Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Uthan]

I really don't get the whole infringing on horde identity argument, I mean, the High Elves are ALREADY in the Alliance. The identity has been infringed upon since before the Belves joined the horde, making them actually playable wouldn't really change that. And as others have said, having actual Blood Elves defect and join the alliance like the Void Elves did infringed way more than High Elves ever could on said identity. If anything changing the High Elves slightly with whatever new story there'd be, new voice lines and possibly minor customization etc would help fix the infringement that's already there by bringing the Belves and Helves further apart.

[delus]

Void Elves are a compromise. This idea that they aren't a compromise is patently ridiculous, it's only not a compromise in the sense you didn't get everything you asked for (which also is not a compromise). You got the model, you got a group of Alliance loyal Thalassian elves. That is a compromise and your own personal sense of grievance that you didn't get what you wanted doesn't change that.

And no, high elves are not distinct enough to be made playable without infringing on the Blood Elves. Firstly because the reason they weren't added is because they infringe on the Blood Elves (and the game director is probably right, whereas someone who REALLY wants High Elves on the Alliance might have an agenda to state their opinion without evidence as if it were a fact).

So High Elves are almost certainly not happening as a playable race. You've got Void Elves. Who knows what they will do with Void Elf customization but as I keep explaining to Pennem, that is still going to be a Void Elf.

Void elves have blue eyes. Tentacle hair is optional and black hair is optional. So are beards. The only things that truly seperate them are skin color and eye color. You would be infringing on your precious faction identity even more by giving blood elves void elf eye color. Surely even you can see the hypocracy.

[Manariel]

One Question, Do you guys even think Blizz would want to risk upsetting the Horde faction players just to appease a few of you?

The answer is No of course not don't be stupid.

If some angry BELF players are compared to the money made by adding HE as a playable race or pure customization option for VE (if they are truly THAT clueless) ? Yes, they will.

[Ignaz]

One Question, Do you guys even think Blizz would want to risk upsetting the Horde faction players just to appease a few of you?

The answer is No of course not don't be stupid.

Why would horde players be offended by integrating high elves as a playable race?
If horde players would be offended by something it should be for VE that are BE integrated into the Alliance and not by HE that were already part of the alliance since vanilla.

It would be stupid not to consider it knowing that they could please most of their players, in addition to making the conflict between the Horde and Alliance richer.

[Obelisk Kai]

Please; Ion is so biased he makes Kosak look like an Alliance fan. And Kosak was the original Danuser.

I have never found claiming that the developers's decisions are biased against you to be a particularly cogent retort. You think he did it alone and for pure spite? And that nobody called him out on it? I thought high elves would make Blizzard money but apparently one man's bitter hatred of them made them decide not to do it.

Or perhaps he isn't biased and their commitment to faction diversity, coupled with the fact they already added High Elves as Blood Elves in TBC, might be the real reason.

In other words, the reasons they continually tell us.

If some angry BELF players are compared to the money made by adding HE as a playable race or pure customization option for VE (if they are truly THAT clueless) ? Yes, they will.

Except that is exactly what happened. Pro High Elfers said for years that Blizzard would add High Elf exiles to the Alliance and mentioned money or $$$ as the reason. Yet here we are, at the tail end of the expansion where the perfect system to introduce High Elf exiles was added and there is not only no sign of playable high elf exiles for the Alliance, but they went out of their way to actively rule them out.

On the other hand they did add Void Elves to the Alliance, which added something like a Blood/High Elf to the Alliance but was different enough to be it's own thing. Given that they are the fourth most successful race in the Alliance and the most successful Allied race overall, it looks like Blizzard did in fact get that $$$ AND maintained their red lines on faction diversity.

Turns out there is such a thing as having your cake and eating it.

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Why would horde players be offended by integrating high elves as a playable race?
If horde players would be offended by something it should be for VE that are BE integrated into the Alliance and not by HE that were already part of the alliance since vanilla.

It would be stupid not to consider it knowing that they could please most of their players, in addition to making the conflict between the Horde and Alliance richer.

Because nobody else subscribes to the wrong pro High Elf point of view that imagines High Elf exiles and Blood Elves as different races. They are identical in all respects except their politics. So the offense comes from taking a race that has been Horde for the past thirteen years and making it neutral so the players who really want to play the Horde's most attractive race don't have to be Horde. If you wish to play this race so badly, the Horde is waiting for you.

Blood Elves ARE High Elves. High Elves ARE playable. Void Elves are transformed High Elves. They are similar to Blood Elves, but not exactly the same thing.

And as for making the conflict between the Horde and Alliance richer, they are unnecessary. The light based Blood Elves now have the void based Void Elves for that purpose.

The High Elf exiles are now entirely unneeded for anything storywise. If you need an Alliance foil for the Blood Elves in any given story, Alleria and her Void Elves will be a far better storytelling device.

[Manariel]

Except that is exactly what happened. Pro High Elfers said for years that Blizzard would add High Elf exiles to the Alliance and mentioned money or $$$ as the reason. Yet here we are, at the tail end of the expansion where the perfect system to introduce High Elf exiles was added and there is not only no sign of playable high elf exiles for the Alliance, but they went out of their way to actively rule them out.

You can drop the exiles, you know? High Elves are in the Alliance. Blood Elves are in the Horde. They are not "exiles". They are THE High Elves.

[Obelisk Kai]

You can drop the exiles, you know? High Elves are in the Alliance. Blood Elves are in the Horde. They are not "exiles". They are THE High Elves.

Chris Metzen has defined Blood Elves as High Elves.

Ion Hazzikostas has defined Blood Elves as High Elves on two occasions.

The character creation blurb for Blood Elves opens by talking about the high elves.

Blood Elves are High Elves and you were told directly that if you wished to play a High Elf, you should play Horde.

So no, the High Elf exiles are not the sole representative of a High Elf in the game. In fact, they are the least relevant segment because we have the playable traditional High Elf that are the Blood Elves, and we have the high elf variant that are the Void Elves. These are the High Elves that deserve attention because they are playable.

[Gurluas]

Chris Metzen has defined Blood Elves as High Elves.

Ion Hazzikostas has defined Blood Elves as High Elves on two occasions.

The character creation blurb for Blood Elves opens by talking about the high elves.

Blood Elves are High Elves and you were told directly that if you wished to play a High Elf, you should play Horde.

So no, the High Elf exiles are not the sole representative of a High Elf in the game. In fact, they are the least relevant segment because we have the playable traditional High Elf that are the Blood Elves, and we have the high elf variant that are the Void Elves. These are the High Elves that deserve attention because they are playable.

And Obelisk Kai continues to ignore things.

Metzen speaks about the Fantasy trope.

Ion doesn't know what he's talking about

The Character creation blurb refers to the Pre-Scourge High elves not the Alliance ones.

[Manariel]

Chris Metzen has defined Blood Elves as High Elves.

Ion Hazzikostas has defined Blood Elves as High Elves on two occasions.

The character creation blurb for Blood Elves opens by talking about the high elves.

Blood Elves are High Elves and you were told directly that if you wished to play a High Elf, you should play Horde.

So no, the High Elf exiles are not the sole representative of a High Elf in the game. In fact, they are the least relevant segment because we have the playable traditional High Elf that are the Blood Elves, and we have the high elf variant that are the Void Elves. These are the High Elves that deserve attention because they are playable.

They are flat out wrong then. It happens.

High Elves have belonged to the Alliance since Vanilla. Blood Elves belong to the Horde since TBC. It's really as simple as that.

Blood and Void Elves are not High Elves anymore. They both have rejected that name, emphatically, while others clinged to it and made its meaning evolve.

High Elves, for all intent and purpose, are not inhabitants of Quel'Thalas. They are the forces -the hundreds of them in game, including dozens of named NPC - of the Silver Covenant and Highvale, who have chosen to defy their former lords, joined hands with the Alliance and forged ahead, proving that they are able to field as much forces as the sin'doreï in three occasions - in Dalaran, on the Isle of Thunder and in Suramar.

Those thalassian elves also have demonstrated no interest in returning to Quel'thalas or even reclaiming it since a very long time ago, if they did at all. In fact, they have demonstrated blatant hostility toward Blood Elves with no qualms about assaulting or killing them. Void Elves, who did identify as Blood Elves, do, however.

[elbleuet]

Any blood elf :
- I'm no longer a high elf.
Obelisk Kai :
- u are because I need some arguments

[dlld]

One Question, Do you guys even think Blizz would want to risk upsetting the Horde faction players just to appease a few of you?

The answer is No of course not don't be stupid.

Who would get upset really? Generally speaking non blood elf horde players don't like their scrappy ugly looking beast horde tainted by pretty elves, and i'd wager at least half of horde blood elf players would have picked alliance if in tbc onwards the option to choose existed.

I think the main reason blizzard doesn't add them is to prevent world of high elf craft, in a game with 22 different races to choose from, blood elves make up roughly 20% of the entire lvl 120 population, or 23% if you add in void elves.

I think the appeal to switch to a blonde blue eyed high elf would be very high in the races that make up the majority of the alliance, ie Human night elf and draenei and a decent chunk of casual horde blood elves would probably switch too.

[Syegfryed]

Or, they could give them to both night and blood elves, in different forms?

Maybe I am missing something, but the more I analyze this, the more I feel Blizzard could very easily give the Night Elves some extra customization features which would make them role-playable as make-up High Elves without having to break the lore or explain a thing, exactly like they already showed to be doing with troll and dwarf appearances.

you think it somehow make sense put white skin, blue eyes nd blond hair to night elves? i don't think people would be rlly ok with that.

rp for rp, they can do with void elves too.

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You mean the interview in that the guy says that the thin humans weren't planned to be an allied race, as per the question asked?

he said both, he said thin and fat, and use the plural, read again

If you watched the video Ion explained they thought they wouldn't have the race available to be playable in time. You can't really compare the effort of making an allied race like Void Elves or Nightborne to making what basically amounts to a whole new race in the form of Kul'Tiras humans.

why that? thats make no sense, they literally did kul'tiran in one patch and they are still lackluster, if they intend to do they on release they would have done in place of dark iron, thats just simple.

Dude, a race is not uniformly all the same height. Playable kul'tirans being taller is not this big 'gotcha' you think it is

a race have an average, thats just how things are, the normal human average is normal human size, but the kul'tiran average is 8ft, that is huge to be just one tall dude from china, just like there are bigger breeds of dogs, kul'tiran is another breed of human, human race yes, but not the same as the other, and this will not happen to elves and this you can get in 2 years.

All of them had mana wyrms to consume, since mana wyrms are so common that one of your first tasks as a blood elf is to cut down their numbers since there's too many of them. And, again, those fel-tainted crystals that permeate the city and exist in almost every BE settlement. Even the Farstrider's Lodge, if I'm not mistaken.

fel crystals were to empower the city only, the farstriders where not in the city but fighting with the scourge, with their own strength, not magic, make sense they being also muscular.

Oh? So now you're claiming the Kul'Tiras are what they are because of "magical change"? God damn you love to throw nonsensical, absurd claims, and then complain about me.

im clearly talking about elves here, in both cases they went into magical change, nightborne changed by nightwell, void elves changed by the void.

the ones who didn't had this treatment, had more than decades of differentiation to be another thing like zandalari and kul'tirans, not 2 years doing push ups.

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what do you mean by '' before ''? during BC? because if so, you are absolutely right

anH? im talking about kul'tirans here;

Darkiron literally has flames on the beard and if unnaturally gray / black skin, I mean ... beard ... with fire.

yes, because the bless of ragnaros, they change, they are no longer normal dwarves.

Playable Kul'tirans are just fat, What is the biological difference between a fat kul'tirano and a non-fat one?.

i know well your strategy to parrot that they are just fat thinking it will downgrade the argument, its ok, i explain again, they are not just fat, they are also muscular standing 8ft tall and have different facial traits, you can't get that by just being fat.

They need the sunwell to satiate their addiction. if they were not addicted, that would not happe

it is said the sunwell with the light cured their addiction

yes, they are

they aren't, regardless, being a recolor is more than not having any differences like elves

uh ... yeah. That's what I said. My point is that their numbers do not grow because of their reproduction speed, their population grows because they are not tied to the mortality standards of non-long-lived races

thats simple not how it works, you know why things like cockroaches and rats population grow so fast? you think its because they are immortal?

for example: humans; they1 reproduce, their children2 they grow up and have children3 (you have 3 generations there), but grandparents1 die reducing the number of live generations to 2. In a long-lived population, grandparents would still be alive and would surely see their great grandchildren quietly… alive

a human family in past times, would have 2-10 children, a friend of mine had 11 brothers and sisters by example, those children also will have more than 1 children, and going forth they will have more numbers regardless the old dying.

With elves, they don't have children in years, and if they have they have one, the windrunner sisters were something very rare in quel'thalas by example.

vereesa windrunner ... the same one with two children ...

because her husband is a human, not an elf, thus, half-elves would make more sense.

But is it enough for regular orcs? which is almost the same example (change of color and attitude)

yes because orcs got their race corrupted, they drink demon blood, that is literal fel energy, and stayed corrupted for years until manoroth death, corrupting their children like thrall, this didn't happen with elves.

its like being on a nuclear accident, and the other just passing by after with happened.

[Obelisk Kai]

They are flat out wrong then. It happens.

High Elves have belonged to the Alliance since Vanilla. Blood Elves belong to the Horde since TBC. It's really as simple as that.

Blood and Void Elves are not High Elves anymore. They both have rejected that name, emphatically, while others clinged to it and made its meaning evolve.

High Elves, for all intent and purpose, are not inhabitants of Quel'Thalas. They are the forces -the hundreds of them in game, including dozens of named NPC - of the Silver Covenant and Highvale, who have chosen to defy their former lords, joined hands with the Alliance and forged ahead, proving that they are able to field as much forces as the sin'doreï in three occasions - in Dalaran, on the Isle of Thunder and in Suramar.

Those thalassian elves also have demonstrated no interest in returning to Quel'thalas or even reclaiming it since a very long time ago, if they did at all. In fact, they have demonstrated blatant hostility toward Blood Elves with no qualms about assaulting or killing them. Void Elves, who did identify as Blood Elves, do, however.

No, they are not flat out wrong. As the creators of the fiction, they have authorial right to define right and wrong in the context of the Warcraft universe. If anything, they are the ultimate referees between debating groups of fans, as what they say goes. You are a fan with an agenda, your agenda is playable traditional high elves within the Alliance. You are therefore biased in your opinions.

Blood Elves are High Elves. There is no difference between a Blood Elf and a High Elf besides their political opinion. As the creation of Void Elves proves, political opinion is not enough to justify the existence of a separate Allied race entry because if it had of been, they would never have created Void Elves to begin with. And as the three or four times they shot down the idea of Alliance-Horde co-operation in PVE at Blizzcon shows, they also value the distinctiveness between the factions.

Void Elves are a variant of Blood Elves, who are High Elves. They share the model with the Blood Elves. They share a large chunk of the lore. But they have an entirely different destiny, their own aesthetic and their own theme. They are genuinely their own things.

I also have to point out that this is a dead debate now. Others have already progressed towards customization options on Void Elves. BFA is over. The Allied race cycle is almost certainly done for the foreseeable future, with the art team devoted to expanding customizations on existing races rather than creating new ones (although given blood elves are identical to high elves I guess there isn't much that needs to be done beyond making a character portrait but they'd have to build a Horde race at the same time...).

This just isn't happening. The next major development in this debate will be the revelation of what Blood Elves get as a result of their expanded character customizations and whether or not Blood Elves get the blue eye colour option.

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And Obelisk Kai continued to ignore things.

Metzen speaks about the Fantasy trope.

Ion doesn't know what he's talking about

The Character creation blurb refers to the Pre-Scourge High elves not the Alliance ones.

That's right Gurluas.

Chris Metzen is wrong, Ion Hazzikostas is wrong, the game is wrong.

Everything is wrong except the pro High Elf viewpoint. Because it couldn't be that the pro High Elf viewpoint is wrong and the people who make the game are right now could it?

[Nurvus]

Blood Elves are High Elves. There is no difference between a Blood Elf and a High Elf besides their political opinion.

Pandaren are Pandaren. There is no difference between a Pandaren and a Pandaren besides their political opinion.

---
And there are differences between Silver Covenant High Elves and the High Elves that became Blood Elves besides their political opinion - eye color, attitude (which could be represented as slightly different stance and/or animations), etc.

By contrast, who are the Void Elves?
Oh, right, they are canonically even less than the Silver Covenant or the Blood Elves, were created through a unique situation with no justification for having more of them created over time, and yet players can make thousands of characters out of them.

Every single excuse that Blizzard uses against adding High Elves (call them Silver Covenant Elves if you prefer) to the Alliance has always been and is still being contradicted by the game right now.

I have no problem with NOT having High Elves in the Alliance - I just want Blizzard to stop with the bullshit excuses.

[Ignaz]

fel crystals were to empower the city only, the farstriders where not in the city but fighting with the scourge, with their own strength, not magic, make sense they being also muscular.

fel crystals were to empower the city and expand fel radiation to the blood elves (which keeps changing them).

im clearly talking about elves here, in both cases they went into magical change, nightborne changed by nightwell, void elves changed by the void.

you forgot blood elves being changed by fel energy

the ones who didn't had this treatment, had more than decades of differentiation to be another thing like zandalari and kul'tirans, not 2 years doing push ups.

Playable kul'tiran are that tall, strong/fat for their lifestyle, not for being another race. They are simply human, that's all.

yes, because the bless of ragnaros, they change, they are no longer normal dwarves.

Exactly. Who blessed the kul'tiran to be fat, ronald mcdonald?

i know well your strategy to parrot that they are just fat thinking it will downgrade the argument, its ok, i explain again, they are not just fat, they are also muscular standing 8ft tall and have different facial traits, you can't get that by just being fat.

Actually you can, look at the before/after photos of people losing a lot of weight and you will see the differences in their features. In terms of height, well ... humans come in many sizes, colors and shapes.

it is said the sunwell with the light cured their addiction

one thing is ''said it'' and another to really ''happen''. The fact that the sunwell exists and the need of both high elves and blood elves to visit it is proof that they are still addicted

they aren't, regardless, being a recolor is more than not having any differences like elves

I see the same example of recolor here.

thats simple not how it works, you know why things like cockroaches and rats population grow so fast? you think its because they are immortal?

no, their population grows because they have a high and uncontrolled reproduction rate, which I already said did not come to the case in HE situation

Read again

a human family in past times, would have 2-10 children, a friend of mine had 11 brothers and sisters by example, those children also will have more than 1 children, and going forth they will have more numbers regardless the old dying.

Irrelevant. Read again

With elves, they don't have children in years, and if they have they have one, the windrunner sisters were something very rare in quel'thalas by example.

It may be true but irrelevant. Read again.

because her husband is a human, not an elf, thus, half-elves would make more sense.

We don't want half-elves, we want HE for the alliance (no VE and no BE)

yes because orcs got their race corrupted, they drink demon blood, that is literal fel energy, and stayed corrupted for years until manoroth death, corrupting their children like thrall, this didn't happen with elves.

a similar story to that of the blood elves.

[Ielenia]

he said both, he said thin and fat, and use the plural, read again

He did not say both. He used "plural" because the question is talking about a group of people!

Of course Blizzard would say "they" when referring to the "thin humans" since it's not one thin human, but many! If people ask "hey, Blizz, are you going to make the tortollans playable?" do you think Blizzard would say "no, he/she/it will not be playable?"

why that? thats make no sense, they literally did kul'tiran in one patch and they are still lackluster, if they intend to do they on release they would have done in place of dark iron, thats just simple.

Alright. I'm ending the conversation here. You have absolute zero understanding of how developing stuff in a video game work, and cherry-pick what statements the developers make are real or not.

I have a really hard time believing you're that misinformed, which means the only other option left is you're here in bad faith (to keep from using a less charitable descriptor) so I'm done, here.

But I am bookmarking this to remember the sheer WTF-ery you posted here.

"They literally did Kul'Tirans in one patch."

Geez, what a load fresh, stinky bull dung.

[Astranea]

you think it somehow make sense put white skin, blue eyes nd blond hair to night elves? i don't think people would be rlly ok with that.

Hmm, I thought I already mentioned all of this, but maybe you did not feel like reading it?

Let me try again:

• Skin: = the night elves already have some flesh colored skins, and could have more shades adding slight genetic variation without breaking the lore.
• Tattoos = the night elves already have face tattoos, they just need to be separated from the hair customization
• Hair colors = the night elves can already sport white hair, and there is no reason why they could not dye their hair brown or whatever other color, seen they go to the same barber shops as any other Alliance race, unless Goblins refuse to do that for money? In fact, I think that restrictions on hair colors should be just lifted for every race, giving a broad palette to just everyone. We have that IRL too after all, and hair dyes where used by human beings as early as the Bronze Age! To make hair blond (bleaching), red (earths) and black (dye). It's just that easy.

The only tricky bit MAY be the blue eyes, but then again, Blizzard is already working on editing the eyes and recently removed the bright glow making pupils distinguishable for other races. Considering the night elves have blue hair and blue skin as typical traits, I would not be surprised if they could also sport some light blue or ice grey pupils underneath the glow, as these seem to be their most typical colors (plus green and purple of course).

Not breaking the lore, not adding anything that would be unfeasible as a very regular night elf trait or is already there in some very similar form. Simply enhancing the quality of the fantasy, for people to enjoy.

But maybe you just hate it when people are happy?

Of course, I had already spelled it earlier... but I guess you just did not like it at all.

[matrix123mko]

One Question, Do you guys even think Blizz would want to risk upsetting the Horde faction players just to appease a few of you?

The answer is No of course not don't be stupid.

How would that upset the Horde?

[Alanar]

Would be ideal. HE having his own playable race with a completely new model / rig and new movements, etc.
The only worrying thing is that they could give us another VE, knowing Blizzard.

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I would prefer the nozdormu model, but it could work.

This is not a very new or exciting idea, multiple posters "came up" with this.

Problem is, they are identical, the same, to the bone! Besides a differnt political standpoint, their appearence is maintained. Myabe they are little paler and skinnier (they are vegan, so it's Obvious) but, changing the look of that grp for the sake of making it playable is kind of destroying lore even further.

Cosmectic option is the only option with all this debate, we can't put the same race on other faction without hurting the other, can't change the look to make them look like high elves at all (also no nightelf model with pointy ears) The burning crusade gave us the official look on high/blood elves, the classic models were a remodel of night elf, this was done because the high/blood elf model wasn't in the game. Why would we go back to that? Besides these classic models were what highborne were suppose to look like, same race differnt sub grp within that race. Point is we can't just change the entire model for the sake of making playable.

They made nightborne playable.. what a fiasco was that .. model wise. You want that for high elves? no? give it a eye color option and close the damn discussion. You can't please everyone and lets be honest high elf fans you still believe they will ever get a offical spot in the Alliance?

[Starla]

This is not ssomething very new or exciting idea, multiple posters "came up" with this.

Problem is, they are identical, the same, to the bone besides a differnt political standpoint.
Changing the look of that grp for the sake of making it playable is kind of destroying lore even further.


Cosmectic option is the only option with all this debate, we can't put the same race on other faction without hurting the other, can't change the look to make them look like high elves at all (also no nightelf model with pointy ears) The burning crusade gave us the official look on high/blood elves, we can't just change that for the sake of crying out loud.

I think it's clear that there are a LOT of helfers who aren't concerned with the lore when it comes to them getting playable high elves on the alliance.