Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Beloren]

I play both sides. I like Blood Elves and Void Elves for various reasons. That both can have the High Elf aesthetic just makes me enjoy them more!

Can you identify what you like that’s different as a high elf than it is as a blood elf - that makes you make this statement?

[Kyriani]

Yeah, it isn't hard coded in live yet but removing customization options even on beta is a difficult thing to do because of backlash. They only have weeks at this point before they go live with the prepatch as well. It is highly improbable for them to have a sudden change of heart.

Exactly. Pre-patch is imminent. The likelihood of drastic changes at this point is minuscule, and certainly removing options that were announced in a rather specific dev post, have been in the beta and ptr for some time now, and have been garnering Blizzard praise from at least some portion of the community would just be asinine.

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Can you identify what you like that’s different as a high elf than it is as a blood elf - that makes you make this statement?

It's mostly about feelings for me tbh. I mean the aesthetics are appealing for both races but the feel of them changes for me based on faction.

With Blood Elves I feel more self-righteous, and arrogant. I stuck with my people, I stayed to make Silvermoon strong and feel the connection to the Horde. As a Blood Elf using High Elf aesthetics, I can either RP as a Blood Elf that has simply been cleansed on the fel taint over time thanks to the Sunwell, or a neutral aligned High Elf who decided to return to Silvermoon and throw my lot in with the Horde.

With Void Elves I feel more of a "newness". As a blue-skinned-tentacle-haired-member-of-Umbric's-group, I'm exploring this new "forbidden" power in a way far deeper than any Shadow Priest and dealing with the consequences of the transformation caused by Durzaan's trap and being exiled from Silvermoon. It's a different vibe from the Blood Elves they were before the transformation and joining the Alliance.

Using the High Elf aesthetics, I get to be an Alliance High Elf who's been here all this time and decided to rally under the banner of notable hero of both the Alliance and Silvermooon, Alleria Windrunner. As an Alliance High Elf, I don't have that same self-righteous and arrogant feel I get from playing my Blood Elves. These are people who forsook their homeland to stay with their allies... or were born in places like Dalaran or Stormwind and thus feel no connection to the people and culture of Silvermoon.

Both sides can be portrayed as half-elves (I'm fairly confident the ear size options will trickle down to Void Elves eventually), but Half-Elves feel weird on the Horde side since the Humans who are the other "half" aren't aligned with them. On the flip side, we are regularly reminded that the Alliance High Elves have been diluting their bloodlines by "intermingling" with Humans, which makes Half-Elves on the Alliance make a lot of sense.

[Swnem]

The Warcraft Encyclopedia
the prince's relatively quick acceptance of dire measures (e.g., draining magic from demons) is by no means characteristic of blood elves in general. The blood elves of Outland have by now discovered Kael'thas' agreement with Illidan, and they have for the most part become convinced of its necessity. Most blood elves still live on Azeroth, though. Few of these elves know of Kael'thas' pact with Illidan, and many would be horrified if they discovered it. Draining magic from small mana-bearing vermin is a far cry from draining magic from demons

playable blood elves are not the same ones that serve the legion.
Lady liadrin learned that what they did to the naaru was a bad thing and that their path was now tied to the light!

I think blood elves should have things like this

I mean, sure, if that is what you want. But, the convo you butted in on was talking about uniqueness. Holy theme is the same as the Draenei. Your racial is not holy based. It's about magic stealing. Just food for thought.

[Rhlor]

I mean, sure, if that is what you want. But, the convo you butted in on was talking about uniqueness. Holy theme is the same as the Draenei. Your racial is not holy based. It's about magic stealing. Just food for thought.

faith in the light is present in quelthalas since always. If the void elves have a void theme, the blood elves must have a light theme

[Beloren]

I mean, sure, if that is what you want. But, the convo you butted in on was talking about uniqueness. Holy theme is the same as the Draenei. Your racial is not holy based. It's about magic stealing. Just food for thought.

Is that what you view the blood elf theme as? Then what is the high elf theme?

And a race can have more than one theme. Also themes can change and evolve.

Are blood elves opening theme in TFT/TBC their defining theme or a transitory one?

Are they evolving to something different or returning to their original high elven selves?

I ask these questions because the night elf fans have done the same, multiple themes, transitory states. What’s the original definition? Multiple ones or just mana sucking?

[Eric Arthur Blair]

faith in the light is present in quelthalas since always. If the void elves have a void theme, the blood elves must have a light theme

Blood Elves should get 2-3 hairstyles with braids tipped in glowing light. Maybe even skin tones that glow a little bit or something.

[Swnem]

Is that what you view the blood elf theme as? Then what is the high elf theme?

And a race can have more than one theme. Also themes can change and evolve.

Are blood elves opening theme in TFT/TBC their defining theme or a transitory one?

Are they evolving to something different or returning to their original high elven selves?

I ask these questions because the night elf fans have done the same, multiple themes, transitory states. What’s the original definition? Multiple ones or just mana sucking?

They definitely have several themes atm. I was replying to someone saying they lack uniqueness. That is why i suggested something that could be unique to their customization. I think it fits better a fel theme than a holy theme cause it's more unique and fits with the racial ability. If you want holy bits, go right ahead and ask for that, i don't mind. It's just it won't be that unique cause draenei already have holy bits and racials. It's what made sense to me, you don't have to agree.

[Rhlor]

Blood Elves should get 2-3 hairstyles with braids tipped in glowing light. Maybe even skin tones that glow a little bit or something.

like this

[Beloren]

They definitely have several themes atm. I was replying to someone saying they lack uniqueness. That is why i suggested something that could be unique to their customization. I think it fits better a fel theme than a holy theme cause it's more unique and fits with the racial ability. If you want holy bits, go right ahead and ask for that, i don't mind. It's just it won't be that unique cause draenei already have holy bits and radials. It's what made sense to me, you don't have to agree.

The Illidari already have that Fel theme. But just because they do, shall I propose that blood elves must only have another?

I don't find it reasonable when people feel that only one race or one type of race should have one theme. I'm a pluarist in that sense.

Some people feel that blood elves are the only elves that should have a magic theme, but they were never the only ones so defined - magic was the basis of the elves and started with the night elf, the Nightborne is built entirely on that aspect of the night elf, and it is still a strong core part of the kaldorei - even though the Darnassians don't use it largely - they are still quite magical and magically based.

IF blood elves are the only heirs to the magical identity, then high elves, void elves, NIghtborne, highborne etc should be what? It's unreasonable because magic is one of the core facests of the elven race and this was defined when the elven origin story was created with the night elf race.


Holy magic is magic, the Light maybe a core facet of the Draenei, but it certainly isn't exclusive to them, just because it is does that mean that humans don't or shouldn't have it? Or no other race can be good at it?

THe Light is golden, and daylight, sun based - it's perfect for the blood elves thematically, and it makes sense for it to be a strong core magical aspect of the blood elves. The spiritual aspects and implications of it don't need to be the only facets of it. THe draenei can be focused entirely on the spirituality, but things like the sun, the day even fire can all be dimensions of the whole Light magic theme. Think of it like a dial on a clock or penduluum that swings from holy magic to fire magic - but staying on the same "light" banner theme. I think it's very fitting and thematic.

It will never be the only one because of the blood elves' heavy arcane origin and lore, even if it is largely focused on now. It's something I have also realised recently, just because in-game focuses on an aspect of a race now, doesn't mean it's the only core theme.

Chances are a race has more than one core theme, and blizzard would emphasize others over time to spice things up, especailly on the bigger races. They are designed with multiple themes in mind.

AS for whether fel would be better than light? I don't think they have to compete, there is already a strong fel theme in the blood elves and the Illidari of which blood elves are half of anyway, so blood elves can get that theme without it being core to the sin'dorei main theme. It's the same as the undead theme in the San'layn and darkfallen. There is a strong blood elf membership of that undead state/theme when you switch over to the undead, it's there, you don't have to in a sense have it intrude on the silvermoon theme.

Blood elves were built into the undead and fel themes via their roles in the Illidari and scourge stories. Notice how night elves are only now getting an undead role - first via the Ravencrests in Legion and now the Dark rangers from WoT playing into the SL themes. But night elves always had a strong role in the fel theme and the arcane theme, just not via the Darnassians - the Illidari are more predominantly night elf famous , like the undead are human famous despite the strong blood elven involvements in both, and we all know the kaldorei empire , the highborne and the entire reason there is a druidism and long vigil and legion is all because of the night elf arcane stories.

But the arcane and fel don't tie into the Darnassian faction themes strongly but they are strong in the night elf race theme. Likewise fel and undeath don't tie in strongly to the sin'dorei main theme, but they are strong in the blood elf race under the undead and illidari stories.

We can comfortably say blood elves are strong in Arcane, light, fel and undeath. Night elves are strong in Nature, arcane, fel - groundwork for void and undeath is also there, though not that strongly. Nightborne, from the night elf are mainly arcane, while void elves from the blood elf are mainly void focused but they none of them stop the other from having what they all have.

[Rhlor]

look so cool

[Beloren]

look so cool

Loving it. It’s the main reason I don’t care void elves have our skin tones.

They don’t realise it, but by allowing BElves to have blue eyes, they made High elves redundant permanently and removed the last possible threat to horde population their playability could cause.

The shared model silhouette isssue was broken thoroughly in 3 stages

1. When BGs also opened up to same faction bouts Relevant to the lousy because world pvp had stopped being relevant.
2. Pandaren were a shared race
3. Void elves became playable

These 3 made arguments of high elves being problematic on silhouette basis irrelevant and each actually opened a door.

From this point on, the bigger gain was actually blood elves getting blue eyes rather than void elves getting Hugh elf skin tones.

But I bet you very few fully realise this here.

[Kyriani]

I'd say that what was the "bigger" gain is really subjective. I mean... for someone like me who plays both sides, I feel like I personally got the "biggest" gain because now I can be a "High Elf" on either side.

I'd imagine those who play exclusively Alliance (and in particular have been pushing for High Elves for years) feel like they got the "biggest" gain since the skin tones were probably the biggest hurdle, with hairstyles and colors likely coming during SL's content patches.

I'm not sure playable Alliance High Elves were ever a "threat" to the Horde population... not that the Horde population was in any danger of becoming a minority. With that said, I've seen quite a few of those who play exclusively Horde (and particularly Blood Elves) feel a bit shortchanged by the customizations on offer. Sure, many are happy about the blue eyes, but the glut of female only jewelry and not much beyond 3 new hairstyles/colors/beards and 2 ear sizes didn't seem to impress many. There's also some saltiness over the fact that Void Elves now have 2 themes while Blood Elves still only have one. If Blizzard were to give Blood Elves the Dark Ranger/San'layn skin/eyes, that would address this perceived imbalance and make at least a few players happy.

[Strippling]

It would make the most sense to add undead elves as a forsaken option rather than blood elves. Lorewise dark rangers were members of the forsaken and the forsaken included elves.

I'm not disputing the lore reasoning behind making dark rangers a forsaken option. Logic tells me though that given blood elves have the model blizzard would likely go down the route of just giving them the option (if they end up deciding to give the dark ranger options in the first place)

[FlubberPuddy]

They don’t realise it, but by allowing BElves to have blue eyes, they made High elves redundant permanently and removed the last possible threat to horde population their playability could cause.

I don't think people that want Alliance High Elves care about what Blood Elves have.

I know I personally do not.

Though the reverse seems to be the case based on how many brought up Blood Elves not feeling unique anymore due to sharing skins with another playable option.

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I'd say that what was the "bigger" gain is really subjective. I mean... for someone like me who plays both sides, I feel like I personally got the "biggest" gain because now I can be a "High Elf" on either side.

I'd imagine those who play exclusively Alliance (and in particular have been pushing for High Elves for years) feel like they got the "biggest" gain since the skin tones were probably the biggest hurdle, with hairstyles and colors likely coming during SL's content patches.

I'm not sure playable Alliance High Elves were ever a "threat" to the Horde population... not that the Horde population was in any danger of becoming a minority. With that said, I've seen quite a few of those who play exclusively Horde (and particularly Blood Elves) feel a bit shortchanged by the customizations on offer. Sure, many are happy about the blue eyes, but the glut of female only jewelry and not much beyond 3 new hairstyles/colors/beards and 2 ear sizes didn't seem to impress many. There's also some saltiness over the fact that Void Elves now have 2 themes while Blood Elves still only have one. If Blizzard were to give Blood Elves the Dark Ranger/San'layn skin/eyes, that would address this perceived imbalance and make at least a few players happy.

1000% all of this lol

[Strippling]

2) Void elves deserved fair skin options because of Alleria.

No they didn't. That's like saying dwarf players deserve a diamond skin option because Magni is a diamond dwarf. Furthermore, forsaken players had sylvanas as their faction leader for 15 years and they never had the option to look like her. Forsaken also have Calia and even Derek Proudmoore in their ranks, neither of which forsaken players can look like. Finally, Alleria underwent a different transformation to the playable void elves. Void elves don't deserve special treatment that hasn't been afforded to other races that have been around much longer.

Alas, they got the skins and that's that. But they don't deserve to "look like Alleria" when the lore doesn't support this and we have plenty of other racial leaders that have customization options not available to the player character. Racial leaders are made to look distinct in many cases.

Explain how BEs are entitled to anything because of VEs getting fair skin options.

Show me where I used the words "blood elves are entitled"? What I said is that blood elves should get options fitting to their theme. This includes farstrider options (tattoos and feathers), runic markings (like the box cover art), and optionally dark ranger customizations (which alternatively I'd be fine as being an option for forsaken).

Also if BEs get farstrider options, then so should VEs. Since the umbral rangers are former farstriders.

I'll respond in the same spirit that you seem to exhibit.... "void elves don't deserve farstrider options if blood elves get them". Farstriders are a blood elven organization. Void elves can get tattoos sure, how about they fit the theme of the race though... the void. Maybe they can have tattoos similar to LFD but in "voidy" colors?

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Trust me, if you played horde or just gave horde a chance, you’d feel no need for the high elf.

But maybe it’s the horde you really hate, not the Thalassian, and being on the alliance makes all the difference.

I mean this is just not true as a general statement? Like let's be honest, it shouldn't be hard to understand after... 1k pages if discussion that High Elves and Blood Elves have different contexts, and simply hit different. And while for many people the faction divide is a detriment to what races they play, for others, it really isn't, and the change of context itself offers a change of fantasy -obviously-

Like that's really hard to understand to me, cause at the end of the day it's elf evident that High/Blood elven diametrical politics and loyalties obviously give them a very different context. So wile I find perfectly understandable that's not something that interests you, I can't fathom the lack of -empathy- to understand that such thing is interesting for other people that... aren't you.

It's like after all these years people like you still struggle to understand why others like High Elves on the first place, and at this point I really don't know if it's just utter bias or a failure of even approaching the conversation with an open mind.

[Strippling]

That's a good point. I totally forgot about green orcs. Not exactly what i had in mind though. I was thinking about something more vivid like the void effects in void elves. Shinier stuff, not just the green skin.

Blood elves were never extreme with fel usage though, and as soon as the sunwell was restored they went back their to prior way of life. Blood elves were even introduced with purely arcane racial traits (not fel) and also had the blood knight/farstrider theme amongst their ranks.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I'd say that what was the "bigger" gain is really subjective. I mean... for someone like me who plays both sides, I feel like I personally got the "biggest" gain because now I can be a "High Elf" on either side.

I'd imagine those who play exclusively Alliance (and in particular have been pushing for High Elves for years) feel like they got the "biggest" gain since the skin tones were probably the biggest hurdle, with hairstyles and colors likely coming during SL's content patches.

I'm not sure playable Alliance High Elves were ever a "threat" to the Horde population... not that the Horde population was in any danger of becoming a minority. With that said, I've seen quite a few of those who play exclusively Horde (and particularly Blood Elves) feel a bit shortchanged by the customizations on offer. Sure, many are happy about the blue eyes, but the glut of female only jewelry and not much beyond 3 new hairstyles/colors/beards and 2 ear sizes didn't seem to impress many. There's also some saltiness over the fact that Void Elves now have 2 themes while Blood Elves still only have one. If Blizzard were to give Blood Elves the Dark Ranger/San'layn skin/eyes, that would address this perceived imbalance and make at least a few players happy.

100% agreed. And as long as BE's still have paladins and demon hunters, the notion of a BE exodus to the alliance is highly unlikely, to put it mildly.

[Rhlor]

I'd say that what was the "bigger" gain is really subjective. I mean... for someone like me who plays both sides, I feel like I personally got the "biggest" gain because now I can be a "High Elf" on either side.

I'd imagine those who play exclusively Alliance (and in particular have been pushing for High Elves for years) feel like they got the "biggest" gain since the skin tones were probably the biggest hurdle, with hairstyles and colors likely coming during SL's content patches.

I'm not sure playable Alliance High Elves were ever a "threat" to the Horde population... not that the Horde population was in any danger of becoming a minority. With that said, I've seen quite a few of those who play exclusively Horde (and particularly Blood Elves) feel a bit shortchanged by the customizations on offer. Sure, many are happy about the blue eyes, but the glut of female only jewelry and not much beyond 3 new hairstyles/colors/beards and 2 ear sizes didn't seem to impress many. There's also some saltiness over the fact that Void Elves now have 2 themes while Blood Elves still only have one. If Blizzard were to give Blood Elves the Dark Ranger/San'layn skin/eyes, that would address this perceived imbalance and make at least a few players happy.

I am disappointed, most of the races have tattoos and scars but not us, only 3 hairstyles and 3 beards is ridiculous!

[Kyriani]

I am disappointed, most of the races have tattoos and scars but not us, only 3 hairstyles and 3 beards is ridiculous!

I do have to agree. Blood Elves really should have gotten more than just a bunch of jewelry that will mostly remain unseen or unused because it doesn't match the character's transmog.