Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Obelisk Kai]

Yet they have done many in game changes see BE AND HE models being changed from the prior NE version in most cases or Sylvanas.

Your argument about in game changes is already proven to be false

Not really. Everyone expected the Blood/High Elves to get a model upgrade in TBC because they were becoming a playable race and the previous model was a placeholder.

The important point is that when Blood Elves got that new model, High Elves did too. And when Blood Elves got the upgrade, High Elves did too. This is unsurprising as both groups are in fact the same race. No attempt was made to differentiate the Blood Elves and High Elves beyond the High Elves having blue eyes.

What is being suggested here is immersion breaking because it would drastically move High Elves away from Blood Elves, flying in the face of nearly a decade of consistent storytelling that the Blood Elves and the High Elves are the same race, in an attempt to pretend that High Elves are somehow different from Blood Elves.

Void Elves ARE different from Blood/High Elves. They do not break immersion or lore because the process by which they changed was shown to us.

These High Elf changes are an attempt to retcon the past decade, that High Elves all suddenly decided to wear different clothers, apply facial tattoos, sprout different hairstyles AND find out that all the darker skin toned elves happened to be kicked out of Silvermoon. It is a nonsensical approach, a transparent attempt to force a difference to justify an Allied race rather than an Allied race that arises naturally from the story of the game.

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Which we seem to interpret totally different.

I can quote Chris Metzen saying Blood Elves are Blizzard's twist on traditional High Elves.

I can quote Ion Hazzikostas on two occasions saying Blood Elves are High Elves.

This is not a matter of individual interpretation. Blood Elves are High Elves and so High Elves are playable.

I don't think there is such thing like "correct" or "incorrect" when it comes to story interpretations... And even If it would be - it applies only as long, as they don't change mind on that matter, like on many things before.

My views are just my views. I knowledge disagreement, however I am kind of person who would still rather speak loud, even if having disagreement with Judeo-Christian god. Unfortunately for You, these are views shared by thousands of people, who do not recognize Blood Elves, as High Elves.

Yes, there are. If I were to say Arthas was never the Lich King and try to defend that as my opinion people would rightfully laugh at me. You cannot have a subjective opinion on a fact. A fact is immutable. Saying it's 'my opinion' that the fact is wrong does not validate your position or offer it some kind of standing, it places you at odds with reality. That 'thousands' share your view is also immaterial. A fact does not change because a lot of people think the fact is wrong. The world after all remains a globe despite the misgivings of the flat earth society.

First - not all differences mentioned here were political, and some - like more frequent crossbreeding, mentioned even in game - have far more reaching outcome, than just political. Secondly - saying, that political differences can't have biological consequences would be untrue even in real world (division of Korea example), and in fantasy world is just silly, and was disproved few months ago, by that unfortunate accident, called Void Elves.

Void Elves went through a magical process that granted them new skin tones and allowed them to sprout tentacles. It cut them off from the light based future awaiting the Blood/High Elves. This is why they are able to be an Allied race, there is a justified level of difference between them and the Blood/High Elves.

Frequent cross-breeding may result in a race of Half Elves. That is not the point of this discussion and has no relevance to the topic at hand.

Who told You I ever played Alliance?

I loved Blood Elves once. When hey were introduced. Cause there was no similar elf in any other fantasy world. And calling them - then - " traditional tolkien style " would probably make audience laugh. However I can not stand devs destroying them, by making identical with High Elves anymore, without any objection. It is people who speak for reading them as identical, are those who actually harm them.

The Blood Elf storyline as they were introduced with was a one way path to their doom. By the lore of the game, the fel ultimately destroys. The Blood Elves were always going to find a pure source of magic for their needs, else all they would ultimately face would be their addiction. And once the cure was found, was storyline or role should have been found for them? The obvious one, the one they played before, that of the traditional style High Elf.

The plot of Elves dealing with forbidden magics has been repurposed with the Void Elves though. Maybe it has a longer term future than the Blood Elf plot.

All the rest of the post is just repeating the same opinion in different ways as kind of spell, in case the summoning of the lord and the saviors name was not enough in this time to banish evil spirits. Well... I disagree as much times, as You repeat.

And last, but not least - I absolutely have no feeling that this thread "failed".
It rather showed already many possibilities of highlighting differences, and huge field for compromises


Well, for me the case would be effective solved, cause lost. But I would still disagree, that such solution was the best one.

This thread failed because it failed to convince anyone that High Elves could be differentiated from Blood Elves beyond those who wished to believe it was possible.

The compromise for the Alliance was acquiring a variant of the thalassian elf model to play without having to go Horde.
There is no need for a second compromise because the first one wasn't to your liking.

You cannot please everyone after all.

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To be fair, you just described Void Elves.

If I recall, Alliance hate them and regularly refer to them as "ass-pulls".

Hmmm... It's almost like you are right about skin tone suddenly changing
.

Remember, Void Elves had a narrative that explained the change. The presumption with the other suggestions is that we are being asked to pretend that High Elves in the Alliance have always been like this, with no justification whatsoever.

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snip

As High Elves were the obvious base for an Alliance based race of thalassian elves, and given they have stated they have absolutely no intent to add a High Elf allied race, there are likely two solutions.

Either the High Elves have a story role within BFA, maybe tied to this hypothetical attack on Silvermoon, or Blizzard felt nobody would believe that High Elves would be messing with dark magics.

I suspect the former.

[Gurluas]

For your second point...I think it's because High elves not messing with Dark magics and refusing to sacrifice their moral integrity is exactly what set them apart from Belves and made them interesting. They were underdogs, but Alliance, and good.

Which is kinda what I wanted from the race, that is the main reason I disliked Blood elves.
Blood elves joined a faction that did so much damage to their home and that did morally questionable things sometimes. And became very morally questionable themselves, while the High elves remained in the Alliance and did their best to help, the Blood elves took to Fel and started keeping slaves, torturing people, desecrating tombs, etc.

The Void elves are now using an even darker power, and unlike the Blood elves where you could opt out from using dark magic, you can't with Void elves.
It's my biggest issue with them. They're the Anti-High elves.

Had they made them into Arcane or Nature elves descended from High elves I wouldn't have minded that they weren't fair or blonde anymore.

[DeicideUH]

I figured it was more accurate overall, but it currently doesn't seem to even show Allied Races. Shame.

The gray "unknown" region in both Race and Faction graphs are the allied races. Unfortunately, they still have not updated their algorithm to identify them.

So, we know that, at level 110, all allied races combined are 2.7% of total population, but we have no per-race stats. Clicking on the "Unknown" region in faction graph, you can check their classes and take a few conclusions. We know for sure at least 10% of allied races are highmountain (Shaman + Druid), at least 8.2% are lightforged (paladins) and the combined elves are at least 23% (rogue + warlock).

I've been checking it regularly since February, hoping they update their code to identify the races.

[Deleted]

In which case, don't call them high elves, because at that point they aren't, just call them half elves

Why? Are Tirasian called Half-Drust? Or they are just considered human?

We seem to differ in interpretation, what is "purest" part of High Elven culture, and that's fine - for me it's not sucking magic, and/or fel, neither becoming sun elves, but rather those abandoned concepts. But If You consider Horde side after all this changes as "purest" - I won't be trying to change your mind. In fact, I don't believe game should straightly judge in such matter, rather letting players to disagree. I just propose rather equal share of motifs, so every player could stay in their interpretation, and story could go further in parallel way, or so called here "mirroring". I however proposed name Forest Elves, as compromise, if admitting that Blood Elves changed their way of living bothers You so much.

But You know what? Introducing them under the name Half-Elves would be for me compromise, even if not preferable solution, if Blizzard chose to do so - only if more classical aesthetic were preserved.

With High Elves and Blood Elves, we know there's no actual physical difference besides the eyes. We've been told this, and we can see it.

I was not writing only about strictly biological differences, as justification for the change, here. But we actually got already hint about one from Elisande speech in game.

I can quote Chris Metzen saying Blood Elves are Blizzard's twist on traditional High Elves.

I believe You can quote, however I don't believe You can understand. "Twist", implementation, artistic interpretation, or in fact just loose inspiration - for sure - but used to write something new, change accents etc. Effect in TBC era was still one of the most original.

A fact is immutable

In the real world. And we are arguing about recognizing identity of two attempts of implementation some concept in the work of culture. There is no facts here.

The Blood Elves were always going to find a pure source of magic for their needs, else all they would ultimately face would be their addiction. And once the cure was found, was storyline or role should have been found for them? The obvious one, the one they played before, that of the traditional style High Elf.

And You really don't see, that it is actually just personal storytelling preference, that You defend here all the time? The one with happy ending, the one with redemption for everyone waiting right behind the corner, and with actions taken to survive having no irreversible consequences. Childish, flat and uninteresting one, losing all their dept and tragism, and taking all character from them. Destroying with time all their moral ambivalence and pragmatism - all that was best TBC invention.

The one I passionately hate, just as much, as You are holding to it. My assumption, that they never in fact meant to be like You said, and this story outcome is actual destruction of their concept, and cowardly way of storytelling, taken to get sympathy of more naive storytelling tastes, is actually as valid as yours. Voices complaining about total wasting Kael as a character, make me sure, that I'm not alone.

The plot of Elves dealing with forbidden magics has been repurposed with the Void Elves though.

So You in fact admit, that Void Elves are part of the Blood Elf story going further, and not High Elf story, so there are obvious reasons, for them to not being recognized as High Elves for those, who do not recognize Blood Elves as High Elves? Thanks for that note.

They would be "compromise" if assumption that all Alliance players want is "thalasian model with blue eyes" was true. It was however in fact false, and failed attempt to recognize expectations. Well - it happens. In time, Blizzard will have to evaluate this attempt.

anyone

You are not everyone here. And it is in fact not up to You, to make summary.

[Deleted]

I figured it was more accurate overall, but it currently doesn't seem to even show Allied Races. Shame.

Yeah, warcraft realms is more accurate atm imo. Realm pop is not up to date.

The sample of WR is big enough to be representative.

[THEORACLE64]

Why is this still going? It. Is. Not. Going. To. Happen. Let it die.

[Deleted]

Set it to 110 - 110 to get the true number, setting it at 20-110 obviously gives a higher number because people tried them but then stopped, Void Elves aint as popular as you're making them out to be. Take into account it's been 5 months since their inception into game so people who are sticking with the race even the most casual ones are lvl 110 by now easily, and even on that website you use it shows there are less Void elves than Worgan.

No one said anything versus other races. Void elves are by far the most popular allied race, even at 110, being double of what the second most popular allied race is (nightborne). Therefore comments that say "Alliance hates void elves" are big steamy pile of poo.

[KrakHed]

Why? Are Tirasian called Half-Drust? Or they are just considered human?

We seem to differ in interpretation, what is "purest" part of High Elven culture, and that's fine - for me it's not sucking magic, and/or fel, neither becoming sun elves, but rather those abandoned concepts. But If You consider Horde side after all this changes as "purest" - I won't be trying to change your mind. In fact, I don't believe game should straightly judge in such matter, rather letting players to disagree. I just propose rather equal share of motifs, so every player could stay in their interpretation, and story could go further in parallel way, or so called here "mirroring". I however proposed name Forest Elves, as compromise, if admitting that Blood Elves changed their way of living bothers You so much.

But You know what? Introducing them under the name Half-Elves would be for me compromise, even if not preferable solution, if Blizzard chose to do so - only if more classical aesthetic were preserved.

I was not writing only about strictly biological differences, as justification for the change, here. But we actually got already hint about one from Elisande speech in game.

Sure, a mixed elf race could easily work, but it couldn't be retroactively applied to the majority of extant High Elven characters. Vereesa is Sylvanas's sister, after all.

[Gaidax]

No one said anything versus other races. Void elves are by far the most popular allied race, even at 110, being double of what the second most popular allied race is (nightborne). Therefore comments that say "Alliance hates void elves" are big steamy pile of poo.

While I am not into ultimate claims as what is the MOST popular, Void Elves are certainly not hated and are played a lot. It's a bunch of baloney to say "Alliance hates Void Elves".

It's a great model, great looking melee swings and looks awesome in tier armors. Hated? Not even close.

[FlubberPuddy]

Yeah, warcraft realms is more accurate atm imo. Realm pop is not up to date.

The sample of WR is big enough to be representative.

How can a website that requires its users download an addon and upload data in order to be represented (Warcraft Realms) be more up to date/accurate than a website that continually pings characters who use the AH/Guilds that use the AH with no addon required nor input needed from players other than using the AH (Realmpop) ???

That makes no sense at all. Warcraft Realms also shows Alliance leading in population over Horde by a 1.3:1 ratio but we know that is bullshit and that there are more overall population of players currently playing Horde than Alliance and it's skewed in Horde's favor. This is supported by both Realmpop and WoWprogress.

WarcraftRealms has a shitty method to show census data and I still can't believe some are saying or touting it as "more accurate than Realmpop." All WarcraftRealms shows is that most of its users play Alliance.

Edit: More evidence to prove that WarcraftRealms is bullshit - Look at the column to the right showing "All Guilds" it's all Alliance and WarcraftRealms lists it as "Top 50 Guilds by level value" proving my point even more that it's an Alliance biased website.

WarcraftRealms is just trash all around.

[Deleted]

I would prefer Vereesa to die in the elven civil war, sorry for that And Silver Covenant act just as connector between Alliance, and new ranger-themed population with changed lifestyle, as I already mentioned. So those are not my primary concerns.

Moreover that's minor problem for me, as I don't consider biological change to be necessary and only, but rather secondary explanation of model updates. If You think, that biological change is the only reasonable motif, of model upgrade, then we have no easy way, other maybe than operating on two models, as Tirasian population. However i still consider modern Blood Elf model not to be accurate, to what High Elf should look, after all - I still see it also as possible way of highlighting different thematically atmosphere, temperament, and behavior -

http://media.moddb.com/images/downlo..._in_battle.jpg
https://orig00.deviantart.net/e2ab/f..._by_hikzbr.jpg

[Deleted]

How can a website that requires its users download an addon and upload data in order to be represented (Warcraft Realms) be more up to date/accurate than a website that continually pings characters who use the AH/Guilds that use the AH with no addon required nor input needed from players other than using the AH (Realmpop) ???

That makes no sense at all. Warcraft Realms also shows Alliance leading in population over Horde by a 1.3:1 ratio but we know that is bullshit and that there are more overall population of players currently playing Horde than Alliance and it's skewed in Horde's favor. This is supported by both Realmpop and WoWprogress.

WarcraftRealms has a shitty method to show census data and I still can't believe some are saying or touting it as "more accurate than Realmpop." All WarcraftRealms shows is that most of its users play Alliance.

Edit: More evidence to prove that WarcraftRealms is bullshit - Look at the column to the right showing "All Guilds" it's all Alliance and WarcraftRealms lists it as "Top 50 Guilds by level value" proving my point even more that it's an Alliance biased website.

WarcraftRealms is just trash all around.

Such a wall of text for not being able to see what i wrote. OUT OF DATE means obsolete. You are comparing a site with numbers to one with none. There is no comparison to make. But, their sample is 1/40th of the overall population. You can definitly draw trends from that. It's a huge sample.

So, yes Warcraft realms is more accurate, until the other one bothers to update. But, don't expect significant changes.

And yes, it is likely Alliance overtook horde on population because of the "hated" void elves. Get over it. Realms also had horde being more numerous at max level, but they have bothered to update their numbers and allied races now play a factor.

[FlubberPuddy]

I mean the recent broadcast text by Umbric shows that not all Blood Elves even, think alike. That he states his people belong to the Alliance, and that he feels more right than before means him, and possibly others were feeling that same way before already but are even more resolute now in that regard.

So touting the "Thalassian/High Elves" as a Horde race is actually incorrect as we are continuing to see not all its own people agree.

You can say Blood Elves are Horde and that much is true, but not every Thalassian Elf variant, that would indeed be incorrect and current/new lore is supporting that. The "majestic" style Thalassian elves belong to the Horde from developer comments.

But getting Alliance High Elves wasn't ever about having "majestic elves" in the first place, as the concepts in the beginning of this thread and various other places prove.

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Such a wall of text for not being able to see what i wrote. OUT OF DATE means obsolete. You are comparing a site with numbers to one with none.

How does Realmpop not have numbers? It's pretty obvious the "Uknown" piece of pie is in reference to Allied Races because if you bring the level range to 20-20 then it jumps up hugely as a piece of the pie, meaning one can easily deduce it's the number of ALL Allied Races.

We just don't know how it's divided up but as @DeicideUH pointed out you can take a look at the classes that are unique to certain races to guesstimate an idea of where the popularity lies.

What do you even mean by not having "none" numbers. The data is there, just not categorized yet.

Edit: And it still doesn't disprove that WarcraftRealms isn't trash. It very much has a trash way of garnering census data, the numbers that exist for it shouldn't even matter if it can't be as close as objectively possible compared to Horde. Which Realmpop beats that out in completely.

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There is no comparison to make. But, their sample is 1/40th of the overall population. You can definitly draw trends from that. It's a huge sample.

So, yes Warcraft realms is more accurate, until the other one bothers to update. But, don't expect significant changes.

And yes, it is likely Alliance overtook horde on population because of the "hated" void elves. Get over it. Realms also had horde being more numerous at max level, but they have bothered to update their numbers and allied races now play a factor.

My comments were never about Void Elves in particular, I don't give a shit about that. Merely to point out that Warcraftrealms uses heavily biased data. All you can use it for is to see the Alliance portion of things, but that doesn't show the whole picture of Allied Races overall because you're pretty much leaving out the Horde side, thus it's not a true census.

The fact Realms shows a piece of the pie as Unknown for Allied Races means that it is continuously updating, how you cannot realize this is beyond me. But stay ignorant if you wish, my comments are more for the general public that happen to chance by this rather than specifically trying to convince those who use trashy ass census websites.

[Deleted]

I mean the recent broadcast text by Umbric shows that not all Blood Elves even, think alike. That he states his people belong to the Alliance, and that he feels more right than before means him, and possibly others were feeling that same way before already but are even more resolute now in that regard.

So touting the "Thalassian/High Elves" as a Horde race is actually incorrect as we are continuing to see not all its own people agree.

You can say Blood Elves are Horde and that much is true, but not every Thalassian Elf variant, that would indeed be incorrect and current/new lore is supporting that. The "majestic" style Thalassian elves belong to the Horde from developer comments.

But getting Alliance High Elves wasn't ever about having "majestic elves" in the first place, as the concepts in the beginning of this thread and various other places prove.
If you don't care about allied races then stop discussing with me. I was specifically talking about allied races.

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How does Realmpop not have numbers? It's pretty obvious the "Uknown" piece of pie is in reference to Allied Races because if you bring the level range to 20-20 then it jumps up hugely as a piece of the pie, meaning one can easily deduce it's the number of ALL Allied Races.

We just don't know how it's divided up but as @DeicideUH pointed out you can take a look at the classes that are unique to certain races to guesstimate an idea of where the popularity lies.

What do you even mean by not having "none" numbers. The data is there, just not categorized yet.

Edit: And it still doesn't disprove that WarcraftRealms isn't trash. It very much has a trash way of garnering census data, the numbers that exist for it shouldn't even matter if it can't be as close as objectively possible compared to Horde. Which Realmpop beats that out in completely.

So, let's recap... Realmpop has the data but not categorized. So, that means the data is useless. Great! Glad we had this conversation.

I have been specifically talking about allied races. If you don't care, then why are you discussing this with me?

I said it once and i'll say it a million times cause it's true. Void elves are currently the most popular allied race.

[FlubberPuddy]

So, let's recap... Realmpop has the data but not categorized. So, that means the data is useless. Great! Glad we had this conversation.

I'm sorry that you cannot deduce the information that Realmpop has like how @DeicideUH was able to, and others I'm sure who have greater capacity than you can as well. That's not a fault of the website, but of the individual user itself.

[Deleted]

I'm sorry that you cannot deduce the information that Realmpop has like how @DeicideUH was able to, and others I'm sure who have greater capacity than you can as well. That's not a fault of the website, but of the individual user itself.

Don't be sorry. The problem is you can't even understand the point people are making and jump with all sorts of useless trash trying to dilute the conversation on walls of text.

I made a claim, i provided my source.

You want to make a different claim, then do it and provide your source. You are doing nothing but wasting everyone's time with your bundle of useless data.

[FlubberPuddy]

Don't be sorry. The problem is you can't even understand the point people are making and jump with all sorts of useless trash trying to dilute the conversation on walls of text.

I made a claim, i provided my source.

You want to make a different claim, then do it and provide your source. You are doing nothing but wasting everyone's time with your bundle of useless data.

I have also been talking specifically about Allied Races and I have been saying and showing how one can easily deduce that the "Unknown" portion on Realmpop is ALL Allied Races. And @DeicideUH has shown how you can see, by taking some of the unique classes from that complete total of ALL Allied Races you can kind of deduce their popularity using Realmpop.

Realmpop being more accurate, gives a better indication. Regardless if the result ends up the same.

And my main comments again, were about showing how trashy Warcraftrealms census data is, I don't give a fuck if Void Elves are the most popular Allied Race or not. Merely that touting Warcraftrealms as accurate over Realmpop is what's really dumb, when one requires extra steps from its users and the other does not and garners data from natural play.

Underlined and bolded my entire purpose of my comments, which seem to have flew over your head.

[Deleted]

I have also been talking specifically about Allied Races and I have been saying and showing how one can easily deduce that the "Unknown" portion on Realmpop is ALL Allied Races. And @DeicideUH has shown how you can see, by taking some of the unique classes from that complete total of ALL Allied Races you can kind of deduce their popularity using Realmpop.

Realmpop being more accurate, gives a better indication. Regardless if the result ends up the same.

And my main comments again, were about showing how trashy Warcraftrealms census data is, I don't give a fuck if Void Elves are the most popular Allied Race or not. Merely that touting Warcraftrealms as accurate over Realmpop is what's really dumb, when one requires extra steps from its users and the other does not and garners data from natural play.

Underlined and bolded my entire purpose of my comments, which seem to have flew over your head.

Jesus... you just don't understand. Realm pop data is unreliable atm. You can't draw any conclusions until they fix the algorythm, just guesses. You got reliable data for a huge sample. It is the only data you can adress atm. We can't really play a guessing game and say it's more reliable, cause it's not.
Also, love how much you are spam pinging the guy when he already said that the info will be better on BfA. Atm it is not.

Let me put this simply, until you have a means to falsify the results of the source i presented, you got nothing. Move along. Even if you had the info, it won't necessarely present very different information and i didn't say it's more accurate, i said it's the only one with up to date information you can accuratly read.
So, stop wasting everyone's time. I made a claim about velfs. If you have any way to falsify it, do it. If you don't, don't adress me or i'm black listing your spam.

[FlubberPuddy]

Jesus... you just don't understand. Realm pop data is unreliable atm. You can't draw any conclusions until they fix the algorythm, just guesses. You got reliable data for a huge sample. It is the only data you can adress atm. We can't really play a guessing game and say it's more reliable, cause it's not.
Also, love how much you are spam pinging the guy when he already said that the info will be better on BfA. Atm it is not.

Oh I didn't know it adds a new ping everytime whoops!

Regardless, I think you and I are the same page but just misunderstanding a few things. You can draw some educated guesses (deduce) using Realmpop, as has been done by looking at the unique classes only Void Elves and Nightborne can be over Highmountain Tauren and Lightforged Draenei.

That much is certain and also falls in line with the Elves being the most popular over the other 2 AR.

It's not really playing a guessing game, when you are able to use deductive reasoning. But we can agree to disagree here if you don't see it that way.

Warcraftrealms is still trash over Realmpop which was my main point the entire time, I was never trying to disprove your statement of Void Elves being the most popular Allied Race.

[KrakHed]

http://media.moddb.com/images/downlo..._in_battle.jpg
https://orig00.deviantart.net/e2ab/f..._by_hikzbr.jpg

Well, those two pictures look like the exact same type of elf as drawn by different artists. And for me, I'd have liked it if Blood Elves had sharper and more angular features. The current Blood Elf face is too soft to me. So to me, it's just as accurate to High Elves as to Blood Elves.