Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[ravenmoon]

If by your own admission, the vocal minority you claim is quite vocal, doesn't that qualify is backlash?

Never said there won't be backlash, there always is, with every change, just that thunder over estimates the value of this backlash, just like all the anti-alliance high elf posters before him did - where was the great horde backlash when the void elves became playable? or when the skin tones came?

Seriously, he is not factoring that most of the alliance welcomes this, a lot of them that are on the horde and part of the horde population numbers will welcome this and there are a lot of core horde fans who really don't want or like the blood elves on the horde, at least I suspect what they really don't like is the alliance themes in the blood elves - alliance themed race, behaving very alliance like (look at Thalyssra for crying out loud), alliance concepts, alliance like set up, - and they've just packed the horde, the horde doesn't feel horde, but some sort of half baked mixed up part alliance faction - no wonder it's hard to get solid direction for it.

And is it necessary? no. What would fix that? Simple, make the blood elves and Nightborne more horde like - and by this i don't mean ugly (which shows the prejudice in those who think that is what i mean), I mean more anti-hero, more bad boy, more oppressed minority. if you make the majestic and great later on, they shouldn't be pretty porcelain goody goody two shoes or noble warrior, white knight type - that's an alliance image. Give them new architecture, darker, different enough but with vestiges of the original (like they did with Naz'jatar), amazing but more solid, stronger, and definitely not alliance

Trust me, the population would like this also, the core horde crowd would love it, players love cool, make them cool but nit high elven good cool, more bad boy, anti hero , rebel cool.. but do it an expansion or so down the line, but with a glimpse now so fans are reassured there is more to come from them. Afterall you want the alliance to have the spotlight for now.

It will work... and I think it will resonate with a lot of classic players as well players who have quit. It also has the potential to draw new players in, because the LotR and DnD/Warhammer fantasy trio of human, high elf and dwarf is powerful - even with other aces like night elves, blood elves, Nightborne etc around, that fantasy draws people in. when they come, they'll see a cool counter on the horde, edgy and bad boy, that will add to the horde numbers too.

some people love a white knight, others love an anti hero sulky hot bad boy - that's what you want to go for in the blood elf vs the high elf, in the alliance vs the horde.


To be honest, it's not a bad thing for the alliance to have a bit of anti-hero in it, or the horde to have a bit of white knight in it either - the alliance to have bit of wild savage or the horde to have a bit of sophisticated high society however those must be remnant level, like say the Illidari night elves/worgen on the alliance, and on the horde, fraction of the remnant blood elves - this is acceptable, at this level, they don't dominate and aren't large enough to alter the perception or feel of the faction that is mostly one way.

As it stands with the whole high elf culture and the kaldorei civilization, it's way too pronounced on the horde, and if blood elves and Nightborne are to be prominent horde members, they need to mostly change. a few of the remnant can have that white knight , sophisticated aristocrat bearing his nose down at things, but it should be very few of them, most would become hardcore, willing to do what it takes to get/cease power to defend themselves or take from others whether as anti-hero or villain, or just plain old hero - but much less of the white knight on the horde, and much less of the anti-hero on the alliance.

You see the alliance has the right level of horde-based themes in it - remnant exile void elf, savage worgen half o f the Gilnean, anti hero Nelf demon hunters - they're popular but they don't dominate it's landscape, likewise on the horde the white knight and sophisticated aristocrat must not be so large and domineering either - this is an analogy, please understand the point of it, rather than get bugged down in the particular example I have given.

[Tanaria]

Ravenmoon: You'll love having 240 variants of Troll and more Orc stuff that we've already seen in WoD and MoP. It will be great, but I won't play it...but you guys will and trust me, you'll love it! You horde elves can get stuff with no lore characters, in about 10 years after 2 or 3 expansions. Look at those Venthyr who are more like Dreadlords...or the Naga, who are hardly Elves anymore...or San'layn who don't have anything anyway.

Typical Alliance minority player. Telling Horde fans what they'll love when all they are actually saying is a fat load of nothing, because they are greedy and want the Horde to suffer and Horde fans' enjoyment to be ruined and made to feel like a lesser faction. The hidden agenda of Ravenmoon is that he wants to go back to 2005 where the Alliance was the dominant faction and the Horde were hardly played. Like MyLife has said, he hasn't moved with the game.
Also, Blizzard are very big on the "Equality and Diversity" vibe. They won't take anything from the Horde, if it means the "diversity" will be negatively impacted - that means Silvermoon and Suramar will forever stay Horde because they must.

And let me address the issues here:
Drakkari, Farraki and Amani are virtually gone or hostile to the Horde. Hell, they were in BFA at the Atal'Dazar port.
Mag'har don't need a city 2.0 of Orgrimmar. The Horde don't want it and their is no need for it.
Goblins - Kezan is uninhabitable due to whole volcano business. Play the Goblin starter zone and read up on the lore.
Forsaken were the face of the Horde for 2 expansions.
Pandaren are NOT a Horde race and the Horde don't want their "assets." (They don't have any assets anyway, worthy of note.) Get that through your brain. They are a bunch of nobodies with a tiny fanbase. In fact, the idea of these guys on the Horde, plus the Vulpera are more repulsive than that of Sin'dorei and Shal'dorei, who do actually belong on the faction with Suramar and Silvermoon.

It's quite clear that Ravenmoon hasn't been following the Horde lore and this goes back to MyLife's point - he hasn't moved with the game. He is an Alliance elf fanatic, who just wants Horde Elf Asset stuff and he's trying to be sneaky and manipulative and then play the victim card when he recieves backlash to his "my ideas are the best ideas." Well, I'm the biggest victim in this because I lose the core of my favorite race. Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon are the Blood Elves and the Blood Elves are Quel'Thalas and Silvermoon. Without them, you haven't got the Blood Elves anymore.

I look forward to the real story progression of Silvermoon being expanded as a Horde City and the Blood Elves showing off their use of Blood Magic, Fire Magic as well as lore surrounding Liadrin's Horde Blood Knights.
And let's not forget the Farstriders under Halduron Brightwing and hopefully reconnecting with Velonara and the Quel'dorei Dark Rangers who chose loyalty to the Horde over Sylvanas' rebels.

Or, if we have to go with Ravenmoon's idea, then the Horde Elves take all of Western Kalimdor. Lor'themar settled in Ashenvale since the idiot nelfs exiled his ancestors from this woodland and Thalyssra can have the choice of Hyjal or Desolace. Personally, I'd prefer her to go to Hyjal so then the Nightborne can have access to the Well of Eternity, which along with the Sunwell (because the Magisters will teleport the Sunwell to Ashenvale), would be a great boon for the Horde cause.

Yes, Night Elves MUST suffer another defeat, but they'll have Suramar...so get over it ravenmoon. Yes, nelfs should be humiliated again, but you'll have Suramar so, deal with it. Horde gets Kalimdor if Alliance gets the Eastern Kingdoms and Broken Isles. Idiot nelfs must suffer and suffer badly.

[Ardenaso]

If by your own admission, the vocal minority you claim is quite vocal, doesn't that qualify is backlash?

how did u stack 2 quotes btw

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Night Elves taking Suramar is nonsense anyway since the Night Elf proper has already set aside their arcane ways and only a small minority was interested in arcane; I would love Eldre'thalas though since it isn't owned by the Horde anyway. Make it a stronghold for arcane elves in the Alliance like the Shen'dralar, Alliance Quel'dorei, and Ren'dorei and that's it.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Really? you need to read to the end, I may sometimes waffle a bit, but it's build up to answering you, read the whole thing.

It's not rational argument because I don't account for backlash?

Kinda, because you base your argument on "optimal conditions" that are completely unrealistic. You can't paint yourself as a rational thinker and be so naive to not account for conditions.

1. Really, it's the hardcore blood elf horde crowd that would be the ones mainly upset - seeing the horde isn't losing blood elves and isn't losing nightborne, - I expect the smae usual tantrums any spoilt child so use to getting favourite pickings all his life will make when it doesn't go his way.

Because diminishing the effects of your premise as tantrums sure is respectful. The infantilization here is evident, and that you seem to think you can equate the backlash at -again can't believe I have to say this again- removing what has been a horde identity for a decade and a half to the tantrum of a spoilt child You have zero respect for all the people you insult with those arguments. And yet:

You just insult and criticise, you are using horrible words that aren't true, as the two replies above answer this question, if you had read what I wrote in earlier replies and responses to you, you would see that I had indeed on several occasions, responded to you and had explained my rational behind it to. To then just nonchalantly or vindictively claim it is irrationally shows either a lack of due diligence or vindictiveness motivated by emo anger rather than logic or sense.

Get on the defensive and play the victim.

Again, you call everyone who would disagree with your premise a spoilt child throwing a tantrum, and then play the victim card when I point out how plain dumb your whole premise is.

That hypocrisy it's far from rational. Your incessant walls of text don't make your argument any more logical, no, more detail doesn't do anything when your premise itself it's flawed on almost every respect.

You may not agree with my conclusions or my estimates, but you need to read them first, and understand them, i don't mind people disagreeing with me, it's their right, - it is not good to be insulting and rude just because you are angry. i haven't given you just cause for that

How many times must I give you reasons why they are flawed? Why do you expect me to just "read again" when I keep telling you that they are bad arguments? It's like you keep expecting that if I read your walls of text enough times I will start agreeing with you?

I read your endless walls of text, and I can't point to every singular senseless supposition, imagined statistic and generalization you keep peddling, and I have already told you I think you write these walls of texts because you know your arguments are weak.

The claimed backlash of the horde if alliance get high elf models, then high elf skins NEVER HAPPENED, and I predicted this if you scroll back a thousand or so pages in this very post - I pointed out people won't care or abandon the horde in droves if the alliance got the model, because it is already on the horde

But you bold this, so I assume you think it's a good point.

Do you actually think that's is comparable to to give the alliance a model similar to the BE one, to Literally take away 15 years of elven identity on the Horde? It's like you have absolutelly no awareness of what you are actually asking for, of how it would be received by BE and Horde players. And if someone can't even grasp how disasterous the backlash for such a decision would be... well, I'm just glad that you are not in power to make such a dumb decision.

And again lest we forget, the backlash is why implementation would be disasterous; that's beside that the idea itself is simplistic and dumbs down the game to enforce dichotomy.

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Yeh, the unlocks are still necessary. It woudl be fantastic to merge heritage armor with the unlocking questlines, make a big deal of it

Mmm IDK, because I do feel the Heritage armor should be a reward fore your character of that race, so I don't think they should be merged with the unlock.

I really think the unlock serves no purpose, specially when Legion and BfA becoming older content each year. To gate eight races behind expansion specific content just gives new players less options.

Like this is not an issue at all of old players at all, it's just that's unfriendly to new players.

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Night Elves taking Suramar is nonsense anyway since the Night Elf proper has already set aside their arcane ways and only a small minority was interested in arcane; I would love Eldre'thalas though since it isn't owned by the Horde anyway. Make it a stronghold for arcane elves in the Alliance like the Shen'dralar, Alliance Quel'dorei, and Ren'dorei and that's it.

One of the most hilarious things is that Ravenmoon doesn't even care about the opinion of other NE fans. On the NE threads a lot of people diasgreed with his "vision" for NE's as masters of the arcane with imperial architecture.

He just doesn't care if anyone disagrees with him.

[Florena]

how did u stack 2 quotes btw

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Night Elves taking Suramar is nonsense anyway since the Night Elf proper has already set aside their arcane ways and only a small minority was interested in arcane; I would love Eldre'thalas though since it isn't owned by the Horde anyway. Make it a stronghold for arcane elves in the Alliance like the Shen'dralar, Alliance Quel'dorei, and Ren'dorei and that's it.

I'd love the nelves to take over Eldre'thalas as a new capital of sorts after losing Darnassus personally. Though it may be too cut off from Ashenvale/Darkshore for that to function well in practice.

[Beloren]

how did u stack 2 quotes btw

It's a bit inconveneint, but you have to redo quotes then cap them.. it took some fiddling.

[Tanaria]

I'd love the nelves to take over Eldre'thalas as a new capital of sorts after losing Darnassus personally. Though it may be too cut off from Ashenvale/Darkshore for that to function well in practice.

that maybe, but I would say that in this situation, portal networks are established between the Highborne who have settled in Darkshore (Mathystra being rebuilt as the new night elf capital - it's in ruins at the moment, but Blizzard can design it in a way that works as a WoW racial city. An auction house, bank, vendors, trainers etc) and the Highborne, High Elves and Void Elves who have taken up residence in Eldre'Thalas.

And that is something else that a few high elves and void elves could do - live in Eldre'Thalas as I'm sure the Shen'dralar don't carry the biases the Sentinels, Druids and Wardens carry. In fact, I'm almost certain they don't as some of the Shen'dralar in Dire Maul: West state that they liked and didn't mind the blood elf mage who...was later incinerated by Prince Tortheldrin...but that crazed man is dead now.

[ravenmoon]

Night Elves taking Suramar is nonsense anyway since the Night Elf proper has already set aside their arcane ways and only a small minority was interested in arcane; I would love Eldre'thalas though since it isn't owned by the Horde anyway. Make it a stronghold for arcane elves in the Alliance like the Shen'dralar, Alliance Quel'dorei, and Ren'dorei and that's it.

Night elf proper? so are all hte pre-sundeirng night leves not night elves? so if you're 10,000 years old you're ont night elven? or if you're highborne or touch or weild the arcane you're not night elven?

And if night elves have set aside their arcane ways, why did Tyrande and Malfurion invite and accept the Shen'dralar Highborne back and on top of that allowed them to train new mages and rebuilding the Highborne caste, allowing them to be their own society?

Doesn't matter if a small amount are interested in arcane. Interest in the arcane is not a pre-requisite for living in a city.

Suramar, just like you see it was also the head quarters of the order of Elune, or are things like the Cathedral of Eternal night essentially too fancy for "proper " night elves. When is being a fully arcanised society a requirement for living in such a city? It wasn't even a requirement for building such cities if you actually read the wotA.

Hey, I finally rediscovered our ancient city/birthplace, it's not even in ruins, but I can't live there because it's arcane? how is a city arcane? And what does being arcane have to be with it. Are you saying night elves can't live with arcane wielders? If that's the case, why are some night elves arcane wielders? why are they friendly with arcane wielding races, and live amongst them in places like Stormwind, Exodar, etc, mix with them?

That's because that argument was always b/s crap, for people trying to simply argue against night elves being in Suramar, and it has nothing to do with whether night elves can live in a fancy city or use the arcane or not, but everything to do with.. horde owns Suramar, you can't have it ever. That's what it is about.

[Eleann]

@ravenmoon I do not agree with this overanalysis of what should happen to motivate Horde players to switch to Alliance, or how to make the Alliance more popular. I think we are largely getting out of topic here, with constant give and take arguments on this matter. I think the imbalance issue is a very important matter and deserves its very own thread. For example there is an interesting recent thread in the EU forums titled ''How to make the Alliance more popular'', and I think these arguments would be more fitting there. What I'm trying to say is that we should invest our time stating how High elves can be implemented into the Alliance, and ways to improve the game through customization choices and aesthetics, and maybe even some lore propositions as well.

But such a long discussion just on the fact that Blood elves and Nightborne should lose something (such as Silvermoon and Suramar) in order for the Alliance to get more popular is quite exhausting and wastes our resources, since the majority do not agree with this proposition. I know you said you want to state your opinion regardless because you think nobody reads this, but if nobody reads this then why do we bother investing our time and writing in these threads here? Perhaps in order for the discussion to develop and become more fruitful you might want to consider a different proposition or open a thread dedicated purely to making the Alliance more popular. I will definitely state my own ideas in it.

@Kyriani suggested a good idea. ''Veneer'' skins for races. By Veneer skins we mean a complete cosmetic choice for your race that changes your race's theme and appearance. For example, Void elves could obtain a Veneer skin for High elves, where their light skin colours, High elven hairstyles and hair colours will be available, and it could even include different ability animations to suggest their faith to the Light. Players should be able to swap at any time between the Void elf and the High elf Veneer skins. Blood elves could obtain a Veneer skin for Dark Rangers where they will have more badass choices available to them, such as pale skin shades, red glowing eyes, dark ranger transmog etc.

Night elves could get an Arcane veneer whereupon they get some arcane tattoos, glowing limbs and some arcane animations, and Nightborne get their own veneer where they can choose warmer skin colours, bright hair colours, and maybe even be able to transform into an animal during travel. Ofcourse adding a Veneer skin for every race in the game will require imagination and might take a while, but I do not see why we could not begin with those. Also, this will mean Void elves and Blood elves will have their own versions of High elves while still keeping their unique customizations through void and dark ranger appearances.

[ravenmoon]

@ravenmoon I do not agree with this overanalysis of what should happen to motivate Horde players to switch to Alliance, or how to make the Alliance more popular. I think we are largely getting out of topic here, with constant give and take arguments on this matter. I think the imbalance issue is a very important matter and deserves its very own thread. For example there is an interesting recent thread in the EU forums titled ''How to make the Alliance more popular'', and I think these arguments would be more fitting there. What I'm trying to say is that we should invest our time stating how High elves can be implemented into the Alliance, and ways to improve the game through customization choices and aesthetics, and maybe even some lore propositions as well.

But such a long discussion just on the fact that Blood elves and Nightborne should lose something (such as Silvermoon and Suramar) in order for the Alliance to get more popular is quite exhausting and wastes our resources, since the majority do not agree with this proposition. I know you said you want to state your opinion regardless because you think nobody reads this, but if nobody reads this then why do we bother investing our time and writing in these threads here? Perhaps in order for the discussion to develop and become more fruitful you might want to consider a different proposition or open a thread dedicated purely to making the Alliance more popular. I will definitely state my own ideas in it.

@Kyriani suggested a good idea. ''Veneer'' skins for races. By Veneer skins we mean a complete cosmetic choice for your race that changes your race's theme and appearance. For example, Void elves could obtain a Veneer skin for High elves, where their light skin colours, High elven hairstyles and hair colours will be available, and it could even include different ability animations to suggest their faith to the Light. Players should be able to swap at any time between the Void elf and the High elf Veneer skins. Blood elves could obtain a Veneer skin for Dark Rangers where they will have more badass choices available to them, such as pale skin shades, red glowing eyes, dark ranger transmog etc.

Night elves could get an Arcane veneer whereupon they get some arcane tattoos, glowing limbs and some arcane animations, and Nightborne get their own veneer where they can choose warmer skin colours, bright hair colours, and maybe even be able to transform into an animal during travel. Ofcourse adding a Veneer skin for every race in the game will require imagination and might take a while, but I do not see why we could not begin with those. Also, this will mean Void elves and Blood elves will have their own versions of High elves while still keeping their unique customizations through void and dark ranger appearances.

Put your self in the feet of the developers...

If you want to avoid wasting effort, I wouldn't bother to build new homes for anyone... in fact, I would lump the alliance high elves , void elves and blood elves in Quel'thalas, and put the Night elves and Nightborne in Suramar - I'll get creative as to why and how they share and not build a single thing. Everyone gets a capital, and after building an amazing night elf city and a Thalassian one, why bother to build another? it's easier for me to make them share, and get off a fancy story from it, than build one. Another option would be to simply put the alliance in those places, and build nothing new for anyone. No building, just move the races around.

Why should i build new cities that have no use?

But it's not always about what is easiest, and world of Warcraft never got this successful by doing the easy , lazy thing. Still, they have to determine whether paying attention to things like that are necessary.

I'll respond in detail a bit later.

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@Tanaria - the blood elves and Nightborne aren't yours, they aren't mine either.


You keep harping on about us (alliance) wanting your stuff) but as many have pointed out on this thread, high elves were alliance first and still are.. but because blood elves joined the horde, you aren't entirely incorrect either.

Kinda, because you base your argument on "optimal conditions" that are completely unrealistic. You can't paint yourself as a rational thinker and be so naive to not account for conditions.

Because diminishing the effects of your premise as tantrums sure is respectful. The infantilization here is evident, and that you seem to think you can equate the backlash at -again can't believe I have to say this again- removing what has been a horde identity for a decade and a half to the tantrum of a spoilt child You have zero respect for all the people you insult with those arguments. And yet:

If you only joined warcraft after TBC, you can be forgiven for thinking the blood elves are a horde identity, because you know no different, but they are not. Everyone knows where the high elves came from and what faction their theme belongs to. And it's not the horde. They are at odds with the horde, and don't fit the rest of the races.

Having an alliance race join the horde - which is exactly what happened, doesn't change that, claiming otherwise doesn't erase history just to nullify my point.

And it's very rich talking about unrealistic in a fantasy project. If you think removing the high elf aspects out of the blood elves and fully restoring them to the alliance, in a fictional project, where anything happens at the whim of it's creators is unrealistic, then you have some nerve calling me delusional and naïve.

And I'm not having a tantrum, but it sounds like you are.

Get on the defensive and play the victim.

Oh wow, so now I'm "playing" the victim - first of all, i'm not playing anything, and I'm no victim, but everyone knows what's gone down in Warcraft and why, pointing out the horde favouritism isn't playing the victim, I'm merely pointing out how it's gone down, but you seem more interested in truth and perception fiddling.

Again, you call everyone who would disagree with your premise a spoilt child throwing a tantrum, and then play the victim card when I point out how plain dumb your whole premise is.

That hypocrisy it's far from rational. Your incessant walls of text don't make your argument any more logical, no, more detail doesn't do anything when your premise itself it's flawed on almost every respect.

If you make rational points, i'm sure others who read would be entitled to their opinions. They have brains and can clearly follow arguments. Just calling something hypocritical and "far from rational", "dumb" etc doesn't make it so because you call it so, offering no real explanation and reasoning for why, and the one reason you give for calling it irrational - is so subjective.

Basically my suggestion is irrational because blizzard would never do it, or the backlash is huge - two things you certainly cannot know nor ensure - yet I'm the one that's irrational.

Some of you guys are just bullies, you talk all big, but when you hit something you don't like, you are offer essentially calling anyone that doesn't fall in line all kinds of names. Calling a person unintelligent doesn't make them so.. when you have written arguments, the discussions are there for every human to see and evaluate themselves. And those with intelligence and reasoning will easily see. You're not kidding anyone.

How many times must I give you reasons why they are flawed? Why do you expect me to just "read again" when I keep telling you that they are bad arguments? It's like you keep expecting that if I read your walls of text enough times I will start agreeing with you?

I expect you to read the walls of text you are responding, so you can do so sensibly and understand /see the points being made and why. Skipping them only to fall back on your half glimpse conclusion drawn from the first few sentences isn't due prudence. You will appear rather foolish to anyone who has read it through properly.

If you don't want to read it through then don't keep commenting.. But it's a bit hypocritical to do a foolish thing like not read the argument you are responding to and then accuse the responder of being foolish. If you aren't foolish yourself, then do yourself a favour do due diligence. It takes much more time for me to write than read.

I read your endless walls of text, and I can't point to every singular senseless supposition, imagined statistic and generalization you keep peddling, and I have already told you I think you write these walls of texts because you know your arguments are weak.

Then why do you keep responding if you think it's nonsensical? you don't seem to like me at all, so surely it's not to help me , you insult me so surely it's not to spare my feelings. You claim to read it yet you don't seem to always understand what i've said. Rather than query again, you just generalisation and jump to conclusions.

It just comes across as you not liking what's being said, and because it doesn't fit your little box, you are lashing out. You may not like the suggestion, but problems like the one we are trying to solve, require a little bit more out of the box, more drastic solutions than what you've been use to ( I wouldn't even call what I have suggested drastic or that out of the box - but that you think shows you've really been locked down into the path that's been laid out before you - just know that the devs aren't that limited, I guess you get utterly surprised when they break what you think is their own rules... but truth is, this is a fantasy project, it's not real, they can write whatever they want to do whatever they want for whatever reason they want.

You would do well to remember this.

But you bold this, so I assume you think it's a good point.

Do you actually think that's is comparable to to give the alliance a model similar to the BE one, to Literally take away 15 years of elven identity on the Horde? It's like you have absolutelly no awareness of what you are actually asking for, of how it would be received by BE and Horde players. And if someone can't even grasp how disasterous the backlash for such a decision would be... well, I'm just glad that you are not in power to make such a dumb decision.

And again lest we forget, the backlash is why implementation would be disasterous; that's beside that the idea itself is simplistic and dumbs down the game to enforce dichotomy.

Someone thought it was a good idea to give the horde a race that was core to the alliance, when it had never had such... was it a bad idea because it hadn't been done before? Was there a reason for breaking the status quo and faction distinction? (yes there was, it was to fix the low horde numbers and it's bad reputation)

Now the alliance needs the similar fix, but all it would take is merely restoring the assets it's lost, nothing drastic like taking a core horde themed race over (like occurred in TBC) yes it is returning, because we know the high elves have always been on the alliance, and the blood elves left the alliance to join the horde, so if a large NPC population return, and the high elven culture /assets with them - that is a return.

And sharing models? What do you think happen when Pandaren were introduced? What do you think the effect was of allowing same faction arenas and BGs? What do you think has already happened when when the void elf became playable, then also got skins to nes - you claim I have absolutely no awareness, yet you are demonstrating no awareness.. I suggest you consider carefully before you write something.


You seem to be fine with alliance races like high elves going horde, and night elf sub-races like Nightborne also going horde, but rage and claw at the thought and idea of the alliance becoming the centre of those identities originally solely theirs that blizzard shared with the horde.

And this is not even touching on the imbalance this creates, the effect of having the best version of alliance themes on the horde faction instead of the alliance and what that means for the alliance, how it devalues it, and also dilutes the original theme of the horde.


You know one of the reasons why I keep repeating these things is because you provide no answers. You instead insult, and in my opinion your response is insufficient.

Just because it seems unrealistic to your or you feel I have no awareness of what I'm actually asking for because it "triggers" you so much is not sufficient. nor is it rational counterpoint, it's an opinion you have that you can't even prove - yet you make such absolute statements. You do yourself and the readers no favours. Even if some agree what I suggest is highly unlikely.


The mistake was not giving the alliance void elves, or void elves high elven skins, no, with respect to faction sharing, the original mistake was giving the horde blood elves - but it took a mistake (to the faction identity) to fix a population and reputation problem the horde had, it is fitting (and a bit ironical) that the best solve would be to correct that mistake in as good a way as possible to fix the population and reputation problem of the alliance.

[shoc]

[QUOTE=ravenmoon;52983091]Put your self in the feet of the developers...

If youw ant to avoid wasting effort, I wouldn't bother to build new homes for anyone... in fact, I would lump the alliance high elves , void elves and blood leves in Quel'thalas, and put the Night elves and Nightborne in Suramar - i'll get creative as to why and how they share and not build a single thing. Everyone gets a capital, and after buillding an amazing night elf city and a Thalassian one, why bother to build another? it's easier for me to make them share, and get off a fancy story from it, than build one. Another option would be to simply put the alliance in those places, and build nothing new for anyone. No building, just move the races around.

Why should i build new cities that have no use?

But it's not always about what is easiest, and world of warcraft never got this successful by doing the easy , lazy thing. Still, they have to determine whether paying attention to things like that are necessary.

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@Tanaria - the blodo leves and Nightborne aren't yours, they aren't mine either.


You keep harping on about us (alliance) wanting your stuff) but as manyhave pointed out on this thread, high elves were alliance first and still are.. but because blood elves joined the horde, you aren't entirely incorrecet either.

Kinda, because you base your argument on "optimal conditions" that are completely unrealistic. You can't paint yourself as a rational thinker and be so naive to not account for conditions.


If you only joined warcraft after TBC, you can be forgiven for thinking the blood elves are a horde identity, because you know no different, but they are not. Everyone knows where the high elves came from and what faction their theme belongs to. And it's not the horde. They are at odds with the horde, and don't fit the rest of the races.

Having an alliance race join the horde - which is exactly what happened, doesn't change that, claiming otherwise doesn't erase history just to nullify my point.

And it's very rich talking about unrealistic in a fantasy project. If you think removing the high elf aspects out of the blood elves and fully restoring them to the alliance, in a fictional project, where anything happens at the whim of it's creators is unrealistic, then you have some nerve calling me delusional and naïve.

And I'm not having a tantrum, but it sounds like you are.


Oh wow, so now I'm "playing" the victim - first of all, i'm not playing anything, and I'm no victim, but everyone knowswha'ts gone down in warcraft and why, pionting out the horde favouritism isn't playing the victim, I'm merely pointing out how it's gone down, but you seem more intereted in truth and perception fiddling.



If you make rational points, i'm sure others who read would be entitled to their opinions. They have brains and can clearly follow arguments. Just calling something hypocritical and "far from rational", "dumb" etc doesn't make it so because you call it so, offering no real explanation and reasoning for why, and the one reason you give for calling it irrational - is so subjective.

Basically my suggestion is irrational because blizzard would never do it, or the backlash is huge - two things you certainly cannot know nor ensure - yet I'm the one that's irrrational.

Some of you guys are just bullies, you talk all big, but when you hit something you don't like, you are offer essentially calling anyone that doesn't fall in line all k inds of names. Calling a person unintelligent doesn't make them so.. when you have written arguments, the discussions are there for every human to see and evaluate themselves. And those with intelligence and reasoning will easily see. You're not kidding anyone.



I expect you to read the walls of text you are resonding, so you can do so sensibly and understand /see the points being made and why. Skipping them only to fall back on your half glimpse conclusion drawn from the first few sentences isn't due prudence. You will appear rather foolish to anyone who has read it through properly.

If you don't want to read it through then don't keep commenting.. But it's a bit hypociritcal to do a foolish thing like not read the argument you are responding to and then accuse the responder of being foolish. If you aren't foolish yourself, then do yourself a favour do due diligence. It takes much more time for me to write than read.


THen why do you keep resopnding if you think it's nonsensical? you don't seem to like me at all, so surely it's not to help me , you insult me so surely it's not to spare my feeliings. You claim to read it yet you don't seem to always understand what i've said. Rather than query again, you just generalisation and jump to conclusions.

It just comes across as you not liking what's being said, and because it doesn't fit your liittle box, you are lashing out. You may not like the suggestion, but problems like the one we are trying to solve, require a little bit more out of the box, more drastic solutions than what you've been use to ( I wouldn't even call what I have suggested drastic or that out of the box - but that you think shows you'vereally been locked down intot he path that's been laid out before you - just know that the deves aren't that limited, I guess you get utterly suprsied when they break what you think is their own rules... but truth is, this is a fantasy project, it's not real, they can write whatever they want to do whatever they want for whatever reason they want.

You would do well to remember this.




Someone thought it was a good idea to give the horde a race that was core to the alliance, when it had never had such... was it a bad idea because it hadn't been done before? Was their a reason for breaking the status quo and faction distinction? (yes there was, it was to fix the low horde numbers and it's bad reputation)

Now the alliance needs the similar fix, but all it would take is merely restoring the assets it's lost, nothing drastic like taking a core horde themed race over (like occurred in TBC) yes it is returning, because we know the high elves have always been on the alliance, and the blood elves left the alliance to join the horde, so if a large NPC population return, and the high elven culture /assets with them - that is a return.

And sharing models? What do you think happen when Pandaren were introduced? What do you think the effect was of allowing same faction arenas and BGs? What do you think has already happened when when the void elf became playable, then also got skin to nes - you claim I have absolutely no awareness, yet you are demonstrating no awareness.. I suggest you consider carefully before you write something.


You seem to be fine with alliance races like high elves going horde, and night elf sub-races like Nightborne also going horde, but rage and claw at the thoguht and idea of the alliance becoming the centre of those identities originally soley theirs that blizzard sharedd with the horde.

And this is not even touching on the imbalance this creates, the effect of having the best version of alliance themes on the horde faction instead of the alliance and what that means for the alliance, how it devalues it, and also dilutes the original theme of the horde.


you know why I keep repeating these things ,because you provide no answers. You instead insult, and in my opinion your response is insufficient.

Just because it seems unrealistic to your or you feel I have no awareness of what i'm actually asking for because it "triggers" you so much is not sufficient. nor is it rational counterpoint, it's an opinion you have that you can't even prove - yet you make such absolute statements. You do yourself and the readers no favours. Even if some agree what I suggest is highly unlikely.


The mistake was not giving the alliance void elves, or void elves high elven skins, no, with respect to faction sharing, the original mistake was giving the horde blood elves - but it took a mistake (to the faction identity) to fix a population and reputation problem the horde had, it is fitting (and a bit ironical) that the best solve would be to correct that mistake in as good a way as possible to fix the population and reputation problem of the alliance.

Wasn't it from the documentary on WoW that they added Blood Elves to the Horde because Horde players were complaining that their girlfriends didn't want to play with them because they couldn't make a 'pretty' race.

[ravenmoon]

@ravenmoon I do not agree with this overanalysis of what should happen to motivate Horde players to switch to Alliance, or how to make the Alliance more popular. I think we are largely getting out of topic here, with constant give and take arguments on this matter. I think the imbalance issue is a very important matter and deserves its very own thread. For example there is an interesting recent thread in the EU forums titled ''How to make the Alliance more popular'', and I think these arguments would be more fitting there. What I'm trying to say is that we should invest our time stating how High elves can be implemented into the Alliance, and ways to improve the game through customization choices and aesthetics, and maybe even some lore propositions as well.

You are right ofc Eleann. The topic originated on the EU forums. https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...popular/186033

I brought it here because of the conclusions I reached that the elves were the heart of the reasoning, and giving playable high elves in quite a visible way as well as turning the fortunes of the kaldorei around to reflect that faction scope vision they original had (of the best of the night elves' pre-sundering and long vigil halves coming together in the new post wc3 era) was powerful enough to make it happen.

It fit here because this was the place where arguments for high elves was been made. If I had created a new topic, it would have been derailed as "another high elf request thread" and shut down or merged with this one, since it is playable high elves that are at the heart of my point.

But such a long discussion just on the fact that Blood elves and Nightborne should lose something (such as Silvermoon and Suramar) in order for the Alliance to get more popular is quite exhausting and wastes our resources, since the majority do not agree with this proposition. I know you said you want to state your opinion regardless because you think nobody reads this, but if nobody reads this then why do we bother investing our time and writing in these threads here? Perhaps in order for the discussion to develop and become more fruitful you might want to consider a different proposition or open a thread dedicated purely to making the Alliance more popular. I will definitely state my own ideas in it.

I hear you, I really do. But as much as we like peace and want it, forum people are always going to argue. The arguments don't need to get abusive or rude though, but can potentially happen when there is disagreement.. For my part, I'm probably responding too much.

Sometimes in order to make bigger gains, losses must happen, this is only necessary when previous errors need to be corrected, the hope is that the right losses will yield a better result, this is why a gardener prunes. I do feel that the loss of Silvermoon and Suramar, and a ll the alliance themes existing on the horde as a result of how the blood elves and Nightborne are portrayed is a necessary loss. And these high elven and night elven cultures and civilization which are alliance based and themed being visible and shining on the alliance will fix the problem.

the people who don't agree with this are the horde elf crowd, and they will kick up a stink because they don't like it. Some of you more good natured alliance fans who want us to all get along, might feel inclined to compromise and give into satisfy them, it's a noble goal, but you shouldn't have to alter your desires, or your suggestions to appease anyone. Just because someone doesn't like it, doesn't mean you should flatter in your convictions or change your desires.

You are free to do so off course, that's always your choice, but don't be coerced just to please someone, it's very manipulative of a child to throw a tantrum to get what it wants, in this case here, we aren't determining what is happening.. we aren't blizzard.. we can't give the night elves new homes or alter the state of the game.. we're just fans, we literally are sharing our feelings, our desires and our thoughts, not determining the fate of the fictional universe...there shouldn't be anywhere near such animosity from the others - we should tell them plainly to stop

They've done this before, you only need read the pages of this very topic to see. Alliance fan or just a gamer/player (could largely play horde liek Mace use to), comes in and thinks its a good idea for the alliance to have playable high elves, and says as much, the, louder vocal horde elf minority jumps on them - with such venom, as you read, you can almost feel the intensity and the malice towards the idea - almost as if tot ell the poor kid he has no right to desire playable high elves.

I feel there is something very troubling about this sort of behaviour, and because it isn't overtly violent it is gotten away with, but it is insidious. I don't like it all. Just because they don't like the idea of you having their models - this is how they behave to anyone who suggests it? over a fictional thing like a video game?

Look at who has problems with my suggestion? All of them well known horde lf fan posters, now the alliance people that come on, never agree with them at first, but they make it easy to unite against a common enemy... you know who that is? Me - for suggesting high elves should be playable.

All of a sudden Tanaria, Thunder and the others are now willing to discuss less extreme measures like high elves being fully playable - haha, and some alliance fans simply just tired of the arguments are going yeh okay, the best we are going to get is void elf skins.. but Tanaria and co would rather support that, than what they really don't want the alliance to get, which is playable high elves properly.

they have reasons they feel justified for this, but they are being unreasonable. The blood elves are not their property, the elves are an alliance centred and core themed race borrowed tot he horde in TBC to help improve it... they remained very alliance themed and centric till this day and the night elf sub-race, in a very kaldorei and alliance civilization setting was also later added - none of these are horde themed, we all know that. but doing things like this has an effect. Thunder must realise calling me names doesn't change this.. if you take alliance things ot the horde and make them more attractive there, this undermines the alliance and causes people who like that sort of thing to flow to the horde, this was the reason it was done in TBC in the first place, except in in TBC, the horde was like at 30-40% so it seemed like a good idea now. It isn't a good idea now, not only because that theme isn't horde like, but because of hte effect it continues to have.. in order to fix the alliance, and restore themes, high elves being playable is a necessity.

We know how powerful an effect they have on the alliance minded player, if you want to invigorate the alliance it's the high elves.

But expecting me to shut up because they make a tantrum and don't like it, is bullying. This is what bullies do, they attack you, and they insult you. When have you seen me attack them? So making a point of the NEED for high elves to return to the alliance as playable, which is the reason for this topic , is attacking them?

No Eleann, I'm not the aggressor here, nor am I the bully. They don't want you to have playable high elves, they never did, and the reason they have such a problem with what I'm saying is because I'm actually making a valid and very good point. It may never happen, it seems very unlikely to happen as Kiryanni said, it still doesn't stop it from being a very valid point and highlighting some of the serious issues.

I don't like fighting or arguing, I am a pacifist, but I am not a "no fighting or no violence at any cost" sometimes, you need to fight, to defend what you believe in, what you think even your right to think, your right to dream, and to have a desire - no one should make you feel bad for desiring or try to control your desire, they're not your God, even if what you desire isn't good or isn't right (as they see it), they can or rather should reason with you and try to be persuasive, not bully or manipulate you.

[Tanaria]

SNIP

All you can state is headcanon because your knowledge of the lore is very lackluster.

[ravenmoon]

Wasn't it from the documentary on WoW that they added Blood Elves to the Horde because Horde players were complaining that their girlfriends didn't want to play with them because they couldn't make a 'pretty' race.

Ready for it? here is my analysis.

The reason for this was to make the horde more playable. This is the bottom line, whether in some regions it's because Chinese girlfriends wouldn't play with their boyfriends on horde - in a very popular game that was mostly male ( an I mean large majority male), the problem was still there, the horde needed players.

Chris Metzens and the devs commentaries, interviews, blizzcon panels, dev responses between 2004-2006, all tell you, that they wanted to make the horde more popular, it needed more players, now how do you do that? what are the reasons why the horde aren't popular?

Well an easy fix seemed to be give them a pretty race, because everyone loves pretty right? They didn't want to share the founding alliance race..i.e. humans (which is what everyone else does in two faction mmos - seeing that humans are basically what most people play in video games - not the aliens - which is why all other two faction games have humans both ways) so they felt to solve their problem the horde needed a pretty race.. whether it was to get the Chinese girlfriends playing or whatever other reason.. the root of the problem was making the horde playable -this is why it was felt the horde needed a pretty race and it seemed


In 2004, these seemed to be the only solution - but the real problem the horde had was it's low popularity and reputation, this is why people weren't playing it.. it was perceived as bad, if most people view the race as ugly and can't relate to their culture premise, that could also add to the problem. They didn't really know what the problem was, they had to figure out why it was this way so it could be fixed.

It's in retrospect you can clearly see it was an image issue. You can also see how adding a pretty race helped, but wow also had notoriously goofy models as well, so a more anime, normal proportioned modelled like the blood elf helped a lot as well,.

Truth is, it was an image/popularity issue. Alliance was cool, alliance was good, the heroes following on from the RTS series, and off the back of the 90s, being the good hero, white knight was the most popular, especially amongst the far more so called "nerdy" gamer crowd. Culture shifted during the 00s, and wow was one of those drivers of that change, computers and gaming far more mainstream, the monster became cool, shows like Vampire diary series, The walking Dead, Beauty and the beast and coutnless film titles, the 00s became littered with bad boy, monster type dudes being cool and in, the anti-hero era - as the 00s grew this became more popular.

The horde image was changed.. now you can be forgiven for thinking that blood elves were necessary for this popularity to continue.. this was the main argument of the anti-high elf crowd.. it would ruin the horde they screeched, and we now know they were 100% wrong.. because it was never really having blood elves or having an alliance themed race that was the problem even though that having the pretty helped shift things faster.. the problem was always image and perception.


When void elves came, the horde didn't melt away, quite the opposite, it did not stop the alliance drop, like predicted, even though they were popular (showing it was a good move, but not enough - meaning there is more that needs to be done)

When classic re-launched, with no blood elves, the horde has been as popular overall as the alliance - without pretty blood elves..

Why?

Because it's image and popularity. It's not to do with pretty, it's to do with cool. Every kid who's looked in the mirror, boy and told he looks cute, and looks pretty has hated it. Boys don't want to look pretty or cool, yes some girls like that, and if you have the pretty face they like, then good for you. When we look at ourselves, we wanna be cool, tough, ripped. And beat the shit outta you - especially if you're bullied as kid -which boys get the physical side of it a hell of al ot more.


Cool > pretty ---- has always been the case in my generation anyway, don't know about the 20s kids and how they'll view it - but if you grew up between 1980 and 2019 as a guy in the west, this has probably been your experience.

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All you can state is headcanon because your knowledge of the lore is very lackluster.

Seeing I'm not actually quoting any lore, it's difficult to see you point

[Tanaria]

Seeing I'm not actually quoting any lore, it's difficult to see you point

That's usually been the problem, with your headcanons.

We talk lore as to why things can't/haven't happened. Blood Elves and Silvermoon are Horde, primarily because of Garithos and Tyrande and then was later enforced by Vereesa and Jaina.

Night Elves, once again pushed the Nightborne to the Horde.

It's ironic how the night elves, in both instances, pushed the Horde Elves and their nations to the Horde and specifically, to Sylvanas.

[Rhlor]

better racials for the alliance=more popular

[Ardenaso]

better racials for the alliance=more popular

welcome back Rhlor; I think I agree with you now that we need High Elves going to the Horde now that Kael'thas and Sylvanas are both gone. I think of Dalarani citizens and Allerians who would prefer their own people than the Alliance to reflect the High Elf option for Blood Elves.

[ravenmoon]

Anyway, I've played horde many a time and I still do. Blood elves join the horde, cool story bro, I mean whatever, it doesn't sit right, doesn't make sense, but I'm just here to play the game, so if they want to have humans and orcs be buddies and fight dwarves and trolls... whatever, cool story.

I can tell you this though, they were a lot more engaging when it was humans/elves vs orcs/trolls - sure these groups could get a whole bunch of new allies. Sure the horde isn't limited to races westerners would perceive as ugly - you gotta have eye candy both ways right. But it became less appealing when you started mixing the themes of the two factions up.

If you ask me, it would be better for the horde's cool and beauty to come from something that isn't alliance in character/theme or presentation. Some of you have wrongly perceived I don't want the horde to have pretty stuff - you think this is motivated by some notion that the horde should all be bestial races westerners would consider ugly, have societies and civilizations westerners would consider primitive and savage ...

Oh my God, you have got me TOTALLY wrong. Firstly, i don't perceive that as bad or ugly. I'm more a purist, if night elves are presented as fierce but highly civilised living in a rural setting but having an advanced culture and civilization that may be in ruins but the capability to rebuild - i want to see what I was told about and what was written for them - I don't want to see that anywhere else. - if you assume that I don't like rural you've got me totally wrong.

I would have given the horde space goats instead, an advanced civilization, none human, but exotically beautiful. Because I'm not against the horde getting nice things, beautiful things or cool things, I'm against it getting alliance things, not because I hate it or have some massive issue with it, but because I feel it ruins it - ruins what I felt was special about warcraft - can play ESO and the other myriad titles out there if i want elves and orcs to be friends (I do play ESO too, not as much as wow though). Yet I've lived with it.

I felt the horde needed a more human race like race anyway, decades ago I said as much and felt it was humans they should customise. That the forsaken, shouldn't all be bent over zombies, but slimmer upright versions maybe the vampire twist to them - as a means of solving the popularity issue. At the end of the day, I now realise, the horde needed image surgery. Whether you did it via humans, elves or draenei or nothing related to the alliance, you needed to work at it.

I would have introduce half orcs, new races that I'd have made interesting and magnificent. Naz'jatar, Pandaria, Sky Reach of the Arrakoa are all examples of something not based on human or human like civilizations (like high elves and night elves have in the lore and game) that would have sufficed. And in fact still can.

It just so happens that now, there is a great need for this sort of shift to happen - and it so happens that consolidating the faction themes could really help and improve both of them, with great projected long term benefits. Avoiding it because you don't want to take from the horde is not going to fix things. For the alliance to pull players from the horde, the horde is going to have to lose something to the alliance, the alliance is going to have to be more attractive, and as a dev, you need to do what it takes to make that happen. Just because your horde favouring cronies would be angry or upset shouldn't stop you.. do what needs to be done now, you can turn it back later if you feel you need to, but you can't be afraid of doing it if it can really solve such a problem.

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That's usually been the problem, with your headcanons.

We talk lore as to why things can't/haven't happened. Blood Elves and Silvermoon are Horde, primarily because of Garithos and Tyrande and then was later enforced by Vereesa and Jaina.

Night Elves, once again pushed the Nightborne to the Horde.

It's ironic how the night elves, in both instances, pushed the Horde Elves and their nations to the Horde and specifically, to Sylvanas.

Tanaria, you are just saying that because you're angry, and upset. And if other readers aren't smart enough to actually read the context, you rely on your good will stored up to sway them.. maybe that's your tactic.. they only need read to perceive what is going on.

in game lore narratives are constructs, the devs can change to suit whatever purpose and players are meant to interpret to the narrative of the side they support, it means nothing. I'm not going to tell you what to think, I have my own views on the in game events and tbh, they bear no relation to what I'm saying or proposing.. because such things always demand new lore and narrative.

or what do you think a new night elf city or carving up the zones as you have been talking about would mean. It would mean new lore, new narrative, this is not established lore, it is not canon, you cannot accuse anyone who suggests this or expands to include how they feel the story can lead to this as headcanon, that's not what the term is used for.

A developer decides what needs to be done and then write the narrative to make it happen. In this case, high elves need to be playable, all my proposals have done was suggest a way this could happen in the narrative.. it is not lore, because it isn't written yet - this is why it is a proposal or a suggestion, it's not very logical (or sensible) to call it headcanon... it's not smart.

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better racials for the alliance=more popular

and for you too @Ardensao
It won't.

Alliance has pretty good racials that often you see horde players complaining are too good, that's not causing the shift to happen.

in classic the horde had substantially better racials, and were still not the most popular faction, in fact were grossly out numbered. Racials is not the solution nor the problem, they can help lure and entice, but they are not the cause, and buffing the alliance ones won't solve your problem, it will just imbalance the game and cause another bout of complaints from all the competitive gamers - people who don't care about which faction is popular but just want to play the game.

They have to look deeper, and if they do, they will see what I have seen, image and popularity. The alliance has a terrible image at the moment, it's the lame and dull faction. Do something that will excite the alliance, and make the alliance cool. High elves returning and the kaldorei rising up will definitely excite the alliance, giving them cool stuff and writing them and their races up cool that would definitely attract.

They need something splashy and incredible.. at they have this in the high elves and the some total f everything the night elves are.. if they gather that together rather than spread it between the two factions, it can look incredible, short of that they'd have to give the alliance an impressive , beautiful and very cool race. Basically alliance dream. The beauty of the high elves, meets the civilization of the night elves, meets the coolness of the orcs, the nobility of the humans and the edginess of the illidari - but does all these things better.

In addition to that, they'd have to live with the horde continuing to have alliance influences in it via the way the blood elves and Nightborne are - which I'm sure you're fine with, but that comes at a cost. If you ask me, the easier solution is just to give the damn high elves and do it properly, and fix the Kaldorei so they 're amazing - no more broken night elves, subdued and used to make the horde look good.

[Eleann]

Putting my post from How to make the Alliance more popular here as well, as it tackles both the High elf issue and the imbalance issue.

Thinking that Void elves, in the way they were released and the delay in giving them anything of a High elf setting apart from the High elf model, would help balance the faction imbalance, is plain naive. Void elves were released as blueberry elves with very little lore, and many people did not like that. Especially not the tentacles, many people find them disgusting? The only thing they got was warm skin tones and blue eyes recently. Ofcourse that will not fix the imbalance at all because a much better choice is still available on the Horde.

If they want to see the slightest change in numbers between the factions they can start by giving some natural hairstyles and haircolours to Void elves, since it’s now probably too late to be adding separate High elves, so might as well make Void elves capable of looking like high elves. Ofcourse the hairstyles and haircolours can be borrowed from races different to Blood elves, such as Kul’tirans, dwarves etc.

Then, there is the lore issue and the capitals issue. Void elves and Night elves no longer have a proper home. Night elves are homeless refugees in Stormwind, and Void elves have some tents in Telogrus, which really looks very limited. However, if Telogrus rift was to be expanded into a proper starter questing area, with shining void paths, dark void, shiny trees, and a capital inspired by both void elves and high elves to have dark blue and gold decor in it, as well as purple crystal decor, would make Void elves so much more appealing. And the restrictions for Allied races should be removed imo, as Blood elves are available for new players to choose right away, while void elves are still gated behind content.

As stated, Night elves are homeless at the moment. They are a pride civilization and should rebuild from scratch. It has been said they are beginning to rebuild in Mount Hyjal. Great. Mount Hyjal is a beautiful area and could be expanded to include a Night elf capital and a questing area for Night elves. With crystal clear lakes, swans, new modeled tigers available in the capital, temples of Elune, houses etc. Tigers are super popular but their models are dating back to Vanilla.

Now that customization for humans is practically complete, they should focus on reworking their character models. Ofcourse they will not be popular enough if they are just stuck with Vanilla models that look bulky (male human shoulders and arms) and have chunky thighs (hello female humans). Also, their running animations also need an update, females run like they have weed themselves lol. Check the humans available in character creation in Blade & Soul and Black Dessert, and then come tell me that our humans models look cool or pleasing to the eye in comparison.

Dwarves received GREAT customization, but again no updates to animations. Female running and casting animations are as bad as humans’, even worse. Dating back to Vanilla. Same issue with Night elves, animations dating back to Vanilla and male Nelves look like they are having a headache when they cast.

If all these things happened to better the Alliance ofcourse a lot more new players would be attracted, some casuals and semi-hardcores would probably switch over, and if free factions changes became available for a limited time at least, some hardcore guilds would consider it. Our racials have been fine for a long time, those are no longer the issue. Coolness and costs are the issues.

[elbleuet]

welcome back Rhlor; I think I agree with you now that we need High Elves going to the Horde now that Kael'thas and Sylvanas are both gone. I think of Dalarani citizens and Allerians who would prefer their own people than the Alliance to reflect the High Elf option for Blood Elves.

You know ... High elves are in the Alliance because... their people is also in the Alliance.