Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Evilfish]

So you admit that you're not here to discuss, just give your opinion and spout the meme-y "horde is waiting for you", thanks that's all I needed. I'm sure you can see how many of the posts just saying "horde are waiting for you" are treated.

Meme-y? Sorry, but you don't get to ridicule something just because you don't agree with it. The Belfs is a viable choice not a meme, like it or not. And I admit no such thing. I will discuss an idea that isn't "GIVE US HELFS EXACTLY HOW WE WANT THEM", because you fellas don't want to accept that is NOT a viable choice and it never was.

[FlubberPuddy]

At the same time, Alliance was given the Blood Elf aesthetics with a slight twist with the Void Elves, which is a fair trade since Nightborne also have a slight twist compared to Night Elves. And VE also have much better and more customising options than NB have, on top of that.

Nightborne are at least more differentiated from Night Elves than Void Elves are from Blood Elves. You have the model change, and idle stance changes to go along with the different customization options. Void Elves are literally purple/blue skinned Blood Elves that have tentacle hair options sort of like Draenei. It's like they had to monkeypaw the High Elf request somehow and couldn't think of anything but another emo/edgy race, another purple/blue elf, and oh let's borrow tentacle customization cuz Void is all about tentacles.

They are very uninspired, their lore is uninspired and minute. Most people that play them are due to the model itself since VE and BE are much closer in looks than NB and NE. Look at how unpopular Nightborne are on Horde and how many complain about their looks vs the popularity of Void Elves who are unaltered modeled purple-y Blood Elves. Someone can't truly say their lore is amazing since they barely have any and most of the forum posts you read about Void Elf players is liking their looks.

Truly a shallow race made for those who just wanted "Alliance Blood Elves". And if that is what High Elf fans truly wanted then they wouldn't be having this discussion we see here and elsewhere.

BTW, nothing stops Blizzard from stating that VE are bolstering their numbers by converting High Elves. This is the only logical thing since the numbers of VE exciled from Silvermoon has not been that great. VE for me are nothing more than converted High Elves, no matter if they come from the Alliance or Horde.

Nothing is stopping Blizzard from also adding High Elves. You could say that about anything. Nothing is stopping Blizzard from turning WoW into Warcraft 40k space-age fantasy in the next expansion too.

Until they do though, players like me will continue requesting High Elves. "The only logical thing" I think we can ascertain from the many decisions that Blizzard has made over the years - not all of them always turn out to be logical.

And I surely would not make a High Elf character even if Blizzard would create High Elves as an Alliance AR. I play Sin'dorei because they are the true Thalassian Elves. I don't even had to get Void Elves, though they do look quite good, to be fair. Much better than High Elves in their boring, generic aesthetics. Tattoos would not do anything to improve that. Elves in WoW only got my interest with the Night Elves and the Blood Elf storyline. I did not care about Alleria at all. Jaina, Tyrande and Garona always have been much more interesting. I really do not get how people get so worked up about a generic, bland race which does not have any depth compared to most other fantasy settings.

Nice. And I dislike Jinyu, and Mechagnomes as potential Allied Races. Oh and the tinker class idea. I find them boring, generic aesthetics as well.

Your opinion is noted but it doesn't take away that the High Elves are a popular request for Alliance playable race despite the release of Void Elves. Like holy hell more people have been talking about High Elves over Void Elves, even VE fans, since Void Elves were released. That's some straight popularity right there.

Even with the new forums making it so that threads are endless now, it hasn't stopped more High Elf threads from coming up. Ranging from talking about the recently possible High Elf customization being tacked onto Void Elves to threads suggesting Blood Elves become a neutral race that allows you to select being a High Elf if you choose to go Alliance.

This race request has been popular before WoW released, after WoW released, and even after a variant is added to the Alliance. That speaks a lot to their popularity whether some find them boring or otherwise.

And we have finally seen Blizzard at this recent Blizzcon thaw out a little bit regarding getting some form of High Elf fantasy onto the Alliance. Alex's "don't give up" and Ion "the door hasn't closed" Hazzikostas both show that playable High Elves aren't out of question. They just aren't going to be for BfA at the bare minimum.

There's potential story threads to go regarding High Elves:

- Reuniting the unorganized High Elves within the Alliance
- Blood Elves coming back into Alliance
- Vereesa and Alleria and Sylvanas
- Void Elves and the High Elves
- Arator's story
- The Silver Covenant being prominent

All potential storylines that could/would involve High Elves in some form.

- - - Updated - - -

Sorry, but you don't get to ridicule something just because you don't agree with it.

The irony in this is palpable.

[Obelisk Kai]

The problem is that you keep conflating the "pro-helf" movement as anyone who wants High Elves, when the motivations people have are different. Some want the lore, some the aesthetic, some a mix of both. And to blame it on one portion being louder instead of actually listening to what different people of the fanbase are saying is weasily, is just like taking the worst Pro HE argument and making representative of a whole.

The reason motivation is a topic of discussion is perception.

Saying you want Alliance High Elves due to how you see them in the story, their lore, that earns a measure of respect and is understandable. But agitating primarily for a fair skinned, blonde haired, blue eyed elf comes across as shallow. It is desire that exists because this group wants to play that aesthetically pleasing Elf in the similarly pleasing (to them) aesthetic of the Alliance.

I would argue that Void Elves gave a lot of credence to the idea that those driven by aesthetics constitute a large chunk of the pro High Elf movement. After all, following their introduction there was a backlash driven by how they look and huge swathes of feedback asking Blizzard to modify the Void Elves to be closer to the High Elf ideal.

I accept that there are those who want High Elves for lore based reasons. But the sheer amount of feedback on Void Elves, the stuff Blizzard saw, showed anyone who cared to look that the big problem with Void Elves was that they weren't the High Elves. And what is the most obvious difference between High Elves and Void Elves? Their skin tones. Their whole look.

It's disingenuous. My first issue with Ion's answer what he dismissed all the lore based feedback, there were tons of threads about it, where blues responded. To say that he just didn't see any of that, that any of the dev team missed any of that feedback because the portion that only cared about the aesthetics is just very Pontius Pilatus.

The thing is about the aesthetics feedback was that it was the majority of the feedback of the time. The Unofficial Void Elf threads were mostly concerned with fixing Void Elves to be closer to High Elves. I still recall around this time last year DeicideUH, a prominent pro High Elfer who was active in these forums, rushed here to announce progress because he felt that one of the skin tones on a Void Elf NPC had been made more High Elf like (it later turned out he had taken the image while the NPC was lit by an external light source).

I can get that it is frustrating that your objections to Void Elves are drowned out by those who had a more superficial motivation, but that cannot be helped. I don't believe it is easy to so neatly segment the pro High Elf community into those driven by the lore and those driven by aesthetics. All share the same goal after all, playable Alliance High Elves. You cannot grant playable Alliance High Elves to those driven by the lore and withhold them from those whose motivation is purely looks. So while it is possible to recognize the different motivations, that does not change opinion on the desired end result.

As for your objection to the lore based feedback being ignored, that assumes everyone is on the same page and regards the High Elves as having a strong lore based case. Needless to say, many people disagree with that.

And the fundamental misunderstanding here is that you keep conflating looking like a Blood Elf with Playing a High Elf. There's a contextual difference that is relevant, and the reasons why many want High Elves. So if you can't see that your opinion on the issue will always be limited.

For those that is about the lore, it's about the differences between Blood Elves and High Elves, of how the first simply does not fullfill the same fantasy, so "moving away from the High Elf ideal embodied by Blood Elves" is moot, or even desired. Really, if you want to play a Blood Elf, just play a Blood Elf.

As I maintain, the sole difference between a Blood Elf and a High Elf is political. It was initiated in an ideological schism a mere thirteen years ago in game, but that ideological issue was rendered moot with the restoration of the Sunwell. This leaves only the political aspect of their divergence, whether they are Horde or Alliance.

It is not a mistake to conflate looking like a Blood Elf with playing a High Elf. Blood Elves are High Elves. They represent the warcraft ideal of the High Elf trope in fantasy.

An Alliance High Elf would have been born in and lived in Silvermoon for most of their life, so has every Blood Elf.
An Alliance High Elf would have an addiction to magic, so does every Blood Elf.
An Alliance High Elf would be sustained by the Sunwell, so is every Blood Elf.
An Alliance High Elf is a fair skinned, so is every Blood Elf.

I could go on. In every respect, up until the point of ideological divergence, a Blood Elf is indistinguishable from an Alliance High Elf.
The fantasy of being a political exile does not create a new theme, aesthetic, culture or physical look. High Elves maintain all of that. What they are, is Alliance Blood Elves.

But it is not a minor consideration, is a lack of understanding that has lead to months of pushback. Blizzard misunderstood the reasons many wanted High Elves -hint,

Forgive me for my poor wording. When I said minor consideration, what I meant was that while your motivation is genuine, it is not enough of a rationale to justify breaking the faction wall and undermining both the integrity of the Horde and the integrity of the Blood Elves by making their aesthetic, theme and culture de facto cross faction. While I know you believe that the introduction of High Elves would not do these things, I am absolutely of the belief that they would and as we know, Blizzard agrees.

it wasn't just about the model, it was about the lore- and has yet to offer any solution to that, any solution lorewise that could be considered a compromise.
Cause no, it hasn't been implied that HE's can be turned at all. I'd be happy if that was the case, but all we know is that some BEs and HE's are studying the void. That's far to be an implication, hopefully it's the set up FOR the implication, but so far is nothing but a headcanon, and if that's all the High Elf people are getting, is bascially nothing.

The presence of those scholars is implication enough...in fact a small grammatical note, this is a textbook definition of what 'implication' means.

im·pli·ca·tion
/ˌimpləˈkāSH(ə)n/Submit
noun
1.
the conclusion that can be drawn from something, although it is not explicitly stated.

It is not explicitly stated that the scholars experimenting with void energy are being trained in preparation for a full scale conversion, but the implication IS there. I have said before your best option is to make a leap of faith regarding Void Elves and roleplay your Void Elf as an Alliance High Elf who took the plunge. Whilst I would prefer it was stated explicitly rather than implicitly, I cannot agree that playable Alliance High Elves are a valid solution because of a lack of that explicit confirmation.

Even were it to be confirmed that Void Elves could not create new Void Elves, and that they are in fact all Blood Elves, I would still believe that the maintenance of the integrity of my faction and one of the core races of my faction, the Blood Elves, trumps your lore based desire to play an Alliance High Elf and deservedly so.

Many people that like VE's are also pushing against the idea of including HE skin tones because it would rob the VEs of their identity, and MANY Blood Elf players are aginst because they don't want to lose any of their aesthetic. You keep pushing this narrative that is the HE side is the one causing the pushback, when many conversations within the HE side are about disagreeing about this, it is pretty disingenuous.

I agree that Helf skin tones, even the likelier Helf-like rather than Helf-exact, would diminish the Void Elves. And it unsurprising for Blood Elf players to be against as it is part of their racial uniqueness to which every race in this game is entitled

I never said the pro High Elf side was causing all the pushback, as an anti High Elf commentator I have been responsible for a lot of pushback myself. I hope in fact that some of the feedback I have offered, and others have offered, was instrumental in the creation of the Void Elves, the thalassian elf that doesn't step on the toes of the Horde or the Blood Elves.

And yet they created Pandaren, so to pretend that it is a hard rule that will never be changed or revisited is silly. And i'm not even saying that they should do it the same way, but that as a concept it could have been far better than with pandaren, even allowing for exclusive customization.

Pandaren were a one off, an experiment, conceived of as a neutral race with a story rooted in that neutrality. It was also an attempt to see if they could save Blizzard money and time in that they only had to create one starting zone rather than two for a pair of faction aligned races, and two rigs (male and female) rather than four for a pair of faction aligned races.

And it has been seven years since Pandaren were unveiled and six since they were added. One dev at least expressed that the cost to faction diversity as a result of the Pandaren was too much...and they were designed to be neutral. Turning a Horde unique race de facto neutral after eleven years is not the same thing.

Besides, the Allied race system with it's ability to reuse old rigs and lack of a need for a starting zone renders neutrality unnecessary as a time saving measure...and heightens the downsides of neutrality.

I am making the case for High Elves, so I am using a "form follows function" approach on this. If what High Elves need to be playable is different enough, let's do it then. The case being made is how to make their lore differences into aesthetic ones, and the most sensible approach to me seems to be behavioral/demeanor, which would translate into different animation and idle stances.

Which firstly would still be a fair-skinned, blonde haired thalassian elf with an addiction to the Sunwell and secondly relies on a minscule level of difference as a justification. Stance and voice emotes does not justify a new Allied race and such a group would with one hundred percent certainty undermine the integrity of the Horde and the Blood Elves.

There is a minimum level of difference between an existing race and a variant to be justifiable and if you want to know what that minimum is, look no further than the Void Elves and the Nightborne.

To say that High Elves are not differentiating on the same breath that you admit that they are assimilating into human culture shows a real dissonance in what you are saying. They might not be willingly differentiation, but they are being affected by their context and circumstance, that's what leads to differentiation.

When people say High Elves could differentiate, they propose High Elves creating a new culture by exaggerating elements that came from the Blood Elves, more outdoorsy, exaggerated tattoos. Traycor's work at the start of this thread show what I mean by this. Alliance High Elves are NOT differentiating from Blood Elves to create something new. They are either clinging to what they know or, when they DO change, it is to adopt some kind of human mannerism or custom.

For example, do they tend to affect their mannerisms around humans? Has that assimilation lead to them adopting human mannerisms? Do they purposefully act and behave less haughty to differentiate themselves from Blood Elves? all of these behavioral implications could be translated to a model with more or less Blood Elven proportions, but human animations. All of it based on lore, yet to make HE's distinct enough.

Mannerisms and attitude is not enough. Those are individual traits, not racial. The gold standard remains that if a Blood Elf can do something you are proposing for High Elf differentiation, then it's not enough.

That you think that a lorelol is justifiable to make purple Blood Elves is okay but expanding High Elf lore to make them playable is not really makes your argument suspect.

The reason Void Elves qualified is that they were physically transformed. There was an outside stimulus that provoked changes. No matter how much a Blood Elf tries, without undergoing the transformative process there is no way they can simulate what a Void Elf is. Void Elves now have their own aesthetic, their own theme that is derived from that transformation.

Most importantly, that transformation turned them into Void Elves but it also turn them out of being a Blood/High Elf.

Alliance High Elves and Blood Elves will always be the same people. Blood Elves are High Elves. High Elves are playable.

[Unholyground]

There are tons of high elves close to Christmas, they like all kinds of drugs.

[FlubberPuddy]

Alliance High Elves and Blood Elves will always be the same people. Blood Elves are High Elves. High Elves are playable.

Honestly if this were true then we wouldn't have stuff like this being said:

There is a chance that new customization options could be added to the Void Elves to fill the High Elf fantasy.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...layers-DLC-654

The matter of fact is that the "High Elves" being discussed here are the group on Alliance that continue to use that name. Conflating it to the race "High Elves" is being purposefully obtuse and disingenuous. Especially for someone like Obelisk who's spent a lot of time on this topic and knows what's being talked about by this point.

- - - Updated - - -

Nozdormu gives off a definite High Elf vibe without being able to be mistaken for a Blood Elf in any way:



Crazy idea: just rework existing Alliance High Elf NPCs into the Nozdormu style say they got the aid of a bit of magic from bronze dragons. Blam, we have BRONZE ELVES!

[Katchii]

Honestly if this were true then we wouldn't have stuff like this being said

But it IS true, people just don't like that they're on the Horde and don't have blue eyes. All Warcraft lore supports this claim, that High Elves are playable in the Horde as Blood Elves. What happens if Blood Elves get a blue eye option?

I understand the desire to have the "High Elves" on the Alliance side, with blue eyes and maybe some tattoos or something, that would be cool. But the fact remains that High Elves and Blood Elves are literally the same thing, they are the exact same race.

The lore regarding Alliance aligned High Elves support Blizzards reasoning, that they don't have a large enough population or centralized community to make it conceivable to be a playable race, given the numbers of people that would play them. Since Void Elves technically pull from both Blood and High Elf populations that's how they got around that in implementing them.

The only way I could see, lorewise based on Blizzards reasoning, Alliance getting a High Elf type playable race is if they were the Half-Elven children born of the pairings between High Elf and Human characters, like Arator.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

The reason motivation is a topic of discussion is perception.

Saying you want Alliance High Elves due to how you see them in the story, their lore, that earns a measure of respect and is understandable. But agitating primarily for a fair skinned, blonde haired, blue eyed elf comes across as shallow. It is desire that exists because this group wants to play that aesthetically pleasing Elf in the similarly pleasing (to them) aesthetic of the Alliance.

I would argue that Void Elves gave a lot of credence to the idea that those driven by aesthetics constitute a large chunk of the pro High Elf movement. After all, following their introduction there was a backlash driven by how they look and huge swathes of feedback asking Blizzard to modify the Void Elves to be closer to the High Elf ideal.

I accept that there are those who want High Elves for lore based reasons. But the sheer amount of feedback on Void Elves, the stuff Blizzard saw, showed anyone who cared to look that the big problem with Void Elves was that they weren't the High Elves. And what is the most obvious difference between High Elves and Void Elves? Their skin tones. Their whole look.

Yet there are still people that have given their reasons, and feedback, based on lore, regardless. So to keep saying "Well most people seem to want them because aesthetics" is disingenuous. You keep propping what you consider the weaker argument as the most representative, to the point you justify no other feedback being heard. Feedback was given based on lore, for many months, Blizz doesn't gets a pass for focusing on surface rather than actually addressing the lore issues raised, as if they would be blameless for not actually trying to engage with their audience and just generalize. Like you continuously do.

The thing is about the aesthetics feedback was that it was the majority of the feedback of the time. The Unofficial Void Elf threads were mostly concerned with fixing Void Elves to be closer to High Elves. I still recall around this time last year DeicideUH, a prominent pro High Elfer who was active in these forums, rushed here to announce progress because he felt that one of the skin tones on a Void Elf NPC had been made more High Elf like (it later turned out he had taken the image while the NPC was lit by an external light source).

I can get that it is frustrating that your objections to Void Elves are drowned out by those who had a more superficial motivation, but that cannot be helped. I don't believe it is easy to so neatly segment the pro High Elf community into those driven by the lore and those driven by aesthetics. All share the same goal after all, playable Alliance High Elves. You cannot grant playable Alliance High Elves to those driven by the lore and withhold them from those whose motivation is purely looks. So while it is possible to recognize the different motivations, that does not change opinion on the desired end result.

As for your objection to the lore based feedback being ignored, that assumes everyone is on the same page and regards the High Elves as having a strong lore based case. Needless to say, many people disagree with that.

The conversation also was about giving Void Elves high elf background. Again, all you are doing is nitpicking one aspect while dimissing the whole rest of the conversation, which is again, disingenuous. And Decide if I recall correctly, also hoped for VE to be made out of HE, he also wanted the aesthetic. You are de-contextualizing what someone said.

I never felt that in the conversations my concerns were drowned by more "superficial" reasons. That's the narrative you are parading and I certainly object, cause it's obvious you are using it as justification as to why more "sensible" feedback wasn't heard. Feedback was given. On those same threads.

As I maintain, the sole difference between a Blood Elf and a High Elf is political. It was initiated in an ideological schism a mere thirteen years ago in game,

but that ideological issue was rendered moot with the restoration of the Sunwell

. This leaves only the political aspect of their divergence, whether they are Horde or Alliance.

It is not a mistake to conflate looking like a Blood Elf with playing a High Elf. Blood Elves are High Elves. They represent the warcraft ideal of the High Elf trope in fantasy.

An Alliance High Elf would have been born in and lived in Silvermoon for most of their life, so has every Blood Elf.
An Alliance High Elf would have an addiction to magic, so does every Blood Elf.
An Alliance High Elf would be sustained by the Sunwell, so is every Blood Elf.
An Alliance High Elf is a fair skinned, so is every Blood Elf.

I mean for starters the political difference is enough, but to say that the ideological differences are "moot" now, despite the consequences they had, it's just silly. It compounds.

Yet the high elf fantasy -the one people are asking for- is inextricably linked to their part on the Alliance. To say that the political difference is not enough when is THE reason for wanting High Elves, is simply not understanding why people want them on the first place. Cause the fantasy people want is about that loyalty, about choosing ideologically rather than follow your ruler. That you simply default to the mana tap schism shows you do not understand that for people that want High Elves is because of the Second War and the elves that chose not to leave.

That's the fantasy people want, that of loyalty to the alliance. Blood Elves will NEVER give that fantasy.

I could go on. In every respect, up until the point of ideological divergence, a Blood Elf is indistinguishable from an Alliance High Elf.
The fantasy of being a political exile does not create a new theme, aesthetic, culture or physical look. High Elves maintain all of that. What they are, is Alliance Blood Elves.

This opinion simply bothers me, cause you are really telling me that a group of expats living hosted by another culture and assimilating for you is impossible to lead to a new culture or aesthetic or themes. As if environment and context didn't affect ideology and way of living. Ack.

Forgive me for my poor wording. When I said minor consideration, what I meant was that while your motivation is genuine, it is not enough of a rationale to justify breaking the faction wall and undermining both the integrity of the Horde and the integrity of the Blood Elves by making their aesthetic, theme and culture de facto cross faction. While I know you believe that the introduction of High Elves would not do these things, I am absolutely of the belief that they would and as we know, Blizzard agrees.

Yet they gave the alliance literal Blood Elves in a costume. I am sorry but any qualms about "preserving faction identity" just ring shallow given that VE's exist, when their only difference is a blue hue and a transmog set. They are literal blood elves with less cultural differentiation than High Elves, but it is only because of shallow aesthetic reasons they are playable.

The presence of those scholars is implication enough...in fact a small grammatical note, this is a textbook definition of what 'implication' means.

im·pli·ca·tion
/ˌimpləˈkāSH(ə)n/Submit
noun
1.
the conclusion that can be drawn from something, although it is not explicitly stated.

It is not explicitly stated that the scholars experimenting with void energy are being trained in preparation for a full scale conversion, but the implication IS there. I have said before your best option is to make a leap of faith regarding Void Elves and roleplay your Void Elf as an Alliance High Elf who took the plunge. Whilst I would prefer it was stated explicitly rather than implicitly, I cannot agree that playable Alliance High Elves are a valid solution because of a lack of that explicit confirmation.

Even were it to be confirmed that Void Elves could not create new Void Elves, and that they are in fact all Blood Elves, I would still believe that the maintenance of the integrity of my faction and one of the core races of my faction, the Blood Elves, trumps your lore based desire to play an Alliance High Elf and deservedly so.

The only implication is that Blood Elves and High Elves are studying the Void. That's not implicating they can BECOME Void Elves. Again, implication is not speculation.

Also again with the faction integrity bit while we literally got Blood Elves. Sorry, it really rings shallow, because now you sound like the one considering aesthetics more relevant than lore.

I agree that Helf skin tones, even the likelier Helf-like rather than Helf-exact, would diminish the Void Elves. And it unsurprising for Blood Elf players to be against as it is part of their racial uniqueness to which every race in this game is entitled

I never said the pro High Elf side was causing all the pushback, as an anti High Elf commentator I have been responsible for a lot of pushback myself. I hope in fact that some of the feedback I have offered, and others have offered, was instrumental in the creation of the Void Elves, the thalassian elf that doesn't step on the toes of the Horde or the Blood Elves.

And yet we have literal blood elves. I really can't stress this enough. You keep talking about faction identity, but it seems more and so that for you that's only based on the aesthetic.

Pandaren were a one off, an experiment, conceived of as a neutral race with a story rooted in that neutrality. It was also an attempt to see if they could save Blizzard money and time in that they only had to create one starting zone rather than two for a pair of faction aligned races, and two rigs (male and female) rather than four for a pair of faction aligned races.

And it has been seven years since Pandaren were unveiled and six since they were added. One dev at least expressed that the cost to faction diversity as a result of the Pandaren was too much...and they were designed to be neutral. Turning a Horde unique race de facto neutral after eleven years is not the same thing.

Besides, the Allied race system with it's ability to reuse old rigs and lack of a need for a starting zone renders neutrality unnecessary as a time saving measure...and heightens the downsides of neutrality.

It's still precedent, that's the point, and as I said, I'm not asking for the same treatment.

Which firstly would still be a fair-skinned, blonde haired thalassian elf with an addiction to the Sunwell and secondly relies on a minscule level of difference as a justification. Stance and voice emotes does not justify a new Allied race and such a group would with one hundred percent certainty undermine the integrity of the Horde and the Blood Elves.

There is a minimum level of difference between an existing race and a variant to be justifiable and if you want to know what that minimum is, look no further than the Void Elves and the Nightborne.

You completely miss the point that aesthetically, a High Elf with a unique stance and animations would look as different as Nigthborne does from a Night Elf. The point is that the model can be different for difference's sake without biological reasons.

And again claiming that it would undermine the integrity of blood elves and the horde. More than Nightborne and Void Elves have done? That's the dissonance I feel.

When people say High Elves could differentiate, they propose High Elves creating a new culture by exaggerating elements that came from the Blood Elves, more outdoorsy, exaggerated tattoos. Traycor's work at the start of this thread show what I mean by this. Alliance High Elves are NOT differentiating from Blood Elves to create something new. They are either clinging to what they know or, when they DO change, it is to adopt some kind of human mannerism or custom.

Mannerisms and attitude is not enough. Those are individual traits, not racial. The gold standard remains that if a Blood Elf can do something you are proposing for High Elf differentiation, then it's not enough.

The point is that they COULD, Kai... to help differentiation. You say they are not different enough and then are against people that say "let's make them different enough." People want to make them different to make them playable, but it seems you want them to NOT be different enough so they never can.

That's my biggest gripe I'm having with you rn. Pro HE people have been all this time promosing ways to making them different enough, yet you dismiss that because if they could be made different enough... then they could be playable.

People are telling you they are okay with moving awat from BE themes and aesthetics, but you dismiss it out of hand because it actually solves what you claim to be your issue "preserve blood elven integrity."

The reason Void Elves qualified is that they were physically transformed. There was an outside stimulus that provoked changes. No matter how much a Blood Elf tries, without undergoing the transformative process there is no way they can simulate what a Void Elf is. Void Elves now have their own aesthetic, their own theme that is derived from that transformation.

Most importantly, that transformation turned them into Void Elves but it also turn them out of being a Blood/High Elf.

Alliance High Elves and Blood Elves will always be the same people. Blood Elves are High Elves. High Elves are playable.

Alliance High Elves are not playable Kai. No matter how much you miss the point about people wanting to play that exclusively Alliance fantasy they see in High Elves. Void Elves are still culturally Blood Elves.

As long as you don't get why High Elves are wanted because they are part of the Alliance, you are bound to misunderstand the point. It's not the model, it can be changed, it's not the aesthetic, that can be changed, It's about loyalty to the alliance, not leaving the alliance. Disagree as you may, but you have to understand that is the appeal, so anything that you say that does not addresses that will miss the point.

- - - Updated - - -

Honestly if this were true then we wouldn't have stuff like this being said:



https://www.mmo-champion.com/content...layers-DLC-654

The matter of fact is that the "High Elves" being discussed here are the group on Alliance that continue to use that name. Conflating it to the race "High Elves" is being purposefully obtuse and disingenuous. Especially for someone like Obelisk who's spent a lot of time on this topic and knows what's being talked about by this point.

- - - Updated - - -

Nozdormu gives off a definite High Elf vibe without being able to be mistaken for a Blood Elf in any way:



Crazy idea: just rework existing Alliance High Elf NPCs into the Nozdormu style say they got the aid of a bit of magic from bronze dragons. Blam, we have BRONZE ELVES!

IMO the problem is that some people like Kai don't understand that for some people that want High Elves is certainly about the lore over the aesthetics. Aesthetics can be changed, updated, redefined, a long as we actually follow the group of High Elves we want, which is, those High Elves that never left the alliance and remained loyal to it.

To continuously dismiss it as an issue about aesthetics, keeping the aesthetic inegrity of the blood elves, etc, just misses the point of why High Elves are wanted. Which is their lore, their context, their history, which is overall framed and stands aside from BE context, by being part of the Alliance.

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But it IS true, people just don't like that they're on the Horde and don't have blue eyes. All Warcraft lore supports this claim, that High Elves are playable in the Horde as Blood Elves. What happens if Blood Elves get a blue eye option?

I understand the desire to have the "High Elves" on the Alliance side, with blue eyes and maybe some tattoos or something, that would be cool. But the fact remains that High Elves and Blood Elves are literally the same thing, they are the exact same race.

The issue here is that for the people that want HE Ideology > Race

That's the crux of the issue, High Elves are a faction of a race from one side, in the other, with their own background and reasons for it. That IS what makes them appealing on the first place. They are conceptually attractive for that reason, so the arbitrary racial division of factions reveals itself as such when we see that groups of the same races can have completely opposite political views.

The lore regarding Alliance aligned High Elves support Blizzards reasoning, that they don't have a large enough population or centralized community to make it conceivable to be a playable race, given the numbers of people that would play them. Since Void Elves technically pull from both Blood and High Elf populations that's how they got around that in implementing them.

The only way I could see, lorewise based on Blizzards reasoning, Alliance getting a High Elf type playable race is if they were the Half-Elven children born of the pairings between High Elf and Human characters, like Arator.

Yeh the population argument doesn't float. Void Elves so far are ONLY from Umbric's group. So far the only High Elf that has gone void is Alleria, and we don't even know more VE's can be made. So for now, Void Elves are still a "crack squad."

I agree about Half Elves tho. As someone's who's priority is "to see the high elf story move forward" I think Half Elves are a good way to do so

[FlubberPuddy]

But it IS true, people just don't like that they're on the Horde and don't have blue eyes. All Warcraft lore supports this claim, that High Elves are playable in the Horde as Blood Elves. What happens if Blood Elves get a blue eye option?

Let me ask you this: Why haven't Blood Elves gotten Blue Eyes yet? If they did then that would ofc dampen the spirit of those who want playable Alliance High Elves. But as has already been talked about, Blizzard uses visuals greatly to show differences, and so far for the vast majority of the game and NPCs that inhabit it: Blue Eyes signify a High Elf and Green (now also Gold) signifies Blood Elves. Unexplained edge cases are just that - unexplained edge cases.

I understand the desire to have the "High Elves" on the Alliance side, with blue eyes and maybe some tattoos or something, that would be cool. But the fact remains that High Elves and Blood Elves are literally the same thing, they are the exact same race.

A lot of people against High Elves are making it about the race, this misses the point. Call the Alliance High Elves "Silver Elves" or "Human thot Elves" or whatever else you want to make it easier for you to understand that it's a specific group of elves that's currently and has been Alliance loyal is being asked for to be playable.

If High Elf fans just cared about the "race" then Void Elves fulfill that regard. That there is still continual talk and threads created about Alliance High Elves shows that the popularity and demand for them is still there.

Again if they truly wanted to shut the door on High Elves they could've done so in any number of ways: Blue Eyes to Blood Elves as a "High Elves rejoin with Blood Elves", not showcasing the Silver Covenant constantly and keeping them confined to Wrath expansion, not adding more High Elf NPCs to Alliance side, killing off Alliance High Elves through some disease/plague specific to them, etc.

That's not the case though, the case is there is some possibility that High Elf fantasy can come to the Alliance, and while the question was in context of VE customization, that doesn't stop High Elf fans from showcasing that it would be better to have Alliance High Elves be stand-alone AR.

The lore regarding Alliance aligned High Elves support Blizzards reasoning, that they don't have a large enough population or centralized community to make it conceivable to be a playable race, given the numbers of people that would play them. Since Void Elves technically pull from both Blood and High Elf populations that's how they got around that in implementing them.

Lore is always changing, dispersed High Elves right now doesn't mean dispersed High Elves forever. So many examples of this: Blood Elves are not the same society as when they were released and it only took within an expansion to change this. The Dwarven clans aren't still having animosity between all 3 clans and work together now. And wherever the lore has moved forward. Oh that Vereesa was invited to Tyrande's wedding to showcase that Night Elves and High Elves are getting better on foot.

You know what hasn't changed much? That High Elves and Blood Elves still hate each other for the most part and are loyal to their respective factions.

The only way I could see, lorewise based on Blizzards reasoning, Alliance getting a High Elf type playable race is if they were the Half-Elven children born of the pairings between High Elf and Human characters, like Arator.

Half-elves would be a dope idea and I would be all for it honestly because they would be unique in being the only half-x race as well as allowing for more freedom in aesthetics/builds.

I just think it was said somewhere by Blizzard that half-races are exceedingly rare that's why we don't see a whole lot of them around. But a continuation of the High Elf lore through Half-elves would be sufficient enough for me. Heck I already said that if VE were made from HE I wouldn't be here asking for High Elves in the first place. It just honestly wouldn't make sense for HE who admonished BE for relying on heavy chaotic magic use to turn around and willingly join VEs, unless they were somehow forced into it or had no other choice to survive.

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IMO the problem is that some people like Kai don't understand that for some people that want High Elves is certainly about the lore over the aesthetics. Aesthetics can be changed, updated, redefined, a long as we actually follow the group of High Elves we want, which is, those High Elves that never left the alliance and remained loyal to it.

To continuously dismiss it as an issue about aesthetics, keeping the aesthetic inegrity of the blood elves, etc, just misses the point of why High Elves are wanted. Which is their lore, their context, their history, which is overall framed and stands aside from BE context, by being part of the Alliance.

I agree, especially when he knows it's about the specific group on Alliance (not the race as a whole) and that being Alliance loyal is what makes a huge part of what they are.

[Evilfish]

The irony in this is palpable.

No doubt. But that does not change the fact that you were told what your options are. Now I don't mind you disagreeing with that, it kinda bothers me when you start imposing your version of reality on others as reality itself. One of your tactics being to ridicule something that does not meld with your reality.

I'm pretty sure some of you hate my guts and that's fine but believe it or not I do want a resolution to this issue of yours and don't misunderstand me, I'm not "feeling" for you guys. I want to at least attempt to stop another cloning of the belfs and I'm not just talking about the model.

[Deleted]

Yes. The more the merrier.
I've tried playing Blood elves but it always felt awkward to me. I've no problem playing an Orc, troll or tauren while i'm on Horde. En elf however just feels wrong, unnatural. So I stick to Alliance mostly where I feel like they make sense and fit in.

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I wonder why that is.

Blizzard gave the Horde a race that were originally part of the Alliance. A decision which ultimately led to the Horde being the more popular and successful faction.

Do you know what happened in WarCraft III? Some Alliance scum tried to exterminate Blood Elves. No way they would return to these people. High Elves have no pride, no self-esteem, if they want to play lapdogs and bitches to the people who would be happy to send them off on suicide missions.

Blood Elves have been a perfect fit for the Horde. They have been abandoned by their former allies, they had to go through the Hell of mana withdrawal and combat extinction. They had their prince betray them to the Legion. The Horde was the exactly right place for this race.

The Alliance at that point had Night Elves. Who also have expelled the predecessors of Blood Elves from their homeland in the first place. How do you think would that turn out, getting Blood Elves - arcanists! - into the Alliance?

This is stupid beyond redemption.

[netherflame]

This is your daily reminder that non-purple skinned elves are waiting for you on the horde side. These threads should just be locked because they are just a cesspool of arguing weird lore facts.

[Strippling]

Yes. The more the merrier.
I've tried playing Blood elves but it always felt awkward to me. I've no problem playing an Orc, troll or tauren while i'm on Horde. En elf however just feels wrong, unnatural. So I stick to Alliance mostly where I feel like they make sense and fit in.

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I wonder why that is.

Blizzard gave the Horde a race that were originally part of the Alliance. A decision which ultimately led to the Horde being the more popular and successful faction.

This isn't lotr bud.

Also, high elfs were never part of the current Alliance until after WoW... where you know.... the main high elven society joined the Horde. High elfs were loosely allied to the Alliance of Lordaeron (which no longer exists), and even then their allegiance was fickle at best. SOME of these high elfs preferred human potential above their own kin, and decided to remain with the humans following the destruction of Quel'thalas. So stop acting entitled by thinking the high elfs, known as blood elfs, were ever part of the Alliance. The sense of entitlement in high elf fans truly baffles me at times.

[FlubberPuddy]

No doubt. But that does not change the fact that you were told what your options are. Now I don't mind you disagreeing with that, it kinda bothers me when you start imposing your version of reality on others as reality itself. One of your tactics being to ridicule something that does not meld with your reality.

Yeah the options we were recently told were to "not give up" and "door hasn't closed" and "just because High Elves aren't in BFA doesn't mean they'll never be" so with being told those things I'd say High Elf fans are safe to continue requesting playable Alliance High Elves.

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The Alliance at that point had Night Elves. Who also have expelled the predecessors of Blood Elves from their homeland in the first place. How do you think would that turn out, getting Blood Elves - arcanists! - into the Alliance?

This is stupid beyond redemption.

Yeah it is pretty stupid beyond redemption that Blizzard added ex-silvermoon blood elves void elves into the Alliance. We see only the night elf shandris feathermoon speak to umbric and there's no animosity shown there.

Actually with the convo that Malf and Lorash had it seems Night Elves don't give a flying fuck about Blood Elves but Blood Elves still can't let go of the past.

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Also, high elfs were never part of the current Alliance until after WoW... where you know.... the main high elven society joined the Horde.

This section concerns content related to the original World of Warcraft.

The high elves are in a state of diaspora. Most reside in human cities like Stormwind, Theramore, or Dalaran. Others live in seclusion in the wild forests, often in hunting lodges such as Farstrider Lodge.

Nathanos Blightcaller sent Horde adventurers to ransack the Quel'Lithien Lodge in order to recover the [Quel'Thalas Registry], which contained his true identity before he became undead.[30]

High Priestess Aurora Skycaller, originally found in Northpass Tower helped the Alliance adventurers to recreate the [Crystal of Zin-Malor]. Later she moved to below Quel'Lithien Lodge as the tower became a battlefield.

Several high elves became assassins of the Cult of the Dark Strand.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/High_elf

High Elves were part of Alliance in Vanilla before Blood Elves existed on Horde. Blood Elves only joined Horde in TBC. Therefore High Elves were and are part of the current Alliance.

High Elves were part of the Alliance in Warcraft 3 as well.

Despite the high elves' official departure from the Alliance, some elves still remain true to their former human and dwarven allies. The altruistic priests of Quel'Thalas refused to abandon their roles as healers and agreed to remain in Lordaeron despite the edicts from their reclusive masters in Silvermoon. The high elven priests use their Light-given powers to heal the wounded and bolster the spirits of Lordaeron's fighting elite.[2]

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Priest_(Warcraft_III)

As with the elven priests, the elven sorceresses who remained in Lordaeron paid little heed to their race's departure from the Alliance. These female magic users, serving as agents to the Kirin Tor of Dalaran, use their arcane powers to aid the Alliance in times of peril. Although their powers are not always used directly in combat, the sorceresses are able to aid their comrades with a wide array of specialized conjurings and magical effects.[1]

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Sorceress_(Warcraft_III)

Since Warcraft 3 is what 5 years before WoW, and we see High Elves on Alliance from the very beginning of WoW it doesn't take much to deduce that these High Elves that stayed with the Alliance of Lordaeron stayed with whatever transitions occurred to the Alliance of today.

[Strippling]

https://wow.gamepedia.com/High_elf

High Elves were part of Alliance in Vanilla before Blood Elves existed on Horde. Blood Elves only joined Horde in TBC. Therefore High Elves were and are part of the current Alliance.

High Elves were part of the Alliance in Warcraft 3 as well.



https://wow.gamepedia.com/Priest_(Warcraft_III)



https://wow.gamepedia.com/Sorceress_(Warcraft_III)

Since Warcraft 3 is what 5 years before WoW, and we see High Elves on Alliance from the very beginning of WoW it doesn't take much to deduce that these High Elves that stayed with the Alliance of Lordaeron stayed with whatever transitions occurred to the Alliance of today.

Wait... now you're agreeing that blood elfs are high elfs? You are confusing.

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Wait... now you're agreeing that blood elfs are high elfs? You are confusing.

Also, the high elfs in WCIII became the blood elfs. I don't get why anyone ever uses WCIII as evidence for Alliance high elfs. Everything about the high elfs in WCIII became blood elf lore. Thus further proving that high elfs are not unique enough from blood elfs to be a playable race... adding high elfs will no doubt detract from blood elfs in many ways, shapes and forms... and there is nothing that can suggest otherwise.

[Deleted]

Do you know what happened in WarCraft III? Some Alliance scum tried to exterminate Blood Elves. No way they would return to these people. High Elves have no pride, no self-esteem, if they want to play lapdogs and bitches to the people who would be happy to send them off on suicide missions.

Blood Elves have been a perfect fit for the Horde. They have been abandoned by their former allies, they had to go through the Hell of mana withdrawal and combat extinction. They had their prince betray them to the Legion. The Horde was the exactly right place for this race.

The Alliance at that point had Night Elves. Who also have expelled the predecessors of Blood Elves from their homeland in the first place. How do you think would that turn out, getting Blood Elves - arcanists! - into the Alliance?

This is stupid beyond redemption.

Different alliance. SW alliance had nothing to do with that, and it was the actions of an individual, not an official stance.

So, for example a bully at school took your lunch: You now hate every human!

Kind of over dramatic eh?

[FlubberPuddy]

Wait... now you're agreeing that blood elfs are high elfs? You are confusing.

Nowhere did I say that. I'm sure I can be confusing if you utterly and terribly misinterpret or stay in denial of proof that High Elves existed on Alliance from WC3 to WoW and before Blood Elves joined the Horde in TBC.

Also, the high elfs in WCIII became the blood elfs. I don't get why anyone ever uses WCIII as evidence for Alliance high elfs. Everything about the high elfs in WCIII became blood elf lore. Thus further proving that high elfs are not unique enough from blood elfs to be a playable race... adding high elfs will no doubt detract from blood elfs in many ways, shapes and forms... and there is nothing that can suggest otherwise.

It was meant to show that there is a continued bridge of High Elves that stayed Alliance loyal before Blood Elves were a faction of the Horde.

At this point, either you will get it or you won't. I'm not sure what's worse in that regard honestly.

[Deleted]

Different alliance. SW alliance had nothing to do with that, and it was the actions of an individual, not an official stance.

So, for example a bully at school took your lunch: You now hate every human!

Kind of over dramatic eh?

Look out of the window and into the newspapers. Happens every day in all parts of the world. Why do you think WoW would be different? Wars have been started for less reasons.

Suck it up, Blood Elves are the true Thallassian Elves. The others are traitors and exciles. Some of them are not even in the Alliance, but belong to Kirin Tor. And the small part which is in the Alliance are whoring for "security" and "human potential". Really disgusting.

It's really baffling how people use some fringe exceptions to adamantly demand High Elves as a playable race on the Alliance, but blatantly ignore the majority of lore about that race which had happened in WC III and in WoW since TBC though it's there in their faces.

Blood Elves are Horde. Alliance got Void Elves. End of story.

[FlubberPuddy]

I think adding Void Elves just made this "issue" even worse. If you're still wanting High Elves on the Alliance, you're delusional.

One could only be delusional if they ignored what Blizzard has said recently. That Alex Afrasiabi said yes it can happen, don't give up for getting the High Elf fantasy onto Alliance (through VE customization context) and that Ion "door hasn't closed" Hazzikostas said not being in bfa =/= not being in wow forever means it's still possible for High Elf fans to get playable High Elves in some form in the future.

Add onto this that Jeremy Feasel has hinted at Wildhammer Dwarves coming (which would be a 3rd dwarf iteration) and all this adds up to is exactly how Ion said it in the High Elf Q/A: "When we add an Allied Race, there's a desire to have things be even more distinct especially between the two factions with the faction conflict being so prominent."

A lot of people didn't pick up on that whole sentence, Ion's saying basically in BFA because Horde and Alliance are at each other's throats - they care at this time making AR more different between the two than similar.

That we know Dwarves with blue tats are incoming at some point later, means we can expect to see less different AR manifest as well (aka High Elves) at some point later too.

[Kithelle]

One could only be delusional if they ignored what Blizzard has said recently. That Alex Afrasiabi said yes it can happen, don't give up for getting the High Elf fantasy onto Alliance (through VE customization context) and that Ion "door hasn't closed" Hazzikostas said not being in bfa =/= not being in wow forever means it's still possible for High Elf fans to get playable High Elves in some form in the future.

Add onto this that Jeremy Feasel has hinted at Wildhammer Dwarves coming (which would be a 3rd dwarf iteration) and all this adds up to is exactly how Ion said it in the High Elf Q/A: "When we add an Allied Race, there's a desire to have things be even more distinct especially between the two factions with the faction conflict being so prominent."

A lot of people didn't pick up on that whole sentence, Ion's saying basically in BFA because Horde and Alliance are at each other's throats - they care at this time making AR more different between the two than similar.

That we know Dwarves with blue tats are incoming at some point later, means we can expect to see less different AR manifest as well (aka High Elves) at some point later too.

Pretty much a wait and see thing I guess, only time will tell.

But in the meantime you'll still have the rabid players who will say no to High Elves of any kind for various reasons...

[Gurluas]

Wait... now you're agreeing that blood elfs are high elfs? You are confusing.

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Also, the high elfs in WCIII became the blood elfs. I don't get why anyone ever uses WCIII as evidence for Alliance high elfs. Everything about the high elfs in WCIII became blood elf lore. Thus further proving that high elfs are not unique enough from blood elfs to be a playable race... adding high elfs will no doubt detract from blood elfs in many ways, shapes and forms... and there is nothing that can suggest otherwise.

Wrong, while it's a true that a few early Wc3 High elves became Blood elves, particularly those who didn't follow Jaina to Theramore or resided in the lodges, almost all Blood elves were from Silvermoon. The "Reclusive masters" that were referred to in that lore. The majority of High elves were Alliance since the second war and remained so.