Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[protip]

We now have 3 types of races that are cross faction. Night Elves : Nightborne, Blood Elves : Void Elves, Pandaren.

9 playable races per side, 3 race on each side that can be cross faction. That's 33% of available races, not really sure that falls into "an exception to a rule."

Pandaren were neutral because there whole storyline was about war and the desire for peace.

Our elves for your elves. It's that compromise we keep talking about.

Both had exceptional circumstances.

[Goldielocks]

No one is asking for High Elves immediately. How can you say here Blizz would be affected minimally if they shut down High Elves but earlier you stated "who knows how many would stop paying their subs" those are two opposing viewpoints you share.

What the, no, they're not opposing viewpoints at all lmao. Blizzard is doing these things precisely because they don't know what the effect will be. I personally believe it won't affect much in terms of BFA sales, but Blizzard doesn't agree. That's why all of their responses to most things are half baked. They maximize gain through ambiguity and these High Elf desires are thriving because of it.

Except they have denied Naga, they said anything with two legs is a candidate, Naga do not fit the bill there lol. They even mention for instance, how would Frost Giants work? Lol again. So there are definitely some hard stops for certain races, they've said as much. Yet remained ambiguous on High Elves.

Please direct me to the language of a dev in which there is direct confirmation that all races will always be bipedal, and that there is no possibility for this ever changing. If not, then it's no different than High Elves.

Except they went out of their way to make Void Elves a group of exiled Blood Elves, a ton of people were saying as you are saying here that they could've made it so that Void Elves were majorly of High Elves, but they didn't. Your point about Light Elves make no sense because the Blood Elves have turned into a Light-based culture due to the ending of the Sunwell saga, so you already have your Light Elves they just got added eyes to showcase this.

Alliance High Elves don't share the themes of either Blood or Void Elves, Blizzard decided not to close the door on em, despite some thinking they did.

The Void Elves weren't High Elves because they wanted to balance out how Tyrande treated the Nightborne, by having Lor'themar treat a group of his people like shit. That's my personal opinion. No proof to that.

As for Light Elves, I disagree. If Blizzard wanted to do something "cool and new" like they did for Void Elves they would have given Blood Elves more aesthetic changes. Instead they only recieved eye color variants. Why? Because they didn't need to do anything else. The "cool and new" excuse isn't real.

[Sastank]

Not happening

[FlubberPuddy]

Pandaren were neutral because there whole storyline was about war and the desire for peace.

Our elves for your elves. It's that compromise we keep talking about.

Both had exceptional circumstances.

So we can expect more Elves for Horde if High Elves are added to Alliance again. But "faction distinction" isn't a thing anymore where concerned with elves, Blizz even made a quest referencing it, "not our purple elves" lol

Also I bet we'll see more neutral races after BfA (since it's about faction heavyness). We already have 4 more upcoming AR, and this expansion isn't out yet. I don't know if Blizzard will slow down but I doubt it very much, I except to see all 2.0s by end of BfA if not before that. Meaning we'll get into 3.0s of races, unless you believe we will only see unique races after the 2.0s of existing races?

[Syegfryed]

So we can expect more Elves for Horde if High Elves are added to Alliance again.

is a lose-lose scenario, the horde don't wand or need more elves, same with the alliance

besides we would win something we already have, and give away something who belong to us

But "faction distinction" isn't a thing anymore where concerned with elves, Blizz even made a quest referencing it, "not our purple elves" lol

still is thing because they make sure to made thoe elves a lot distinct

Also I bet we'll see more neutral races after BfA (since it's about faction heavyness).

you gonna lose the bet, is a silly and bad concept that they will not do again just for you get your legolas, pandarens are bad enough

they will just not add races again, for a long time, or just work on customization, what is more likely

[FlubberPuddy]

What the, no, they're not opposing viewpoints at all lmao. Blizzard is doing these things precisely because they don't know what the effect will be. I personally believe it won't affect much in terms of BFA sales, but Blizzard doesn't agree. That's why all of their responses to most things are half baked. They maximize gain through ambiguity and these High Elf desires are thriving because of it.

Please direct me to the language of a dev in which there is direct confirmation that all races will always be bipedal, and that there is no possibility for this ever changing. If not, then it's no different than High Elves.

The Void Elves weren't High Elves because they wanted to balance out how Tyrande treated the Nightborne, by having Lor'themar treat a group of his people like shit. That's my personal opinion. No proof to that.

As for Light Elves, I disagree. If Blizzard wanted to do something "cool and new" like they did for Void Elves they would have given Blood Elves more aesthetic changes. Instead they only recieved eye color variants. Why? Because they didn't need to do anything else. The "cool and new" excuse isn't real.

I don't really have time to find the interview but I know there was one as evidenced here: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...2276701#post-5

They could do a lot of things, but in a recent interview they outright stated that "pretty much anything with two legs was considered" for allied races.

and here: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...yable_race_in/

We've got two definite statements out of Blizzard:

Allied Races are NOT sub races

"Pretty much everything with two legs was considered"

That means the "regular" races were still considered. What allied races are, is "low effort" races. Races that require less work than a regular race. Less animation work, less model work, no starting zone of their own (beyond a small hub - and even that can be reused from other content).

So let's say ogres. Ogres already have a pretty good animation rig that has sitting, dancing, mounting, many emotes, etc. What they don't have can be ported over from other races as Blizzard has done multiple times. They also don't need their own starting zone - you can just put them in their village in Dustwallow Marsh and call it a day.

Now, admittedly, races like arakkoa are on the far side of the possible spectrum because they'd need a lot more model work (although mostly redrawing their main body texture - long story, can expand in comments). However, the second comment from the recent interview assures me that if Blizzard thinks they can pull it off, it can happen.

If we're a few years in and all we got are things like Draenor orcs, dark irons and highmountain tauren, I will admit "yeah, it's probably not going to happen". But until then, I think it's plausible.

Those are what my quick google searches brought me, these are two statements, made by 2 different people. The first quote was about an hour ago as the link shows, and the 2nd longer quote is from Feb 4th. Notice they also use the same quotation marks and phrase.

So there's an interview somewhere I just don't have the time right now! Excuse me for that.

As for the rest of your post, it's pretty much your opinion and I don't really care to argue opinions, only statements/facts/presentations.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did find this though in my search: http://www.wowhead.com/news=275397/b...t-blizzcon-201

Q: How did you choose which Allied Races to launch with and are there more on the way?
A: Came out of tying up Legion stories, those characters felt appropriate to bring forth now.

Chris: The ones that we did choose came out of tying up a lot of the stories that were going on in Legion. And those characters felt very appropriate to bring forth, at this point in time based on some of the experiences we've had previously.

So more evidence that many High Elf supporters have been saying the reason going with Void Elves was the timing, basing it on the premise that they wanted Alleria to have her own void-based people. Whereas High Elves are not specific to one era of WoW's timeline as they've had a presence in many expansions and can be added at anytime.

[Deleted]

Care to show me HOW MANY elves lived there and how long any one of them. There can be 10 elves who were sent there by Quel'thalas to teach mages, and they can rotate every let's say 10-20 years. Elves NOT rabbits. They don't give birth to 10 children in 10 years. Even if some of them lived there BY THEIR WILL, and slept with humans so creatures like allodi and arathor exists, IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT THERE WAS MANY OF THEM.

That fact that plenty of High Elves lived in Dalaran are apparently news to you, lol. Is the fact that High Elves also live in Stormwind breaking news for you as well?

no rules? really? you said that? Then my rule is LORE! everything what you want add to "High elves" from the past apply to the BLOOD ELVES TOO! Because BLOOD ELVES ARE "HIGH ELVES" and everything from the PAST automaticaly apply to THEM. every tatroo option, hair, skin and etc. BECAUSE THEY NOT MAGICALY CHANGED THEIR APPEARANCE! And this "High elves" who were there during WC2 time, returned to quel'Thalas! And live there! And Blood elves leader IS ranger lord! Even blue eyes apply to Blood elves BECAUSE BLIZZARD said that it will take some time to wear off fel corruption. Now we see golden eyes. And based on Chronicles - new sunwell is font of BOTH arcane and holy!

Yes, there are no rules about that. Even if the lore says that one thing should be available to two races, for the gameplay reasons Blizzard may give it only to one race. And almost everyone is fine with it. Heck, YOU are fine with it. You mention it as a serious issue only because you don't want High Elves to be playable but in fact it is not an issue for YOU at all. Because I bet you didn't even think that the fact that Blood Elves don't have beards that Void Elves have is a problem and a serious violation of lore. It's ONLY a problem when it concerns High Elves. For obvious reasons. Because you just don't want High Elves to be playable under any circumstances and would use any arguments against them, no matter if you agree with these arguments yourself or not.

and then you will get nothing. because "High elves" and blood elves are the same species. There is nothing Muscular in "High elves" because Blood elves have same caste farstriders, and your "High elves" still connected to sunwell, and allowed to visit it.

Whatever you say.

[Syegfryed]

Define "plenty".

in high elf dictionary, if there is a sign to be a high elf there means there is a thousands/millions there

baffle me how people believe that the elves evacuated from dalaran would not join Kael and quel'thlas afterwards, but would blindly follow the alliance after their people almost be genocide there

like dude

[Ithekro]

The Faction identity arguments are not valid in the face of lore. There are High Elves in the Alliance. There might not be anywhere near as many as their are Blood Elves in the Horde, but there are there, and there are certainly more of them than there are Void Elves. There are probably more High Elves in the Alliance that there were Draenei on the Exodar.

If there is lore for a race to be part of a faction on more than a token level, it should be a possible Allied Race at this point. As long as it is within the limitations that Blizzard as provided....two legs, doesn't break the game by being significantly larger than Tauren on a mount, and can be made to use their new universal skeleton model thing.

If you can find lore for surviving humans from Alterac to join the Horde/rejoin the Horde....go for it. The Horde already has the Alliance's second most played model, the night elf, which is about as many as both the orcs and undead combined on the Horde US side. It is not nearly that high on the EU side because Human outdoes everything in the EU by a lot, while on US Human and Blood Elf are about equal numbers)) If there is lore than there shouldn't be an argument against the group being playable. Allied Race populations should be nowhere near as high as a standard race because most of the existing races can be made just by buying the game. Allied Races require you to level a character up to be able to rep grind for that Allied Race and than have a max level character on the faction that race is joining in order to unlock their introduction quest chain. After all that, than you can make a level 20 character and level it up, or race change an existing character, or level boost the new level 20 to level 100 or 110 depending on how old your level booster are.

Lore trumps factions.

[Deleted]

Define "plenty". According to Ion/Blizzard there's not many HE's left around at all. So; what exactly to you, classifies them as "plenty"? And please, don't try to use in game representation as some sort of factoid, as that has little to no meaning at all.

Plenty as in "more than Void Elves".

[Deleted]

Generalization after generalization with you. So I'll parrot what I said before. Define plenty or "more than Void Elves".

It means "good enough to be playable". Pretty specific, actually, as this is the only thing that matters.

[protip]

The Faction identity arguments are not valid in the face of lore. There are High Elves in the Alliance. There might not be anywhere near as many as their are Blood Elves in the Horde, but there are there, and there are certainly more of them than there are Void Elves. There are probably more High Elves in the Alliance that there were Draenei on the Exodar.

If there is lore for a race to be part of a faction on more than a token level, it should be a possible Allied Race at this point. As long as it is within the limitations that Blizzard as provided....two legs, doesn't break the game by being significantly larger than Tauren on a mount, and can be made to use their new universal skeleton model thing.

If you can find lore for surviving humans from Alterac to join the Horde/rejoin the Horde....go for it. The Horde already has the Alliance's second most played model, the night elf, which is about as many as both the orcs and undead combined on the Horde US side. It is not nearly that high on the EU side because Human outdoes everything in the EU by a lot, while on US Human and Blood Elf are about equal numbers)) If there is lore than there shouldn't be an argument against the group being playable. Allied Race populations should be nowhere near as high as a standard race because most of the existing races can be made just by buying the game. Allied Races require you to level a character up to be able to rep grind for that Allied Race and than have a max level character on the faction that race is joining in order to unlock their introduction quest chain. After all that, than you can make a level 20 character and level it up, or race change an existing character, or level boost the new level 20 to level 100 or 110 depending on how old your level booster are.

Lore trumps factions.

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html

Check that first one.

[Garfurion]

I said to define plenty. As in quantify. How many. Plenty is a generalization that implies abundance, of which the HE's are not. They are few in number.

few is a generalization as well

If I only have 2 apples you could say I only have a few, but if I'm not hungry then I have plenty

[Obelisk Kai]

This thread has taken a turn for the ridiculous now.

Pro high elf posters are now just flat out refusing to engage with facts and spouting head canon without back up material or sources.

[Syegfryed]

This thread has taken a turn for the ridiculous now.

Pro high elf posters are now just flat out refusing to engage with facts and spouting head canon without back up material or sources.

you mean like always then, cause using the elves in dalaran to back up their idea is just silly

[RangerDaz]

Except they have denied Naga, they said anything with two legs is a candidate, Naga do not fit the bill there lol. They even mention for instance, how would Frost Giants work? Lol again. So there are definitely some hard stops for certain races, they've said as much. Yet remained ambiguous on High Elves.

I have posted in a few threads a way to make Naga viable, and it is quite easy, actually. It is just a matter if Blizzard wants to or not.

You just need to make a combo like Worgen do with a human form: Naga Form and Elf Form (Night Elves? Nightborne? Highborne aka a mixture of night elf + nightborne + Elf Azshara models?). doesn't Azshara alternates between her (old) Naga Form and Highborne form? (i believe she is getting a more old god corrupted form now) And i think they fit more on the horde side, as they have the same ideology as nightborne and blood elves.

Naga Form would go for combat, and swiming. highborne form would go for mounting, transmog view and other optional stances.

And, oh yes, another elf race please World of Elfcraft! haha


Ok, now on topic: I really do not know what else to say, besides this:





And yes, a Lord of the Rings meme, because... its an Elven thread!

I still believe that the Silver Covenant is the best way to bring High Elves to playable races, the militia that gathered the scattered high elves and gave them alternative ways to survive without the sunwell energies.

Sunwell Elves ( + Undead / San'layn Elves) VS. Elves without Sunwell energies (aka High Elves) + Void Hungering Elves, i clearly think this is the best way to do it.

[Lunaprika]

The best way to do it is not implementing that asspulled idea of High Elves as an allied race for Alliance.

[Lebanese Dude]

This thread has taken a turn for the ridiculous now.

Pro high elf posters are now just flat out refusing to engage with facts and spouting head canon without back up material or sources.

lololol High Elves exist therefore they can be made playable. That's all it boils down to.

Most counterarguments in this thread are arbitrary.

You know, I've seen that line bandied around for years now, that Blizzard would eventually do it for the ££££££££ or the $$$$$$$$$ or something like that.

Well it's true, as much as you want to downplay it.

If they were ever going to do that they would have done it years ago. And if High Elves were such a 'cha-ching' opportunity, then they would have included them in the first tranche of Allied Races released rather than creating Void Elves.

Because Allied Races didn't exist? High Elves are too close to Blood Elves to have been a completely independent new race. Allied Races, introduced recently, let them bypass all the inhibitions that stopped them before.

Now you want to ask why they made Void Elves and not High Elves?

Nobody has the answer. The most likely one I've heard is that they thought Void Elves would be appropriate to release now just after the events of Argus. Another one I've thought of myself is that Void Krokuul + High Elves were original plan but they wanted Turalyon and Alleria to be major factors in the coming war and that naturally comes with soldiers under their command. Turalyon naturally would lead Lightforged Draenei, and Void Broken would have been two Draenei (so redundant). They thought of Void Elves instead (as a counter to Nightborne anyway) so they made them. They used Blood Elves so they could keep High Elves for later.

Am I sure this is what happened? No. But given all our context it's not any less likely than anything else spouted here, and in fact would make more sense than "they just don't want to" when they could have easily used High Elves to become Void Elves as part of that crack squad.

Allied Races are a game feature moving forward. We'll see many more Allied Races down the line. High Elves are still an option.

[Obelisk Kai]

lololol High Elves exist therefore they can be made playable. That's all it boils down to.

Most counterarguments in this thread are arbitrary..

High Elves are already playable. What this thread boils down to is a collective exercise in denial.

Well it's true, as much as you want to downplay it.

Actually, it's not true. As evidence I offer the fact they haven't done it despite years of people saying they would so for the money.

Now you want to ask why they made Void Elves and not High Elves?

Nobody has the answer.

Actually, that's not true. The answer is that they didn't want to make Alliance High Elves playable and they created a variant instead. You know, the obvious answer. The common sense answer. The Occam's razor answer. The answer anyone else would give.

[protip]

snip.

Isn’t the more reasonable answer that they chose void elves because “void elves are pretty much another flavor of high elves” and they didn’t want to give the Alliance the original? After all, when asked about high elves in the future, that was the answer, with the clear implication of “why would we give you something you already have?”