Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Le Conceptuel]

Yes. It's also the reason why in MOBAs the developers prioritize popular heroes when making new skins, rather than unpopular or barely played heroes. Same thing here.

For example, League of Legends players complain that Ahri and Lux always get new skins while some champions haven't gotten new skins in years, but that's just logic. These two champions are very popular so the developers want to monetize them as much as possible.

You don't need to study Economy at university to understand that making a product that will be consumed by 1000 people is better than making a product that will be consumed by 10 people.

What you’re doing is mistaking your overblown passion for the race for a common perception. The thing is that most people seem to select Void Elves chiefly because they have a useful aesthetic. It seems like you dramatically overestimate the interest held in the race for reasons beyond their attractive skeletons and appearances relative to other races, much less the other human-like races

What I’m saying is there exists little evident passion for the race itself. You can see this by how quickly discussion about them seem to swiftly falter or be pivoted away from.

I’d argue that it would be far more unpopular among those who actually afford interest in the lore or identity to continue to provide options to a single race as a priority, much less while keeping them away from a race which is extremely popular in terms of lore, yet is mostly left unplayed due to an underwhelming model. It is likely that far less attraction would be given to the Void Elves for new customization options than it would be for Nightborne.

Finally, the economic opportunity cost from not giving the Void Elves new customization efforts is pretty much minimal. Very few players would be so comically obsessive as to unsubscribe over such things, and the increase in race changes or boosts wouldn’t be too considerable. In fact, an updated Nightborne model would likely draw more money in race changes because of the number of people who seem to have interest in the race yet do not play them because of how unfortunate the models are - plus, there’s less incentive to boost them because their heritage armor is the only armor that looks half-decent on them.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Well VE already got better deal than Pandaren. They got what, 2 more hairstyles?

Nah, like most races they got 3 new options across the board (hair color, skin color, hair style) but they didn't get new extra options as jewelry I think, but some new mustaches and beards, and the separation of each.

Some races did get more extra options, but overall all Core Races got 3x3 new things on the least.

And while it's lovely that we got new skin colors on VE's, all the "new" stuff they got were reused assets from Blood Elves, except for the specific purple VE eye color -then again, several other AR's got their eye colors decoupled and as unique options-

I do agree that in terms of possibilities VE's got more options and I am glad for those, but they really are overall just reused BE stuff.

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I totally agree with you. It's their business and it's all about money. Gamers can call it passion but your passion monetaze verywell. And developers will widely open those doors through which they can involve more and more new gamers.

I mean TBH they would make more money if they sold hair dyes.

The outrage tho!

[Geisl]

Why do you think blood elves have it so good? Because they have a network of hardcore fans pouring endless amounts of time talking up the race and ensuring any fan things that threaten or undermine it never happen because of the negticity they can engineer socially through their conversation.

Except for High Elves on Alliance apparently. Still glad Blizzard's answer was 'give it to both factions'.

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What you’re doing is mistaking your overblown passion for the race for a common perception. The thing is that most people seem to select Void Elves chiefly because they have a useful aesthetic. It seems like you dramatically overestimate the interest held in the race for reasons beyond their attractive skeletons and appearances relative to other races, much less the other human-like races

Finally, the economic opportunity cost from not giving the Void Elves new customization efforts is pretty much minimal. Very few players would be so comically obsessive as to unsubscribe over such things, and the increase in race changes or boosts wouldn’t be too considerable. In fact, an updated Nightborne model would likely draw more money in race changes because of the number of people who seem to have interest in the race yet do not play them because of how unfortunate the models are - plus, there’s less incentive to boost them because their heritage armor is the only armor that looks half-decent on them.

I don't think they are mistaking their passion for perception. Void Elves were(are?) the most popular Allied Race compared to the others, literally due to sharing the Blood Elf/High Elf model aka Thalassian model (which in itself is the most popular player race model to date).

On release of their availability there were so so so so many Void Elves both immediately at 110 and also in dungeon finder. To the point where lots of early dungeon finder was filled with full Void Elf parties and also that you could see many Void Elves during the Legion Argus invasion thingys. Nightborne were essentially the same on Horde side (and you'd have dungeon finder filled with Blood Elves/Nightborne parties).

People just love their elves!

Also strange to imply in beginning that it's the poster's own opinion bias and then in the last paragraph utilize your own opinion bias. I think the fact is that Nightborne can definitely use more customization improvement, but hands down the most popular player model is the Thalassian model - that's just a fact.

Also 99% of people pick their races for looks. It's evident for Blood Elves especially since their origins from Blizzard's own mouth that they were made for Asian players' gfs to have pretty characters to the fact that when High Elves were asked for many BE fans didn't realize that BEs themselves would hate to be called High Elves.

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1198 pages of "I want blonde, blue eyed elves that look exactly like the blood elves, but they are available for the Alliance, just because i say so. Trust me Blizzard".

If you want Blonde elves go Horde. If you want Dark Elves, go Alliance.

The End.

This is so 2019. Now we're simply 1 hair dye away in 2021.

[Beloren]

Except for High Elves on Alliance apparently. Still glad Blizzard's answer was 'give it to both factions'.

.

Well you guys won that one, but it took the forum equivalent of blood , sweat and tears, eventually you simply just wore us out, it came to a point I didn't even care, if you wanted it that badly, whatever.. but I still remember Mace's point that alliance high elves would actually make little difference to the horde, because they were already strong as blood elves.. i think it was after that i realised it wasn't so big a deal.

Still, I would have preferred it if the alliance never got high elves, and the horde never got Nightborne. The blood elves should have been the exclusive elves on the horde, and void elves shoudl always have been purple.. i would have preferred, the alliance known for purple elves - whether void, nightborne or night elf, and the horde known for pale skinned elves.. even with high elves still on the alliance as non-playable.

But what I would have preferred is irrelevant. I don't mind them having their high elves, in fact i think at this point it would be healthier for the game. But i think it's because i'm in favour of faction removal lines.. once blood elves came to the horde, faction distinction became superficial mostly. They should have embraced that and re-evaluated the heavy emphasis on them which has cost them SO much quality story. They write the faction more like a race or empire, and it just covers all the good individuality of the races, which is probably the most special thing about wow's storyline. It stops them from writing good stories and varied stories.. they become predictable because you know that the blood elves, tauren, orcs, trolls, etc will always be horde, the alliance is even more boring.. so it just ends up being a blue versus red crazy focus, which makes no sense in the manner they've done it. How can you work together so often, and yet still be fighting each other in such fine divided lines?

Their creators lack vision, even though they have creativity, you need vision as well, not just to project a story for the future, but to handle things with the restrictions the game systems demand. Can you think of any way we could have had far more fluid movement of the races, while still restricting players of certain races to a faction? I can think of aa few.

There most basic error, si making most non-native horde and alliance races fully invested in their factions.

Night elves, Draenei, Blood elves, Forsaken - are 4 major races that should not be involved with the factions. But rather have a small group that fight for them, while the rest of the race, continue in to influence the story. But what did blizzard do? they tied them all wholeheartedly into the factions - and that's just terrible. The night elves didn't even get an explanation, the Draenei shouldn't be so involved with the alliance, but rather the light and what it stands for. The blood elves had a good story that explained why they would partner with the horde, but after 2.4, they should have left it. game would have been much more interesting with a Draenei and blood elf friendship, despite them having factions with them batting for the alliance and horde.

In such a context, your high elf wishes would not have been problematic. it is because the horde must be different from the each other - and yet, by putting blood elves in the horde, they made the alliance and horde more like each other, yet continued to be so super restricted. And so you have a perfect example of lacking vision and understanding, despite being talented and creative.

[Ardenaso]

now that High Elves are on the Alliance, I still don't know why Blizzard refuses to give Alteraci Human for the Horde

[Varodoc]

What you’re doing is mistaking your overblown passion for the race for a common perception. The thing is that most people seem to select Void Elves chiefly because they have a useful aesthetic. It seems like you dramatically overestimate the interest held in the race for reasons beyond their attractive skeletons and appearances relative to other races, much less the other human-like races

What I’m saying is there exists little evident passion for the race itself. You can see this by how quickly discussion about them seem to swiftly falter or be pivoted away from.

I’d argue that it would be far more unpopular among those who actually afford interest in the lore or identity to continue to provide options to a single race as a priority, much less while keeping them away from a race which is extremely popular in terms of lore, yet is mostly left unplayed due to an underwhelming model. It is likely that far less attraction would be given to the Void Elves for new customization options than it would be for Nightborne.

Finally, the economic opportunity cost from not giving the Void Elves new customization efforts is pretty much minimal. Very few players would be so comically obsessive as to unsubscribe over such things, and the increase in race changes or boosts wouldn’t be too considerable. In fact, an updated Nightborne model would likely draw more money in race changes because of the number of people who seem to have interest in the race yet do not play them because of how unfortunate the models are - plus, there’s less incentive to boost them because their heritage armor is the only armor that looks half-decent on them.

What you said has literally nothing to do with my argument. I haven't mentioned the reasons why Void Elves are popular once in this discussion, because that's not the point. The reasons are irrelevant, Void Elves are the most popular allied race.

And I think I'll trust Blizzard and common sense when they say that the economic opportunity is much higher if you give options to popular races instead of unpopular races.

now that High Elves are on the Alliance, I still don't know why Blizzard refuses to give Alteraci Human for the Horde

Because High Elves have been in the Alliance since WC2, while Alterac left the Horde at the end of the Second War and was destroyed, and its remnants started enslaving orcs?

[Beloren]

now that High Elves are on the Alliance, I still don't know why Blizzard refuses to give Alteraci Human for the Horde

Are Alterasci even a thing? Once a nation is destroyed, what do you think happens ? The survivors get absorbed into other nations who also claim their territories for themselves

Only if they had surviving leaders that still held up the banner or the nation had a strong national identity or pride so they keep their identity alive even under occupation.

This is why conquering empires always try to eradicate identities either by total cultural shifts or by displacement or eradication.

The best way to destroy today’s computer to nations is to destroy their national identity and individuality.

To make them your empire you have to get them to think more of your federation than of their own individual nations. Unify their culture. These are far more important than military conquest.

You see, Hitler went about it the wrong way, the EU is going about it the right way, and if not for the U.K. backing out it would have been all but a done deal by now.

The U.K. has set the timetable back a lot. And now the nations want to start thinking for themselves separately. It’s annoying to those in charge of it.

[Kyriani]

Void Elves are the most popular allied race.

Are they? Do we have any recent data on this? Last I heard vulpera had taken the spot for number 1 allied race. Admittedly even that used incomplete data from warcraft realms I believe.

I'd agree that void elves are the most popular Alliance allied race, but if we're counting both factions, there may be Horde allied races with a bigger population.

[Beloren]

Are they? Do we have any recent data on this? Last I heard vulpera had taken the spot for number 1 allied race. Admittedly even that used incomplete data from warcraft realms I believe.

I'd agree that void elves are the most popular Alliance allied race, but if we're counting both factions, there may be Horde allied races with a bigger population.

I thought 3rd parties can no longer track the figures. I can't tell you which is more popular - void elves or vulpera


All I can say is that this actually makes sense.. I am strangely comforted that the horde's most popular race is not alliance knock off night elves, or any elf for that matter. Vulpera make sense for the horde and i'm glad they're popular. Void elves is the alliance's high elf dream realised. Elves are always popular, but they've never been allt hat is popular.

[Kyriani]

I thought 3rd parties can no longer track the figures. I can't tell you which is more popular - void elves or vulpera


All I can say is that this actually makes sense.. I am strangely comforted that the horde's most popular race is not alliance knock off night elves, or any elf for that matter. Vulpera make sense for the horde and i'm glad they're popular. Void elves is the alliance's high elf dream realised. Elves are always popular, but they've never been allt hat is popular.

I don't think the old way of tracking population that realmpop used to use works anymore, but warcraft realms is still able to with their method. It just requires players to use their addon. It's not an automated process though. The person using the addon has to actually sit there and actively use it for the entire data collection process (you have to constantly click a button that runs through a series of /who's and collects the data). Not surprisingly, few people actually care to sit and do that for long stretches of time and I doubt anyone is willing to risk a ban by using bot to collect such data.

The information can be collected but people willing to do it, or do it for long, are few and far between making the data collection far less than comprehensive.

[Le Conceptuel]

What you said has literally nothing to do with my argument. I haven't mentioned the reasons why Void Elves are popular once in this discussion, because that's not the point. The reasons are irrelevant, Void Elves are the most popular allied race.

And I think I'll trust Blizzard and common sense when they say that the economic opportunity is much higher if you give options to popular races instead of unpopular races.

When has Blizzard said that? Furthermore, relying only on "common sense" is never sufficient - you have to account for more complex variables, as I did earlier. Notice the final paragraph - more money from race changes is a larger economic gain than anything that could be gained (or kept) from updating Void Elves further.

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I don't think they are mistaking their passion for perception. Void Elves were(are?) the most popular Allied Race compared to the others, literally due to sharing the Blood Elf/High Elf model aka Thalassian model (which in itself is the most popular player race model to date).

On release of their availability there were so so so so many Void Elves both immediately at 110 and also in dungeon finder. To the point where lots of early dungeon finder was filled with full Void Elf parties and also that you could see many Void Elves during the Legion Argus invasion thingys. Nightborne were essentially the same on Horde side (and you'd have dungeon finder filled with Blood Elves/Nightborne parties).

People just love their elves!

Also strange to imply in beginning that it's the poster's own opinion bias and then in the last paragraph utilize your own opinion bias. I think the fact is that Nightborne can definitely use more customization improvement, but hands down the most popular player model is the Thalassian model - that's just a fact.

Also 99% of people pick their races for looks. It's evident for Blood Elves especially since their origins from Blizzard's own mouth that they were made for Asian players' gfs to have pretty characters to the fact that when High Elves were asked for many BE fans didn't realize that BEs themselves would hate to be called High Elves

That's very much part of my point, actually. The Void Elves offer no economic benefit to further development because they are already popular as is. Encouraging homogeneity will reduce the number of total race changes and boosts - consequently, there is less economic benefit.

[Varodoc]

When has Blizzard said that? Furthermore, relying only on "common sense" is never sufficient - you have to account for more complex variables, as I did earlier. Notice the final paragraph - more money from race changes is a larger economic gain than anything that could be gained (or kept) from updating Void Elves further.

Someone posted what was said here in these last few pages.

Also, human or elf or undead players aren't going to spend real money to race change to goblin or pandaren just because they got new options lmao. A panda with 20 new hairstyles and hair colours is still a panda.

[Le Conceptuel]

Someone posted what was said here in these last few pages.

Also, human or elf or undead players aren't going to spend real money to race change to goblin or pandaren just because they got new options lmao. A panda with 20 new hairstyles and hair colours is still a panda.

Yes, but the Nightborne in specific are rather popular but also often decried for poor customization options. Void Elves already look find. Pandas and Nightborne are considerably different in terms of appeal and appearance, as well as the amount of people who have been complaining about the look of Nightborne for some time.

[Kyriani]

At this point, I think that all void elves really need in regards to "high elf customization" are a few natural hair color options, and a toggle for their tentacles (either to remove them or replace them with braids). That would basically fulfill the alliance high elf request as much as can be reasonably expected since void elves are now a thing. And that's assuming Blizzard even cares to fulfill the alliance high elf request to that extent. They may very well not care, or even intentionally desire not to.

Assuming they do care however, after finishing the high elf customization as noted above, I'd say most options going forward from there should be void themed, or flexible enough for anything (like scars for example). What void elves really need now, in my opinion, is more lore development both in game and out. Unlike every other allied race, void elves just kind of... happened... and didn't exist prior to recruitment.

Alleria's Argus arc was a poor vehicle for the introduction of void elves as a concept, especially since the unlock scenario has the player void elves acquiring their powers in an entirely different fashion than Alleria and looking nothing like her prior to the skin tones being proliferated. More lore development for void elves would help establish them better in game and in other media, as well as perhaps encourage players to appreciate them for being void elves rather than just the closest thing to alliance high elves they can get.

[Varodoc]

As far as I'm concerned, wanting more normal-looking options for Void Elves has nothing to do with "High Elf fantasy". I love imagining my toon as a Void Elf who is using shadow magic to conceal their true appearance, sadly the tentacle hair breaks my immersion.

But Yeah that has nothing to do with "High Elf fantasy". Alleria Windrunner leader of the Ren'dorei can conceal her true identity as a Void Elf, I've been saying this for years, so it's only fair that the Void Elf toon can do the same thing. Tentacle hair included.

[Kyriani]

As far as I'm concerned, wanting more normal-looking options for Void Elves has nothing to do with "High Elf fantasy". I love imagining my toon as a Void Elf who is using shadow magic to conceal their true appearance, sadly the tentacle hair breaks my immersion.

But Yeah that has nothing to do with "High Elf fantasy". Alleria Windrunner leader of the Ren'dorei can conceal her true identity as a Void Elf, I've been saying this for years, so it's only fair that the Void Elf toon can do the same thing. Tentacle hair included.

That's an entirely fair perspective to have. Just because one uses the new skin tones doesn't necessarily mean they want their character to be a high elf. There's no reason a player can't embrace the void elf narrative even without choosing to have blue skin. More customization options give players more freedom to make their characters as they see fit. Some players however, take issue with void elves having these options because they feel it infringes on blood elf "uniqueness". I'm not one of those people. I'd prefer everyone just get the options they want to have and use them however they see fit.

[Varodoc]

That's an entirely fair perspective to have. Just because one uses the new skin tones doesn't necessarily mean they want their character to be a high elf. There's no reason a player can't embrace the void elf narrative even without choosing to have blue skin. More customization options give players more freedom to make their characters as they see fit. Some players however, take issue with void elves having these options because they feel it infringes on blood elf "uniqueness". I'm not one of those people. I'd prefer everyone just get the options they want to have and use them however they see fit.

The same people who think that Blizzard shouldn't spend so much time on the "High elf fantasy", that's why I said it's not just about "High elf fantasy", it's also "Void elf fantasy" and in line with what Alleria has shown as a Void Elf.

Which is why these options should have been available since 2017 frankly (year that the Void Elves were revealed).

[Geisl]

Snip

There most basic error, si making most non-native horde and alliance races fully invested in their factions.

Night elves, Draenei, Blood elves, Forsaken - are 4 major races that should not be involved with the factions. But rather have a small group that fight for them, while the rest of the race, continue in to influence the story. But what did blizzard do? they tied them all wholeheartedly into the factions - and that's just terrible. The night elves didn't even get an explanation, the Draenei shouldn't be so involved with the alliance, but rather the light and what it stands for. The blood elves had a good story that explained why they would partner with the horde, but after 2.4, they should have left it. game would have been much more interesting with a Draenei and blood elf friendship, despite them having factions with them batting for the alliance and horde.

In such a context, your high elf wishes would not have been problematic. it is because the horde must be different from the each other - and yet, by putting blood elves in the horde, they made the alliance and horde more like each other, yet continued to be so super restricted. And so you have a perfect example of lacking vision and understanding, despite being talented and creative.

Cut it down for size but I wholeheartedly thank you for your post-mortem on the High Elf debate and I very much agree with your take on how Blizzard could've better handled the races within the factions. I thought that was what they were going to do in BFA with the warfront stuff. I also would not have gone so hard in campaigning for High Elves if they had not mixed over NB to horde and VE to alliance - I had made peace in the past that High Elves were just gonna be NPCs back in Wrath. But they just had to swap em and also give literally the same exact model only airbrushed purple.

It's silly that instead they just move from one big baddie to the next when they could probably just have focused on Azeroth and its races/factions for decades of gaming content imo. I really like your suggestion on having a sect of certain races such as NE/Draenei only including a small portion within the greater factions but keeping their individual racial goals at heart. I would love to see Blizzard implement something to this effect in the future.

[Kyriani]

The same people who think that Blizzard shouldn't spend so much time on the "High elf fantasy", that's why I said it's not just about "High elf fantasy", it's also "Void elf fantasy" and in line with what Alleria has shown as a Void Elf.

Which is why these options should have been available since 2017 frankly (year that the Void Elves were revealed).

I agree wholeheartedly.

[Geisl]

That's very much part of my point, actually. The Void Elves offer no economic benefit to further development because they are already popular as is. Encouraging homogeneity will reduce the number of total race changes and boosts - consequently, there is less economic benefit.

I think I'm getting what you're saying - that it won't have as big as an effect because they are so popular already but the thing is this view would only make sense if Blizzard's main goal was to attract new blood (which I'm sure is one of their goals) but I think their bigger goal is to maintain the audience they already do have. I believe they understand that their focus should be on player retention than new blood because WoW isn't attracting as much new blood these days as before - so much so that it's typically considered a 'rare sight' to see someone completely new to the game playing that people typically comment 'bless your innocence' or something akin to a child being born lol.

Their focus on adding more customizations to the already popular races is less of an economic move than it is efficient use of resources as I was saying to another poster. I think the majority of their economic benefit comes from shop pets/mounts/level boosts/6 month promos rather than (and I am assume here) less-often used race/faction/server transfers.