Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Frozen Death Knight]

It really doesn't make sense anymore to deny the Alliance faction playable High Elves. If Blizzard can make a smaller sub-faction consisting of the same race be playable in the form of Void Elves, then the larger faction which they originate from should most definitely be playable. The devs are just being ridiculously obtuse by stretching this whole deal out and denying the simple reality of the situation.

[Obelisk Kai]

It really doesn't make sense anymore to deny the Alliance faction playable High Elves. If Blizzard can make a smaller sub-faction consisting of the same race be playable in the form of Void Elves, then the larger faction which they originate from should most definitely be playable. The devs are just being ridiculously obtuse by stretching this whole deal out by denying the simple reality of the situation.

Look, this debate is pointless. If they were ever going to add High Elves to the Alliance, the moment of opportunity was when they introduced Allied Races.

Void Elves are not proof of concept which shows High Elves are possible. Void Elves are the replacement they created to give the Alliance some kind of high elf variant when they decided they weren't going to give the Alliance a duplicate of a Horde race. They aren't going to give the Alliance a second thalassian elf, let alone one that looks and acts exactly like the Horde's.

And that was pretty much it once they did that. I know this thread is nearly two years old with thousands of posts but the moment they created Void Elves the debate ended. There no ordeal to stretch out because the answer was given. Void Elves were the answer.

[DatToffer]

So how is this thread going on now ?

Are we still at the "Making high elves custom is admitting they don't belong as a complete race" point ?

[Manariel]

Void Elves are not proof of concept which shows High Elves are possible. Void Elves are the replacement they created to give the Alliance some kind of high elf variant when they decided they weren't going to give the Alliance a duplicate of a Horde race. They aren't going to give the Alliance a second thalassian elf, let alone one that looks and acts exactly like the Horde's.

They already did that. They just hastily added some shitty bluberry recolor on paint before hand, but they litteraly did give Blood Elves to the Alliance. Same animations, same faces, same emotes, same everything. That Blood Elf players aren't as against those existing as the High Elves prove that all they care is the otuward appearance of their toons and feel threatened by the Alliance getting them in the variant which already is a part of the Alliance and has been for the longest time.

I know that you and other anti-helfers think that Void Elves close the deal, but you are flat out wrong. Blizzard tried to close it, fucked up incredibly badly anbd kept compounding mistakes on those mistakes.

And, quite frankly. I don't give a fuck about some Hordy's victimhood if we get High Elves. Like, at all. What I want is for once for the Alliance to get a race which makes sense lorewise, fit its thematics and has a lot of inhgerent appeal because of its background and potential for new stories. The High Elves creating a new society, distinct and distant from Silvermoon is ten thousands times far more interesting that Blood Elven rejects getting void-tainted and yet still hope that someday Silvermoon will return to the Alliance.

[Obelisk Kai]

They already did that. They just hastily added some shitty bluberry recolor on paint before hand, but they litteraly did give Blood Elves to the Alliance. Same animations, same faces, same emotes, same everything. That Blood Elf players aren't as against those existing as the High Elves prove that all they care is the otuward appearance of their toons and feel threatened by the Alliance getting them in the variant which already is a part of the Alliance and has been for the longest time.

No, they gave Void Elves to the Alliance, who are transformed Blood Elves, who ARE High Elves. If they gave Blood Elves to the Alliance they wouldn't be Void Elves now would they? And it's been explained why Blood Elf players aren't against them, because they are variant. There is clear blue water between a Void Elf and a Blood/high elf. You and other pro High Elfers prove this on an almost daily basis as you complain about Void Elves not being what you want and they aren't what you want because they are not identical to a Blood Elf/High Elf. You cannot argue you got Blood Elves and then in the same breath complain about how different they are from what you wanted. That's a textbook example of doublethink.

I know that you and other anti-helfers think that Void Elves close the deal, but you are flat out wrong. Blizzard tried to close it, fucked up incredibly badly anbd kept compounding mistakes on those mistakes.

Void Elves did close the deal, seven hundred and thirty six pages of debate doesn't change that. Blizzard would never have created Void Elves if they ever had any intention of giving the Alliance High Elves. And how exactly did Blizzard fuck up? Because you and other pro High Elfers aren't happy? What a poor measure of success particularly given the small size of your community. There are so many micro groups unhappy about one aspect or another of World of Warcraft that to insist the developers not following up on your pet objection is an example of corporate failure isn't really a believable point. You and those who think like you are unhappy. Unfortunate, but far from the worst problems currently plaguing the game.
Truth is, Void Elves are the most successful allied race. Blizzard got the $$$ pro high elfers kept saying they would get for adding high elves, and they didn't even have to add high elves. Your happiness isn't the metric, the money they got was.

And, quite frankly. I don't give a fuck about some Hordy's victimhood if we get High Elves. Like, at all. What I want is for once for the Alliance to get a race which makes sense lorewise, fit its thematics and has a lot of inhgerent appeal because of its background and potential for new stories. The High Elves creating a new society, distinct and distant from Silvermoon is ten thousands times far more interesting that Blood Elven rejects getting void-tainted and yet still hope that someday Silvermoon will return to the Alliance.

You won't have to. What you are hoping for is almost certain never to happen. Particularly as what you describe you want is impossible. High Elves creating a new society, they aren't even do that as NPCs. They are assimilating into human society and you can ask Ion about how they assimilating, or you can see Elisande talking about them diluting their bloodlines or you can see them walking around the human society of Dalaran as Dalaran citizens. They can't build a new society because they just don't have the numbers to do so. The Void Elves on the other hand actually are a new society distinct from Silvermoon. So they actually work as what you say you want but of course, the cardinal sin of them being blue seems to be a problem for you. I don't think that can be helped.

[Aucald]

Given Anduin's lines in 8.2.5 it is clear the campaign in Nazjatar cost them, unsurprising given that Sylvanas intended for their to be maximum casualties on both sides and more Alliance forces were caught in the trap than Horde.

Alleria's comment that prior to the battle of the gates of Orgrimmar that Sylvanas had the only army capable of taking on N'zoth comes with the implicit understanding that the combined Alliance and Horde rebel forces do not.

The commentary in 8.2.5 only makes sense if the Alliance's advantage had been eliminated at that point. An Alliance victory was not guaranteed as of the beginning of 8.2.5 due to the events of 8.2.

8.2.5 changes the entire equation of the Blood War with its events, making Genn's earlier statement somewhat moot. Nazjatar's events are the actual process that causes most of the Horde leaders to abandon the conflict with the Alliance and instead work together to overcome Azshara - leading directly to the Horde rebellion against Sylvanas and the events of the Battle of Orgrimmar, where the Fourth War concludes without a final conflict as Sylvanas outs herself as the enemy of both factions. The conflict against N'Zoth is a joint effort between the Horde and the Alliance as a result.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Yes it is. The existence of a gameplay rationale does not preclude the lore rationale which is what your argument is suggesting. Both matter.

But there is no Lore rationale or logic that the VE as a playable race don't render moot. VE Simply make less sense than HE based on lore, yet they are playable. because of gameplay.

That is a hypothetical statement. The problem is there no proof of that ever occurring. It also ascribes to the Blood Elves a superior morality to the other Horde races when the converse has proven to be true. When the Horde has strayed too far, it has been Trolls, Taurens and Orcs who have stepped up first against the excesses of their Warchief.

And just as there is no proof of Blood Elves leaving the Horde for ideological reasons, there is plenty of proof that they do leave the Horde for reasons of enhancing their own power. The presence of Silvermoon Scholars in Telogrus is a testament to this.

Oh don't even get me started how races such as the Tauren continual permanence in the Horde doesn't make sense either; at least they have a noticeable presence within neutral organizations. I'm saying that at this point is more of a plot hole how most of the Horde races continue to be loyal to the Horde without self reflection or internal strife, which we actually saw during MoP with the BE almost defecting to the alliance.

So yeah, saying that any Horde race, including Blood Elves, can't consider defecting for moral issues because we haven't seen it happen, is just really ridiculous. You are literally saying that because something hasn't happened is not plausible.

And the whole idea that the BE's themselves, after all the "in our faces" similarities between Arthas and Sylvanas march on an elven homeland, shouldn't or even couldn't have a moral issue just seems thematically myopic on purpose; that is to say, completely biased.

I have physical in game proof that Blood Elves have left the Horde in the pursuit of power. The aforementioned Silvermoon Scholars.
There is no evidence any Blood Elf has left Silvermoon over political ideology to join the Alliance since the initial schism.
And you have still not reconciled your statement with Lor'themar's words, that he was worried about the Sin'Dorei NOT following him in revolt against Sylvanas. He was not worrying that they would defect.
Nor have you reconciled your statement with Lor'themar's actions, which showed that there was another path between following Sylvanas and defecting to the Alliance and that is joining a rebellion against Sylvanas to save the Horde from itself.

I believe the reason for this continuing oversight is that you still don't accept the Blood Elves are committed to the Horde now, that they believe in the Horde and that they want to save the Horde. Instead every crisis must be seen the same way, as an opportunity for the Sin'Dorei to see their mistake and to leave for the Alliance again.
That door was closed in MOP with the purge, the meta narrative goal of which was to demonstrate to players that the Blood Elves are on the Horde for the rest of this game at least.

Again, nonsense, you are just repeating that "Blood Elves are loyal to the Horde!... Except for those that are hungry for power and could join the alliance to become Void Elves" You are literally saying that there's only one possible scenario where BE would defect to the Alliance, and they HAVE to become VE for that. Thats ridiculous considering that people have been critical of the nonsense way Umbric's group's defection was written on the first place.

You are saying that no matter how flimsy the VE defection was, since it's the only way BE's have defected, it's the only way they possibly can. That's far from a logical statement.

It's like if I said that it's impossible for HE's to rejoin the BE. I can say that the ones that wanted probably already did it, but how can anyone say that political relations won't continue to swift, as they have through all of WoW? There's just so much unrecognized bias in your arguments that I don't know where to start.

[Aleloron]

It’s not going to happen, but I’m willing to give the Alliance some High Elves other than Void Elves if you give us some Dwarves.

We need those epic, lush beards in the mostly-beardless Horde.

Edit - No Dark Iron Dwarves though; they look like ass.

[scubi666stacy]

They already did that. They just hastily added some shitty bluberry recolor on paint before hand, but they litteraly did give Blood Elves to the Alliance. Same animations, same faces, same emotes, same everything. That Blood Elf players aren't as against those existing as the High Elves prove that all they care is the otuward appearance of their toons and feel threatened by the Alliance getting them in the variant which already is a part of the Alliance and has been for the longest time.

I know that you and other anti-helfers think that Void Elves close the deal, but you are flat out wrong. Blizzard tried to close it, fucked up incredibly badly anbd kept compounding mistakes on those mistakes.

And, quite frankly. I don't give a fuck about some Hordy's victimhood if we get High Elves. Like, at all. What I want is for once for the Alliance to get a race which makes sense lorewise, fit its thematics and has a lot of inhgerent appeal because of its background and potential for new stories. The High Elves creating a new society, distinct and distant from Silvermoon is ten thousands times far more interesting that Blood Elven rejects getting void-tainted and yet still hope that someday Silvermoon will return to the Alliance.

Then please tell me, why did they not added High Elves to the Alliance in Classic? Why have they chosen to put Night Elves into the faction despite them better fitting in to the Horde? They could have reconciled with the Orcs after they helped to defeat Archimonde. It would have been perfect, to have the more wild, nature-oriented Night Elves in the Horde, and to have High Elves in the Alliance, if the High Elves would have been a "core Alliance race" in the eyes of Blizzard. The Forsaken could have been an evil enemy race.

They have decided otherwise, and then they have doubled down on the decision by adding High Elves in the form of their evolution to the Blood Elves into the Horde, while giving the Alliance the Draenei. They could have decided otherwise, making the Draenei a Horde race by integrating them as Eredar who repent their ways - just like the Orcs who stopped being Legion's puppets. Again, they have decided that the place of the High Elves, in their "new" incarnation of Blood Elves is not in the Alliance (not really new, because the transition to Blood Elves has happened before Classic).

When they have introduced the Pandaren race, a neutral one, they have decided, they will never go this route again. Another nail in the coffin of "Alliance High Elves". The Purge of Dalaran was another, one more was the addition of Void Elves, and now there is the Burning of Teldrassil. The faction war came to a halt because we have again a bigger threat.

There are many valid reasons, why High Elves are not a core Alliance race anymore. This started with WC III and was continued in WoW Classic and the following expansions. A splinter group residing in a neutral faction called Dalaran is not a precedent. It's an exception which is necessary to show the racial composition of the Kirin Tor and that Human mages have learend about the Arcane from the High Elves of the older times.

[Obelisk Kai]

But there is no Lore rationale or logic that the VE as a playable race don't render moot. VE Simply make less sense than HE based on lore, yet they are playable. because of gameplay.

Yes, there is a lore rationale. VE are a group extracted from a larger population. While they form a small,crack squad and will never be anything else, they can replenish their numbers by finding new volunteers from both the exiles and the Blood Elves. The presence of trainees in Telogrus proves this to be the case. The motive of the trainees is also found by speaking with them, the new power the Void Elves offer that they can now experiment with without reproach.

The Exiles do not have this option. They offer no new power to anyone and there isn't even the hint of anyone electing to join them since the schism.

Oh don't even get me started how races such as the Tauren continual permanence in the Horde doesn't make sense either; at least they have a noticeable presence within neutral organizations. I'm saying that at this point is more of a plot hole how most of the Horde races continue to be loyal to the Horde without self reflection or internal strife, which we actually saw during MoP with the BE almost defecting to the alliance.

So yeah, saying that any Horde race, including Blood Elves, can't consider defecting for moral issues because we haven't seen it happen, is just really ridiculous. You are literally saying that because something hasn't happened is not plausible.

And the whole idea that the BE's themselves, after all the "in our faces" similarities between Arthas and Sylvanas march on an elven homeland, shouldn't or even couldn't have a moral issue just seems thematically myopic on purpose; that is to say, completely biased.

Given the atrocities committed during the fourth war if they were going to defect that is when they would have done it, that was the Horde at it's most extreme. Instead the Blood Elf leadership wished to save the Horde. Revolution rather than defection was option. Defection wasn't even considered for the same reason the Tauren remain with the Horde. The ideal of the Horde is worth fighting for.

Again, nonsense, you are just repeating that "Blood Elves are loyal to the Horde!... Except for those that are hungry for power and could join the alliance to become Void Elves" You are literally saying that there's only one possible scenario where BE would defect to the Alliance, and they HAVE to become VE for that. Thats ridiculous considering that people have been critical of the nonsense way Umbric's group's defection was written on the first place.

You are saying that no matter how flimsy the VE defection was, since it's the only way BE's have defected, it's the only way they possibly can. That's far from a logical statement.

It's like if I said that it's impossible for HE's to rejoin the BE. I can say that the ones that wanted probably already did it, but how can anyone say that political relations won't continue to swift, as they have through all of WoW? There's just so much unrecognized bias in your arguments that I don't know where to start.

Blood Elves ARE loyal to the Horde. Anyone who leaves the Horde in pursuit of new power shortly turns into a Void Elf.

Umbric did not defect to the Alliance as a Blood Elf either. Umbric and his followers were banished, then they experiment with the void as they had previously been forbidden to do and only after the experiment had ended in near disaster did they take up Alleria's offer. Had his goal been to defect to the Alliance he would have done that immediately after being kicked out. He only joined the Alliance after his experiments went horribly wrong and he had no other realistic option.

The issue is not the hypothetical scenario of an individual blood elf defecting to the Alliance and becoming a high elven exile, that is in itself a plausible scenario. The issue is your extrapolation of that, a steady stream of defectors able to rectify the lore issue cited as the problem with Alliance High Elves, their population. That is why I mentioned the Void Elves, their offer to any interested thalassian has been demonstrated to work as we have defecting blood elves preparing to become void elves. We also have exiles preparing to become Void Elves. The Void Elf offer of new power is canonically consistent with historic thalassian elf motivations of messing with magic. It is clearly attractive to some within Silvermoon and is enough for them to forsake their ties to their homeland as a result.

We have never had a single canonical example of a Blood Elf turning into a High Elf exile since the schism. Not in game, not in word of god, not in any novel or comic or short story. The exile offer is clearly not good enough.

What it is is a plausible story for an individual that might have happened, but even if it has happened it will not have happened on the scale required to counter the lore rationale behind the exclusion of high elves, that they are too low in population to form a viable force.

[Ielenia]

And just as there is no proof of Blood Elves leaving the Horde for ideological reasons,

... Did you even play Mists of Pandaria?

[Aldo Hawk]

Everything an NPC says is true?



I don't accept that at all. NPCs have personalities. They lie. They obfuscate. They mislead. They flatter. Umbric is telling you the truth, but he is twisting it slightly for his own ends, his own ends being he is terrified the Alliance will decide the Void Elves are more trouble than they are worth and that it would be better to kill them now and get it over with.

Then why do you take Elisande's words at face value?

Maybe Gul'dan was right all along and we didn't saw Varian begging for his life, huh?

Maybe you should try not to charge the conversation with such amounts of radicalization. This has never been that serious.

[Obelisk Kai]

... Did you even play Mists of Pandaria?

Yes and no Blood Elf left the Horde at that point, did they?

[Ielenia]

Yes and no Blood Elf left the Horde at that point, did they?

The point is not that they did or didn't: but they almost did. Lor'themar was discussing the possibility of the blood elves leaving the Horde and joining the Alliance. There was the intention of leaving the Horde, which only didn't happen because, lore-wise, Jaina's actions sank all negotiations, and gameplay-wise, Blizzard wouldn't remove an entire playable race from the Horde and move it to the Alliance.

But the undeniable fact is that there were blood elves wanting to leave the Horde.

[ravenmoon]

Why would BE deserters would ONLY want to join the Void Elves? The amount of deserters is the same.



An argument I don't care for? High Elves v/s Blood Elves is a political and ideological divide.



So again, why would the BE deserters be only able to join the VE and not the SC? Why do you need to be altered by a cosmic force to switch sides when there are already regular elves on the alliance? The SC is lead specifically by an alliance loyal character that thinks the BE can be redeemed.

The point I'm illustrating that the unplayability of HE is not a lore issue, but a gameplay one. Something that phrases like "Just play the Thalassian Elves you got. You have 2 options, each on every faction" clearly endorse. It's not about what makes sense lorewisel, it's just about gameplay balance when you wilfully admit it as well.

Haha, now I wonder why people struggle with realising this. Sometimes I think the back and forth is more to do with posters not liking each other than the actual facts about this.

[Obelisk Kai]

The point is not that they did or didn't: but they almost did. Lor'themar was discussing the possibility of the blood elves leaving the Horde and joining the Alliance. There was the intention of leaving the Horde, which only didn't happen because, lore-wise, Jaina's actions sank all negotiations, and gameplay-wise, Blizzard wouldn't remove an entire playable race from the Horde and move it to the Alliance.

But the undeniable fact is that there were blood elves wanting to leave the Horde.

Almost is not the same as doing. Close, but no cigar.

And that was a unique circumstance

Lor'themar was the sovereign leader of the Kingdom of Quel'thalas. The negotiations were to bring an entire nation into the Alliance rather than a defection of individual Blood Elves. An individual defection requires becoming a traitor to Quel'thalas. What Lor'themar was doing wasn't treason to Quel'thalas as he was the person responsible for Quel'thalas. It might have been treason against the Horde, but that is debatable due to the second point.

The Horde during Mists of Pandaria was collapsing at this stage due to Garrosh's orc first policies. From Garrosh's point of view, the dissenters had been removed from the Horde, leaving only his true Orcish Horde. This included the Trolls and Tauren, and would later include the Blood Elves and the Undead. In contrast, during the Fourth War, Lor'themar's first instinct was not to try and rejoin the Alliance but to join a new revolution to unseat yet another tyrannical warchief. Also conversely, the Horde was NOT falling apart during the fourth war. As Lor'themar indicated, Sylvanas was a popular Warchief among the population. He even worried the Sin'Dorei would follow him into revolt, indicating that many Blood Elves were behind her (Magister Hathorel being a clear example).

It is also inarguable that Sylvanas was a much worse Warchief than Garrosh, her atrocities being several magnitudes worse than what he perpetuated. That was not enough to shift the Blood Elves from supporting Sylvanas for the most part. What shifted them during Mists of Pandaria was not an ideological split, it was self preservation. The Blood Elves were acting this way to save themselves. Once they realised there was no path towards the Alliance, they went over to the Darkspear Rebellion instead.

So there is a difference between a Blood Elf potentially defecting to the Alliance because they believe in the ideology of the Alliance (and which would involve treason) and the entire nation trying to save their own skin as their current faction collapses (and other members had been expelled).

[ravenmoon]

I believe you haven't thought this response through, the devs did just fine. Insanity is the risk, it is not a guarantee. What attracts the Elves to the void is the promise of power, and they justify to themselves their pursuit of it. Some Void Elves are better at mastering the whispers than others. It is merely a perception that they are all batshit crazy.

Warcraft lore is littered with examples of characters who took risks in the pursuit of power. Quel'lithien is a monument to such an attempt that went wrong now. Void Elves are no different. If you want a specific answer to your question as to why anyone would take the risk, I recommend re-reading a thousand years of war to view again Alleria's decision making process.

- - - Updated - - -



Of course that's the main reason.

But if the High Elves were a thriving civilization with cities and armies, all pledged to the Alliance, I don't believe for a second you would accord the gameplay rationale much care. You would point out a major Alliance race that isn't playable and the gameplay reasons wouldn't outweigh the lore ones.

But the lore rationale, thankfully, is robust. They are broken, degraded, diminished and scattered and the vast majority of the lore based arguments in this very thread are pro High Elfers attempting to argue why they shouldn't be seen that way. But they are seen that way, and as such the gameplay rationale vastly more acceptable.

- - - Updated - - -



Void Elves are probably good for the duration of World of Warcraft. Once the franchise moves on, they'll probably be allowed to die off screen. They exist solely to provide Alliance players with a thalassian elf option within the current game framework.

As to why it is more plausible for Void Elves to be getting recruits rather than the exiles, that is simple. Nothing motivates a High Elf like some forbidden magic. For all the talk of the morality of the exiles, Quel'lithien was the same old story, high elves messing with powers they shouldn't have and paying the price.

The Void Elves offer access to and knowledge of a power forbidden by Quel'thalas. That's catnip for whole swathes of Blood Elves and some exiles too.

The exiles offer just that. Exile and nothing else. Anyone who cared to make the ideological switch probably did so a long time ago.

- - - Updated - - -



See it's difficult to argue this, because your answer to everything is essentially 'they can just make it up'.

Which of course they can.

So my standard answer to your suggestions of how they can make it up from this moment forward is going to be 'they aren't going to do that' because this is not a real debate. You are not debating. If you were putting forward propositions grounded in lore we could evaluate the available evidence either supporting or contrary to those propositions and reach personal conclusions regarding their likelihood. That is impossible here. You are throwing out wild hypotheses with no real evidence to even suggest they are remotely possible for this particular group.

There is nothing to argue over here because I don't believe anything of substance has been proposed.

You had to spoil what was otherwise a good response from you with that paragraph.

Blizzard will continue to make things up and even when they say they are not going to do something, they still sometimes do, fan power and opnioni goes a long way.
@MyWholeLifeIsThunder is spot on that the only reasons high elves aren't playable are gameplay related, the demand is very high for them, it is but a matter a time or when the right changes happen in the game. It may never come, it may come as paid optioned allied race to generate cash for blizz. It may not come because blood elves are and have always been the high elf race, but the faction divide has us referring to the race more appropriately as Thalassians, rather than high elves which I think are now perceived as a faction of the Thalassian rather than the name of the race. - you can thank Warcraft character creation for that.

Allied races were a good opportunity o introduce high elves, and still are, but it says something that despite the high demand, the step hasn't been taken, and no one can ignore that, there are reasons high elves are not playable, and it is quite clear they aren't lore based - although ObelsikKai isn't wrong that the lore provides enough justification for them not being playable, but even he cannot ignore that lore has long since ceased to be the motivation for racial playability, the blood elves joining the horde being very proof of the fact, not to mention countless other instances.

We all know this.

[Obelisk Kai]

Allied races were a good opportunity o introduce high elves, and still are, but it says something that despite the high demand, the step hasn't been taken, and no one can ignore that, there are reasons high elves are not playable, and it is quite clear they aren't lore based - although ObelsikKai isn't wrong that the lore provides enough justification for them not being playable, but even he cannot ignore that lore has long since ceased to be the motivation for racial playability, the blood elves joining the horde being very proof of the fact, not to mention countless other instances.

We all know this.

The reasons are gameplay based. But just because the reasons are gameplay based does not mean they are not facilitated by the lore. You admit that the lore provides enough justification for them not to be playable. That is enough, because if they were in a different situation, with their own city, army, government and a seat at the table it would be next to impossible for Blizzard to maintain the gameplay rationalisation that they aren't available because the race is a core race of the Horde.

Therefore the lore is most definitely a factor.

As for your final point, that lore has ceased to be a factor and citing the addition of the Blood Elves to the Horde, I disagree. Warcraft lore was a lot more free flowing earlier in it's life, capable of accommodating large retcons. We are now fifteen years into the game's operation. The lore has been codified extensively with retcons now covering who knew when and character motivations. There are far less opportunities for major retcons or unexpected swings in the storyline. The Alliance High Elves are not suddenly going to recover to a position where it makes sense for them to become an Allied race, particularly given how often Blizzard has expounded on their nearly extinct status at every opportunity.

[Ielenia]

Almost is not the same as doing. Close, but no cigar.

Irrelevant. It doesn't matter that they didn't actually leave the Horde in the end, because the important fact is that there were blood elves willing to leave the Horde.

Your claim was "all dissatisfied blood elves would've left when the high elves left", heavily implying that all that stayed do not want to leave the Horde and would never change their minds, ever, despite undeniable evidence that this is not true. We have seen blood elves dissatisfied with the Horde. We saw blood elves wanting to leave the Horde and the only reason they did so was not because they changed their minds on their own free will, not because of any sense of "loyalty" to the Horde, but because an outside agent (Jaina) practically pushed them back into the Horde.

[Obelisk Kai]

Irrelevant. It doesn't matter that they didn't actually leave the Horde in the end, because the important fact is that there were blood elves willing to leave the Horde.

Which is different to Blood Elves leaving all Blood Elves too. There was no question of treason to Quel'thalas in Lor'themar's negotiations which is a massive distinction between the MOP scenario and the hypothetical scenario of a Blood Elf joining the exiles. The motives are also different, self-preservation against ideological belief.

Your claim was "all dissatisfied blood elves would've left when the high elves left", heavily implying that all that stayed do not want to leave the Horde and would never change their minds, ever, despite undeniable evidence that this is not true. We have seen blood elves dissatisfied with the Horde. We saw blood elves wanting to leave the Horde and the only reason they did so was not because they changed their minds on their own free will, not because of any sense of "loyalty" to the Horde, but because an outside agent (Jaina) practically pushed them back into the Horde.

You saw Blood Elves dissatisfied with Garrosh's Horde. You saw Trolls dissatisfied with Garrosh's Horde. You saw Forsaken and Tauren and Goblins dissatisfied with Garrosh's Horde. You saw Orcs dissatisfied with Garrosh's Horde. Everyone who wasn't a true believer and an Orc wasn't a welcome part of Garrosh's Horde.
The Horde was visibly collapsing in MOP in a way it never has again. Even Sylvanas' Horde was relatively united compared to the Horde of Garrosh, because Garrosh was a racial supremacist happy to drive out anyone who didn't accept Orcish supremacy. Sylvanas was contemptuous of everyone equally, even her own Forsaken in the end.