Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Obelisk Kai]

One day we'll get a lead WoW developer who values Warcraft's roots and lore enough to provide the Alliance with one of its core races. If Ion comes around then more power to him. High Elves will happen one day.

Here's to the next fifteen years!

Although from Blizzard's perspective, High Elves happened twelve years ago so...

[Aldo Hawk]

https://www.wowhead.com/search?q=Silver+covenant

High elves aren't Blood elves and they are Alliance. There's no need for more. Really.

There's no nuance to argue about. Just bullshit to counter argue so other people can see it

[The Silver Covenant]

Here's to the next fifteen years!

Although from Blizzard's perspective, High Elves happened twelve years ago so...

You're obviously as ignorant on the issue as Ion is. Good for you

[Aldo Hawk]

Yeah, this thread is insane at this point, but seriously... go watch the original Teaser for Burning Crusade. I really don't think Blizzard wants to make High Elves playable, as much as I may like it to be an option. Warcraft III and Burning Crusade more than wiped out their share.

Do you realize that the Silver Covenant and the Allerian Stronghold got added in wow after TbC?

[Obelisk Kai]

You're obviously as ignorant on the issue as Ion is. Good for you

It is indeed good for me that the Game Director's public stance matches my own. It means I can back up what I say.

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https://www.wowhead.com/search?q=Silver+covenant

High elves aren't Blood elves and they are Alliance. There's no need for more. Really.

There's no nuance to argue about. Just bullshit to counter argue so other people can see it

High Elves not being Blood Elves and being Alliance is literally nuance, you are listing the nuances that you feel differentiates them. That is precisely the opposite of saying there is no nuance to argue about. Your entire argument is based on over-analysis of that nuance.

Here is what the simplest statement on this matter, shorn of nuance and complexity, looks like.

Blood Elves ARE High Elves and High Elves are playable on the Horde.

Everything else is pretty much redundant.

[Aldo Hawk]

How is 'nuance' when it is a simple and straightforward path into a simple fact?

High elves are not Blood elves and they are Alliance.

In fact. Everyone here knows who is 'over analysing' it. The phrase: 'Blood elves are High elves, then High elves are playable' is just the tip of the iceberg.

Nobody would have had the need of discussing nuances if certain people weren't degeneratively delving in these dishonest points.

By the way, simply put:

High elves = Alliance

Blood elves = Horde

Blood elves = High elves

High elves =\= Blood elves

High elves are -not- playable. It's a 3 point scheme.

[Obelisk Kai]

How is 'nuance' when it is a simple and straightforward path into a simple fact?

High elves are not Blood elves and they are Alliance. .

In fact. Everyone here knows who is 'over analysing' it. The phrase: 'Blood elves are High elves, then High elves are playable' is just the tip of the iceberg.

Nobody would have had the need of discussing nuances if certain people weren't degeneratively delving in these dishonest points.

By the way, simply put:

High elves = Alliance

Blood elves = Horde

Blood elves = High elves

High elves =\= Blood elves

High elves are -not- playable. It's a 3 point scheme.

High Elf refers to the entire thalassian race. Even Void Elves were described as being 'another flavour of High Elves'. Sure, they aren't identical to Blood/High Elves anymore but they are still part of the race, albeit a strong variant

Most High Elves are now defined as Blood Elves. Most Blood Elves follow the Horde. Some Blood Elves, such as the Scryers, do not follow the Horde and are instead neutral.

One faction of the High Elf race defines themselves as High Elves and dwell in Dalaran. They are politically separate from Blood Elves, and call themselves High Elves to make a political point, but the only real point of separation is politics.

Alliance High Elves living in Dalaran and the Scryers in Shattrath are both non Horde aligned high elven groups. Should the Scryers therefore be considered an Allied race candidate?

Alliance High Elves were exiled by Lor'themar following their objections to the need to siphon mana from living beings.

Grimtotem Tauren are for the most part politically separate from the rest of the Tauren, having been exiled by Baine following Magatha's failed coup

That Grimtotem Tauren loyal to Magatha are not playable is not used as an excuse to say Tauren are not playable.

That Alliance High Elves are not playable does not mean that High Elves are not playable. Blood Elves, as the vast majority of the High Elf race, are playable and so High Elves ARE playable.

We over-analyse this as part of an unnecessary arms race fuelled by your desire to pretend the Alliance High Elf and a Blood Elf are two entirely separate races, when they are identical on every level except politics. So it boils down to the fundamental truth.

Blood Elves are High Elves, High Elves are playable and duplicating that experience to the other faction undermines the distinctiveness of both factions. That statement is not 'dishonest'. That is a reflection of the game as it currently stands, not the one you have head canoned.

[Aldo Hawk]

High Elf refers to the entire thalassian race. Even Void Elves were described as being 'another flavour of High Elves'. Sure, they aren't identical to Blood/High Elves anymore but they are still part of the race, albeit a strong variant

Most High Elves are now defined as Blood Elves. Most Blood Elves follow the Horde. Some Blood Elves, such as the Scryers, do not follow the Horde and are instead neutral.

One faction of the High Elf race defines themselves as High Elves and dwell in Dalaran. They are politically separate from Blood Elves, and call themselves High Elves to make a political point, but the only real point of separation is politics.

Alliance High Elves living in Dalaran and the Scryers in Shattrath are both non Horde aligned high elven groups. Should the Scryers therefore be considered an Allied race candidate?

Alliance High Elves were exiled by Lor'themar following their objections to the need to siphon mana from living beings.

Grimtotem Tauren are for the most part politically separate from the rest of the Tauren, having been exiled by Baine following Magatha's failed coup

That Grimtotem Tauren loyal to Magatha are not playable is not used as an excuse to say Tauren are not playable.

That Alliance High Elves are not playable does not mean that High Elves are not playable. Blood Elves, as the vast majority of the High Elf race, are playable and so High Elves ARE playable.

We over-analyse this as part of an unnecessary arms race fuelled by your desire to pretend the Alliance High Elf and a Blood Elf are two entirely separate races, when they are identical on every level except politics. So it boils down to the fundamental truth.

Blood Elves are High Elves, High Elves are playable and duplicating that experience to the other faction undermines the distinctiveness of both factions. That statement is not 'dishonest'. That is a reflection of the game as it currently stands, not the one you have head canoned.

Over analizing simple shit again. What a surprise.

And it is you who is bringing up the 'race change with the name change'. Not me

High elves are Alliance members and that's what is being requested. Sorry if you don't like it.

[Obelisk Kai]

Over analizing simple shit again. What a surprise.

And it is you who is bringing up the 'race change with the name change'. Not me

High elves are Alliance members and that's what is being requested. Sorry if you don't like it.

It is simple.

Blood Elves are High Elves, High Elves are playable.

And why wouldn't I like it? The fact you are requesting it means it hasn't happened. The fact they laid they don't want to do it and introduced a variant means they are exceedingly unlikely to grant that request. I am quite content with you petitioning forever and never getting anywhere, not sorry at all.

[Aldo Hawk]

It is simple.

Blood Elves are High Elves, High Elves are playable.

And why wouldn't I like it? The fact you are requesting it means it hasn't happened. The fact they laid they don't want to do it and introduced a variant means they are exceedingly unlikely to grant that request. I am quite content with you petitioning forever and never getting anywhere, not sorry at all.

How can High elves be playable and people still request for them? There's something you forgot about don't you think?

And come on, don't try to cover your anger with a mask. Everyone saw the saltiness of your today's responses.

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Yeah, but they're fairly insignificant in the whole scheme of things. I just wouldn't hold my breath to play a High Elf anytime in the next 7-10 years. By that point, either WoW will be pretty much dead, or we'll have a proper sequel.

Insignificant? Can you please explain to me why did they had more relevance than other actual playable races?

I don't exactly know what are you playing now but I don't need an arbiter who is forced into a supposed middle ground thanks.

[delus]

It is simple.

Blood Elves are High Elves, High Elves are playable.

And why wouldn't I like it? The fact you are requesting it means it hasn't happened. The fact they laid they don't want to do it and introduced a variant means they are exceedingly unlikely to grant that request. I am quite content with you petitioning forever and never getting anywhere, not sorry at all.

But the Alliance High elves are not playable and they're already part of the faction. None of what you are saying counters this. At best you are trying to obfuscate this fact.

[FlubberPuddy]

Here's to the next fifteen years!

This can be said for Ogres, Forest Trolls, and Wildhammer Dwarves as well. Let's throw in Undead Elves too. Basically any race that doesn't get added in BFA will be waiting longer for their inclusion.

Inb4, "but they didn't comment on those races". End result still the same. None of the above mentioned races are also playable and thus are still waiting to be playable.

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I just wouldn't hold my breath to play a High Elf anytime in the next 7-10 years.

No one has to, I personally didn't have to stay subbed to, nor pay attention to, WoW before it added things like Tmog, LFR (yes I wanted a way to queue to see raid stories), and Demonhunters.

Blizzard will add what they want to add when they want to add it based on community feedback. All those things I mentioned were based on community feedback despite the pushback each of those additions had to endure from the players and developers.

And we already know there are some developers in support of having High Elves included. Thus, just because the company atm doesn't want them, doesn't mean every dev doesn't. That's pretty huge in my book, means there's a possibility of it happening later.

[Alixie]

One day we'll get a lead WoW developer who values Warcraft's roots and lore enough to provide the Alliance with one of its core races. If Ion comes around then more power to him. High Elves will happen one day.

The devs have a Horde bias. They cant help themselves from taking potshots at Alliance players. These are just from BFA.

"Can Horde characters ever really be jealous of an Alliance character?" (said after Junker Gnomes were showcased in the Wowhead interview)
"You're welcome, Alliance." (about PVP imbalance)
"If you want X, the Horde is waiting for you."
"The Night Elves already got their revenge." (Nightborne have hijacked Nelf lore, and their genocide was just for shock value)

Ion in particular loves to voice his distain for the Alliance. The lead designer, who makes all of the important decisions, joking about how much the Alliance sucks, when he's the reason they suck. And they continue to crack tone deaf jokes after players called them out on their bad game decisions like:

Stormsong is unfinished, and the story ends abruptly with filler quests to kill Quilboar.
That the Alliance only got horses as rep mounts because they couldn't think of anything creative to make a mount out of on Kul Tiras.
The absurd population imbalance where 90% of the top raiding and pvp guilds are Horde.
Tyrande and Malfurion losing to Nathanos, and will not be facing their old nemesis, Queen Azshara.
Saurfang gets 3 movie cinematics, while the plot device Night Elves get none.

So Im not sure why some people are this scared and obsessed about losing exclusivity on their Aryan Elves. It wont happen as long as Ion is in charge and will drunkenly crap on their own lore to keep them happy.

[Ielenia]

the developers think it's about the skin tones,

Then I'll go ahead and say it: the developers are wrong.

That individual is not a different race from Blood Elves, therefore blue hair for Blood Elves please. Leaving that aside, hair colour is not enough. Eye colour is not enough.

Except no, it would not go to the blood elves. Especially like if an explanation is given, like blue hair only happen if a high elf is not affected by the fel at all, which would prevent all blood elves from having blue hair.

Both can be replicated. Differentiation is accomplished by a some sort of profound difference that cannot be replicated.

"Void elf"-ification can be replicated. Your argument is invalid.

"The analogy fails because it's predicated on a flawed basis, that the developers are wrong and you are right.

The analogy doesn't fail, because on both situations we have the "owners" saying something that does not match what our eyes see.

If the developers made Sylvanas become a blood-thirsty ruler, intentionally killing so many Horde members that would make even Garrosh blush, start attacking and torturing children in heinous experiments, killed Thrall to demoralize the rebels, and then killed Aggra and her children just because "why not", and made a throne for herself in Orgrimmar using the bones of the other leaders of the Horde she killed... but the developers said Sylvanas was a moral, noble leader... would you believe them? Because your words so far heavily imply they do.

You are not right. You are a customer coming into an immaculate restaurant and insisting it's dirty despite all evidence to the contrary.

No, I'm a customer coming into an unclean restaurant, and complaining it's unclean.

This is of course the other half of the issue, the company the Blood Elves keep. Had the Blood Elves stayed with the Alliance, and the Silver Covenant High Elves still stayed separate and glowered at them for being mana junkies, do you honestly expect me to believe you'd be agitating for those pure, uncorrupted Silver Covenant High Elves?

I don't care what you believe, simple as that. My answer, and what I believe, are not predicated on yours. But, in short, yes, I would.

You want to have a Horde race on the faction you prefer.

No, I don't, and I would appreciate if you stopped repeating that falsehood.

Character creator makes sure to mention that Blood Elves used to call themselves High Elves.
Starts your Blood Elf off in Quel'thalas.
Your Blood Elf visits the high elf capital of Silvermoon city.
Your Blood Elf can undertake a heritage armor questline showing you 'the last act of the high elves', right before they redefined themselves as Blood Elves.

You're just proving my point, here. They're no longer high elves. They're blood elves now.

Blood Elves constitute such an overwhelming majority of the race that they ARE defining what a high elf is.

No, they don't. They define only what a blood elf is. High elves still exist, and so they define what a high elf is, not those who rejected the name. You would have a point if no high elves were left alive in the world and they were just a memory.

How is it wrong?

Is it wrong because the silhouettes have been given to the opposite faction, which is the crux of the issue. Skin color is meaningless in that regard. Before nightborne and void elves, if I saw a thalassian elf silhouette around, I'd immediately recognize it as a blood elf, just by batting an eye. I'd instantly recognize a tauren, an orc, a night elf, a human, a troll, etc... and would instantly know which faction they belong to. Now, with nightborne and void elves... the moment I see one of them, I will not know if it's a nightborne or a night elf, or a blood elf or void elf. At the very least, not until I mouse over or target them, and see the color of their outline or name. Almost no one will.

Your point is that because Nightborne and Void Elves use the same basic models as Night Elves and Blood/High Elves respectively, that this means the faction boundaries have been broken. And as a result, they shouldn't resist giving the Alliance High Elves on the grounds of faction diversity.

You are probably the only person pushing this argument with any kind of consistency. It's not hard to understand why your fellow pro High Elfers are reluctant to follow this line of attack. Because IF you are in fact right, and Void Elves violate the faction boundary by being too similar to Blood Elves, then you have already won. The Alliance has it's High Elves and this entire thread is redundant.

You speak of rolling your eyes, yet mine are threatening to roll off their sockets at the dishonesty you're presenting, here. Because you're heavily implying I'm after high elves because of their silhouette. I'm not. And I've told you that numerous times, already. I simply use this argument to counter this silly notion that the "faction lines" are still preserved.

Void Elves to you aren't good enough because they aren't the high elves you wanted. Their lore is too different.

Blood Elves aren't good enough because they are a part of the Horde. Their lore is wrong.

Only Alliance High Elves matter, the right shade of Elf on the right faction.

Yet you, who argues lore is important, are willing to say that lore plays no part in faction diversity. That it's all about the model in fact. That YOU are the only who cares about the story and the background.

Yeah. Funny how this post of mine proves you wrong. My contention is with this claim that says "high elves look too much like a blood elf to be viable", and that's why I make this point about silhouettes.

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Blood Elves are High Elves,

But not all high elves are blood elves.

High Elves are playable.

False. No option in the Alliance banner in the character creation screen.

[FlubberPuddy]

You know I agree with you! Never say never, but let's try to not get too wrapped up in it.

Being completely frank, Blizzard hasn't sold many of us on these Ren'dorei yet, have they? If we felt reason to embrace them as more than just traitors of the Horde, maybe customization options would open up. And maybe, just MAYBE, the void could be their path back to the Quel'dorei they all once were?

We don't know everything about the void yet, but maybe it will prove to be a cleansing ability for those who utilize it correctly. Null and void is the expression, so maybe void will nullify the fel magic and mana addiction, and later on, we end up with a group of elves on Alliance that are titled "Void Elves", but the irony is that they're the most pure in form.

I'm super tired as I'm typing this, so I hope it makes at least a bit of sense!

Oh yeah I'm not trying to be wrapped up in it, which is why lately I haven't been engaging in long bouts of this discussion.

We can wait and see what happens with Void Elves, I don't know if it will be engaging though, and I feel like a lot of people will be taking Void lore to = Void Elf lore.

I want the Void Elves to get more fleshed out, but Blizzard's barely done anything with them other than just continuing to say they're Blood Elves (based off Magister Umbric's words to the Void Elf player) that didn't enjoy the Horde.

[The Silver Covenant]

Ion in particular loves to voice his distain for the Alliance. The lead designer, who makes all of the important decisions, joking about how much the Alliance sucks, when he's the reason they suck.

Oh, I'm aware. A good friend of mine was in Elitist Jerks with Ion and still talks to him. The guy's got a weird teenage mind and his entire life drive is to shit on the Alliance now that he's WoW's lead dev.

[Vasaru]

Oh, I'm aware. A good friend of mine was in Elitist Jerks with Ion and still talks to him. The guy's got a weird teenage mind and his entire life drive is to shit on the Alliance now that he's WoW's lead dev.

Not that surprising, sadly.

[FlubberPuddy]

The interesting thing is that they changed their ways to rejoin their original faction. Like we've both said, however, it would be nice to have a playable group of completely unchanged, untainted Quel'dorei.

In the meantime, I'd level up a Void Elf if I could at least get a light-silver or white/platinum hair color, long, parted in center, like all elves have. The mustache and goatee is cool, so I'd use that. And perhaps a super dark purple skin and then a lighter, almost apricot/plum tinted one to balance things out.

I would actually enjoy a dark purple skin on Void Elves. They have the most ugly sickly looking shades of blue/purple for skin tones.

Reminds me of this old race from Perfect World MMO: the Tideborn.







Void Elves remind me of this lame race from one of those low-grade asian style f2p p2w MMOs

Part of why I can't stand em, and what's sad is they're implemented in a low grade way to WoW as well. I believe DeicideUH even has a thread where people who like Void Elves admit how trash their implementation has been.

[tikcol]

This thread is hilarious but I'll give you something. Void elfs is the most ridiculous race to ever grace Azeroth, even more ridiculous than high elves considering we already have those. Now we have those x2, the idea of releasing high elves now is so utterly stupid that I can't see them ever happening. Even more so than in the past.

[matrix123mko]

I would actually enjoy a dark purple skin on Void Elves. They have the most ugly sickly looking shades of blue/purple for skin tones.

Reminds me of this old race from Perfect World MMO: the Tideborn.







Void Elves remind me of this lame race from one of those low-grade asian style f2p p2w MMOs

Part of why I can't stand em, and what's sad is they're implemented in a low grade way to WoW as well. I believe DeicideUH even has a thread where people who like Void Elves admit how trash their implementation has been.

I like void elves a lot more than high elves but I agree that they need more customisation options. Also, these tideborn are cool.