Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Ardenaso]

Lol, a zealot who sleeps with a void elf, condemns Xe'ra after her death, supports Anduin's peaceful policy, and is friendly towards the forsaken and mages.

he says he seeks to bring former Alliance of Lordaeron holdings into the Alliance - I could see him condemning the Argent Crusade for their inaction in BFA and then invading Hearthglen and Eastweald with the help of Alleria

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TBH a lot of people play elves because humans in WoW are too bulky; if we had leaner humans -let's say Dalaran humans since they also have another theme and flavor- that allowed you to make *prettier* characters, they would be the most popular race.

Alteraci Humans for the Horde

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Alteraci Humans for the Horde

That has hardly anything to do with the point being made; which was that if humans were prettier, they would probably be more popular than elves.

(But also yes, Alteraci Humans for the Horde)

[ravenmoon]

I think this is it for me; you simply continue to not address any of the issues we keep presenting and just repeating your views again. You are not interested on a discussion, you don't care about how it doesn't work, you simply say "well it's my opinion" without any attempt to understand why your opinion and premise would negatively impact the experience of huge swaths of the playerbase.

i don't need to care for anyone else's vision. Mine is being challenged and i 'm responding to that, you have presented your vision, others have theirs, and many a time, when I have agreed with them, or liked their ideas, I have said that, it's not my fault you ignore that or don't see it, only to say something like that.

just because i don't write essays on their ideas, doesn't mean my statement of support, agreement isn't exactly that.

Take what I write at face value. if I say it's not bad, I mean it's not bad, i don't mean it's rubbish, if I say I like it, it is not an excuse to shut the person up so i can push my ideas, it means I genuinely liike it, if I then go on to discuss their problems or issues with mine, then so be it, it doesn't mean i have discounted their idea or don't consider it, I've just gone back to addressing the issues they have presented, or sometimes just adding additional thoughts, this is my right ofc. if you didn't respond ,on it, I'd have nothing to reply to.

I do have a tendency to repeat my statement in subsequent responses, It may make what I write sometimes a bit too tedious, but I often feel I need to.

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The problem is that Ravenmoon's proposal is based on hardly rational or fair premises, you really can't reach a middle ground or compromise with someone who thinks elven identity is intrinsically alliance and should not be part of the Horde.

You can't have a rational discussion when one side's premise is to literally take away 15 years of BE identity because somehow that will "fix" the game.

It's based on rationale, but it's not based on a fair premise. It's not meant to be fair, if one faction needs to be attractive over the other, the other faction is going to be at a disadvantage or must be made to.

it's not something anyone wants ideally, but this is what happens when you have an imbalance, you have to take action to fix, it, in this case, the alliance needs to be up, so you have to make it look better than the horde.. biased horde fans aren't going to like to see their enemy faction look good, that's just too bad for them, this is necessary.

They can oppose every suggestion or idea that makes the alliance appear better (in their eyes than the horde) but to fixt his problem you are going to need that - whether it is in the way I pointed out, or a less intensive manner.

Look, I've become a rip the band aid off kinda guy, there is wisdom in that, hard, severe, but fast, it's actually better, heals fast you move on quicker and bring other improvements. I favour this approach - this doesn't make me irrational

The place you want to get is where both factions are roughly even, and then you can do equally cool things for both. At the moment the alliance needs a significant up, and this will come at the expense of the horde, one way or the other, itif it's not in blood lees losing some land and npcs, it would be in other things, just merely making the alliance look good is going to make the horde feel bad.. but you don't avoid doing such thins to prevent people from feeling jealous.. they have to manage their emotions, and sometimes the other person getting better things is part of life, you just have to wait your turn rather than be a spoilt child whining that they're better. Wait your turn.

now if you have a parent or teacher or dev that never gets back to you, then you may have sufficient cause to actually be upset. otherwise you don't.


And do tell what's so irrational about what I'm saying.

[Kyriani]

RN all that's keeping VE's from being the most popular race is 1, the lack of traditional hair colors, and 2, the rep gating. Before the Warcraft Realm data was discuntinued, VE's were surpassing even worgen in terms of popularity, and that was before the new skin tones.

The rep gate was removed in SL I believe. Basically all that's needed to unlock allied races now is to do the quests required for the achievements to unlock them and do the scenario.

EDIT: Yep, here's the requirements now:

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

i don't need to care for anyone else's vision. Mine is being challenged and i 'm responding to that, you have presented your vision, others have theirs, and many a time, when I have agreed with them, or liked their ideas, I have said that, it's not my fault you ignore that or don't see it, only to say something like that.

Not really, you never really address any criticisms to your premise.

It's based on rationale, but it's not based on a fair premise. It's not meant to be fair, if one faction needs to be attractive over the other, the other faction is going to be at a disadvantage or must be made to

It's hardly rational when you simply do not account for the backlash it would cause. Of course it's not fair, and the fact that there are other options that would be both fairer and logical seems of no concern to you, because you have only your vision and have little regard for anything or anyone else.

Also the leap in logic that removing elven identity from the horde, but not the models, will fix the appeal issues between factions, is, yeah, an utter leap on logic without any solid basis.

So you have a high controversial idea that would alienate a lot of the playerbase, and no evidence it would work. It's neither fair, nor logical, nor rational.

And do tell what's so irrational about what I'm saying

The fact that you simply do not consider the backlash such decision would cause. That's entirely irrational. Your premise would be bound to truly upset a lot of the playerbase and your only response to that is "they'd deal with it"? It's profoundly naive and silly.

I don't know what's worse, your unwarranted confidence on your deeply flawed premise, or your complete lack of concern about the backlash such an implementation would cause.

There are so many other ways to uplift the alliance, and yet you continue to peddle the most asinine premise of removing something that ahs been Horde identity for over 15 years and expect no backlash. And also dumbs down the game removing in universe agency of the groups for a simplistic dichotomy.

It's bad in every aspect, your logic is flawed, and your lack of accounting for the backlash it would cause it's hilariously tone deaf.

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The rep gate was removed in SL I believe. Basically all that's needed to unlock allied races now is to do the quests required for the achievements to unlock them and do the scenario.

EDIT: Yep, here's the requirements now:

Oh yeh, I just still call it "rep gated" but it's more "content gated"

A new player can't simply make a VE, they still have to unlock them by doing the Argus storyline, so that certainly creates a barrier of entry for new players that come into the game, compared to the non-locked BE's.

TBH I think that AR requirements should be lifted; considering that the storyline starts on Exile's Reach now, there's not much sense in gating AR behind previous expansion content, when all other races skip the content that uses to set them up, you know?

If the alliance it's to be more popular, and elves are popular, it would stand to reason to make them available to new players instead of only to old player that have already chose their mains.

And as such, the unlocking questline could be refitted to serve as the Heritage Armor akin to the Core Races, framed as a "Now you will learn how we joined our faction"

[Kyriani]

And as such, the unlocking questline could be refitted to serve as the Heritage Armor akin to the Core Races, framed as a "Now you will learn how we joined our faction"

The Blood Elf heritage questline follows a similar premise ("this is how we got where we are today"), so that could work.

[Valandale]

If they wanted to make the Alliance cool they would have to go full ham on making them as violent and glory seeking as the horde tends to be, just shove a bit of warhammer humanity into the humans and they would stop being so lukewarm. They should be like warhammer humans with all the horde does to them, but because blizzard wants to try and give moral lessons and then sweep them under the carpet, they need to have a goody two shoes faction that gives out weak denunciation and is forgiving. The writers are in a crisis of consciousness apart from just being more free to do whatever with the horde because that's the precedent given to them by the old writers, also are stuck in the pious peacenik ways for the alliance because that's the precedent for them. Put the WAR in warcraft by actually throwing both factions into war machines. because otherwise one side is the villain and the other is a hero. And the hero is fun to play in single player, because generally your choices feel like they matter, but in WoW, nothing the Alliance ever does matters because they have to suffer to show how valiant and chivalrous they are and never get anything to show for it. Knights may have had a code of chivalry but most of them were men of war fighting brutal combat. Turalyon may very well prove to do just this, whip the Alliance up like Sylvanas did but this time they actually have a reason because Sylvanas freaking gave them one.

To expound upon a thought, it's probably why BfA failed, neither side felt good about the story because neither side could get invested in it. "Why are we melting the Night elves with fire? we literally just fought off the Legion together?" "Why are we even giving the horde lenience, look what they did to the Night Elves!??!" If they'd actually committed the Alliance to vengeance it might have worked better because then the horde would have a real reason to fight and the entire Saurfang subplot wouldn't have been so off-putting, he probably would have died in Undercity making a proper martyr and rallying cry for the Horde (which I think anduin even mentioned), and deliciously foul because that wouldn't have been what he wanted. ... so much potential...

[Tanaria]

I don't really see Hyjal being developed in-game as anything since it's used in the Cataclysm leveling experience. There's not really any place to put a city there without removing something, and the area around the Well of Eternity isn't exactly large. A city would require that entire little valley to be completely filled and that would throw a wrench into the Cata experience.

My guess is we won't see a new capital for Night Elves or Forsaken added to the game. Blizzard seems to want to stuff us into Stormwind and Orgrimmar most of the time. Heck... Darnassus, Exodar, Thunderbluff and Silvermoon don't have Barbershops... nevermind transmog and void storage NPCs. Blizzard can't even be bothered to make token efforts to give players a reason to visit capitals other than SW/Org or capital of xpac du jour. It truly baffles me that Silvermoon of all places doesnt have a barber or a transmog NPC!!!

Stormwind and Orgrimmar are the main cities that Blizzard tend to love and care about, but they have also said that they do want to see the Night Elves and Forsaken in their own cities.

I wouldn't worry too much about Hyjal being their main home as it could either be a phased version for new players and those at level cap or they could put the Cata-Hyjal into Chromie-Time or through a timeweaving Bronze Dragon NPC. Either way, they would keep both versions in the game as the Firelands Raid would need to be accessible.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

The Blood Elf heritage questline follows a similar premise ("this is how we got where we are today"), so that could work.

A bit like that to a degree, but full on flashback. Maybe a fun way to reframe them would be your character telling the story to a "new adventurer" with you taking the place of the -for example- BE questgivers.

Could either played like the BE scenario where we relive each quest as a different memory, revisiting the actual places -for example, we would take a new VE on a tour through the Ghostlands telling them the story of how Alleria found Umbric's group- or:

Our character starts telling the story -or is present- of how an Horde/Alliance hero helped your race join the faction.

That way your character doesn't come across as completely unaware of how you came to be a part of a faction, and instead they are part of the retelling for a new generation.

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If they wanted to make the Alliance cool they would have to go full ham on making them as violent and glory seeking as the horde tends to be, just shove a bit of warhammer humanity into the humans and they would stop being so lukewarm. They should be like warhammer humans with all the horde does to them, but because blizzard wants to try and give moral lessons and then sweep them under the carpet, they need to have a goody two shoes faction that gives out weak denunciation and is forgiving. The writers are in a crisis of consciousness apart from just being more free to do whatever with the horde because that's the precedent given to them by the old writers, also are stuck in the pious peacenik ways for the alliance because that's the precedent for them. Put the WAR in warcraft by actually throwing both factions into war machines. because otherwise one side is the villain and the other is a hero. And the hero is fun to play in single player, because generally your choices feel like they matter, but in WoW, nothing the Alliance ever does matters because they have to suffer to show how valiant and chivalrous they are and never get anything to show for it. Knights may have had a code of chivalry but most of them were men of war fighting brutal combat. Turalyon may very well prove to do just this, whip the Alliance up like Sylvanas did but this time they actually have a reason because Sylvanas freaking gave them one.

To expound upon a thought, it's probably why BfA failed, neither side felt good about the story because neither side could get invested in it. "Why are we melting the Night elves with fire? we literally just fought off the Legion together?" "Why are we even giving the horde lenience, look what they did to the Night Elves!??!" If they'd actually committed the Alliance to vengeance it might have worked better because then the horde would have a real reason to fight and the entire Saurfang subplot wouldn't have been so off-putting, he probably would have died in Undercity making a proper martyr and rallying cry for the Horde (which I think anduin even mentioned), and deliciously foul because that wouldn't have been what he wanted. ... so much potential...

A big problem with the Alliance is that they are a completely reactionary group. A lot more complexity could be added by simply making them the aggressors for once, and there's plenty from where to pull that from.

The problem is that Blizz doesn't seem to like to portray the alliance as less than perfect, when at this point some alliance aggression would just be flat out better than yet another Horde genocide-by-evil-warchief.

Like, BfA itself would have been better if the alliance started the War -let's say, Azerite gives the alliance an opportunity they can't pass to reclaim Lordaeron, starting to threaten Capital City, and let's say, Anduin himself is doubtful of the move- and thus, Sylvanas, expectantly so, uses the attack to justify her own invasion of Darkshore and Teldrassil and leading us into BfA.

Then most of the expansion would be about the discourse of Sylvanas being justified on burning down Teldrassil, and then end with the revelation she only pushed the War further and further to feed the jailor.

Then by having Saurfang make Anduin see that Sylvanas has taken advantage of them all for whatever plan she has, it would leave both sides on a more equal position of having made mistakes.

Alas, that is done, so I really hope Turalyon goes cucoo for cocoa puffs next exp pac.

[Beloren]

That's what it is

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Oh yeh, I just still call it "rep gated" but it's more "content gated"

A new player can't simply make a VE, they still have to unlock them by doing the Argus storyline, so that certainly creates a barrier of entry for new players that come into the game, compared to the non-locked BE's.

TBH I think that AR requirements should be lifted; considering that the storyline starts on Exile's Reach now, there's not much sense in gating AR behind previous expansion content, when all other races skip the content that uses to set them up, you know?

If the alliance it's to be more popular, and elves are popular, it would stand to reason to make them available to new players instead of only to old player that have already chose their mains.

And as such, the unlocking questline could be refitted to serve as the Heritage Armor akin to the Core Races, framed as a "Now you will learn how we joined our faction"

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

[ravenmoon]

Not really, you never really address any criticisms to your premise.

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 hardly rational when you simply do not account for the backlash it would cause. Of course it's not fair, and the fact that there are other options that would be both fairer and logical seems of no concern to you, because you have only your vision and have little regard for anything or anyone else.

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


Seriously, so everything is irrational because in your opinion I haven't considered backlash? right.. Well Iif you read what I wrote I have often given my opinion on so called backlash.

And this my just be a point we disagree on and hard to prove, but,

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.

2. I expect quite a lot of the horde fans who have despised blood elves running rampant to actually cheer this move alongside ALL the alliance fans, including those currently playing horde because their faction is dead

Seeing that the loss of Quel'thalas and Suramar city will prompt the gain of the Drakkari and Zul'drak , the Amani and Zul'aman, the Frakki and Zul'farrak, a new Mag'har orc city (in Borean Tundra centred around Warsong Hold or they can make it in Ashenvale), improvements for goblins including the return of Kezan, lost isles and eventually new Undermine city, the shifting over to the horde of Pandaren main assets.

Backlash? the only one I foresee are angry horde elf fans.

3. Certainly not all horde elf players, because of all the people that play blood elves, I am roughly estimating 75% don't care about cities and lore stuff, many of them are either:
a) players from the alliance, stuck on the horde because they can't play on the alliance because everyone's left
b) gamers who play because it's the only model they can stand, not the lore, and since the horde isn't losing the model there will be no backlash
c) gamers who pick blood elves because of the racial for tactical reasons (or a combo of the others)

4. There are horde elf fans who don't even realise, that they don't like the horde, they only like the blood elves and Nightborne because they like the high elf fantasy and the kaldorei fantasy that it is birthed form that sort of high magic, high civilization thing - this was exclusively alliance, but when it went to the horde, and was better than everything on the alliance, they switched.

These players will be the ones that move. Some would get angry for a while, then switch to the alliance, others would happily switch back, or maintain toons on both (I will be in this last group). There are just enough of these, anything from 1/8th to 1/4 of the blood elf and Nightborne player population moving back is all it takes to fix the alliance number gap.

This is not factoring other players who play tons of other races, and retired players fed up of the horde and alliance in wow that stopped being the horde an the alliance long ago and quit wow or only play classic returning.

Where is your metric for over estimating the backlash? I certainly haven't ignored that there will be some, I have alluded to it in previous posts, but in appropriate context. You just haven't read it, or you have and just ignored it.

The point of what is going on is to drum up excitement again, excitement in the alliance, and also in the horde, but this time it is the alliance for being the alliance, no more high elf themes on the horde or night elven ones in the Nightborne, it all goes back to the alliance and the alliance is made to look good for having them and interesting for being the alliance, The horde is not abandoned, the horde is made good for being the horde, or improved on to.. the difference is the alliance is going to shine brighter for a little while because the horde has been looking good for a long time, adding improvements to it are not going to stand out as much as adding improvements to the alliance. But the horde is going to get improvement - i have written this repeatedly and extensively, but it appears you have neither read properly or seriously considered what i am saying

You've just looked at "horde lose blood elves " - which isn't what i was saying exactly, and gone - this is crazy, blizzard wouldn't dare do something like this, the backlash would be enormous - and concluded that it's delusional, and said as much.

If you're going to fully criticise a person's comment, at least consider all of it first, then you can reply with insults of delusional and crazy.

Also the leap in logic that removing elven identity from the horde, but not the models, will fix the appeal issues between factions, is, yeah, an utter leap on logic without any solid basis.


So you have a high controversial idea that would alienate a lot of the playerbase, and no evidence it would work. It's neither fair, nor logical, nor rational.

First, read the response above, because it applies to this too. I have gone step by step on how/why I predict it will go well. I don't know the future so there is a chance it fails, blizzard took a huge risk when they first took the high elves to the horde, it was a much bigger risk then because the factions were truly distinct back then, and this was a bigger change, it wasn't made to make the factions more diverse, that was not the goal, it was made to populate the horde so that the gameplay issues would be fixed.


It won't be anywhere as controversial a move now, not after we've seen the night elves and forsaken lose stuff, and seen more alliance elves go over, having the high elves being restored has been widely anticipated,

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 what did it do? It excited the alliance (not quite as much as high elves, and that moved pissed the alliance off also) but it excited the alliance, the horde hardly cared and got on. The only people that were angry were the very very loud vocal minority who are the ones still making it seem like it would be the ned of the world if high elves were playable, and feel the same way if NPC blood elves move back to the alliance , even if Silvermoon and Suramar go with them.


Even in my proposal, the horde elves would get a new city down the line, either two, or just one new one that both groups live together, but it will not be high elf design or any of the kaldorei designs, it would be new one, new architecture - i have no problem with it looking very cool. The whole point of this is not to give the horde crappy stuff or deny cool stuff, I don't hate the horde, and it's good for the game if both factions get great stuff. So let the new city look great, but it must be something that fits more in line with the horde, so it shouldn't go for delicate flower beauty /fragile look that Silvermoon and Suramar have - that look is in line with high elf fantasy and the Night elven kaldorei lore, it needs to be stronger, more imposing, - think a better version of Naz'jatar city or Castle Nathria in Revendreth, - or it could be something totally new, whatever it is it just needs to be cool

But I have said all this before. Pointed out it's more than just models involved here, the point here is fixing the factions, improving the alliance which is a great necessity, and in a way that balances out the factions to restore their theme, I feel a lot of players would appreciate this. I think you're the one far too overconfident in your assessment, because you're attached to the horde elf feelings of loyalty, and don't realise you are a minority. I do not ignore that there will be backlash, it would be nothing like on the scale of when the Nightborne a night elf sub-race went horde, or when the blood elves went horde, seeing players are use to this sort of things, and in this case, it's not horde races going alliance, but rather the alliance races gaining their things back - most of the game population is aware the the high elves are alliance based and so are the kaldorei.. it's been in the lore since the beginning, those who don't know because they've only played the game, would be made aware of it by the devs in game when they make a show of the high elves returning and the kaldorei rising up.

The fact that you simply do not consider the backlash such decision would cause. That's entirely irrational. Your premise would be bound to truly upset a lot of the playerbase and your only response to that is "they'd deal with it"? It's profoundly naive and silly.

I don't know what's worse, your unwarranted confidence on your deeply flawed premise, or your complete lack of concern about the backlash such an implementation would cause.

There are so many other ways to uplift the alliance, and yet you continue to peddle the most asinine premise of removing something that ahs been Horde identity for over 15 years and expect no backlash. And also dumbs down the game removing in universe agency of the groups for a simplistic dichotomy.

It's bad in every aspect, your logic is flawed, and your lack of accounting for the backlash it would cause it's hilariously tone deaf.

]

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.

I have gone into much greater detail as to why I think this will go extremely well. I'm not God, so i can't tell the future, but I think I'm fairly accurate well, I have known this community for 15 years, understood when things are really popular, and when things are just a few loud voices, known the difference between forum squatters and gamers who have opinions and desires but will never grace the forums and would play whatever is tossed to them, something will genuinely make them more excited, other things less, but they won't come on forums to say.

Warcraft may still be popular, but it inspires gamers far less than it use to, and this is because this approach they've done, has weaned a lot of people off. Wow was at its most inspirational in the more traditional setting, it got people into it both game and lore wise, and they started changing so much both game and lore wise.

Some changes are good, this is not a criticism about change, change is good, but there are types of changes that are not, mixing the alliance in with the horde in the long term was very bad, in the short term, it helped stabilise horde numbers, right now, it is doing no good, so the best response is to take the alliance themes our t the blood elves who remain on the horde, and out of the Nightborne who will also remain horde playable, and m make a show of these being back on the alliance, while filling the gap they leave with cool and interesting things for orcs, trolls, tauren, goblins, pandas, vulpera, forsaken - until you can shape the remnant blood elves and remnant nightborne into something new.

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.

[Beloren]

Not really, you never really address any criticisms to your premise.

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 hardly rational when you simply do not account for the backlash it would cause. Of course it's not fair, and the fact that there are other options that would be both fairer and logical seems of no concern to you, because you have only your vision and have little regard for anything or anyone else.

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

Seriously, so everything is irrational because in your opinion I haven't considered backlash? right.. Well Iif you read what I wrote I have often given my opinion on so called backlash.


And this my just be a point we disagree on and hard to prove, but,

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.

2. I expect quite a lot of the horde fans who have despised blood elves running rampant to actually cheer this move alongside ALL the alliance fans, including those currently playing horde because their faction is dead

Seeing that the loss of Quel'thalas and Suramar city will prompt the gain of the Drakkari and Zul'drak , the Amani and Zul'aman, the Frakki and Zul'farrak, a new Mag'har orc city (in Borean Tundra centred around Warsong Hold or they can make it in Ashenvale), improvements for goblins including the return of Kezan, lost isles and eventually new Undermine city, the shifting over to the horde of Pandaren main assets.

Backlash? the only one I foresee are angry horde elf fans.

3. Certainly not all horde elf players, because of all the people that play blood elves, I am roughly estimating 75% don't care about cities and lore stuff, many of them are either:
a) players from the alliance, stuck on the horde because they can't play on the alliance because everyone's left
b) gamers who play because it's the only model they can stand, not the lore, and since the horde isn't losing the model there will be no backlash
c) gamers who pick blood elves because of the racial for tactical reasons (or a combo of the others)

4. There are horde elf fans who don't even realise, that they don't like the horde, they only like the blood elves and Nightborne because they like the high elf fantasy and the kaldorei fantasy that it is birthed form that sort of high magic, high civilization thing - this was exclusively alliance, but when it went to the horde, and was better than everything on the alliance, they switched.

These players will be the ones that move. Some would get angry for a while, then switch to the alliance, others would happily switch back, or maintain toons on both (I will be in this last group). There are just enough of these, anything from 1/8th to 1/4 of the blood elf and Nightborne player population moving back is all it takes to fix the alliance number gap.

This is not factoring other players who play tons of other races, and retired players fed up of the horde and alliance in wow that stopped being the horde an the alliance long ago and quit wow or only play classic returning.




Where is your metric for over estimating the backlash? I certainly haven't ignored that there will be some, I have alluded to it in previous posts, but in appropriate context. You just haven't read it, or you have and just ignored it.


The point of what is going on is to drum up excitement again, excitement in the alliance, and also in the horde, but this time it is the alliance for being the alliance, no more high elf themes on the horde or night elven ones in the Nightborne, it all goes back to the alliance and the alliance is made to look good for having them and interesting for being the alliance, The horde is not abandoned, the horde is made good for being the horde, or improved on to.. the difference is the alliance is going to shine brighter for a little while because the horde has been looking good for a long time, adding improvements to it are not going to stand out as much as adding improvements to the alliance. But the horde is going to get improvement - i have written this repeatedly and extensively, but it appears you have neither read properly or seriously considered what i am saying

You've just looked at "horde lose blood elves " - which isn't what i was saying exactly, and gone - this is crazy, blizzard wouldn't dare do something like this, the backlash would be enormous - and concluded that it's delusional, and said as much.

If you're going to fully criticise a person's comment, at least consider all of it first, then you can reply with insults of delusional and crazy.

Also the leap in logic that removing elven identity from the horde, but not the models, will fix the appeal issues between factions, is, yeah, an utter leap on logic without any solid basis.

So you have a high controversial idea that would alienate a lot of the playerbase, and no evidence it would work. It's neither fair, nor logical, nor rational.

First, read the response above, because it applies to this too. I have gone step by step on how/why I predict it will go well. I don't know the future so there is a chance it fails, blizzard took a huge risk when they first took the high elves to the horde, it was a much bigger risk then because the factions were truly distinct back then, and this was a bigger change, it wasn't made to make the factions more diverse, that was not the goal, it was made to populate the horde so that the gameplay issues would be fixed.

It won't be anywhere as controversial a move now, not after we've seen the night elves and forsaken lose stuff, and seen more alliance elves go over, having the high elves being restored has been widely anticipated,

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 what did it do? It excited the alliance (not quite as much as high elves, and that moved pissed the alliance off also) but it excited the alliance, the horde hardly cared and got on. The only people that were angry were the very very loud vocal minority who are the ones still making it seem like it would be the ned of the world if high elves were playable, and feel the same way if NPC blood elves move back to the alliance , even if Silvermoon and Suramar go with them.

Even in my proposal, the horde elves would get a new city down the line, either two, or just one new one that both groups live together, but it will not be high elf design or any of the kaldorei designs, it would be new one, new architecture - i have no problem with it looking very cool. The whole point of this is not to give the horde crappy stuff or deny cool stuff, I don't hate the horde, and it's good for the game if both factions get great stuff. So let the new city look great, but it must be something that fits more in line with the horde, so it shouldn't go for delicate flower beauty /fragile look that Silvermoon and Suramar have - that look is in line with high elf fantasy and the Night elven kaldorei lore, it needs to be stronger, more imposing, - think a better version of Naz'jatar city or Castle Nathria in Revendreth, - or it could be something totally new, whatever it is it just needs to be cool

But I have said all this before. Pointed out it's more than just models involved here, the point here is fixing the factions, improving the alliance which is a great necessity, and in a way that balances out the factions to restore their theme, I feel a lot of players would appreciate this. I think you're the one far too overconfident in your assessment, because you're attached to the horde elf feelings of loyalty, and don't realise you are a minority. I do not ignore that there will be backlash, it would be nothing like on the scale of when the Nightborne a night elf sub-race went horde, or when the blood elves went horde, seeing players are use to this sort of things, and in this case, it's not horde races going alliance, but rather the alliance races gaining their things back - most of the game population is aware the the high elves are alliance based and so are the kaldorei.. it's been in the lore since the beginning, those who don't know because they've only played the game, would be made aware of it by the devs in game when they make a show of the high elves returning and the kaldorei rising up.

The fact that you simply do not consider the backlash such decision would cause. That's entirely irrational. Your premise would be bound to truly upset a lot of the playerbase and your only response to that is "they'd deal with it"? It's profoundly naive and silly.

I don't know what's worse, your unwarranted confidence on your deeply flawed premise, or your complete lack of concern about the backlash such an implementation would cause.

There are so many other ways to uplift the alliance, and yet you continue to peddle the most asinine premise of removing something that ahs been Horde identity for over 15 years and expect no backlash. And also dumbs down the game removing in universe agency of the groups for a simplistic dichotomy.

It's bad in every aspect, your logic is flawed, and your lack of accounting for the backlash it would cause it's hilariously tone deaf.

]

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.

I have gone into much greater detail as to why I think this will go extremely well. I'm not God, so i can't tell the future, but I think I'm fairly accurate well, I have known this community for 15 years, understood when things are really popular, and when things are just a few loud voices, known the difference between forum squatters and gamers who have opinions and desires but will never grace the forums and would play whatever is tossed to them, something will genuinely make them more excited, other things less, but they won't come on forums to say.

Warcraft may still be popular, but it inspires gamers far less than it use to, and this is because this approach they've done, has weaned a lot of people off. Wow was at its most inspirational in the more traditional setting, it got people into it both game and lore wise, and they started changing so much both game and lore wise.

Some changes are good, this is not a criticism about change, change is good, but there are types of changes that are not, mixing the alliance in with the horde in the long term was very bad, in the short term, it helped stabilise horde numbers, right now, it is doing no good, so the best response is to take the alliance themes our t the blood elves who remain on the horde, and out of the Nightborne who will also remain horde playable, and m make a show of these being back on the alliance, while filling the gap they leave with cool and interesting things for orcs, trolls, tauren, goblins, pandas, vulpera, forsaken - until you can shape the remnant blood elves and remnant nightborne into something new.


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.

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

[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.