Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[KrakHed]

They need to be morally upstanding like in BC. The High elves who were arrogant dicks are the ones who became Blood elves.

Is that so? Ah well, I can't work up motivation to argue. However, I don't really see the ingame High Elves as the least arrogant and most friendly. Blood Elves have really chilled out quite a lot over the years, while High Elves are still bitter about them.

Still, it's helpful to see what everyone wants.

[Thalassian Bob]

Part of me wanted it retconned to something else that made them kicked out, it's such an unbelievable thing to throw a shitfit over after 90% of your race was killed.

Yeah, it's such an incredibly flimsy reason. But, that's what happens when you turn a fan's musing on one barely touched-on sub-area of an old zone into canon lore. I enjoyed the short-story a lot, but the motivations of the Quel'Lithien seemed a little bit melodramatic.

I could see some of the magisters being mortified by the idea of being turned into arcane bottom feeders, sucking out scraps of magical energy from measly morsels. And their protests would be out of arrogance, not moral outrage.
But, I don't imagine the more rough and ready Farstriders (who I imagine the Quel'Lithien elves mostly were) taking much issue with it.

I have a hard time accepting that reason as part of the canon. It'd be better if they walked because of the discussion of joining the orcs (who I'm sure many elves still resent deeply for the dragon attack of the Second War).

[Aldo Hawk]

You do realize, throwing around words like strawman and "get lost" do not strengthen a lost argument right?

How about checking the post right above mine? Or does that inconvenience you and do you need to "Get lost?"

You're trying to suggest a change that makes no sense, high elves and blood elves are the same, no amount of trapezing around a forest and painting your face (Which is apparently high elf canon culture to some people) changes that.

I saw that post before and saying that something is posibble is not saying that is gonna happen because it is posibble, so me saying that you did a strawman keeps holding by itself.

And all that 'forest high elves' is just a concept that some people came out with to try something interesting based on the looks of the most updated high elf lore, Alleria, is not the problem of anyone if you take it as 'apparently high elf canon culture', is just a fanmade concept art.

And again, HE cannot blur the faction lines just by the race itself, and the problem i see here is that some people are taking the race look at it's entirety of how it looks ingame, and i just have to say that HE aren't a playable race and we are lucky that they can use the BE model in some way to depict them so they don't look worse, so by this they just look a bit distinct from BE, but not enought to be a playable race, and in fact this would change if they got chosen to be playable, it happened with every race that were in the past around wow and got added to be playable.

So if we take that looks aren't a problem because if they got added they would be going to be tweaked and the lore support the idea of alliance HE just by being there apart from horde BE, i couldn't find a solid reason of them not applying to be playable outside developers's own arbitrary choice, but then they didn't said anything about HE not being a thing ever, instead we got the message of them not being planned and that it can change in the future, at the moment they say no or yes i'm gonna let this discussion, but until then i'm going to keep my words on the public discussion places.

[God Dragon]

They need to be morally upstanding like in BC. The High elves who were arrogant dicks are the ones who became Blood elves.
The ones who remained High elves are people who refused to do whaqt they considered wrong, such as murdering magical creatures to drain their mana, or using Fel.
They also need to be humbled. In spite of the name, High elves are the ones who got humbled the most, so they would be the least arrogant and most friendly elf race. And finally...They need to be distinct from Blood elves, whether by having unique customization or by receiving something Blood elves doesn't have (Like getting the Shaman class).

I love High elves because they were inspiring. They refused to take the easy way to solve their problems, were cast out, yet remained strong and were loyal to the Alliance.

This is complete bull...

High elves on the alliance are not friendly or humbled they are arrogant high elves... You just think high elves on the alliance are better because they are on your side so you made up a bunch of nonsense head cannon lore to fit your agenda. What if blizzard doesnt see high elves as super noble friendship elves and makes them just as petty as they have always been? Then you wouldnt want them cause it would crush your idea of alliance high elves?

The silver covenant are the high elves that took the easy way out... The blood elves became mana starved and had to drain energy from creatures so they didnt all turn into wretched while trying to rebuild their sacked kingdom that was still dominated by the undead.

Meanwhile High elves sat in stormwind and let humans do all the hard work while they did nothing but drain mana from items that the humans gave them. But since they are on the alliance they obviously must be the more likable elves. They didnt suffer nearly the hardship of the blood elves and they let everybody else take care of them which seems to me like the easy way out.

You are basically just asking blizzard to make your fanfic a reality...

[Ithekro]

The High Elves do come off as more humble in their speech patterns. Though that is probably because most of them use modified Night Elf voice files.

[baskev]

Blood Elves have skins and hair colors just as pale. High Elves just have less skin color options than them.

Man people need to learn to freaking read.
Look at the cinematic...They clearly tried to make them look ( and successfully) different then each other.

- - - Updated - - -

No, Void Elves are more different now that Blood Elves have basically regressed back into standard High Elves, except on the Horde. Void Elves are, quite ironically, more like Blood Elves were than the Blood Elves are.

And I'll explain his logic. Blizzard is doing a very odd and particular thing with Allied races. They don't want to share racial identities between factions, but they're willing to duplicate them within the faction. Lightforged are just Draenei+. A complete waste of a racial slot that could have been implemented through new face and hair options. However, they aren't giving Lightforged to the Horde, so there's no crossfaction identity duplication.

Same goes for the Highmountain. They're Tauren with antlers, with less distinct identity than other Tauren variants like Taunka or Yaungol would have. But they were never going to give the Highmountain to the Alliance, so there's no issue.

Nightborne have a variant of the Night Elf model, but they have a completely separate theme. Therefore, there's no real issue. It suits Blizzard's purposes of keeping factions from bleeding into one another.

In this pattern, Void Elves are essentially evolving in the opposite direction to the Blood Elves. Of course, you're right to claim they were a terrible fucking idea. The race you should have gotten were the Broken. You even had Void-touched Broken on Argus. It's what made sense, it's what they actually set up on Argus. It's the fucking rep faction that's on Argus, that Void Elves are using for some nonsensical reason. Blizzard apparently thought that future developments would make them distinct from what Blood Elves are now.

The problem with High Elves is clearly illustrated with what you just said about how different they look for being paler and having lighter hair. That's just because they only have blue-eyed versions of the paler Blood Elf skins. The difference is less a difference, and more lesser variety. Blood Elves have rangers too. The same rangers who knew one another a decade or so ago. A focus on rangers would just be "Blood Elves, but with less variety". Blood Elves still have all the same toys they had back when they were High Elves. High Elves just don't have anything new yet.

And yes, I know Void Elves were a terrible compromise you were never going to accept. They were clearly a mistake. I wanted Broken Draenei, but I guess we're stuck with Draenei+ and Blood Elf Classic. Hell, the fact that the Void inherently bestows hunger and instability on people, that's what you got. The Horde has the High Elves, and the Alliance has the Blood Elves.

What a fucking world. I wish we still had Blood Elves.

Nope. Blood elves and void elves are lore wise closer to each other.

And yes i know there is no cross faction stuff.

And on duplicate models. I was just proving that closely looking models can be used cross faction. And nightborn or night elves with gear on are hard to tell apart. And that is 1 of the main reasons for no HE. And if you read my post. I said there is enough option to keep them high elf but differ them more as nightborn vs night elf.

And yes future development ( if it happens) may fix it. Does not take away that we have 2 crap races now. While both could have been replaced with better options. But blizzard did not put any thought into void elves and lightforged.

The problem with High Elves is clearly illustrated with what you just said about how different they look for being paler and having lighter hair. That's just because they only have blue-eyed versions of the paler Blood Elf skins. The difference is less a difference, and more lesser variety. Blood Elves have rangers too. The same rangers who knew one another a decade or so ago. A focus on rangers would just be "Blood Elves, but with less variety". Blood Elves still have all the same toys they had back when they were High Elves. High Elves just don't have anything new yet.

And yes, I know Void Elves were a terrible compromise you were never going to accept. They were clearly a mistake. I wanted Broken Draenei, but I guess we're stuck with Draenei+ and Blood Elf Classic. Hell, the fact that the Void inherently bestows hunger and instability on people, that's what you got. The Horde has the High Elves, and the Alliance has the Blood Elves.

Classes have no function on being or not being a allied race.
And the looks could be altered. Some have said, give them tattoo's like Aleria or something like that. The pale skin, more white hair and tattoo's would have different enough ( and more different then night elf/night born). And the alliance still would have gotten there long wanted HE. Reason for the tattoo's...a replacement for the power of the sunwell. Like somekind of arcane tattoo's.

And nope....you clearly do not understand that 1 of the other points is that High elves have other value's then blood elves. Blood elves are by default horde.

[sam86]

Honestly i also want Forest Trolls and Ogres(isn't the new race Forest trolls? I mean not amani but clearly the same type of troll)

Again all that is missing for horde is ogres and you get a full whose who of classic horde and horde requests

Furbolgs for alliance, furbolgs were the 5th alliance race in vanilla wow era (i think was wc3 guide?) and ogres were 5th horde race, surprising neither of them are in game yet

i want a flipped elf myself, play the game upside down

[Darththeo]

Yes you're the delusional one. Paladins and Shamans being faction restricted would've been impossible to balance going forward. Hybrids were being given even more utility and Shamans were fucking massive in TBC. They'd have to water down both sides to keep the separate and give each of them the same thing with a different name and animation. You're incredibly naive if you think they could balance having Shamans and Paladins separate going forward as they give classes more and more tools.

This is 100% false and worse you know it. Impossible? No. Difficult? Yes. They chose to make it simpler on themselves. You do know that there are MMOs with faction specific classes out there right? Seriously, just because X is a simpler path doesn't mean X is the only path and any other course is impossible.

Blizzard found it to be too hard to balance (not impossible to balance) and chose to write a story that allowed the classes to cross the faction line ... the point I am making with this is that faction line has been blurred, is blurred and continues to be blurred. The only thing that matters is story and how they wish to tell it. If you think that Ion said no forever, you aren't paying attention to the history of the game and what was actually said.

Now you're just being dumb. I understand it's hard for you to understand anything that isn't a yes, but that doesn't change the facts. High Elves are basically identical to Blood Elves. The only difference is their eye color. This is because they're directly related to one another.

Yeah, you still are contradicting yourself, so I am not dumb just because you can't see your nose on your face.

I'm literally listing reasons the Nightborne are different enough from the Night Elves. The only way any of those could apply to High Elves would be if Blizzard retconned their entire story.

Clearly you're unable to come up with arguments at this point. All you can say basically amounts to "no u".

Actually no, one of the things you listed was "different idle stance" ... Blizzard has to retcon High elves because they make them stand different? They can give High Elves Tattoos ... that would cause a retcon by giving them tattoo choices? Hell, they can even give skin color and hair color choices that aren't available to blood elves and EVEN that wouldn't cause a retcon. Seriously, Nightborne are proof that if Blizzard wanted they could have made playable High Elves ... just because you don't wish to see that you are wrong isn't my problem.

Now, yes, it may be difficult for them to think of racials that would make them different, but acting like there is no way Blizzard could make playable High Elves look different is just plain silly. Especially when you are capable of listing reason why you find Nightborne to be different from Night Elves.

[Darththeo]

How different are those unique classes from one another and how big is the raiding scene in that MMO? Also why are you focusing on this part? You can't win this part of the argument regardless of how much you try considering it was stupid to begin with to compare Shamans and Paladins to High Elves. How would giving the Alliance High Elves make it easier for Blizzard to balance?

Given that based on this you are basically agreeing without admitting it, I think I already have won. I admit it would be difficult to balance. Just because you think it is stupid doesn't in fact make it stupid ... you still can't seem to understand the point of it. I am getting tired of repeating why I brought it up.

Need more than an idle stance for High Elves. They need to noticeably look different from Blood Elves. Nightborne have different ears, face, and skin tones.

There's no way Blizzard could make playable High Elves that would meet their requirements without retconning High Elves to look different. Please stop comparing them to Nightborne it just makes you look delusional.

Again, you think too simple and go "IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" Just because you lack the ability to consider other options doesn't mean there are no other options.

I love how you pick one thing listed and go "THEY NEED MORE THAN THAT!" Yeah, that's why I listed more. The eyes of Nightborne and Night Elf aren't that different ... it's mostly color, the shape is pretty similar as is overall facial structure, it's the same base with tweaks. The difference in the ear is Nightborne curve up while Night Elf curve down ... it's literally just a change in the curve of the ear again not really that big.

Hell, the only real difference between Highmountain Tauren and regular Tauren is the antlers vs Horns. They gave Highmountain war paint/tattoo to help make them more distinct. The ideal that they couldn't make High Elves more distinct than blood elves is nonsense ... proof? Look at all the damn fan art here. If the fans can do it, you don't think Blizzard could? There are no retcons needed.

They already would have different eye color.
For skin, allow High elves to have tattoos and skin tones not accessible to blue elves.
For hair, allow hair color that Blood elves don't have access to as well as new hair styles.

Seriously, just because you are going "no way they can!" doesn't make it true. They can easily make High Elves LOOK different, that's not a problem and wouldn't actually require a retcon. The bigger issue is what racial do you give them that would make them different from Blood Elves.

[united]

But that just wont do because Ion loves using it to troll the Alliance but can't be bothered to actually add it into game.

There just wouldn't be as many people to troll because me and some others would make a blue eyed Belf.

so you’re basically admitting that you don’t care about “quel’dorei“ lore you just want blonde blue eyed pretty elves. okay.

[Darththeo]

I love this now you have to declare yourself the winner randomly. All of your entire arguments are stupid.

I am sorry ... are you the only one that gets to do that?

You just pick one sentence out of a paragraph and act like that was the only thing said. You do that because you're incapable of coming up with a compelling argument for your side.

So literally what you have been doing this entire time?

You act like Nightborne are just Night Elves when clearly they're not. They don't share the face, ears, hair, posture, or skin tone of the Night Elves. Nightborne aren't purple. All of these differences work into making them distinct from Night Elves. The fact that you bring up Nightborne shows your dishonesty. You know that they're not a good comparison to High Elves being similar to Blood Elves so instead you just focus on one part of them and ignore the rest.

I haven't but thanks for playing. I am recognizing those differences and state those could be used to make High Elves different. Your only counter is "THAT'S A RETCON!"

You also bring in Highmountain Tauren. They're apart of the same faction they're similar to. Also their antlers are massive and you can't miss them. You'd need to do more than that if you wanted to bring them over to the Alliance. But of course you known that, you just can't think of a good argument so you have to pretend you don't know that so you can bring them into the discussion.

I don't think you are capable of understanding. It is proof that they doesn't need to be huge difference that are clearly noticeable. Also, not all the antlers are huge, people just chose the largest.

It would require a retcon to make High Elves look different because they're Blood Elves with a different eye color. Neither side went through any changes other than Blood Elves having their eyes turn green. They both come from the same group of people.

Yes, because tattoos and how they stand totally needs a retcon.

I'm done bothering with you. You're a delusional dishonest obnoxious person that can't admit the truth. High Elves are too similar to Blood Elves. Not even my opinion it's Blizzard's opinion. So guess what you aren't getting High Elves. Enjoy your Void Elves because that's the closest thing you're getting. You guys can whine all you want but it wont change the facts. So please keep posting in this thread about how High Elves are totally different and the only hard part is figuring out their racials. I'm sure all of us could use a good laugh.

Given this entire paragraph proves you haven't actually read what I wrote and is pure projection on your part.

I never claimed they are "totally different" and I am not arguing that they should be playable. I have even stated in this topic that in my view High Elves are Blood Elves and Void Elves are Blood Elves in my view ... so given I have STATED I don't see them as distinct races, there is zero reason for you to assert that I think there is. You just proved YOU HAVE EVEN BOTHERED TO READ WHAT I HAVE WROTE. And yet, I am the delusional one ... you haven't paid attention at all. You don't care for an argument and you just prove that.

And yes, racials would be harder than making them look different ... I am sorry pointing out a BETTER argument for you is a bad thing. Again, fans have done fan art that are lore friendly making them look different ... but nope, Blizzard couldn't possibly do that ... totally not possible without a retcon.

Also, you stated you are done with me before and that didn't happen.

[Magicon]

i am not here is the list:


Area lost and gained:
Horde destroy's/wins pretty much every piece of night elf land + brokenshore.
vs
Alliance 1 flying small space ship and can not even take 1 city. ( hell they could have given us Gilneas , because that makes epic sense. Easy to supply the north and blockade silvermoon etc. but nope)


Story wise:
Horde Last part of MoP, WoD. And because the 2 races of Broken isle joined the horde..a good part of legion
vs
1 quest with Anduin and a bit on Argus.


Hero's: With good recent story telling. Or potential to grow.
Horde has Saurfang, Baine, Lor'themar, Sylvanna's, Naltheaos, Mayla, Thalyssra
vs
Anduin, Alleria...and then 5 ragers that are pretty much the same charchter over and over: Greyman, proudmoore, malfurion, tyrande.


Raids:
Horde (or horde race focused) SoO ( mop), Every god damm raid in WoD, Nighhold , ToS ( legion)
vs
Alliance: EN


Wishlist allied races:
Horde would have like: yup
Upright trolls: yup
Upright orcs: yup
Different color orcs: yup
Z-trolls: yup
+ bonus
High elves
Druid forms ( new ones)

vs
high elves: Nope
Broken: Nope
Cool epic kul tiran race: Nope ugly humans with weak druid forms.
Di dwarfs: yup
+ bonus
We got dreanei with lightbulbs you can not even see ( worse then HM tauren),
and void elves who are a joke ( like for real a joke) . Their own silly's make jokes about what a joke they are :P



BFA: ( what i have hear. and played my self so far)
Horde has long good storylines. With a lot of epic stuff in it. Good quests etc. Zones are a bit less. Great quests.
vs
Alliance has half assed storylines. A lot does not fit into each other ( storywise). Barely anything epic. We get to meet Azshara....again...like she is going to be a big part...not. Quests are boring old fashion quests. I have even done duplicate quests :S:S. Zones look a bit better. And we have collect or kills quests in truck loads instead of nice story ones.


oooh and spoilers: 1 dungeon is a ( partly ) successful raid on our new hub....so yeah..

to name a few things. So yeah...its decently balanced...

You are one of the most whiny player I have ever came across on this forum.

[Ithekro]

The Paladin/Shaman thing was very faction specific when the game started. The Horde had Shaman and the Alliance had Paladins. That was how the lore wwnt (also why Orcs didn't have priests...that was the Shaman's role in their society) and that was one of Blizzard's way to keep the factions exclusive. On the raiding scene back then? Paladins were buff bots that maybe healed if they weren't reapplying their buffs to 40 people on a five minute timer. Shaman has some rally cool buffs, but they were group based and not raid based. So either you rotated where the shaman was to give people the buff, or you had a lot of shaman. And they healed. Paladins could not tank a raid (effectively) and Shaman's ability to tank was removed early in development from what I recall. This could have remained the faction flavor classes, but Blizzard was reworking class balance, and while they could fix the Paladin buffs and make them realistic tanks, they couldn't make Shaman tanks, and their buffs were still tied to their limited range totems. These two classes, originally suppose to be equivalents even if they were not he same thing, would have the same basic rolls in the raid, just wouldn't be after the class balance was done in TBC (which helped a lot of classes not be stuck in one spec all the time, or made some classes actually viable in raids for their original intended function...like warlocks could actually dps in a raid....what can't dps in Vanilla? No. Not enough debuff slots to put up all your dots. You were a Curse bot, and you only realistically needed one warlock to keep the curse up so that Mages could kick the shit out of the dps meters. As TBC went on, raids would bring more warlocks, still as curse bots, but with more debuff slots, they could each apply a different curse. The third or maybe it was fourth locks could finally put up their actual big hitting damage curses, but by Sunwell, a warlock only needed to spam Shadow Bolt to top the dps meters...something that was impossible in Vanilla because they weren't allowed to put up the curse they themselves needed to top damage charts...and shadowbolt was not OP with the gear of the day....their dps was wrapped around their dots...and they couldn't use them in raids).

So in TBC, Blizzard, instead of working on a way to somehow balance out Shaman and Paladin classes in their respective factions, did as race/class swap to give both sides all the classes, even if it was with only a single race/class combination. Why else do you think that are so many Blood Elf Paladins running around? And why else do you think that about 50% of all player Draenei are either Shaman or Paladins? Blood Elves have more diversity on classes, but that also has to do with their OP racial (which will be nerfed in BfA to no longer be an AOE silence). Draenei use to have a very popular raiding racial, but it was removed a while ago, along with Hit as a thing on gear, but you only needed one Draenei to proved that racial (didn't stack), and most raid groups would have at least one Shaman, thus a Draenei to provide a Hit buff.

In BfA, we will see if Blood Elf numbers go down once their racial is nerfed. The flavor of the month crowd seeking the most OP combo for Mythic+ or whatever.

But the Paladins and Shamans swap was the first official faction wall crossing in terms of how Blizzard set up the game at the start. It was not the last time, nor will it be the last time they cross their own faction wall for their own purposes. Blood Elves going to the Horde can be seen as a related faction wall breakage, but lore wise the Blood Elves were neutral/independent four or five years after the Third War, with various High Elves having remained in the Alliance or in Dalaran apart from their Silvermoon kin. The Blood Elves joining the Horde split the species along faction lines with some in the Alliance, and more in the Horde. This is how it has been since TBC. No one can rightfully claim that the High Elves are only on the Horde, because that isn't true. The Blood Elves are mostly in the Horde, save for whatever is left of Kael's forces that are doing whatever in Outland. Than there are the remaining High Elves that are not allied with the Horde at all. Most are allied in some way or at least friendly to the Alliance, or are at minimum hostile to Silvermoon's Blood Elves (some were exiled for speaking out against the Ministers, while other Blood Elves were mind controlled to agree with the Ministers....I would think those groups would rebel and/or just leave. Perhaps some were what became Void Elves, the formerly mind controlled groups I mean.)

There is plenty of cross faction story telling available when it comes to the High Elves/Blood Elves/Void Elves. And of course people want to play that from all possible angles, because it would be fun.

[baskev]

You are one of the most whiny player I have ever came across on this forum.

Lol....but horde are evil....here lets make the time travel orcs the good ones...


Btw you do know what whining means right?
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/whining

Above are just facts and a analyse . Things that can be found ingame/wowpedia/wowhead. Whining would be if i did not post the facts above and want something just because.


And btw comes from a guy who only goes to threads like this to respond.

and :
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...0#post49229530

[protip]

You, as a player, have some problem with Pandaren? don't hide behind that ghostcrawler post, and even less don't try to make as i just said that i didn't see a problem, i explained it but i just did kind of a TL;DR in what you quoted, but right, if you want my argument on that look my latest posts.

I do have personal concerns about Pandaren, but I don't have to prove that they are justified. Blizzard's current path on the issue is fine with me, so the burden of execution falls to people like you to convince them to change their position.

And what i wanted to say about kul'tiran is that they are in the same faction as stormwind humans, so is not something you can relate to HE, who are a split faction who are no longer with the BE and were in the alliance from a long time ago, so despite they looking similar to BE (i just assume that added races get aesthetic changes), they fulfill different approachings in their factions.

I agree that there isn't a good comparison between Kul'tirans and High Elves, but I don't agree that it's acceptable to arbitrarily modify an existing model for the sake of giving it to the other faction. There should be a lore justification for such visual cues.

Given that based on this you are basically agreeing without admitting it, I think I already have won. I admit it would be difficult to balance. Just because you think it is stupid doesn't in fact make it stupid ... you still can't seem to understand the point of it. I am getting tired of repeating why I brought it up.

Perfect balance is inherently impossible in a game with different classes and specs. If you don't share the kits of those classes and specs between factions, you add another variable that is impossible to balance perfectly. It's not possible to create two specs that have different strengths and weaknesses without causing some fights to be easier for one faction or the other. If the fight that one class makes easier is the hardest boss in a tier, it gives the entire faction a significant advantage. There is no way to correct for that. It's not difficult, it's a logical impossibility.

The best they could do would be to keep that imbalance within a certain range, but given how much some players already complain about racials, the impact of having entirely different classes would be huge. Just consider how much people complained about the Will of the Forsaken and Every Man for Himself back in the day. Now, things like Berserking and Rocket Jump get a lot of attention. Having an entire class worth of inconsistencies like that would be a nightmare.

I am sorry ... are you the only one that gets to do that?

So literally what you have been doing this entire time?

I haven't but thanks for playing. I am recognizing those differences and state those could be used to make High Elves different. Your only counter is "THAT'S A RETCON!"

I don't think you are capable of understanding. It is proof that they doesn't need to be huge difference that are clearly noticeable. Also, not all the antlers are huge, people just chose the largest.

Yes, because tattoos and how they stand totally needs a retcon.

Given this entire paragraph proves you haven't actually read what I wrote and is pure projection on your part.

I never claimed they are "totally different" and I am not arguing that they should be playable. I have even stated in this topic that in my view High Elves are Blood Elves and Void Elves are Blood Elves in my view ... so given I have STATED I don't see them as distinct races, there is zero reason for you to assert that I think there is. You just proved YOU HAVE EVEN BOTHERED TO READ WHAT I HAVE WROTE. And yet, I am the delusional one ... you haven't paid attention at all. You don't care for an argument and you just prove that.

And yes, racials would be harder than making them look different ... I am sorry pointing out a BETTER argument for you is a bad thing. Again, fans have done fan art that are lore friendly making them look different ... but nope, Blizzard couldn't possibly do that ... totally not possible without a retcon.

Also, you stated you are done with me before and that didn't happen.

It is a retcon. Why would Void Elves use the same model as Blood Elves and not High Elves? Void Elves have changed far more. The in game models are representative of all members of a race, it's not like Overwatch where you have specific characters with different traits. Again, changing that would require someone to convince Blizzard to make an exception to a longstanding policy. The burden of execution is yours once again.

As for tattoos, it would require a retcon to make them something that separates High Elves and Blood Elves, because in the lore they share that history and nothing happened to cause one group to move on and the other not.

High Elves = Blood Elves = Void Elves is just an oversimplification of the issue for the sake of weakening a perfectly reasonable argument. They may all be the same race, but Void Elves underwent significant changes and Blood Elves did not.

[Ithekro]

Over 50% of all level 110 Pandaren are Monks (both sides). They are the majority of the Alliance Monk players, though oddly Blood Elf is the majority Monk race for the Horde. (this is only the case on US Realms. EU Realms the majority of Horde Monks are also Pandaren)


At level 110, (on US Realms) the Horde as a slight population advantage (approximately 2% of total. On EU Realms its more like 1.5% in favor of the Horde).

The Alliance has class advantage (over 51%) for Druids and Paladins (due to Lightforged Draenei) in terms of over all numbers of them verse the Horde.
The Horde have class advantages (in terms of population for the following (51% or better): Demon Hunters, Death Knights, Shaman, Warlocks, Rogues, Monks. (Probably Warriors due to Highmountain Taruren).

Roughly equal, are Hunters, Priests, and Mages. With Hunters pretty much split evenly, Priests and Mages depending heavily on how the newer Allied Races are split. The Horde has definitely 50% of the Priests, but it depend on how many Nightborne Priests have been made verse Lightforged and Void Elf Priests to see if the Horde is over 51% or not. Same with Mages, but only split between the two elf groups.

A similar population figure in terms of level 110 class exists on EU realms, with the difference being Warriors being clearly over 51% for the Horde, and Druids not quite making it to 51% for Alliance due to Highmountain Tauren.

[Aldo Hawk]

I do have personal concerns about Pandaren, but I don't have to prove that they are justified. Blizzard's current path on the issue is fine with me, so the burden of execution falls to people like you to convince them to change their position.

I agree that there isn't a good comparison between Kul'tirans and High Elves, but I don't agree that it's acceptable to arbitrarily modify an existing model for the sake of giving it to the other faction. There should be a lore justification for such visual cues.

Well, i'm totally sure your concerns with Pandaren aren't about being the exact same race in two factions, and is not about them being justified, is just that they are there and is proof that doing something like it does not damage faction identity, and BE/HE situation isn't a Huojin/Tushui one.

And modifying an existing model for giving it to the other faction was done already, with Nightborne being a modified Night Elf (and they look really great in my opinion, except males, they lack good options), and Void Elves, who just got a color change and new hairstyles adapted to their void theme, not even a new idle (but a new body skin, and i appreciate that but skin gets covered by armor very frecuently).

So i find justified to have a HE that could be differentiated from a BE by how their skin, eyes, and hair looks, and that would be what people wanted in the first place. And needless to say HE would have their own quests and storyline, so is even farthest from Pandaren situation (neutral race situation).

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You're comparing albinism to Blizzard saying no to High Elves. Do you really need to ask why that's wrong?

Yeah so you don't got it (or don't care to do to just pointing me with laziness).

I compare albinism with the concept of posibility, a Giraffe being White is not something imposibble because there's albinism, but forgetting albinism and just say that white giraffes doesn't exist while has been proven otherwise is just not right.

But well, i hate to use analogies because they got distorted a lot, i'm just gonna say that seeing what races got released already doesn't tell what are they gonna be in the future, and we just got already two 'faction swap' races and two requested sub-races (Mag'har and Black Iron Dwarves).

Next time you try to make other look bad arguing bullshit just think of it a bit more.

[Arrashi]

You are basically just asking blizzard to make your fanfic a reality...

Thats this thread in a nutshell.

[ravenmoon]

The main reason people who love high elves don't like blood elves is because how blizzard changed the blood elf to fit into a horde mould and a horde that is in a faction conflict that prohibits interaction with humans.

Create a situation where some blood elves are very high profile or a group of them (I.e. write them up, make em be cool, do cool things, relevant), and these BElves are very high elf in character, what's more, they are actually friendly with humans or at least some humans and you will eliminate the desire to have high elves playable on the alliance.

All blizzard needs is a faction of blood elves to be like this and a faction situation where being on the horde doesn't automatically mean you hate the alliance and will kill all their races on site, but you can be friends with some of them. Legions was quite friendly with Aragorn and Gimli eventually despite his father Thandruik guiding his people away from saidd dwarves and humans. It doesn't need to be all blood elves, just a group of them, and a group a player can choose to be a part off that boosts the friendships or not be a part of, maintaining hostilities. Many ways this can be achieved, here is a sample of one or two possible routes.

Method
Firstly, the lore has to make a way for this diversity to exist in the race and fsction, especially for the player, and I ferl the lore can do this after BFA, where some groups o(varying from only some of the race in some cases or most in others) actually don't want to fight with the other faction, but rather can be friendly. While others continue to harbour old hatreds and will kill on sight.

Two parts: Story aspect and player aspect. For the story, the race itself could actually form new ties with one or several races in the opposite faction, despite not joining them, and they dont need to ever join them either (maintaining the 2 faction basis) because there are also a number of races in the other faction they deeply hate and can never get along with to formally join or they have deep friendships also with too many races in their own faction that despite getting on well with race x and y in the opposite faction, they won't leave.

Blizzard then need to introduce a system of how this will play out or look to the player. Like in a race based expansion (legion was class, be a was faction), players can choose one of several factions in their race, these factions are married by friendliness or intolerance, or they each have races in the other faction they like in not liking any of them. Choosing to join such a faction will allow you to develop relations with race/races of the opposite faction accordi g to your groups affiliation,, this allows you to quest with members of the races in the opposite faction your group is friendly with, allows you to visit only their racial city and some other perks that have actual value.

You can still switch on PvP against a friendly race player of the opposite faction without any consequence as there will be arseholes amongst them or those who just hate you regardless, however killing their racial npcs will work against you.

This allows players to have their high elf fantasy with humans as a blood elf on the horde, but one that doesn't have to hate all the alliance.

Do this and no one will ask for playable high elves again as they would have an outlet as blood elves.

In the lore, a faction of the blood elves like the sunreavers could he the human living group in the lore, and to have humans friendly with you, you have to reach exalted with the sun readers first then you can help the humans doing quests with them and grouping up with humans. You are still horde, but you can develop a relationship.

This would be strictly post BRA, which concludes all out hostility, some or even most of the blood elves may or may not hate all alliance race x, soon a race per race based, some horde races would be more open than others, bu9t each will have something to allow players who want to pursue friendly avenues.

This will only work on an expansion that his race specific, sort of like how legion was class specific, telling stories for the class and showing development. Exploring relations reach race has with it's faction member races and the races of the opposite fsction

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

The lore has to make a way for this diversity

A ha! The beast has revealed it's true form!