Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Gaexion Ramza Beoulve]

The lore has to make a way for this diversity

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

[Obelisk Kai]

snip

Or Blizzard can tell people to roll a Void Elf if they want a High Elf variant that can play with Humans.

Which they have done.

Because inventing a system where some members of a faction would prefer to go 'kum-bye-ya' with members of the others is antithetical to the concept of a faction based game.

There are plenty of MMOs out there without faction systems where everyone can play what they want with who they want. Warcraft is not one of those, and these perennial attempts to find SOME way 'fair skinned, majestic elves' can interact with Humans are vexing both because of the lack of respect they show to THE fundamental premise on which this game is founded (Alliance vs Horde) and because of their lack of respect to the lore as it stands.

[Kemsa]

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.

Well i am rerolling my belf paladin to Zandalari paladin in one hit. I always wanted to play horde, but i am paladin class player and... well or it was playing a human paladin or a hunter troll on vanilla. With TBC my dreams come true but i needed to become a High/blood elves thingy for the corrupted light and seal of vengeace and blood.

Please zandalari paladin be a thing pls pls pls pls

[Kithelle]

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

No, I'm saying I'll settle for it...since the odds are very small to ever getting High Elves on the Alliance.

Either way he is trolling...either trolling the Alliance because they want High Elves or trolling the Horde because the Alliance could one day get High Elves.

By your logic just because I don't constantly waste my money on lottery tickets means I don't want to win the lottery.

But hey, you've always been so heavily biased...not surprised you speak in such absolutes.

[Obelisk Kai]

.

Please zandalari paladin be a thing pls pls pls pls

They will be.

[FlubberPuddy]

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

I see what you're saying and yeah it looks High Elves being playable has to sit out for BFA for sure. Then we know the next expansion should be a focus on classes, so there will need to be the next one after that which will have some kind of "race focus" wherein maybe High Elves could become a thing.

Since every WoW expansion has had an alternating focus on Race vs Class

TBC - Race focus
Wrath - Class focus
Cata - Race focus
MoP - Class focus (they added Pandas too but minimum wise they added a Class as expected)
WoD - Race focus (Race updates to original races)
Legion - Class focus
BfA - Race focus

So there's a clear pattern with the expansion features. Next one after BfA will be class centric, either adding a new class or doing something major to our classes.

Then the one after will be another Race centric one. We'll just have to see how things play out.

They apparently replaced the Wildhammer Dwarf and Jinyu banners with Vrykul ones. Which means they're still constantly changing things for BFA.

Good news is what hasn't changed is Seraphi being a High Elf and those High Elf NPCs in Arathi Warfronts. Looking forward to seeing hints/appearances of any more Alliance affiliated High Elves in BfA

[Ithekro]

Vrykul? How does that work? There are not Vykul in either faction at present. There were trader in Zandalar from what I remember along with Tuskar and other races. But the Island Expedition groups were all Horde members near their, and the Jinyu banner was in the area with the Alliance's Island Expedition groups (there were no Jinyu present in the last build and I've not gone city exploring yet in the new build) I didn't find the Wildhammer banner last time around.

[Maljinwo]

But hey, you've always been so heavily biased...not surprised you speak in such absolutes.

Only siths deal in absolutes

[FlubberPuddy]

Vrykul? How does that work? There are not Vykul in either faction at present. There were trader in Zandalar from what I remember along with Tuskar and other races. But the Island Expedition groups were all Horde members near their, and the Jinyu banner was in the area with the Alliance's Island Expedition groups (there were no Jinyu present in the last build and I've not gone city exploring yet in the new build) I didn't find the Wildhammer banner last time around.

I'm not sure I think I saw it on the BFA speculation thread when they were showing the new stuff from the latest build. Someone found those areas changed. Could've also maybe been Wowhead but I think more likely I saw it from the speculation thread here on MMO-C

[Maljinwo]

I'm so sorry, Huge Star Wars fan and Sith is plural so it's "Only Sith deal in absolutes" same as Jedi it is also plural, I'm so sorry I just had to point it out. <3

Yep, mispelled that. As a member of the 501st legion, i'll proceed to kill myself now

[Sorrior]

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.



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.

Hell look at Aurics Angels with blue hair for a good examplem go on a spectrum of blueish for hair as opposed to the be red. So lots of white and blues.

Eyes do the same

Skin tones mostly paler ones

Bam new look new style mix in a human skeleton or a modified ne one annd we are set

[Aldo Hawk]

Or Blizzard can tell people to roll a Void Elf if they want a High Elf variant that can play with Humans.

Which they have done.

Because inventing a system where some members of a faction would prefer to go 'kum-bye-ya' with members of the others is antithetical to the concept of a faction based game.

There are plenty of MMOs out there without faction systems where everyone can play what they want with who they want. Warcraft is not one of those, and these perennial attempts to find SOME way 'fair skinned, majestic elves' can interact with Humans are vexing both because of the lack of respect they show to THE fundamental premise on which this game is founded (Alliance vs Horde) and because of their lack of respect to the lore as it stands.

Or add HE to the alliance so people can have what they want, ohh sorry you didn't like the idea, ok we all are going to forgot everything we pointed out about the matter.

The only lack of respect here comes from your line of argumentation, you avoid any evidence that doesn't fit your desires and come here to bother anyone who doesn't agree with you.

Is not the problem of others that you think people base the entire HE request on being normal elves, if this is asked so many times and from so long is not because it came out from thin air you know?

[Gurluas]

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...

You're the one who is in the wrong. The arrogant High elves would never live among humans as equals, and would consider themselves the highest proudest people.
The remaining arrogant High elves are in the Kirin Tor and possibly the Silver Covenant.

The majority of High elves were humbled, respect humans and other races, work alongside them. They have also stopped using magic, and High elves do not drain magic from things. They carry arcane artifacts that passively send mana inside them and meditate.
They were exiled and thrown out of their homes for refusing to compromise their beliefs and morality, they were just as mana starved as the Blood elves and were in a much worse condition as they had to fight through the Ghostlands, yet they survived and overcame their addiction without needing to compromise their morals. They didn't leech on other races, they pulled their weight. In Theramore High elves were part of the armed forces, and in Stormwind they're part of the Mage tower.

While the Quel'danil ones are locked in battle against the Forest trolls and Forsaken, and are helping the Aerie peak wildhammers.

You clearly don't know much about High elves.

[Deleted]

Or add HE to the alliance so people can have what they want, ohh sorry you didn't like the idea, ok we all are going to forgot everything we pointed out about the matter.

The only lack of respect here comes from your line of argumentation, you avoid any evidence that doesn't fit your desires and come here to bother anyone who doesn't agree with you.

Is not the problem of others that you think people base the entire HE request on being normal elves, if this is asked so many times and from so long is not because it came out from thin air you know?

I think its perfectly fair to want a specific race to be added , my personal issue with it is that people are wanting a retcon of High Elf Culture that exists in game now to fulfill that wish, because yes they do need to be different, and at the moment they aren't.

You talk of void elves being a "ass" pull, but doing this would be just as bad. Hence why imo Blizzard have said no for now. They will do it gradually if at all.

[Deleted]

I hope blizzard kick this community in the face and just add a blue eye option to bloodelves. That'll make my day. & is much more likely than getting high elves.

[Obelisk Kai]

Or add HE to the alliance so people can have what they want, ohh sorry you didn't like the idea, ok we all are going to forgot everything we pointed out about the matter.

The only lack of respect here comes from your line of argumentation, you avoid any evidence that doesn't fit your desires and come here to bother anyone who doesn't agree with you.

Is not the problem of others that you think people base the entire HE request on being normal elves, if this is asked so many times and from so long is not because it came out from thin air you know?

I have no respect for the pro High Elf position. It has been based for months on peddling bad fan-fiction as viable canon, ignores the facts (supported by the developers) based in both lore and gameplay as to why it isn't happening and is simply a desire without any real foundation. The desire is honest, that I can understand and respect. But the commentary in support of that desire has proven to be extremely weak.

Case in point, the fact a large chunk of this topic in recent days has been devoted to the idea that High Elves can be made bulkier due to their outdoorsy way of life when compared to Blood Elves and therefore justified as a playable race. This is what the 'arguments' in favour of playable High Elves has devolved too.

Never mind that the wood elf aesthetic touted as being the basis for this idea is covered by the Night Elves (source Chris Metzen).

Never mind that High Elves are assimilating into human lands and don't have a distinct non thalassian or non human culture. They aren't consciously sitting around trying to come up with something new. They are losing the former to the later through natural processes.

Never mind that there are plenty of Blood Elves whose only use for magic is to feed their addiction and who lead active, physically demanding lives and who should therefore be able to look just as physical as these outdoorsy High Elves.

Never mind that most of the few remaining High Elves are based in the very outdoorsy location of a major city filled with magic.

No, never mind any of that. We have to give serious consideration to the idea that because the High Elves are a bit more outdoorsy they may have a few more muscles and because of that are totally different from Blood Elves and so worthy of being added as an Allied race.

Which is the sort of completely ridiculous argument that led me to having no respect for the pro High Elf position beyond being a series of bad jokes.

[FlubberPuddy]

I hope blizzard kick this community in the face and just add a blue eye option to bloodelves. That'll make my day. & is much more likely than getting high elves.

Not likely at all, the fact they corrected Seraphi's eyes is means to continuing showcase "hey this is a high elf" as many rightfully pointed out "why are his eyes green if he's a high elf"

And for those 4 or so blood elves that have blue eyes, Blizzard obviously doesn't care enough about em to update/fix em

[ravenmoon]

Or Blizzard can tell people to roll a Void Elf if they want a High Elf variant that can play with Humans.

Which they have done.

Because inventing a system where some members of a faction would prefer to go 'kum-bye-ya' with members of the others is antithetical to the concept of a faction based game.

There are plenty of MMOs out there without faction systems where everyone can play what they want with who they want. Warcraft is not one of those, and these perennial attempts to find SOME way 'fair skinned, majestic elves' can interact with Humans are vexing both because of the lack of respect they show to THE fundamental premise on which this game is founded (Alliance vs Horde) and because of their lack of respect to the lore as it stands.

In think that is b/s b/c Warcraft can accommodate complexities between races that aren't pure black and white. Warcraft does not lose its integrity if some of the people in a race in opposing factions actually like each other though most of their kin don't.

Making provision for this enriches the game and appeals to a lot of people without losing some of the core conflict basis.

It's world of Warcraft, horde and alliance are just a stage of the vast stories of conflicts and peace too. And all the peace is not just gathered to one section, nor does it have to be. To say a situation like this is antithetical to Warcraft stupifies me, because blizzard itself in it's story has been antithetical because we have not always had was or fighting between the factions and dynamics constantly change.

[Aldo Hawk]

I have no respect for the pro High Elf position. It has been based for months on peddling bad fan-fiction as viable canon, ignores the facts (supported by the developers) based in both lore and gameplay as to why it isn't happening and is simply a desire without any real foundation. The desire is honest, that I can understand and respect. But the commentary in support of that desire has proven to be extremely weak.

Case in point, the fact a large chunk of this topic in recent days has been devoted to the idea that High Elves can be made bulkier due to their outdoorsy way of life when compared to Blood Elves and therefore justified as a playable race. This is what the 'arguments' in favour of playable High Elves has devolved too.

Which is the sort of completely ridiculous argument that led me to having no respect for the pro High Elf position beyond being a series of bad jokes.

So you state that pro arguments are extremely weak when you can't proove it, and then call others delusional and being 'out of their minds', right, it seems fair.

Never mind that the wood elf aesthetic touted as being the basis for this idea is covered by the Night Elves (source Chris Metzen).

Never mind that High Elves are assimilating into human lands and don't have a distinct non thalassian or non human culture. They aren't consciously sitting around trying to come up with something new. They are losing the former to the later through natural processes.

Never mind that there are plenty of Blood Elves whose only use for magic is to feed their addiction and who lead active, physically demanding lives and who should therefore be able to look just as physical as these outdoorsy High Elves.

Never mind that most of the few remaining High Elves are based in the very outdoorsy location of a major city filled with magic.

No, never mind any of that. We have to give serious consideration to the idea that because the High Elves are a bit more outdoorsy they may have a few more muscles and because of that are totally different from Blood Elves and so worthy of being added as an Allied race.

Again with that forest high elf thing... do you realize that it is a concept art based on the most recent high elf lore addition to wow, Alleria?, just look how many of the draws depict blue warpaint, like the alleria ones, and no one is trying to force that concept on Blizzard... and the idea of them being physically stronger is just an idea based on an idea, is totally fanmade and just blind people takes this as canon...

And you just saying that Night elves are wood elves is not honest, that would be fair if you were a new player and didn't knew about wow's lore, but your account has been made in 2012 and you don't trick anyone, nice try lil fella

Never mind that High Elves are assimilating into human lands and don't have a distinct non thalassian or non human culture. They aren't consciously sitting around trying to come up with something new. They are losing the former to the later through natural processes.

Sure, they were separated from their homeland more than a decade ago and they do not have their culture or the culture of the people with who are living with, but they are the same as BE, yeah, your arguments hold by themselves i see... and just the part of them 'losing the former to the later throught natural processes'... idk what are you even talking about, but if it is about their culture you don't have anything to back it up and if it is about their bloodline you don't have either because there aren't much known half-elves and we weren't told about them a from long time ago, and just much of them are from the RPG book and just a pair are considered canon as much. So again, I don't even know where your point is.

Try to hold your own points first and then go point other's, all that passive-agressive crap for disuade others from answering just does not work anymore.

And if you just don't respect people wanting high elves i don't even know what are you doing here in the first place, you don't even care to look at the whole picture or take information when needed, you just want to make your point because that's the point you want to prevail but do not give anything more than denial of other's facts and behaving like a total arse.

[Aldo Hawk]

He made it clear in the last few posts with me he is only here to remind and tell us we are not entitled to talk or want High elves and that we'll never get them and to have zero respect for us because we want to talk about something we know we may never have irks him to come to these threads and call us out on it for some apparent reason, I can't quite get my head around the line of thinking tbh.

All he knows to do is acting like a total butthurted arse with all that aggresive way of comunicating his ideas against this thread so people feel less and less encouraged to answer him because it ends feeling useless trying to argue with someone so hardheaded to understand anything against what he believes or wants.