Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Isilrien]

So did we get high elves to our satisfaction or?

I think we did, or as close as we can get.

I don't think it would be any more difficult than making Ardenweald. Just stick all the questing areas at the top of the branches instead of a chopped off stump. It would be mostly an exterior redesign for the lower sections. Rut'theran village would be a real village finally, and wrap its way up the trunk.

The village wrapping up the trunk would be awesome!

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

So did we get high elves to our satisfaction or?

I think that generally, mostly yeah. Overall chatter has decreased by a lot, and while most agree natural hair colors would be swell, it just doesn't reach the same presence HE threads did before VE's got natural skin tones and blue eyes. Lot's of people just happy sharing their mogs in places like twitter, lot's of cowls and hoods tho haha.

Be it just because people wanted something closer to the specific aesthetic or the understanding that HE's are already part of the alliance and this is really close to that fantasy being playable, it really seems most people are content enough.

[Goldielocks]

So did we get high elves to our satisfaction or?

The joke here is that Blizzard said fuck it and gave everybody High Elves.

[ravenmoon]

Personally, after asking for High Elves for years and fondly remembering my Alliance Rangers from Warcraft 2 in the 90s...

I'm ok with Void Elves being our version of the Quel'dorei. They're a pretty interesting development of that race, and clearly they do contain both "true" High Elf members and Blood Elves judging by the NPCs present at Telogrus.

Would I have preferred a more "Wood Elf" take on them, with Highvale Lodge as their home, Shamanism taught from the Wildhammer Clan and so on? Sure. The Void isn't my favourite cosmic force. But I'm content with the route they went.

We got blue eyes and light skin tones, which is great!

However. Here's my lingering concern...

We need better hair options.

- Options without tentacles for a natural look. Whether you want to look like a cute little adventurer or a dashing ranger.
- Options that don't look "emo".
- Traditional colours like brown, blonde, silver, and so on.
- More "voidy" options to distinguish their aesthetic as well, like perhaps a short haircut which is shaven on one side of the head and looks a bit cyberpunk.

That's all I "expect" and honestly think we deserve from Blizzard to complete the picture.

Aside from that, obviously I would kill for some runic tattoos and war paints, etc. But those would all be nice pluses. The hair is crucial and just needs to happen.

It's fair enough.. to be honest I feel everyone is just settling, because blizzard just don't seem to want to give what they want, and their feedback has been a bit manipulated by very enthusiastic opposers.

I have observed that wow's narrative development has not flowed organically in a very noticeable way, and the great tangent came with blood elves going horde - but then this is what happens when decisions are made for other reasons than the narrative.

Still it's spilt milk.

Void elves are nice for what they are, an interesting take on high elves, but they do not replace high elves, nor should people expect them too, any more than Highmountain replace Tauren, or Lightforge draenei, or Zandalari troll etc - just because they become playable. They may have pulled void elves out of thein air, but face it, this is the origin of most races, they just usually have or give more time to dress them up or they are in the lore a lot longer before they become playable like worgen and Dark Iron , Zandalar and Mag'har were. So they got the rough end of the stick.

Still as much as I like them, i would like to see high elves proper alongside the alliance, and I have no trouble with having both high elves and void elves, as well as night elves and Nightborne all on the alliance - it's hypocritical for most to object really, but then, for as much elf bias there is there is anti bias.

- - - Updated - - -

The joke here is that Blizzard said fuck it and gave everybody High Elves.

It was the only way to go, I'm sure the hair colours will come sooner or later, but I think it would be much much better for the alliance if they were introduced properly. I also think that for such a well loved faction amongst the fanbase, the high elves deserve a grand re-entrance to the main stage of the alliance, not a sneak in through the back door via the void elves.

They've been such a force of nature amongst wow fans, and as minimised as they were by the very developers throughout wow history, no other group caused as much excitement and furor as high elves have.

Given their role as 1 of the original 3 diverse races of the alliance (the other two being humans and dwarves) and the role they play in broader fantasy, as well as in wow - to leave the high elf legacy destroyed with only blood elves and lesser known void elves I honestly think is shooting your self in the foot.

You clearly have an asset, that causes more talk than all your existing races, often combined, and you don't use it. Well loved and captured the imagination of most of your fanbase, and you leave it suppressed?? I understood the need, when the horde was still struggling with numbers and even after gaining them fearing that high elves might jeopardise that lead, but we are well well past that now, not to use the high elves properly is like throwing away the key can that re-invigorate your fading franchise, just to chase all the other weird things, not realising , weird things while making things interesting are nice, aren't ever more appreciated than well loved favourites.

At the end of the day, the greats need both, you need both the well established faves and the new novel, interesting weird things. So they should use the high elves, the way they are sneaking in via the void elves, is not generating the excitement could be. The feeling amongst fans is more resignation than engagement - sort of like we've settled, eh alliance fans feel exhausted, they're not giving us high elves but after so long whining for them, and being disappointed, let's just take this backdoor quickly before they change their mind... the horde fans are just so fed up too of trying to block it, and seeing just how interested or rather, covetously greedy those alliance goons are longing for their precious - they're like you know what, I'd just accept this, I'm so done with arguing. For such a desirable asset that high elves are, they could have breathed new life and generated a ton of excitement using them for wow, for both the alliance and the horde



I feel blizzard would do well to cause the high elves to return in style.. the night elf vs blood elf thing never really took off nor struck it with the fans.. the high elf vs blood elf thing that has so much more fire to it. And it should be the centre stage.

if you ask me, the night elves should be like in their own world doing their own thing, more like how we saw TFT night elves interact with Kael'thas - an acknowledgment - "we might help, because we go way back" (remember what Tyrande said to him and the reason she gave for helping him in TFT?) - but none of that drummed up animosity that looked so fake after you'd introduced them with a different dynamic. It's just another instance of the whole thing not flowing right, trying to force things.

Now if they use high elves instead, then their is well established history that flows naturally with the story and has the fans opposing each other too. It also has the nuance of a people trying to get together but it hopelessly falling apart because of how differently the two groups now view life. Those who uphold the pre-scourge standards and those the post-scourge ones. it's kinda like the Night elves and their Highborne city groups, except they never went killing each other like Thalassians are written to do.

[Le Conceptuel]

You know, it is kind of funny to me how this is still going even though barely a fraction of the original posters still regularly post on this megathread. It's like the Ship of Theseus.

[Thalassian Bob]

Weren't we always? >.>

True enough!

[Eleann]

You know, it is kind of funny to me how this is still going even though barely a fraction of the original posters still regularly post on this megathread. It's like the Ship of Theseus.

That's because new people come up every day who want things added for their Void elves. The matter is still far from settled when we have been left with blue and purple hair, and several hairstyles with tentacles.

[ravenmoon]

That's because new people come up every day who want things added for their Void elves. The matter is still far from settled when we have been left with blue and purple hair, and several hairstyles with tentacles.

indeed, and people still actually want high elves.. don't see how hard it is to realise this..


whiles some are happy just to have the model (like myself) and a take on it they view interesting such as the void elves (like I am happy to have), it doesn't erase nor remove the relevance and importance people have for high elves. @DeicideUH like I said in my reply to Goldielocks above, high elves are a massive asset and a well loved faction, that despite 14 years of blood elves existing in their current capacity are still greatly desired alongside their humans. Whether people snub and snark at it being lotr copy (which i find hypocritical, because nearly everything in fantasy is, and most of wow is based on DnD copies which follow that line and not only that, it's what the majority love about wow - and why the majority like high elves - with wow already providing variations ins sub groups like void elves and alternate factions like blood elves - it is why many races have several factions - some factions represents versions of standard fantasy tropes done in a different way - which gives your product flavour that can appeal to more players

Afterall if you are doing a roleplaying game that has millions, you are better off with lot s of variations, 6 variations of elves, 10 variations of humans, 7 variations of trolls etc, but in all of this, peoples till like the original too. The original has its power and appeal and you'd be wasteful to ignore it. Seeing how high elf faction has been a core original of Warcraft, the second alliance core race - it would be very wasteful not to fully capitalise on them, especially at a time when enthusiastic for your narrative and lore is at an all time low, which is not a good thing btw. And your alliance faction is falling away. Sneaking high elves in through void elves is very wasteful.

But at this point, people are settling, because they fel, they've on other choice and it's better than nothing, - and it's a shame, introducing high elves could have been a huge buzz that could really draw people to warcraft again and to be engaged with the world and it's narrative, instead just stealth sneaking em in via void elves does you know good. For such a huge asset, that is one of the most popular fictional race concepts and a major attraction to warcraft, to bring in like this just kinda feels sloppy and wasteful, negligent like - like you can't see a prize right in front of your eyes because you've been too glued to the wrong conversations and missing the treasure right infront of you. Yes that happens, far more than you think - rich /successful people don't know everything and certainly don't get it right all the time, they can equally be mislead no matter how robust their system is (or rather they think it is because they're huge), and they can lose their billions or fade, not realising how, it happens lal the time.

[Le Conceptuel]

That's because new people come up every day who want things added for their Void elves. The matter is still far from settled when we have been left with blue and purple hair, and several hairstyles with tentacles.

Isn't there a Void Elf megathread too?

[Eleann]

Isn't there a Void Elf megathread too?

I think there is 1 megathread on the US Forums titled ''Void elves, High elves, and misc elves'' so it's a lot more generic than just limited to Void elves. On the EU forums I mostly get replies from Horde players who either absolutely despise '' High elfers'' and will not hide it, or people who are really into the Void theme and want dark, goth stuff. I'm in the middle, I like the voidy touch, but not all of my haircolors to be literally just blue and purple. I feel that it makes my char look very unnatural, a bit like she lacks life, which shouldn't be the case. It's also extremely boring to only be able to choose between blue and purple hair colors. If I opted for a mix of natural and void, I would go for ''astral white'' cause we can have glowing light silver hair with blue and purple stardust shine on them, and a void blonde where there can be two thick blue highlights shining on the hair, or the bottom half of the hair being dark blue shiny.

Most of the Horde players who comment think we are entitled little brats and that we should be the very last of the Allied Races to get any new customization.

Oh, what a right mess of my life Blizzard has managed to make. Making half assed jobs, and encouraging the hate of the Horde on our heads with those same half-assed jobs. Because now Hordies think we already got our stuff and deserve nothing more, despite that I am only asking for hair stuff and having repeatedly stated we got absolutely nothing new for the hair.

[shoc]

I think the Void Elves and the Nightborne should be faction swapped, with Void Elves in the Horde and Nightborne in the Alliance. That would be so much better, making Void Elves an Alliance allied race was a mistake from the beginning.

Nightborne makes much more sense as an Alliance ally, Tyrande turning her back is such a lame excuse for them turning to the Horde. They are the Highborne wizard elves we always wanted. Tyrande will accept Night Elf Mages, even the ones from Feralas, but the Nightborne are kill-on-sight? Makes no sense.

Void Elves make more much more sense as a Horde ally. They are literally carrying the Void and are all partially insane, those are cool evil qualities that make them a good fit for the Horde. If I could rewrite, Alleria would be in far less control of the Void and a Horde faction leader instead. The Void Elves could be much more sinister and straddling a dangerous line as members of the Horde. Meanwhile, they co-exist beside the Lightborne Draenei?? As if that makes ANY sense.

Plus we get the added benefit of finally ending the Alliance High Elf debate, the answer will be a strong and awesome NO.

[Eleann]

I think the Void Elves and the Nightborne should be faction swapped, with Void Elves in the Horde and Nightborne in the Alliance. That would be so much better, making Void Elves an Alliance allied race was a mistake from the beginning.

Nightborne makes much more sense as an Alliance ally, Tyrande turning her back is such a lame excuse for them turning to the Horde. They are the Highborne wizard elves we always wanted. Tyrande will accept Night Elf Mages, even the ones from Feralas, but the Nightborne are kill-on-sight? Makes no sense.

Void Elves make more much more sense as a Horde ally. They are literally carrying the Void and are all partially insane, those are cool evil qualities that make them a good fit for the Horde. If I could rewrite, Alleria would be in far less control of the Void and a Horde faction leader instead. The Void Elves could be much more sinister and straddling a dangerous line as members of the Horde. Meanwhile, they co-exist beside the Lightborne Draenei?? As if that makes ANY sense.

Plus we get the added benefit of finally ending the Alliance High Elf debate, the answer will be a strong and awesome NO.

You are in the Official High Elf Discussion Megathread. Void elves were given to the Alliance, along with Blood elf skins. Nobody ain't taking nothing back now. It took these peeps 14 YEARS to get their version of High elves on the Alliance. They explicitly WANTED them. They have won them over fair and square, with blood and sweat. Please kindly crawl back to whatever weird cave you've come from.

[Le Conceptuel]

I think there is 1 megathread on the US Forums titled ''Void elves, High elves, and misc elves'' so it's a lot more generic than just limited to Void elves. On the EU forums I mostly get replies from Horde players who either absolutely despise '' High elfers'' and will not hide it, or people who are really into the Void theme and want dark, goth stuff. I'm in the middle, I like the voidy touch, but not all of my haircolors to be literally just blue and purple. I feel that it makes my char look very unnatural, a bit like she lacks life, which shouldn't be the case. It's also extremely boring to only be able to choose between blue and purple hair colors. If I opted for a mix of natural and void, I would go for ''astral white'' cause we can have glowing light silver hair with blue and purple stardust shine on them, and a void blonde where there can be two thick blue highlights shining on the hair, or the bottom half of the hair being dark blue shiny.

Most of the Horde players who comment think we are entitled little brats and that we should be the very last of the Allied Races to get any new customization.

Oh, what a right mess of my life Blizzard has managed to make. Making half assed jobs, and encouraging the hate of the Horde on our heads with those same half-assed jobs. Because now Hordies think we already got our stuff and deserve nothing more, despite that I am only asking for hair stuff and having repeatedly stated we got absolutely nothing new for the hair.

I think Varodoc, the local Alleria fanboy, started a Void Elf megathread here, too.

[Traveler Voltin]

I think the Void Elves and the Nightborne should be faction swapped, with Void Elves in the Horde and Nightborne in the Alliance. That would be so much better, making Void Elves an Alliance allied race was a mistake from the beginning.

Nightborne makes much more sense as an Alliance ally, Tyrande turning her back is such a lame excuse for them turning to the Horde. They are the Highborne wizard elves we always wanted. Tyrande will accept Night Elf Mages, even the ones from Feralas, but the Nightborne are kill-on-sight? Makes no sense.

Void Elves make more much more sense as a Horde ally. They are literally carrying the Void and are all partially insane, those are cool evil qualities that make them a good fit for the Horde. If I could rewrite, Alleria would be in far less control of the Void and a Horde faction leader instead. The Void Elves could be much more sinister and straddling a dangerous line as members of the Horde. Meanwhile, they co-exist beside the Lightborne Draenei?? As if that makes ANY sense.

Plus we get the added benefit of finally ending the Alliance High Elf debate, the answer will be a strong and awesome NO.

do you even read lore?

[Le Conceptuel]

I think the Void Elves and the Nightborne should be faction swapped, with Void Elves in the Horde and Nightborne in the Alliance. That would be so much better, making Void Elves an Alliance allied race was a mistake from the beginning.

Nightborne makes much more sense as an Alliance ally, Tyrande turning her back is such a lame excuse for them turning to the Horde. They are the Highborne wizard elves we always wanted. Tyrande will accept Night Elf Mages, even the ones from Feralas, but the Nightborne are kill-on-sight? Makes no sense.

Void Elves make more much more sense as a Horde ally. They are literally carrying the Void and are all partially insane, those are cool evil qualities that make them a good fit for the Horde. If I could rewrite, Alleria would be in far less control of the Void and a Horde faction leader instead. The Void Elves could be much more sinister and straddling a dangerous line as members of the Horde. Meanwhile, they co-exist beside the Lightborne Draenei?? As if that makes ANY sense.

Plus we get the added benefit of finally ending the Alliance High Elf debate, the answer will be a strong and awesome NO.

The Nightborne are inherently far more fitting for the Horde based on their shared relationship with the Blood Elves. They also have a history of struggle which better befits the Horde and similarly have remaining bad blood with Night Elven society. The Shen'Dralar made amends and lived in some contact with the outer world for some time and were eventually reluctantly accepted into Elven society, where they now teach Night Elves under Night Elven law. They share a culture and common history far more closely with the Night Elves than the Nightborne do, while the Nightborne have their own society which has adapted and altered significantly from what it used to be and has more in common with Blood Elven society that Night Elven society.

The Void Elves make sense as members of the Alliance because not everything in the Horde needs to be outcasts and the entire point is they're not "evil". The Void Elves being in relationship with Alleria means they have a close connection to an existing Alliance leader - there is no way on Azeroth that Alleria would turn to the Horde when she has traditionally only ever been a member of the Alliance, had closer loyalties to it than most Elves, and is married to Turalyon, who was functionally its leader during the latter days of the Second War.

Both make plenty of sense for their respective factions - Nightborne on the Alliance does not fit, nor do Void Elves on the Horde. Void Elves are distinctly themed after the Alliance and Nightborne distinctly themed for the Horde.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I am circling back at the thought that we won't bee seeing more AR expanded customization this expansion, but instead next one, related to whatever changes happen on Azeroth. With that being the reason why VE new skin tones came late into development, they were an idea being considered for after SL, but fast tracked to quell any controversy blue eyes on BE's alone would have caused.

Meaning, we could be having more expanded AR customization in a more lore relevant way -like say, delving more on the VE numbers and new members- if the next expansion has to set up a new status quo.

I think the Void Elves and the Nightborne should be faction swapped, with Void Elves in the Horde and Nightborne in the Alliance. That would be so much better, making Void Elves an Alliance allied race was a mistake from the beginning.

Nightborne makes much more sense as an Alliance ally, Tyrande turning her back is such a lame excuse for them turning to the Horde. They are the Highborne wizard elves we always wanted. Tyrande will accept Night Elf Mages, even the ones from Feralas, but the Nightborne are kill-on-sight? Makes no sense.

Void Elves make more much more sense as a Horde ally. They are literally carrying the Void and are all partially insane, those are cool evil qualities that make them a good fit for the Horde. If I could rewrite, Alleria would be in far less control of the Void and a Horde faction leader instead. The Void Elves could be much more sinister and straddling a dangerous line as members of the Horde. Meanwhile, they co-exist beside the Lightborne Draenei?? As if that makes ANY sense.

Plus we get the added benefit of finally ending the Alliance High Elf debate, the answer will be a strong and awesome NO.

That ship already sailed like 2 years ago. Might as well ask for BE's not to be added to the Horde.

Also my eyes roll over at "Alleria being a Horde Leader." Downright hilarious you think that makes more sense than Tyrande not respecting the Suramarians for her isolation or the VE's existing as a BE politically and ideologically dissdent party.

- - - Updated - - -

The Nightborne are inherently far more fitting for the Horde based on their shared relationship with the Blood Elves. They also have a history of struggle which better befits the Horde and similarly have remaining bad blood with Night Elven society. The Shen'Dralar made amends and lived in some contact with the outer world for some time and were eventually reluctantly accepted into Elven society, where they now teach Night Elves under Night Elven law. They share a culture and common history far more closely with the Night Elves than the Nightborne do, while the Nightborne have their own society which has adapted and altered significantly from what it used to be and has more in common with Blood Elven society that Night Elven society.

The Void Elves make sense as members of the Alliance because not everything in the Horde needs to be outcasts and the entire point is they're not "evil". The Void Elves being in relationship with Alleria means they have a close connection to an existing Alliance leader - there is no way on Azeroth that Alleria would turn to the Horde when she has traditionally only ever been a member of the Alliance, had closer loyalties to it than most Elves, and is married to Turalyon, who was functionally its leader during the latter days of the Second War.

Both make plenty of sense for their respective factions - Nightborne on the Alliance does not fit, nor do Void Elves on the Horde. Void Elves are distinctly themed after the Alliance and Nightborne distinctly themed for the Horde.

Mostly agree tbh.

I do think Nightborne are the more obvious ones; at the end of the day, culturally and ideologically, they are far closer to the Blood Elves than the modern Night Elves, it's pretty obvious; kinda reductive ti say they should join the alliance because they look more like NE, when their kinship is far truer to BE's. They are both direct descendants of the Highborne, while the NE's are mostly common folk; they were already ideologically divergent thousands of years ago, and modern NE culture has moved even farther away from the empire days by leaning on their nature aspects.

That being said, I also can fully see why the Shren'dalar wanted to rejoin the NE's; their context is different from NB, clearly more atonement vibes with them, but I do wonder if they themselves would have wanted to join the NB if it had been an option. At the end of the day tho, while they are both highborne, their outlook has changed, not unlike HE and BE's in a way.

As far as VE's is concerned, I don't think that thematically they fit one faction over the other, with a different backstory, they could have been very easily an horde race; but that backstory is paramount, because it anchors the reasons for their existence on an alliance-leaning sentiment from Umbric's group, and seals it with Alleria, renown anti Horde Alliance Hero, coming to their rescue.

So indeed, Nightborne fit the Horde -specially BE's- more thematically speaking, while Void Elves fit the alliance because of their explicit alignments.

[Eleann]

I think Varodoc, the local Alleria fanboy, started a Void Elf megathread.

I found a thread titled The Void Elves Discussion Thread, started by Manariel. Not sure if that's the one, but it's only got 24 pages.

[FossilFree]

I kinda think this thread has morphed into the "all elves thread."

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I kinda think this thread has morphed into the "all elves thread."

The BE thread does seem more healthy, so IMO this might be more of an alliance focused thalassian thread maybe?

[FossilFree]

The BE thread does seem more healthy, so IMO this might be more of an alliance focused thalassian thread maybe?

Yea, I can see that. I guess this one just seems to stay up at the top all the time and the sister threads get pushed way down.