The Warcraft Encyclopedia is still canon and it specifically states Kael'thas was wrong in his assertion that his people would die without a new source of magic.
"On several occasions after the Sunwell's defilement, Kael'thas publicly asserted that his people would die unless they found a new source of magic. Technically the prince was mistaken. According to Azeroth's top priests and medics, the only high elves to perish due to magical withdrawal have been the very old, the very young, and elves who were already in poor health.
Such a low rate of attrition might be considered an argument in favor of simply forgoing magic and suffering through the consequences. Indeed, a few high elves are said to have succeeded in taking this route through sheer willpower: they survived the process, however unpleasant." --The Warcraft Encyclopedia
"I guess only blood elves feel like the odd man out for the Horde. I hope that we've engineered that into it as deftly as we could, but you know, it's the equivalent of a bunch of white chicks hanging out with goblin or tauren. It's weird." -- Chris Metzen
AR feature has been such a hit. Seen a type of engagement never before seen on the forums (per Ythisenss, paraphrased). They may slow the release after BFA but they know for sure it's one of their Golden Eggs now.
- - - Updated - - -
Sure, it was a decision that has multiple benefits. So does adding High Elves. They make more money, and quell one of their numerous audiences. People will always bitch when something is added, but that bitching dies down. Case in point: Nightborne. Oh man were so many people bitching when they got added to Horde. Nowadays, it's rarely brought up compared to before because when it's added to the game, players have to eventually settle in and accept that reality (see end of post before snarky retort).
Conversely, if they don't add High Elves they make no extra money. It's not like people throw extra money to Blizzard to keep Blood Elves exclusive as the only fair skin looking elf.
Before anyone wants to chime in with some "smart" or "clever" answer, the reality is High Elves are not playable on the Alliance, so don't tell people to "accept the reality" when my context was about thing that are added into the game, and playable High Elves on Alliance are not in the game atm.
- - - Updated - - -
Your artwork for High Elves are still amazing. Hopefully one day they get realized in game![]()
See this last part you wrote? It's why I anticipated and wrote:
I see you couldn't pass up the chance though. And this is why there is a "High Elf movement" because people aren't looking just to play a high elf race, they want to play the High Elves on Alliance. Just like no one's throwing a fit over having Brown Orcs on Horde, because that's literally the request that was given. Playable High Elves on Alliance are still not a thing therefore people are actually requesting it.
Really? You can't use deductive reasoning to see that the Blood Elf race is an extremely popular playable race, of which playable Void Elves are a derivative who have per Obelisk Kai been "a success" with data to back it up, to connect the dots that an even closer derivative to Blood Elves that becomes playable on the Alliance side wouldn't be seen to be making Blizzard money?
And Allied Races are exactly something that doesn't have consistent profit and have a major fall off so I don't see how the comparison to consistent profit is relevant. No AR is making Blizzard consistent profits which is why they're released in batches and during lulls. Blizzard has already gone on record of saying they're releasing them during the lulls of expansions - please think on why they would do that? That's a rhetorical question, it should be easy to see it's because they anticipate the AR to bring in a surge of income and then fall off.
I think you're giving way too much credit to this overall High Elf discussion from both sides. It's firstly a niche issue as DeicideUH pointed out, even more you can tell not many people care enough to discuss it at length as we can see the same posters (both for AND against) are the only ones who keep coming back.
Please show me with evidence where there's a larger audience that would start bitching away and throwing a hissy fit over High Elves getting added.
This topic is niche, this discussion is niche, there's not some "sleeping beast" of a vocal majority waiting to raise hell if playable High Elves on Alliance become a thing.
Void elves, if anything do more damage than high elves ever could. Their primary method of reproduction will be to actively take from Silvermoon's population and cause a huge defection from the Horde. If you don't think that is worse than developing the already existing high elves, you are kidding yourself. I very much look forward to the reaction when this is reflected in game.
In regards to your comment that Void Elves will damage the Blood Elves because some Blood Elves will leave to become Void Elves, this fundamentally misses the point of the objection against playable Alliance High Elves.
The reason Alliance High Elves do damage is that they undermine what a Blood Elf is and what Blood Elf players such as myself have invested in our existing characters for the past twelve years. A Blood Elf in Warcraft is the redefinition of what a High Elf in then warcraft franchise is. Allowing playable Alliance High Elves takes that away from Blood Elf players who have had twelve years playing their characters under that valid assumption. This is what I mean by Alliance High Elves as an Allied Race not respecting the integrity of the Blood Elves. Blood Elves lose a large part of what they are should it come to pass because suddenly a group we have been told time and time are nearly dead and of limited influence and impact would suddenly be claiming that they are the true High Elves.
It is also profoundly unfair to the Horde faction that a major Horde race, one unique to our faction for twelve years, with it's faction specific culture and faction specific aesthetics, would have to be shared with the Alliance. No other faction specific race in the game, and save the Pandaren they are all faction specific, faces this demand.
There is no universe in which it is fair the Alliance gets to play a Horde race without having to play Horde, and yes, High Elves are a Horde race. You can tell yourself all you want that their political allegiance to the Alliance or the fact they cling to a single adjective differentiates them enough, but that fools nobody save those who peddle that particular argument. Time and time again, Blizzard reminds us that Blood Elves are High Elves, from in game events such as the recent Heritage armour quest to flat out stating it in interviews.
At the end of the day, Void Elves are a unique flavour of thalassian elf, one themed around the void. There is thematic and aesthetic space between Void Elves and Blood Elves. A Void Elf player can NEVER pretend to be a High Elf, and even should High Elf like customizations be added to Void Elves, they will still NEVER be able to be a High Elf. Whilst the loss of the uniqueness of the model is unfortunate, it was tolerable and balanced with the addition of the Nightborne to the Horde. But Void Elves absolutely, in no way, threaten the integrity of the Blood Elves as the true High Elves of the warcraft franchise.
Last edited by Obelisk Kai; 2019-03-03 at 12:25 AM.
You're pretty much obsessed by not getting High elves in the Horde, aren't you ?
You should be happy with your Horde blood elves. High elves are still Alliance, and Blood elves are already defecting Silvermoon right now to join the void elves. Delus is right. I'm excited to see that in game.
Don't really care for a cyclical back and forth so just responding to this last point. Alliance High Elves can be both a niche thing and make Blizzard bank. Why? Because their entire audience of players are made up of a bunch of minor groups. They've even went so far as to say this themselves on occasion. It was something about how raiding is niche, so is pet battles, so is pvp, so is tmog, etc. About the only thing that holds a majority are leveling up and doing quests.
It should be easy enough to see this with races as well. If you look at some of the already playable races, even Allied races that have already released. Some are very popular while some only encompass 1-2% of end-game level characters made. That doesn't mean those 1-2% of races that are playable didn't earn Blizzard a pretty penny. I saw lv 110 Lightforged the day they were released and made public. Wonder how many people spent $25 doing a race change from already existing characters since they went live, and Lightforged are currently sitting at 1.1% of lvl 120 characters based on US Realm Pop.
Conversely, we're talking about a group of High Elves. Blood Elves are already shown to be a hugely popular race choice. Void Elves are shown to be a hugely popular Allied Race choice. Again, using some deductive reasoning - it stands that Alliance High Elves, which are a mixture of these two previous elves would be a hugely popular 2nd thalassian elf race. Unless you have evidence in WoW that a 3rd derivative of race choice wouldn't show similar growth, we can only follow the pattern laid out in front us. Currently that pattern is that Thalassian Elf models gain a large number of characters created based on their accessibility relative to the other race options for their categories (Base Race vs Allied Race) respectively.
The niche speak comes from the fact that this entire conversation is only encompassing one facet of WoW: Races, and then even further niche speak because it's concerning Allied Races which are a derivative of the main races. Further niche comes from the fact that as I've stated and can be easily seen: there are very few people on both sides of this discussion who will repeatedly come back and post about this topic.
That's the niche, speaking and discussing on this topic and the fact that it's something that is just one part of WoW. WoW isn't just races. There's classes, quests, dungeons, raids, professions, tmog, pvp, collections, holidays, etc. All that those working parts together make up WoW.
If the Sunwell had as transformative an effect upon the High elves as the void blast did upon the Void Elves, then all the Elves would have been equivalent to 'Arcaneforged Elves' in the millenia prior to the Sunwell's destruction but this isn't what happened. While they feed upon the well's energies, it was not transformative. The same almost certainly holds true for the modern well.
I agree that the Blood Elves are being positioned in opposition to the Void Elves as part of a light-void dichotomy, but the influence of the light upon the Blood Elves is much subtler than the overt transformation the Void Elves went through.
Finally, I am not missing the point at all. You're counter-point falls apart when a single fact is mentioned. That Alliance High Elves are ALSO subject to the Sunwell and any transformation that is affecting the Blood Elves will also be affecting the Alliance High Elves because they are the same people. This underlines what I say time and time again, there is no difference between the two groups beyond a political opinion.
In-game events like when Elisande (an NPC created and voiced and written by Blizzard themselves) refers to both Quel'dorei (High Elves) and Sin'dorei (Blood Elves) separately. Not to mention all the other times since TBC to even BFA that Blizzard has kept and depicted High Elves and Blood Elves as separate groups/entities/whatever you wanna call em in regards to faction loyalty, storylines, and visual appearance. Yeah that is truly Blizzard reminding us that these guys are "literally the same" as your "Blood Elves are High Elves" is implying.
- - - Updated - - -
He's not obsessed with not getting High Elves on the Horde. He has somehow come to believe that Blood Elves, literally are the once then High Elves. As in, literally to this day they are still High Elves calling themselves High Elves and living in Silvermoon. This is why posts of Obelisk include "Void Elves can still NEVER be a High Elf" and the whole bit about how if High Elves became playable it would invalidate Blood Elves as being "the true High Elves" (whatever the hell that even means).
It's a strange kind of convincing.
- - - Updated - - -
@Garfurion just quoted the still canon Warcraft Encyclopedia to you earlier showcasing that High Elves could manage without the Sunwell and not die without it as Kael'thas falsely proclaimed. Yet not two days later, you have gone back to believing that what happens to Blood Elves with the Sunwell will also affect the High Elves in the same way.
This is the kind of stuff I am talking about @elbleuet. It's kind of sad.![]()
Alliance High Elves have been in the franchise since Warcraft II and in WoW before Blood Elves joined the Horde. Whether they are playable or not doesn't change them or Blood Elves as a race. Being playable or not is just a game mechanic.
You mean a group of Alliance High Elves like the Silver Covenant which Blizzard introduced in WotLK ?
High Elf NPCs already claimed to be the true High Elves back in TBC:
"I'm a HIGH elf, not a blood elf. Don't worry, I'm not going to suck all of the magic out of you." -- Taela Everstride
"I guess only blood elves feel like the odd man out for the Horde. I hope that we've engineered that into it as deftly as we could, but you know, it's the equivalent of a bunch of white chicks hanging out with goblin or tauren. It's weird." -- Chris Metzen
This is an example of what I am talking about. You are trying to justify High Elf distinctiveness by saying they've been in the franchise since Warcraft 2. And this is true. And those same High Elves from Warcraft 2 were in Warcraft 3 where their Kingdom was destroyed. And in Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne we learned they had renamed themselves as Blood Elves, they were betrayed by the Alliance and they left the faction. And in World of Warcraft they joined the Horde where they have remained ever since. This is attempting to appropriate the Blood Elf narrative for an Alliance High Elf Allied race.
The group would be those players who choose Alliance High Elves. They would begin defining themselves as the true High Elves, and for evidence would point out their name alone. At a stroke, you take away agency from Blood Elf players to define themselves as the true, redefined High Elves of the Warcraft universe.
As for the Silver Covenant, they are a tiny group, insignificant in number and crucially, non-playable. As an NPC group, they are simply story props for other, more important individuals and factions.
Blood Elves never drained mana from mortals, just vermin. Secondly, that point of philosophical divergence was resolved with the restoration of the Sunwell. Thirdly, just because a few NPC members of this nearly dead group claim this does not mean they have to be validated.
You must keep missing the fact that I said Alliance High Elves are not playable and thus why the bitching/complaints of that topic continue. Once they're actually added into the game, people who oppose it would eventually stfu just as people who have opposed many other game additions like Tmog, Pandas, DHs, Classic Servers, etc. die down about bitching about it because it's added into the game. No more "trying to stop it from happening" can happen at that point.
To keep saying these people should accept Horde Blood Elves when we're talking about Alliance High Elves is frankly a big red herring. The Faction as well as the Race are both key components here, to minimize one or the other completely misses the point that both are a requirement to this request.
The rest of the middle of your post keeps going to talk about something you misunderstand so I won't elaborate because until you can stop changing my words around and actually understand what I'm saying then there's not much to move forward with in this back and forth.
Alliance High Elves are not playable, so those bitching about their inclusion will continue to bitch about it (this refers to both those for and against).
This coming from you when you can't seem to understand what my posts are saying in the first place.
That's alright, lots of misunderstanding from what I garner in your posts and going in circles is a fruitless endeavor. Have a good one all the same too.
Its never going to happen. Blizzard should just turn the remaining high elves to void elves and blood Elves just to end this crap
Anemo: traveler, Sucrose
Pyro: Yanfei, Amber, diluc, xiangling, thoma, Xinyan, Bennett
Geo: Noelle, Ningguang, Yun Jin, Gorou
Hydro: Barbara, Zingqiu, Ayato
Cyro: Shenhe, Kaeya, Chongyun, Diona, Ayaka, Rosaria
Electro: Fischl, Lisa, Miko, Kujou, Raiden, Razor