Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Ardenaso]

I'm not sure where you get the information that High Priest Vandellor was one of the most important people.

he's a member of the Convocation of Silvermoon; he's pretty much the original Liadrin

[Lumineus]

that kinda looked more like the WC3 Lordaeronian armor, they have eagles too

I mean, first of all you have to understand that the humans' armor in the RTS games is generically Alliance, otherwise the prince of Lordaeron wouldn't be strutting around wearing Stormwind iconography. Secondly... c'mon man, it has the actual Silvermoon crest as the belt buckle.

[FlubberPuddy]

I was initially unsure about the artifact shield, but it has grown on me and fits the colour scheme quite well - and I figured the high elves would use something forged from the scale of a Dragon Aspect ^.^

Looks really great! Thank you for sharing!!

Honestly I'm still surprised by how well most of the 'non-normal hair colors' look and work with the alliance high elves looks. Very much appreciate all the sharings goings on, even from the cousin faction blood elf-high elf looks

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I mean, first of all you have to understand that the humans' armor in the RTS games is generically Alliance, otherwise the prince of Lordaeron wouldn't be strutting around wearing Stormwind iconography. Secondly... c'mon man, it has the actual Silvermoon crest as the belt buckle.

Also back in WC3 times Lordaeron may have had eagles because of the high elves that were among their ranks at the time. It's why Stromgarde Warfront has weapon/armor models with eagles on them, it's a homage to the time of large groups of high elves working with the Alliance.


http://classic.battle.net/war3/human/

"The Human Alliance is a conglomeration of Humans, Elves, and Dwarves. They are the most versatile army in Warcraft III, with good ground and air troops, excellent siege capability, and powerful spellcasters."

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Considering who we're talking about here, I'm leaning more toward the idea that it was just a mistake but the guy just said that to generate buzz.

Don't discount it, but it's the sort of thing one has to consider at face value. It's just bad praxis to deem something untruthful, but also not going to consider it a strong source, specially when it's incomplete it. As I see it, is just another example of blue eyes Blood Elves, which they already are possible by the context and lore, so I really don't feel a need to question what he says.

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I think both blood elves and modern high elves (well, this alliance elf group should find their own name) were both trying to preserve an image of their kingdom as it used to be before Third War. Blood elves at first did not really felt it important, since they had to deal with threats encroaching on their lands, so they did what they thought was important for their survival. We've seen they are interested in returning to some of their traditions lately, but their heritage armor quest pretty much shows us that they will never forget what they went through. It changed them, so they no longer can be that same elves. They even don't want to be. High elves, on the other hand, had other problems. They had to cope with their addiction in their own way, with a help from the Alliance or without it. The fact that some of them resided in relative safety of Alliance cities, Dalaran or their remote lodges, gave them more space to actually uphold their old traditions and keep them. Given their low numbers, an absent leader and exposure to the human way of life eventually led to a degree of assimilation.

It is interesting that even though both groups tried to preserve themselves, both have changed fundamentally from their original forms. Both groups took something from the original high elves and had to change the rest. Perhaps, if they ever unite, they could together make Quel'thalas society similar to what it has been before, but we know it most likely won't happen.

Exactly, both groups try to honor and preserve their own interpretation of what they use to be, yet is undeniable they have changed, because they have done things Pre Third War thalassians just never had to deal with. BE and Modern High Elves -which for easy-ness sake should change their name to something else- both deal with their trauma different way, becoming different from each other, and different from what they used to be.

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I'm not sure where you get the information that High Priest Vandellor was one of the most important people. He was close friend to Liadrin's family and her mentor, and that's basically most we know of him. Not to mention that Liadrin was not really important person prior to her status of Blood Knight Matriarch. Vandellor is not mentioned in most sources and he is present only briefly during blood elf heritage armor quest, where Liadrin had to put him down. Does not strike me as one of the most powerful man in the kingdom.

There was faith in the Light among the elves of Quel'thalas, but it was not as dominant as in human kingdoms. Elves had priests, but close to none paladins. The major organisations in Quel'thalas were Farstriders and Magisters. Another thing is that quite a lot of elven priests converted to blood knights, who manipulated the Light, using it forcefuly. It does not show they had Light in some great respect or reverence at all. Elven worship of the Light get serious after restoration of Sunwell and blood elves are first to fully dedicate themselves to the Light.

Light worship just doesn't seem to be as entrenched in Pre Third War HE culture, not in the way it does for Humans and Dwarves -the RPG, as non canon as they are, states that light worship did not penetrate as deep into HE society, which is in line with the portrayals we have seen.

And what we have seen, is that yes, light worship was a thing in their society, to the point there was a High Priest, not the games nor the books present light worship as a defining part of elven life and society

he's a member of the Convocation of Silvermoon; he's pretty much the original Liadrin

I can't find a reference of Vandellor being a part of the Convocation of Silvermoon, where would that be mentioned?

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Also back in WC3 times Lordaeron may have had eagles because of the high elves that were among their ranks at the time. It's why Stromgarde Warfront has weapon/armor models with eagles on them, it's a homage to the time of large groups of high elves working with the Alliance.


http://classic.battle.net/war3/human/

"The Human Alliance is a conglomeration of Humans, Elves, and Dwarves. They are the most versatile army in Warcraft III, with good ground and air troops, excellent siege capability, and powerful spellcasters."

But is eagle symbolism meant to be of elven origin? Specially now, that eagle symbolism in HE's has been downplayed and almost retconed. Cause IMO we have the BE phoenix bird symbolism now, and I do feel that gets retrioactively used for HE stuff -such as HE banners-

That's an issue I think, that HE's aesthetics are mostly represented by just reused stuff designed for BE's, does that make sense? Like you can see Quel'thalas was designed with a lot of what should be specifically BE iconography, even when it's mean from a former time -which could be read as eagle iconography, but it feels off given it's represented with mostly BE assets, and as not been addressed by itself?

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I'm going on a limb here and throw a wild hypothesis here: Blizzard is 'seeding' a possible "void mage"-y class. I mean, the high elf sorceress has purple eyes, the color of the old void elf eyes, and then we look at Exile's March, and we have Meredy Huntswell, a dwarf mage (because she acts as the "mage trainer") who casts a void spell on you to polymorph you into an orgre.

I really do like that idea, but I don't think the evidence is there, considering the purple eyes are now on every HE female -which seems like a bug considering the texture exist for males but unused- and those purple eyes could as well be arcane based rather than void. And besides, these Sorceress were added on 7.3, when their eyes were blue.



But I always liked the clear idea that High Elf scholars are interested in the Void and in good terms with their VE kin; honestly I have been expecting for something to be done with that since Legion :/

[Ielenia]

Don't discount it, but it's the sort of thing one has to consider at face value. It's just bad praxis to deem something untruthful, but also not going to consider it a strong source, specially when it's incomplete it. As I see it, is just another example of blue eyes Blood Elves, which they already are possible by the context and lore, so I really don't feel a need to question what he says.

I'm not saying he's lying, I'm just saying that I don't believe what he is saying to be true. The guy is infamous for his storytelling, and saying "I know what it is but I'm not telling" sounds rather immature, like it's the kind of stuff a child would say to tease the other kids.

I mean, it's not like we're talking about the fate of important NPCs the likes of Anduin, Sylvanas, Thrall or Genn and revealing it would spoil major expansion plot points. It's a frigging background NPC that shows up in a single instance and then never again. I mean, what harm to the lore would it cause to say that the guy is just a high elf that deserted to the blood elves, or that he's a blood elf that got blue eyes by drinking too much Kungaloosh in one sitting?

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I really do like that idea, but I don't think the evidence is there, considering the purple eyes are now on every HE female -which seems like a bug considering the texture exist for males but unused- and those purple eyes could as well be arcane based rather than void. And besides, these Sorceress were added on 7.3, when their eyes were blue.

https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/scree...-sorceress.jpg

But I always liked the clear idea that High Elf scholars are interested in the Void and in good terms with their VE kin; honestly I have been expecting for something to be done with that since Legion :/

Which is why I never gave the idea much credit until I saw the dwarf mage in the Exiles' Reach zone casting a void spell, and that got my brain thinking.

[FlubberPuddy]

But is eagle symbolism meant to be of elven origin? Specially now, that eagle symbolism in HE's has been downplayed and almost retconed. Cause IMO we have the BE phoenix bird symbolism now, and I do feel that gets retrioactively used for HE stuff -such as HE banners-

That's an issue I think, that HE's aesthetics are mostly represented by just reused stuff designed for BE's, does that make sense? Like you can see Quel'thalas was designed with a lot of what should be specifically BE iconography, even when it's mean from a former time -which could be read as eagle iconography, but it feels off given it's represented with mostly BE assets, and as not been addressed by itself?

Eagle probably originally was for High Elves, but then changed to Phoenix when Blood Elves became about as a sort of 'rebirth' type theme.

And yeah I believe the HEs stuff being reused BE stuff is because most likely they didn't think back in 2006-2010 (When BEs released TBC and we had HEs feature in WotLK) that they'd get as much community love for High Elves as they did. Also the idea of 'Allied Races' wasn't probably even a thought back when the main idea was 'feature a couple new races, one for each faction every other expac or so'.

So I like to think it's just a case of the game has moved so far ahead in design than what it used to be back then that they didn't think of those things before much at all, even though it was already there (like the Stromgarde Warfront stuff having eagle insignia and that Warfront specifically was made to harken back to WC3 times).

[Ardenaso]

I mean, first of all you have to understand that the humans' armor in the RTS games is generically Alliance, otherwise the prince of Lordaeron wouldn't be strutting around wearing Stormwind iconography. Secondly... c'mon man, it has the actual Silvermoon crest as the belt buckle.

ah, didn't see that Silvermoon crest; the upper portion looked like Uther's design, or at least a derivative of it

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I can't find a reference of Vandellor being a part of the Convocation of Silvermoon, where would that be mentioned?

I confused him with Belo'vir, my bad

but either way I'd think Vandellor's most likely on of the ruling houses

[Lady Atia]

Looks really great! Thank you for sharing!!

Honestly I'm still surprised by how well most of the 'non-normal hair colors' look and work with the alliance high elves looks. Very much appreciate all the sharings goings on, even from the cousin faction blood elf-high elf looks

Well, I use crazy hair colors in real life too, so I'm all in for them on my characters :P let's hope they add some more blues and reds to all races in the future *_*

[Kyriani]

Which is why I never gave the idea much credit until I saw the dwarf mage in the Exiles' Reach zone casting a void spell, and that got my brain thinking.

I get that the illusion spell being cast by the dwarf uses what we would consider a void-colored spell animation, but other than that, there's nothing indicating that it's actually a void-based spell. It's an illusion spell... much like the mage spell Illusion (learned from https://www.wowhead.com/item=136799/...-tome-illusion). I wouldn't put much credence behind the animation used.

[Ielenia]

I get that the illusion spell being cast by the dwarf uses what we would consider a void-colored spell animation, but other than that, there's nothing indicating that it's actually a void-based spell. It's an illusion spell... much like the mage spell Illusion (learned from https://www.wowhead.com/item=136799/...-tome-illusion). I wouldn't put much credence behind the animation used.

Considering the multitude of spell animations that exist within the game, I'd say that the spell animation chosen does have some meaning, at least to some extent.

However, discussing potential new class ideas is off-topic to this thread, so let's leave it at that.

[Edoll]

I get that the illusion spell being cast by the dwarf uses what we would consider a void-colored spell animation, but other than that, there's nothing indicating that it's actually a void-based spell. It's an illusion spell... much like the mage spell Illusion (learned from https://www.wowhead.com/item=136799/...-tome-illusion). I wouldn't put much credence behind the animation used.

The NPC says it’s void magic in her gossip text, and also Druidic.

[Kyriani]

The NPC says it’s void magic in her gossip text, and also Druidic.

Oh! I didn't see that gossip text! I'll have to be on the look out for that next time I do Exile's Reach! Thanks for mentioning that!

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I'm not saying he's lying, I'm just saying that I don't believe what he is saying to be true. The guy is infamous for his storytelling, and saying "I know what it is but I'm not telling" sounds rather immature, like it's the kind of stuff a child would say to tease the other kids.

I mean, it's not like we're talking about the fate of important NPCs the likes of Anduin, Sylvanas, Thrall or Genn and revealing it would spoil major expansion plot points. It's a frigging background NPC that shows up in a single instance and then never again. I mean, what harm to the lore would it cause to say that the guy is just a high elf that deserted to the blood elves, or that he's a blood elf that got blue eyes by drinking too much Kungaloosh in one sitting?

Honestly I kinda agree, that's why I think just accepting there's a reason why that BE has blue eyes -even if we don't know the reason- is the best we can do with the presented information.

Which is why I never gave the idea much credit until I saw the dwarf mage in the Exiles' Reach zone casting a void spell, and that got my brain thinking.

I really hope it's one of those things they didn't intended, but for are going for, so fingers crossed. If we get 4th specs someday, which now that we are moving away for spec restriction again seems more feasible than ever, mage is one of the perfect classes to add a Void based spec; there could be a very cool gameplay based on spatial alteration.

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I confused him with Belo'vir, my bad

but either way I'd think Vandellor's most likely on of the ruling houses

Maybe, but yeah, the fact there's so little regarding what the High Priest role was on Thalassian culture, just further compounds how light worship is far down below the list of most important/relevant roles in thalassian culture.

It was a part, but we can't confidently say how important or intrinsic it was for Pre Third War thalassian ideology as a whole. Basically that's what I am saying.

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Eagle probably originally was for High Elves, but then changed to Phoenix when Blood Elves became about as a sort of 'rebirth' type theme.

And yeah I believe the HEs stuff being reused BE stuff is because most likely they didn't think back in 2006-2010 (When BEs released TBC and we had HEs feature in WotLK) that they'd get as much community love for High Elves as they did. Also the idea of 'Allied Races' wasn't probably even a thought back when the main idea was 'feature a couple new races, one for each faction every other expac or so'.

So I like to think it's just a case of the game has moved so far ahead in design than what it used to be back then that they didn't think of those things before much at all, even though it was already there (like the Stromgarde Warfront stuff having eagle insignia and that Warfront specifically was made to harken back to WC3 times).

Indeed, so that's what muddles the issue for me, cause a lot of the origin of the iconography was retconed to be phoenixes on BC, and the War3 origins and meanings of bird symbolism just have not been delved into at all post WoW, so it seems as if the phoenix iconography as retroactively supplanted that. It's kinda weird that we don't see High Elves in WoW use any bird-like symbolism beyon reused BE assets meant to be phoenixes, so overall there's just a big inconsistency of how HE aesthetics gave way to BE ones.

And part of the issue is that High Elves pre Third War just didn't seem to have a strong iconography, to the point eagle symbolism that we assumed of elven origin on the alliance in current depictions it just comes across as of Lordaeron origin, specifically around Hillsbrad.



Which makes the bird/eagle iconography we see currently in the alliance more likely to have that origin instead of the kinda retconned HE imagery.

As a tangential, even on Alleria herself the bird imagery seems to be downplayed, replaced by leafs and vines on her design, only her bow resembling any avian features



Which then leads me to another theory; given the lack of actual eagles on Quel'thalas, it seems more likely that the avian imagery we see in high elves would be Dragonhawks, not eagles. Unlike eagles, who as a species has no appearances on Quel'thalas, Dragonhawks are as common place as lynxes, so it kinda makes more sense the vague avian iconography of high elves comes from dragonhawks given the context. They look a lot like hawks, it's part of their name so the ressemblance is there; they have feathers which explain the recurring feather motifs on thalassian armor -including Alleria's- even when there are no native bird of prey species on QT.

[Ielenia]

Honestly I kinda agree, that's why I think just accepting there's a reason why that BE has blue eyes -even if we don't know the reason- is the best we can do with the presented information.

I think the simplest and most adequate answer, for what we know so far, is that it's a mistake from Blizzard's part that they never noticed and didn't bother fixing it after they found out.

I believe if there was really something actually tangible in the lore that explains why the NPC has blue eyes instead of green, it'd have been revealed by now. But all we have is Danuser's "I'm not telling, teheh~" statement that doesn't mean anything. And considering that tweet was done back during MoP (I think? I couldn't find the actual tweet to confirm) and nothing else about that particular NPC has been exposed so far, leads me to believe that Danuser was talking out of his ass.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I think the simplest and most adequate answer, for what we know so far, is that it's a mistake from Blizzard's part that they never noticed and didn't bother fixing it after they found out.

I believe if there was really something actually tangible in the lore that explains why the NPC has blue eyes instead of green, it'd have been revealed by now. But all we have is Danuser's "I'm not telling, teheh~" statement that doesn't mean anything. And considering that tweet was done back during MoP (I think? I couldn't find the actual tweet to confirm) and nothing else about that particular NPC has been exposed so far, leads me to believe that Danuser was talking out of his ass.

Yeah but that's the thing, you are putting more weight on your theory that it's a bug because you don't wanna believe Danuser is being truthful -his tweet is from sept 2019 btw https://twitter.com/stevedanuser/sta...87595542433792 I had already linked it-

So like, it's bad praxis to try to discredit a source because it doesn't fit a desired narrative. Like if I'm being honest,I wouldn't have given BE blue eyes, but it's not my decision, and Lanesh isn't the only BE with blue eyes, so trying to discredit Danuser himself doesn't sit well with me, because if we deem him untrusworthy in general, then nothing of what he says has any validity, even when he is the Lead Narrative Designer?

At most I can take what he says with a pinch of salt, but I can't be hypocritical and just discount what he says when my whole ethos about the thing is to look at the sources and find consistent interpretations.

And again, ultimately, Lanesh is not the only Blood Elf with blue eyes, so whatever validity this tweet has, is just one part. They could all be bugs, but until they are confirmed to be bugs, we really can't decide that for ourselves.

[Syegfryed]

And again, ultimately, Lanesh is not the only Blood Elf with blue eyes, so whatever validity this tweet has, is just one part. They could all be bugs, but until they are confirmed to be bugs, we really can't decide that for ourselves.

why there is a thing about blood elves getting blue eyes? they have several canon ways of having it

1) blood elves never affected by fel energies, not in silvermoon/quelthalas at time they used the crystal
2) high elves who came back after the sunwell got cleaned/after they opened the portal to outland
3)the fel taint was cleaned by the sunwell
4) We know for a fact that elves eyes glow with energy they use, and if you use one it will overwrite the last one, so, they just start using arcane more and got blue-eyes

Which is why elves should get a big more pallet of eye colors in general, like both getting purple arcane eyes and void elves getting some purple back for the void.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

why there is a thing about blood elves getting blue eyes? they have several canon ways of having it

1) blood elves never affected by fel energies, not in silvermoon/quelthalas at time they used the crystal
2) high elves who came back after the sunwell got cleaned/after they opened the portal to outland
3)the fel taint was cleaned by the sunwell
4) We know for a fact that elves eyes glow with energy they use, and if you use one it will overwrite the last one, so, they just start using arcane more and got blue-eyes

Which is why elves should get a big more pallet of eye colors in general, like both getting purple arcane eyes and void elves getting some purple back for the void.

Exactly; they could have enforced a distinction WHY BE's couldn't get blue eyes, but it has been a while where there have been multiple ways blue eyes for BE's could feasibly be a thing, so it feels kinda moot questioning the validity of one NPC when he's not the only one even.

Sure, we don't have a confirmed sole reason, but it really can be any of the above, so I don't really think it's worth the hassle to ponder if Danuser is being truthful about that one NPC *shrug*

Personally, the only reason I saw for not giving BE's was a metatextual one, not an in-universe one. If they wanted to keep races looking distinct regarding faction, that would be one way -specially considering they made VE's to look as off from BE's as they could- but since they made VE and BE share eye colors and skin tones, there really isn't any reason why BE shouldn't have blue eyes, in universe or meta ones-

Is as ridiculous than Void Elves not having more natural hair colors -ostensibly the thing about one's appearance most easy to change- but being able to retain natural skin tones and eye colors.

[Ielenia]

Yeah but that's the thing, you are putting more weight on your theory that it's a bug because you don't wanna believe Danuser is being truthful -his tweet is from sept 2019 btw https://twitter.com/stevedanuser/sta...87595542433792 I had already linked it-

Ah, so it's way more recent than I imagined. Still, doesn't really change what I said regarding the lore of the character.

So like, it's bad praxis to try to discredit a source because it doesn't fit a desired narrative. Like if I'm being honest,I wouldn't have given BE blue eyes, but it's not my decision, and Lanesh isn't the only BE with blue eyes, so trying to discredit Danuser himself doesn't sit well with me, because if we deem him untrusworthy in general, then nothing of what he says has any validity, even when he is the Lead Narrative Designer?

I'm not discrediting him "because it doesn't fit my narrative". I'm discrediting what him for basically one reason: his answer literally doesn't say anything of value. He could have responded the question with "I like pie" and would have answered the question just as much as the original answer.

And again, ultimately, Lanesh is not the only Blood Elf with blue eyes, so whatever validity this tweet has, is just one part. They could all be bugs, but until they are confirmed to be bugs, we really can't decide that for ourselves.

But we can decide for ourselves, as long as we don't try to pass off our interpretation of the information (and what little there is of it) as canon fact. And again, it's a random background NPC with no importance whatsoever to the story. Danuser's words, if we take them at face value, heavily imply that this character is important to an important story. However, the character is literally a nobody: he doesn't have any dialogue lines, he doesn't offer or end any quests, or even participate in any quest. To suddenly elevate him like this feels really cheap and contrived.

Which, incidentally, fits my opinion of Danuser's writing, so there's that.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Ah, so it's way more recent than I imagined. Still, doesn't really change what I said regarding the lore of the character.


I'm not discrediting him "because it doesn't fit my narrative". I'm discrediting what him for basically one reason: his answer literally doesn't say anything of value. He could have responded the question with "I like pie" and would have answered the question just as much as the original answer.


But we can decide for ourselves, as long as we don't try to pass off our interpretation of the information (and what little there is of it) as canon fact. And again, it's a random background NPC with no importance whatsoever to the story. Danuser's words, if we take them at face value, heavily imply that this character is important to an important story. However, the character is literally a nobody: he doesn't have any dialogue lines, he doesn't offer or end any quests, or even participate in any quest. To suddenly elevate him like this feels really cheap and contrived.

Which, incidentally, fits my opinion of Danuser's writing, so there's that.

IDK man, the part where you think his backstory is important seems more your interpretation. The way I read it, Danuser is saying there's a story behind he hopes to tell in game, not that's he will be suddenly very important, and that kinda comes across bias against Danuser, because he's basically saying "oh yeah, there's a reason that guy has blue eyes, hope we address that in game"

And that's pretty much it, Danuser -again, whether we like him or not- is the Lead Narrative Designer, so if he basically says "there's a reason this guy has blue eyes" is pretty arrogant to say otherwise.

Mind you, all it means it's not a bug, we still don't know the specifics of it -because most likely it's not that interesting of a story- That's it; it confirms it's not a bug.

[Syegfryed]

Sure, we don't have a confirmed sole reason, but it really can be any of the above, so I don't really think it's worth the hassle to ponder if Danuser is being truthful about that one NPC *shrug*

no everything need to be detailed explained anyway, if it was like that, people would no take as true a lot of shit in this game and stat to nitpick every single thing

Is as ridiculous than Void Elves not having more natural hair colors -ostensibly the thing about one's appearance most easy to change- but being able to retain natural skin tones and eye colors.

i think void elves should not get the lighter hair colors, at least is one thing to show their mutation of the void, darkening at least the hair, black is fair game, but white and yellow should be something unique to blood elves, let then have t least one thing.