Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Aldo Hawk]

@Syegfryed Ok, let's do this.

Let's start with the post i made before you accused me of doing a false equivalence fallacy:

Then this is the first time you accuse me for it:

Next image is me demanding a justification about your accusation:

Then i'm kind enough to give a proper example of what you accused me in case you don't even care to link the definition of what a false equivalence is: Which by the way is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

Wikipedia:

A common way for this fallacy to be perpetuated is one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude, when equivalence is not necessarily the logical result.[2] False equivalence is a common result when an anecdotal similarity is pointed out as equal, but the claim of equivalence doesn't bear because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors.

After that you simply evade to justify yourself:

And reiterate on not providing any kind of proof about what you accused me:

Then, how not, i point out your evasive behavior in what is a clear 'oh no i'm cornered' situation:

And the last gyazo i'm gonna share is this one, where you insist that you already proven your accusation while... well... not proving it :

I ask you, again:

Can you please prove your accusation or coming up with an apology?

Edit: For me it seems the images doesn't show up... Well nvm you can drag them into another tab and they show.

[Strippling]

Both sides got few people whos insulting/mocking, while most here are trying to discuss normally. Yes, Obelisk Kai is normally a guy who makes great arguments, it is good to read what he writes, and I am not thinking of him when writing about the "antis". But you are not fooling anyone to think that pro-helfers are more toxic than the anti-helfers.

I acknowledged that both sides can be rude at times. What I was saying was that if you look at the last 10 pages or so, there has been unnecessary bullying towards @Obelisk Kai simply because he strongly disagrees with playable HE and makes great points as to why they shouldn't be added. I understand irritations can kick in and people can be "rude" at times, but the moment open bullying comes into play I won't tolerate that and will openly call out this sort of behavior.

It's ok to disagree, it's not ok to bully.

[Aldo Hawk]

I acknowledged that both sides can be rude at times.

You didn't, you specifically pointed 'the high elfers'.

What I was saying that if you look at the last 10 pages or so, there has been unnecessary bullying towards @Obelisk Kai simply because he strongly disagrees with playable HE and makes great points as to why they shouldn't be added. I understand irritations can kick in and people can be "rude" at times, but the moment open bullying comes into play I won't tolerate that and will openly shame those who indulge in this sort of behavior.

It's ok to disagree, it's not ok to bully.

And if you look back 500 pages you can see loads and loads and loads of bad manners against everyone, let's not get picky here, your intention is clearly to depict certain people (that, how not, you disagree with) as bully, which is total BS.

You even have to acknowledge the truth in order to not look too biased...

[Strippling]

Yet to this day there is a bunch of races that had not been added already, this is another example of having double standards for this particular matter.

Also, what you have to explain first is the idea that HE replaced VE in the first place. Since we don't have any official statement about this and if we look into the game the VE are described as BE exiles.

Dodging the question yet again. I've asked this exact same question to several high elfers and in all cases they have avoided directly answering the question.

So, I'll ask again and hopefully this time you'll answer the question directly. Please explain to me why Blizzard went out of their way to make VE an AR in place of HE? If you provide an indirect response I'll assume it's because you're too prideful to acknowledge why HE were not added (and why they never will be).

[Aldo Hawk]

Dodging the question yet again. I've asked this exact same question to several high elfers and in all cases they have avoided directly answering the question.

So, I'll ask again and hopefully this time you'll answer the question directly. Please explain to me why Blizzard went out of their way to make VE an AR in place of HE? If you provide an indirect response I'll assume it's because you're too prideful to acknowledge why HE were not added (and why they never will be).

It's not a dodged question, i answered saying the common sense thing that there is a whole bunch of potentially playable races that are not playable, and that's not a reason to say they should or couldn't be!

Also, you and nobody still didn't provided proof about because Void elves were added that leaves High elves out of the equation.

I can't answer the damn question if the premise doesn't hold any ground, please, understand me.

[Syegfryed]

@Syegfryed Ok, let's do this.

Let's start with the post i made before you accused me of doing a false equivalence fallacy

i already told you many times, comparing maghar orcs and green orcs(or even others Allied races) to BE and HE its a fale equivalence, because your claim of equivalence doesn't bear because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors. got it?

a true equivalence to the HE/BE dilemma would be two different clans(groups) of the same green orcs, like warsong and Frostwolf clan, with just different mindsets.

now you can apology yourself for doing a mistake and thinking you are right.

[Strippling]

You didn't, you specifically pointed 'the high elfers'.

When responding to someone, it helps to read thoroughly.

I know anti's can be rude too - This was from my original comment. Next time, read thoroughly.

And if you look back 500 pages you can see loads and loads and loads of bad manners against everyone, let's not get picky here, your intention is clearly to depict certain people (that, how not, you disagree with) as bully, which is total BS.

You even have to acknowledge the truth in order to not look too biased...

Again, re-read what I said before responding. This time I won't copy paste from my quote, I'll leave that for you to go back and read properly.

I acknowledged that both sides can be rude or mock. However, several people (yourself included) were blatantly ganging up and bullying Obelisk. Insults come from both sides from time to time, it's the nature of a "heated" debate. Bullying focused at an individual from several people however is going too far, and should be called out when manifested.

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It's not a dodged question, i answered saying the common sense thing that there is a whole bunch of potentially playable races that are not playable, and that's not a reason to say they should or couldn't be!

Also, you and nobody still didn't provided proof about because Void elves were added that leaves High elves out of the equation.

I can't answer the damn question if the premise doesn't hold any ground, please, understand me.

You claim to answer using "common sense". Yet "common sense" says that VE were clearly added in place of HE.

But, to assist you with answering the question, I'll re-phrase it for you. Please explain why VE were added and not HE?

[Stelio Kontos]

In my view, the best argument for Helves is the Nightborne. If the Horde can get Night Elves of merely a different political faction, I don't see why the same can't happen with High Elves. Just make the model slightly different as Blizzard did with the Nightborne. Hell, they're still close enough that it's hard to tell the difference depending on their gear.

Nightborne are just a different political faction of Night Elves that got shoehorned into the Horde. I wouldn't see any difference between that and High Elves.

I mean, personally, myself, I think we have more than enough Elves as it is. Too many in fact. But it's disingenuous to see Hordelets hiding behind the same reasoning when that means they shouldn't have been given Nightborne at all.

[Aldo Hawk]

i already told you many times, comparing maghar orcs and green orcs(or even others Allied races) to BE and HE its a fale equivalence, because your claim of equivalence doesn't bear because the similarity is based on oversimplification or ignorance of additional factors. got it?

a true equivalence to the HE/BE dilemma would be two different clans(groups) of the same green orcs, like warsong and Frostwolf clan, with just different mindsets.

now you can apology yourself for doing a mistake and thinking you are right.

Seriously? is it that?

Is not oversimplified nor ignorant. You can effectively roleplay as a Mag'har orc from Outland, while you cannot roleplay as a High elf simply because a Blood elf is not a High elf from the Alliance.

Your only basis on that is that they are a different (literally, by your own words: https://gyazo.com/588386effc077a74c68373fe4834879d ) species, while coming from someone who used the 'i'm an authority on the matter' card is double funny.

And here we have you double dipping into the different species narrative while in same breath correcting just a little bit and using race/species as interchangeable terms: https://gyazo.com/7fdadfe595bf4cb79f366229ac2de412 What a biologist damn... Hey, you may be, i'm not questioning that, but that was a super simple matter.

Also, you even failed to acknowledge that both Blood elves and Orcs had physical changes due to fel, Orcs manifesting it more vividly through their skin. No one of them became a different race, there is a reason of why Felblood Orcs and Felblood Elves exist.

For more info about that, you have the new toy Strippling gave to Obelisk to twist it, the video from 2005 of Chris Metzen speaking about characteristics of TbC and focusing a lot about Blood elves (he really likes them, wow). Heck, i'm gonna link it: https://youtu.be/O3uzFQ_n88k?t=638

Seriously, next time i suggest you to not double dip into cornering yourself of making false statements, educate a bit more about the matters you want to 'wreck some clueless people with facts and logic' with, please...

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I know anti's can be rude too - This was from my original comment. Next time, read thoroughly.

I acknowledged that both sides can be rude or mock. However, several people (yourself included) were blatantly ganging up and bullying Obelisk. Insults come from both sides from time to time, it's the nature of a "heated" debate. Bullying focused at an individual from several people however is going too far, and should be called out when manifested.

I already read that thoroughly and just saw someone specifically marking 'the helfers' as the ones who bully.

There is a big difference between pointing to something and letting something as an afterthought, a 'yes, there is that too but this other thing'.

If you want to do as if you were equal for both parties... sorry, you failed. (no, you didn't failed, you perfectly knew what you wanted to do).

You claim to answer using "common sense". Yet "common sense" says that VE were clearly added in place of HE.

That's your opinion. High elves were not 'clearly' switched in order to add Void elves.

In fact, by guessing, Void elves are Blood elves, even their /joke tells that, (maybe it's the /joke, if not, it's one of their voicelines). First comes High, then Blood, and now Void. Then, by guessing, the intention with Void elves was not to replace High elves, if not, for what we got from their own words: 'We wanted to create something cool that also resembles a Blood elf for the Alliance'. Maybe not those exact words, it's in the interview with Alex Afrasiabi and the Lost Codex.

That's common sense for you.

Please explain why VE were added and not HE?

As i wrote a few pages ago: The answer we got is that they wanted to create something cool and also something similar to a Blood elf.

That's what we know, nobody has a clue if they did that to replace the inclusion of High elves, Blizzard didn't specifically ruled them out.

[FlubberPuddy]

In my view, the best argument for Helves is the Nightborne. If the Horde can get Night Elves of merely a different political faction, I don't see why the same can't happen with High Elves. Just make the model slightly different as Blizzard did with the Nightborne. Hell, they're still close enough that it's hard to tell the difference depending on their gear.

Nightborne are just a different political faction of Night Elves that got shoehorned into the Horde. I wouldn't see any difference between that and High Elves.

I mean, personally, myself, I think we have more than enough Elves as it is. Too many in fact. But it's disingenuous to see Hordelets hiding behind the same reasoning when that means they shouldn't have been given Nightborne at all.

And it is the sole existence of Nightborne on Horde that makes what Ion said in the QA hypocritical and clearly an attempt to at the time, shut down a topic that clearly many people wanted an answer to.

He even cherry picked the question he answered which wasn't even the most upvoted High Elf question and asked in a neutral manner. Instead he chose one that focused on Void Elves and spent the most time explaining on Void Elf decision while hand-waving the High Elves to a clear intent to meme, "if you want to play a fair-skinned, blue eyed, majestic elf...sorry, the horde is waiting for you".

Blood Elves don't even have blue eyes, he was clearly poking fun at the known trolly type comments of "people just wanna play 'hitler elves' ".

Because it makes no sense to say that then have clear "purple skinned, silver eyed, night elf" being able to be played on Horde side as well.

But like I've been saying recently, I'm pretty sure with the response that from the media outlets/youtubers/known community members came from that QA, and how it only ignited the High Elf request instead of stifling it, they've shown change in how they respond to this particular topic.

Afrasiabi's "don't give up hope" is a very stark difference from the earlier in the year QA. And also again if that High Elf Discord met Ion at Blizzcon and his response holds true then even Ion has changed his tone regarding High Elves, "they won't be in BFA, but that doesn't mean they won't be in wow ever"

But I take the Discord chat/image with more skepticism because it can't be verified as well short of asking Ion if the convo is true or not (which anyone is free to do).

[Syegfryed]

Seriously? is it that?

it is

Is not oversimplified nor ignorant. You can effectively roleplay as a Mag'har orc from Outland, while you cannot roleplay as a High elf simply because a Blood elf is not a High elf from the Alliance.

thats have nothing to do with the subject.

Also you are lying, you can roleplay as a HE playing a VE just fine, the " because a Blood elf is not a High elf from the Alliance." its a nonsense and nonissue, roleplay its way more about pretend.

if you can pretend that your maghar come from outland even when they do not, you can do with VE just fine.

Your only basis on that is that they are a different species,

yes and? the only basis that is factual

while coming from someone who used the 'i'm an authority on the matter' card is double funny.

thats literally irrelevant, i said that because you became pedant saying i don't know what i was talking about when you drop the '"race is a social construct bomb"


you literally had no idea what you talked about, got corrected, and still in the mistake spit that you were right for whatever reason

And here we have you double dipping into the different species narrative while in same breath correcting just a little bit and using race/species as interchangeable terms:

yes its what i did because its right

Hey, you may be, i'm not questioning that, but that was a super simple matter.

you are free to try to prove otherwise, cause you just failed in every attempt, and your comeback of "race doesn't exist..." or "race is a social construct" didn't help your cause, just show that you are indeed, clueless about the subject

Also, you even failed to acknowledge that both Blood elves and Orcs had physical changes due to fel, Orcs manifesting it more vividly through their skin. No one of them became a different race, there is a reason of why Felblood Orcs and Felblood Elves exist.

i didn't failed i pointed then out, i said there is a big difference of you eye glow change due to the fel proximity as a reaction and literally drinking demon blood.

i pointed out that even HE that are alliance get the eye glow if they stay too much time in quel'thals for that time.

you again, using the false equivalence, trying to put the BE scenario in the same bag of the orc race corruption.

Seriously, next time i suggest you to not double dip into cornering yourself of making false statements, educate a bit more about the matters you want to 'wreck some clueless people with facts and logic' with, please...

You are clueless about facts, about biology and about the lore of the game ma dude, your obsession is clouding your judgment and you bias is showing

all my statements are true and you did nothing to refute then, just brought some irrelevant stuff who had nothing to do with the point, a well know HE tactic.

[FlubberPuddy]

My opinion is, after BFA - they're going to look at what most people are requesting in terms of Allied Races after the expansion. See what is popular, and see how it can be delivered based on them improving their on Allied Races system overall.

This 2nd batch of AR we received look much better off than the 1st batch. They've acknowledged possibility of Wildhammer Dwarves. My theory is based on how they do WH, it'll give information on how High Elves are implemented.

If they are not implemented before then in whichever way Blizzard decides to implement them.

[Aldo Hawk]

lol

Enough, i had enough with you.

You are now again trying to portray me as a social justice warrior to evade answers about videogame races, when in the first place you don't even know me to say that i'm that or even having a basis to state that i'm using a 'race is a social construct' card.

Enough, there may be people who can stand you, i did for a time trying to have -something- interesting to discuss and trying to have you backup for a damn time what you said.

But no, you again came out with -another- messy post, a thing you tend to do when facing strong opposition, just trying to blurry it away.

I'm not gonna bother with you anymore, search for another who can stand this crap.

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And also again if that High Elf Discord met Ion at Blizzcon and his response holds true then even Ion has changed his tone regarding High Elves, "they won't be in BFA, but that doesn't mean they won't be in wow ever"

But I take the Discord chat/image with more skepticism because it can't be verified as well short of asking Ion if the convo is true or not (which anyone is free to do).

That's another thing. Words directly from Ion stating High elves are not ruled out. What else is to search for?

Also, i'm skeptical too, but just for a normal cautious stance, it is not recorded on a video or something, but the guy made a photo with Ion and shared it in the discord.

[Syegfryed]

Enough, i had enough with you.

it doesn't like you had, cause i had already left the thread some pages ago, you brought me back

You are now again trying to portray me as a social justice warrior to evade answers about videogame races,

you know, thats not rly my point, i was not portraying yourself as someone who don't know about the subject, you did yourself that way, and you are the one bringing up SJW here not me.

when in the first place you don't even know me to say that i'm that or even having a basis to state that i'm using a 'race is a social construct' card.

you literally said race doesn't exist in biology and race is a social construct, i correct you, simple as that.

Enough, there may be people who can stand you, i did for a time trying to have -something- interesting to discuss and trying to have you backup for a damn time what you said.

But no, you again came out with -another- messy post, a thing you tend to do when facing strong opposition, just trying to blurry it away.

I'm not gonna bother with you anymore, search for another who can stand this crap.

you will face strong opposition when you are not talking the truth, HE/BE dilemma doesn't not equal the allied races, especially about green orcs and maghar its a false equivalence, no matter your mental gymanstic

HE/BE =/= Maghar orcs/Green orcs - Highmountain tauren/Normal Tauren
HE/BE = Frostwolf orcs/warsong orcs - Bloodhoof taurens/Dawnchaser tauren

simple as that

[Aldo Hawk]

lol again

I know you are, but what am I?

@FlubberPuddy Seriously dude i had to hear you before, it's exactly what you said, omegalul...

[Strippling]

In my view, the best argument for Helves is the Nightborne. If the Horde can get Night Elves of merely a different political faction, I don't see why the same can't happen with High Elves. Just make the model slightly different as Blizzard did with the Nightborne. Hell, they're still close enough that it's hard to tell the difference depending on their gear.

Nightborne are just a different political faction of Night Elves that got shoehorned into the Horde. I wouldn't see any difference between that and High Elves.

I mean, personally, myself, I think we have more than enough Elves as it is. Too many in fact. But it's disingenuous to see Hordelets hiding behind the same reasoning when that means they shouldn't have been given Nightborne at all.

Not comparable at all.

Since the city was first separated from the rest of the world over 10,000 years ago, they are no longer true night elves and have evolved by the Nightwell into a unique elven species.

High elfs on the other hand, have had no such transformation and are literally the exact same race as blood elfs. They are not a unique species. Additionally, the nightborne have been separated from the night elfs for 10000 years, plenty of time to form a completely different biology, culture, thematic and aesthetic to their night elf relatives. Again, high elfs however have only been separated from their blood elf kin for what, 15 years? As such, thematically, biologically, culturally and aesthetically they are the same. The only difference is political.

So I repeat, nightborne are not comparable to high elfs at all. They actually have legitimate differences to night elfs, as opposed to high elfs who have nearly no differences to blood elfs.

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High elves were not 'clearly' switched in order to add Void elves.

This is opinion. Not fact.

As i wrote a few pages ago: The answer we got is that they wanted to create something cool and also something similar to a Blood elf.

You missed a key word... when implementing AR's Blizzard specifically stated that they're looking for new and cool options. Key word being new. Alliance high elfs don't fit this category as the main high elven group (who have no differences apart from political to HE) are already playable and have been since TBC. Subsequently, high elfs are not new, they've been playable for over a decade.

[Aucald]

This conversation can address "race" as it is used in a purely WoW-centric fashion, e.g. the fantasy races of the Warcraft universe. Getting mired in a discussion of what race actually is going into the lands of Forbidden Topics and should be dropped. Any further back-and-forth as concerns real-world usage of race, racism, or ethnography is not permitted.

[Stelio Kontos]

Not comparable at all.

Since the city was first separated from the rest of the world over 10,000 years ago, they are no longer true night elves and have evolved by the Nightwell into a unique elven species.

High elfs on the other hand, have had no such transformation and are literally the exact same race as blood elfs. They are not a unique species. Additionally, the nightborne have been separated from the night elfs for 10000 years, plenty of time to form a completely different biology, culture, thematic and aesthetic to their night elf relatives. Again, high elfs however have only been separated from their blood elf kin for what, 15 years? As such, thematically, biologically, culturally and aesthetically they are the same. The only difference is political.

So I repeat, nightborne are not comparable to high elfs at all. They actually have legitimate differences to night elfs, as opposed to high elfs who have nearly no differences to blood elfs.

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This is opinion. Not fact.



You missed a key word... when implementing AR's Blizzard specifically stated that they're looking for new and cool options. Key word being new. Alliance high elfs don't fit this category as the main high elven group (who have no differences apart from political to HE) are already playable and have been since TBC. Subsequently, high elfs are not new, they've been playable for over a decade.

That was an ex post facto written to explain their model differentiation. Easily done for High Elves as well. Nightborne are still basically the same model as Night Elves.

[Aldo Hawk]

This is opinion. Not fact.

'they won't be in BFA, but that doesn't mean they won't be in wow ever'

You missed a key word... when implementing AR's Blizzard specifically stated that they're looking for new and cool options. Key word being new. Alliance high elfs don't fit this category as the main high elven group (who have no differences apart from political to HE) are already playable and have been since TBC. Subsequently, high elfs are not new, they've been playable for over a decade.

Is not High elves being playable in the Alliance something new?

Also, remember, every time an allied race gets added it does with new perks for them, from all the perspectives a playable character has.

Also, again, your own point of view is not a fact.

[FlubberPuddy]

This conversation can address "race" as it is used in a purely WoW-centric fashion, e.g. the fantasy races of the Warcraft universe. Getting mired in a discussion of what race actually is going into the lands of Forbidden Topics and should be dropped. Any further back-and-forth as concerns real-world usage of race, racism, or ethnography is not permitted.

More just quoting your post for clarity.

If we're going to use "race" is it pertains to WoW purely then there must be a set definition.

The only one found that explains it is Ornyx's explanation (which was given in response to why there aren't Human and Blood Elf Shaman). Other than his, I haven't seen any other Blizzard official give an exact description of what a "race" in WoW is, so I'm going to utilize Ornyx's statement as a CM to define "race" going forward as it pertains to WoW:

"I don't think it's about their culture not being "primitive", it's more that when you play a Human or a Blood Elf, or any other race for that matter, your character comes from a specific "faction" within that race. This lends them the ability to choose what they want to "be" when they grow up, but only insofar as what that particular society offers.

Playable Humans are always from the nation of Stormwind. Playable Blood Elves are always from Silvermoon. While it's possible for there to be "break aways" in the story and for members of those races to join "opposing factions" and learn new skills, that's not something that's on offer to player characters.

If those classes were ever added to those races, I would expect specific backstory to be created for how those races adopted those techniques and rituals, such as with gnome hunters "creating" and taming mechanical beasts."

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20759267207

And his last sentence is backed up that by that now we have playable Human Shaman (and Druids) through Kul'Tirans, who have been reiterated twice to be Human. Once by Travis Day, and then again by Alex Afrasiabi post Kul'Tiran Drust theories.

Now if someone wants to point out any other definition of "race" Blizzard has, be my guest. But currently this is the most official word on the usage of the term, race.

Every other interpretation then becomes player headcanon.