Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Traycor]

There is just nothing to support that. Heck, there is strong evidence to support the exact opposite. Kael'thas and his group of blood elves were helping the alliance against the scourge in Lordaron, their missions took place in Dalaran.

Great chatting with you Corazona, you're fun to talk to!

That's why I separated out the Blood Elves that followed Kael'Thas. These elves came from all over, including the elves who were away. The ones who followed him became the villainous Blood Elves of WoW (not the playable ones). So they are seperate from the Silver Covenant as well as the playable Silvermoon Blood Elves.

You can't just go "This is where they're all from, they're all just some very distinct groups that have been separate for a long time and stayed that way" they're all the same race, the same culture with minor variation in their backgrounds that ended up separating in the aftermath of the third war.

I can agree with that. I'm talking in generalities about the overall groups. While we've heard of High Elves leaving Silvermoon during the whole Blood Elf thing, we've had no indication that a mass exodus of 10% of the population left. (It's actually greater than 10% of the city's population, since the Silvermoon Blood Elves are only 75% of the remaining Thallasians. That would mean one in every 7.5 left.

Nothing we've seen supports that idea. The High Elves as a whole were already gone. The descriptions of those who left seemed to indicated small bands of non combatants. These would be some of the High Elf NPCs that don't see action and wouldn't be playable even with a High Elf Allied Race.

The lodges have nothing to do with those forces. The lodges were initially some elven forces positioned in various places so the elves could keep tabs on the world, they existed before the second war and after it they mostly stayed on the side of the alliance after the third war but there is just no evidence that the token force from WarII has anything to do with them.

By you're very description, it 100% indicates that the lodges were part of this token force. They were there to get involved in the world. There's no reason to assume they just stayed in the lodge while other elves traveled from far away to go help. The fact that they later stayed and separated from their people further supports this.

The token force was just some loyal soldiers obeying their king's order to pretend that they supported the alliance. There is just no reason to believe they were out there because of their conviction that helping the alliance was right. Nothing to tell us that any of them volunteered and didn't want to go back home afterwards (unlike the forces commanded by Alleria which all decided that they'd rather support the alliance)

I will concede that this point is debatable. However, we have no indication that the elves who went were 'pretending'. In fact, the actions of Alleria and her High Elves strongly indicates just the opposite. I do agree not all of them were being pious or whatever. There was probably a lot of pragmatism involved in their actions.

Every indication is that the Silvermoon Blood Elves didn't want to be involved, and stayed in their own lands.

Thanks for taking the time to respond Corazona!

[DeicideUH]

I need to remember that not all Dalarani high elves remained high elves. The Sunreavers are probably mostly made of former Dalaran citizens as well.

Nothing is absolute, what we can speculate is on general behavior. I'd say:
Elves from the lodges, Dalaran, Alliance Expedition, former 2nd War soldiers that didn't went home mostly remained high elves, but not all of them.
Elves from Silvermoon mostly became blood elves, but not all of them.
Some blood elves went back to being high elves after Kael'thas introduced the new teachings, but these are few.
Some high elves became blood elves after Kael'thas new teachings, but these are also few.

[Traycor]

I need to remember that not all Dalarani high elves remained high elves. The Sunreavers are probably mostly made of former Dalaran citizens as well.

Nothing is absolute, what we can speculate is on general behavior. I'd say:
Elves from the lodges, Dalaran, Alliance Expedition, former 2nd War soldiers that didn't went home mostly remained high elves, but not all of them.
Elves from Silvermoon mostly became blood elves, but not all of them.
Some blood elves went back to being high elves after Kael'thas introduced the new teachings, but these are few.
Some high elves became blood elves after Kael'thas new teachings, but these are also few.

Agreed. Well said.

[Aldo Hawk]

Sure, sounds good! Gotta give those High Elves a proper rival/enemy, after all. Who better than their oldest and most hated one?

The problem here is that i don't know if blood elves would be comfortable with forest trolls in their side, at least Zandalari are explained (and playable pandaren are not the pandaria ones).

But talking as a blood elf player myself, i prefer to fight high elves than void elves btw, blood elves are the proper rival to alliance high elves.

[Enkrypt]

Man, i can't understand this obssession some people here have for Ion and every single word he says.
He is not president of Blizzard company, and everything he or any other Blizzard employee say doesn't mean it is the final word from Blizzard related to any issue for ALL ETERNITY.

Trust me, some of us have an equally hard time understanding the obsession to have the Blood Elf race available on the Alliance side with the simple difference of blue eyes. Especially when what most of you want is already available in game, just on the different faction.

I'm open-minded, trust me, especially within the boundaries of a video game. It is the High Elfers that are not open-minded, in my experience. Why? Because most of you just outright refuse to play the faction that has the race you want. Instead, you pretend your campaign to get High Elves on the Alliance is like some righteous crusade that Blizzard will inevitably have to give in to.

The most recent hilarity is that the statement that was made saying "Feedback has been passed along." is like some MAJOR shift in their stance, when it's easy to see it's just to placate the foaming-at-the-mouth masses who grow increasingly irrational in their desire to have access to a race that is currently available in game. The reason it's only available to the Horde is quite clear. But delusions of grandeur do typically make it hard to see very rational things. Keep saying things like, "Alliance will get Silvermoon, and Horde will get Exodar..." LOL. Sure thing. Maybe one day all your fantasy dreams will come true.

Maybe.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

The problem here is that i don't know if blood elves would be comfortable with forest trolls in their side, at least Zandalari are explained (and playable pandaren are not the pandaria ones).

But talking as a blood elf player myself, i prefer to fight high elves than void elves btw, blood elves are the proper rival to alliance high elves.

I mean it sort of didn't stop being friends with the Darkspear trolls. Yes it's a different tribe but they are still trolls nonetheless, so honestly the animosity is still there or rather should be. I wouldn't mind Forest Trolls on the Horde either. Them going the path of the Zandalar or just the smartest of them would tell the rest of them to suck it up and for the sake of the trolls they must join the Horde.


I don't see Forest Trolls being a race anytime soon though.

Trust me, some of us have an equally hard time understanding the obsession to have the Blood Elf race available on the Alliance side with the simple difference of blue eyes. Especially when what most of you want is already available in game, just on the different faction.

I'm open-minded, trust me, especially within the boundaries of a video game. It is the High Elfers that are not open-minded, in my experience. Why? Because most of you just outright refuse to play the faction that has the race you want. Instead, you pretend your campaign to get High Elves on the Alliance is like some righteous crusade that Blizzard will inevitably have to give in to.

Because obstinate responses like these ignore the very obvious reason. They don't want to be on the faction of the Orcs, Tauren and Trolls. They recognize the old WCII WCIII themes and wanted that but got shat on as early as BC.

[Traycor]

Since you seem kin on in-game references here is a excerpt from an in-game wow book "As part of its northern campaign, the Horde succeeded in burning down the borderlands of Quel'Thalas, thereby ensuring the elves' final commitment to the Alliance's cause." For more details you'll indeed have to read chronicles of the Tides of Darkness novels.

With regards to the WarII game itself that impression is mostly due to the limitations of the time but it was part of the storyline nevertheless. You had to play the Horde campaign to see the details of why the elves decided to join (the burning of Quel'thalas) while in the Alliance campaign I believe you only got a brief "Okay, the elves are joining now" during a naval mission briefing which didn't necessarily detail the circumstances of why the main army elven army joined the fold. I wouldn't fault anyone for thinking "well that must be the same elves that were with us since the start and not reinforcement from silvermoon".

Great stuff!

[Aldo Hawk]

I mean it sort of didn't stop being friends with the Darkspear trolls. Yes it's a different tribe but they are still trolls nonetheless, so honestly the animosity is still there or rather should be. I wouldn't mind Forest Trolls on the Horde either. Them going the path of the Zandalar or just the smartest of them would tell the rest of them to suck it up and for the sake of the trolls they must join the Horde.


I don't see Forest Trolls being a race anytime soon though.



Because obstinate responses like these ignore the very obvious reason. They don't want to be on the faction of the Orcs, Tauren and Trolls. They recognize the old WCII WCIII themes and wanted that but got shat on as early as BC.

In eversong there is a quest to avenge a Darkspear that got caught up by forest trolls, and those two aren't the same by any means, darkspear were horde and blood elves joined the horde, and later Vol'jin refused to join the "troll empire rising again" movement, refusing to join zandalari and forest trolls altogether.

What i want to say is that the relation between blood elves and darkspear aren't remotely comparable with the relation with forest trolls or zandalari, each one of those are different in the lore.

Forest trolls could be a cool race to play? of course! but new lore must be written for that, the troll wars were a huge event.

[Traycor]

The problem here is that i don't know if blood elves would be comfortable with forest trolls in their side,

I wish we had more of this in game. It would make for great storytelling to have groups within the same faction that hate each other. I can see Blood Elves and Forest Trolls staring each other down and bickering at a war meeting, disrupting things. Maybe one group disobeys orders because they despise their "allies".

There could be back-stabbing and betrayal. "We would have won if the Forest Trolls weren't here. They have ruined the once proud Horde!" Pure storytelling gold.

We could have quests that involve stopping relations from breaking down and possibly even forcing the groups to work together through diplomacy, coercion, or blackmail.

We should have more of this on both Alliance and Horde.

[Syegfryed]

Forest trolls could be a cool race to play? of course! but new lore must be written for that, the troll wars were a huge event.

you guys are confusing the amani with the forest trolls as a whole

forest troll is a subrace of trolls, amani is a tribe/empire of forest trolls

the amani would never join, but the revantusk, a tribe of forest trolls is already horde.

regardless this have nothing to do with the HE thing, people are just stretching

[Aeluron Lightsong]

In eversong there is a quest to avenge a Darkspear that got caught up by forest trolls, and those two aren't the same by any means, darkspear were horde and blood elves joined the horde, and later Vol'jin refused to join the "troll empire rising again" movement, refusing to join zandalari and forest trolls altogether.

What i want to say is that the relation between blood elves and darkspear aren't remotely comparable with the relation with forest trolls or zandalari, each one of those are different in the lore.

Forest trolls could be a cool race to play? of course! but new lore must be written for that, the troll wars were a huge event.

It's just they are the same race but...different species I guess? I mean I already would look at High Elf and Blood Elf history being pretty much intertwined, just going different paths.

[Aldo Hawk]

you guys are confusing the amani with the forest trolls as a whole

forest troll is a subrace of trolls, amani is a tribe/empire of forest trolls

the amani would never join, but the revantusk, a tribe of forest trolls is already horde.

regardless this have nothing to do with the HE thing, people are just stretching

I just found this in wowwiki https://wow.gamepedia.com/Amani_tribe and http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Forest_troll

Forest trolls and the amani tribe are correlated, i don't know that much about it but is the first impression that it gives.

Sorry for deviate the discussion, but it just appeared and seemed interesting to me.

[Syegfryed]

Forest trolls and the amani tribe are correlated, i don't know that much about it but is the first impression that it gives.

i mean sure they are correlated, like i said, the amani tribe/empire is formed by forest trolls

all amani are forest trolls, but not all forest trolls are amani

like the darkspear tribe, just a tribe of jungle trolls

[Obelisk Kai]

He's addressing it!

HIGH ELVES RULED OUT

[Deleted]

Straight from the horse's mouth, high elves are blood elves. Get over it, play horde if you want to play high elf.

[Kereberus]

Confirmed in Q&A they're just Blood Elves.

[THEORACLE64]

And now this thread can end.

[Maljinwo]

/grabs popcorn

This is going to be great

[Bigby]

Blizzard can and have changed their minds on a whim. So eh, odds are just as high now as they ever were.

[Sign]

adiós, adieu, addio, adeus. ...
aloha. ...
arrivederci. ...
ciao. ...
auf Wiedersehen. ...
au revoir. ...
bon voyage. ...
sayonara.

Roll horde High Elves are playable hahaha gj Ion my boi !