestics, actually being enough for alliance elf fans to rally around. It wouldn't have killed the high elf calls from those who truly want high elves for high elves' sake, but they would be a far lesser minority.
But instead the horde fanbase want their counterparts to have nothing and they everything, so naturalwent the route of trash talking and minimalising the high elves which just in turn caused the alliance lovers to crave them even more.
The night elvs are supposed to be elves, but the most attractive qualities of elves, the high magic, the exotic gorgeous look, and the exotic forests and cities are missing from them all together. Take the night elf male - goofy, goofy pose, old old faces, un-attractive beards and hairstyles. Go to their forests, full of scars, disaster brokenness, their cities all in ruins, with only novels talking about thier grandeur - that is until Legion ofc, and blizzard having one opportunity to give the night elf side something beautiful and attractive that isn't high elven, surprisingly give yet another attractive elven civilization and race to the horde.
And blizzard expect the alliance to be happy with purple blood elves in a slap dash story, kicked out of the High home with noting cool or substantial to them except for the dark dracula vibe which is admittedly quite niche.
It's so messed up. But htis is what happens when you pander to lusts rather than do what is sensible for the game. And the snesible thing would have been gorgeous nightborne or highborne going the alliance way, built around the alliance elven group lore, just like Suramar was, and attractive enough to have them stop coveting their neighbours' elves. ANd now we've ended up with the horde gifted everything attractive about the elves.
People don't play elves for savagery and feral bestiary - if those exist they are nich flavours - it's something you play another type of race for. Or you confine it to a class idnetity rather than the entire race. People play elves for beauty, perfection, magic. Otherwise why call them elves? And if you give the night elves this in their lore, but strip them of it in the flagship game presentation - why would it surprise you or anyone that your playerbase is going to covet the only elf group that actually has beauty, magic elegance on it.
As if the night elves could not have had beauty, high magic and elegance as well as druidic feral elements , a nature side and an arcane side, - i mean this is what they were initially shown as in lore - it just hasn't materialised in game.
The elven situation is so fucked up.