Originally Posted by
Kyriani
Hypothetically, let's say Blizzard adds High Elves to the Alliance. Now let's say this High Elf race uses the same popular Thalassian model and the blue and arcane eye options we are all familiar with, but other assets like hairstyles, tattoos, scars, jewelry etc. are unique and these High Elves have a unique idle stance, voices and emotes. They also have the full range of human spectrum hair colors and a few more fantasy colors like silver and blue, and all Alliance High Elf NPC's are updated to use the new assets so they are more distinct from Blood Elves. The High Elves even get a spectacular new capital city!
Now, tell me how does any of that incentivize an endgame progression minded Horde guild to switch to Alliance? The answer is... it doesn't.
Let's delve a little further into our hypothetical High Elf race. Let's say they have amazing racials that are practical and useful in every area of the game. For example, let's say the racials are a single passive that provides both a 5% bonus to reputation gains and a 5% discount from all vendors, an active racial that's basically Blink on a 2 min cooldown, and they have a passive +5% damage/healing proc identical to Entropic Embrace in function but with an arcane themed visual aura instead of changing their skin color. Oh and these High Elves can be every class in the game!
Now the Horde progression guilds are going to be incentivized to at least consider swapping because... well... any class could hop the fence and the racials are pretty impressive and useful in endgame. That the High Elves are aesthetically appealing in every way, is just icing on an already rich and delicious cake. They'd still have to consider the loss of the robust Horde endgame scene, but the lure could be enough to make them bite that bullet and hope others swap as well.
The problem here is that Blizzard doesn't want there to be a massive shift of people from Horde to Alliance. According to the last interview I saw mentioning population numbers, the populations are fairly close. It's the endgame engagement that's lacking on the Alliance. There's also the fact that the above racials would never happen because they are just too good and unless Blizz opened up every class to every race, they'd never let a single race have access to every class.. Half of human's diplomacy? The Void Elf damage proc? Having a 2 min cooldown Blink on any class? Being able to have that on any class? It would swing things drastically, and a drastic swing isn't the desired outcome.
Blizzard doesn't see Blood Elf and Nightborne aesthetics on the Horde as an issue. The Horde are doing just fine and Blizzard don't want to rock that boat beyond maybe making Alliance just alluring enough to tempt some endgame players to swap. That's as far as they want to go. They aren't going to remove any stuff that Blood Elves and Nightborne already have. They also aren't likely to ever add High Elves as their own race at this point. With the new customization options, I'm fairly certain Blizzard considers the request for Alliance High Elves fulfilled, even if some players do not. At best, more aesthetic options (and possibly class options) can be added to Void Elves to flesh out the High Elf fantasy further, and the lore (both in-game and out) can be expanded to show that the remnants of the Quel'dorei have joined the Ren'dorei.