Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Obelisk Kai]

The first half of this quote is in straight opposition to the the second half.

Allied races and pandaren death knights directly contradict "fundamental story and gameplay pillars" (as per your own words), as the original DK lore and origin gameplay are "locked in time" prior to the pandaren coming out of pandaria/wandering isle in droves, and the allied races even existing/entering Azeroth.

What did Blizzard do? They did it anyways. They added pandaren and allied race options for death knights. "Fundamental story and gameplay pillars" were "harmed", according to your logic.

No they weren't, how on earth did you reach such a conclusion?

Gameplay pillars weren't even touched. And as for story it was just expanding access to a class whose sole recruiting criteria is that the individual must be dead. As all the allied races are capable of being killed, having Bolvar the Lich King raise new ones makes perfect narrative sense because Arthas the Lich King could also raise new ones.

We raised new Death Knights during the Legion Death Knight campaign as well demonstrating it's possible.

But you can't magic more high elves into existence and a Void Elf Paladin is still an oxymoron.

[Ardenaso]

To add to that how about the horde aligned kt human pirates or the alliance aligned shadowmoom orcs.

Just because a friendly faction compromised of races primarily found on the enemy faction exists doesn't entitle you to playable versions.

The horde will never get kt humans and the alliance will nevwr get maghar orcs, goblins, or High elves.

psst

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ace-suggestion

[ravenmoon]

Yes, they are. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but that is not the problem here.

The problem comes with those who are against the implementation of high elves as a playable race come here only to repeat their exact talking points, over and over, from time to time, despite their opinions having been acknowledged and discussed already the first few times they did so, and yet they act as if their opinions were never challenged in the first place, and acting as if they're the gatekeepers of what can and cannot be added to the game.

It's like trying to convince us we shouldn't like high elves, and we shouldn't want them, or have no justification to like what we like or desire what we desire.

I know.. I am trying to understand why the hellbent or dead set againt it. Going into the psychie, and i can only thing of a jealous coveteousness over it , taht ultimately is a bit silly.

Even I who didn't like nightborne going on the hrode, acknowledged from the start, taht it was better than not being playable at all, and is by no means the most preposterous thing, even though me and my bro came up withi over 10 very good reasons why they were better and more fitting on the alliance with the night elves and more needed.

bottom line such things don't always come by what makes more snese or better for the story, and can as often come by fan base desire or developers desring it so, just becuase they like wha th rtists have done. Tio get so dead set agait it or want to convince people away from feeling how they like something is like silly.

Acknowledge that actually people really like this and see how you can make it happen. People really like highborne and high elves too. What is stopping the highborne customiation happening? I can se e no good reason and hope it comes. When it comes to high elves, I see a few reasons, but they're not that big a reason, and it's up to the developers to decide whether they find it sufficiently necessary to cross that boat.

Taking into account player desire goes a long long way though.

[Varx]

psst

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...ace-suggestion

LB are evil zealots. Also Orc and humans swapping factions does not feel good.

If anything the next allied races should be light undead to mirror the mechgnomes and a race that shares the worgen rig to mirror thw vulpera.

Who knows maybe when the dragon isles come around a group of stranded humans who were mutated by the draconic energies are discovered and rejoin the alliance.

Now that calia is the leader of the forsaken maybe it'll somehow open the door to light undead.

It's like trying to convince us we shouldn't like high elves, and we shouldn't want them, or have no justification to like what we like or desire what we desire.

I know.. I am trying to understand why the hellbent or dead set againt it. Going into the psychie, and i can only thing of a jealous coveteousness over it , taht ultimately is a bit silly.

Even I who didn't like nightborne going on the hrode, acknowledged from the start, taht it was better than not being playable at all, and is by no means the most preposterous thing, even though me and my bro came up withi over 10 very good reasons why they were better and more fitting on the alliance with the night elves and more needed.

bottom line such things don't always come by what makes more snese or better for the story, and can as often come by fan base desire or developers desring it so, just becuase they like wha th rtists have done. Tio get so dead set agait it or want to convince people away from feeling how they like something is like silly.

Acknowledge that actually people really like this and see how you can make it happen. People really like highborne and high elves too. What is stopping the highborne customiation happening? I can se e no good reason and hope it comes. When it comes to high elves, I see a few reasons, but they're not that big a reason, and it's up to the developers to decide whether they find it sufficiently necessary to cross that boat.

Taking into account player desire goes a long long way though.

It's because its nonsensical to have so much passion for something that will clearly never happen. Yet helfers still spam forums with rage demanding to have their fantasy.

Like i previously stated, just because the alliance has pure thalassian elves in their ranks doesn't mean they should be playable.

Other wise alliance would have orcs via the WoD shadowmoon orcs or goblins via SI:7 or the Horde having kt humans via the pirates.

[Obelisk Kai]

It's like trying to convince us we shouldn't like high elves, and we shouldn't want them, or have no justification to like what we like or desire what we desire.

I know.. I am trying to understand why the hellbent or dead set againt it. Going into the psychie, and i can only thing of a jealous coveteousness over it , taht ultimately is a bit silly.

Even I who didn't like nightborne going on the hrode, acknowledged from the start, taht it was better than not being playable at all, and is by no means the most preposterous thing, even though me and my bro came up withi over 10 very good reasons why they were better and more fitting on the alliance with the night elves and more needed.

bottom line such things don't always come by what makes more snese or better for the story, and can as often come by fan base desire or developers desring it so, just becuase they like wha th rtists have done. Tio get so dead set agait it or want to convince people away from feeling how they like something is like silly.

Acknowledge that actually people really like this and see how you can make it happen. People really like highborne and high elves too. What is stopping the highborne customiation happening? I can se e no good reason and hope it comes. When it comes to high elves, I see a few reasons, but they're not that big a reason, and it's up to the developers to decide whether they find it sufficiently necessary to cross that boat.

Taking into account player desire goes a long long way though.

As to why people are deadset against it, that has been explained multiple times over the year Ravenmoon. It's a duplicate of a Horde race in a game predicated on two factions knocking the stuffing out of each other so if you want to play a Horde race you should play Horde. Devaluing the factions whilst still trying to maintain a faction based game comes with a cost, that cost maybe relatively abstract but given the extent to which faction pride is still used as a motivating factor and how it impacts on player emotions (as the responses to the Alliance winning the war question proved at Blizzcon) this is one they are clearly loath to mess with and rightfully so.

Faction diversity matters and pro High Elfers shouldn't act mystified as to why their goal is opposed when the reasons are continually provided.

As for Highborne customisation, what exactly is that? The Highborne were an advanced caste within the Night Elf empire but they weren't physically different from the rest of their people. The Nightborne and the Blood Elves are the heirs of the Highborne and their physical evolutions. The Highborne that constitute the Night Elf Mages are physically identical to other Night Elves but they hid away in ruins for thousands of years. At best all I can think of regarding Highborne customisation is more sophisticated jewelry.

[Aldo Hawk]

Dark irons are very distinct to regurlar dwarves. I mean charcoal skin and glowing red eyes. The closest bronzebeard got to that was like a very light grey and at least blizz ret conned them to have fiery hair too. High elves dont have that as they're biologically the same.

What about the thing that because something exists doesn't need to be playable?

Who cares that there isnt a cartel thats pro alliance. The fact is SI:7 has a goblin in it. Who's to say there's more, thus a faction of alliance gobbies.

This is your logic, not mine, but ok.

I havent seen any alliance orcs, tauren, trolls, forsaken (calia and dereck are horde), but wait there is a goblin just like thalasian elves. So why not?

Just exactly like Alliance elves, just exactly like these ones, yes.

I repeat, it's your logic, not mine.

Because playable goblins are horde strictly, just like "pure" thalasian elves, emphasise on pure before u start using velves as an excuse.

Horde Goblins are part of a narrative that made them Horde.

Thalassian elves take part in a narrative where some of them are Alliance, it's not hard to grasp.

Yet we don't have Wildhammer Dwarfs.

Closest you High Elf fans can come to would be a reskin cosmetic update in the same way Dwarfs are getting a Wildhammer like appearance in shadowlands, by giving the Void Elves a High Elf appearance (which would be just taking away the blue and purple skin colours and adding a more blue eyed Blood Elf appearance)

And I know 'Void Elves are not High Elves', but Wildhammer Dwarfs are not Ironforge Dwarfs either, we take what we can get :P

I also don't like the fact that Wildhammer will be customization options for Bronzebeards, tho it doesn't have to mean others should get that spiteful treatment that half-bakes a concept.

- - - Updated - - -

As to why people are deadset against it, that has been explained multiple times over the year Ravenmoon. It's a duplicate of a Horde race in a game predicated on two factions knocking the stuffing out of each other so if you want to play a Horde race you should play Horde. Devaluing the factions whilst still trying to maintain a faction based game comes with a cost, that cost maybe relatively abstract but given the extent to which faction pride is still used as a motivating factor and how it impacts on player emotions (as the responses to the Alliance winning the war question proved at Blizzcon) this is one they are clearly loath to mess with and rightfully so.

Faction diversity matters and pro High Elfers shouldn't act mystified as to why their goal is opposed when the reasons are continually provided.

As for Highborne customisation, what exactly is that? The Highborne were an advanced caste within the Night Elf empire but they weren't physically different from the rest of their people. The Nightborne and the Blood Elves are the heirs of the Highborne and their physical evolutions. The Highborne that constitute the Night Elf Mages are physically identical to other Night Elves but they hid away in ruins for thousands of years. At best all I can think of regarding Highborne customisation is more sophisticated jewelry.

I doubt Obelisk Kai understand the concept of factions with the exact 1:1 races on them. These are still factions with their differences, and hardly nobody wants for the Horde and the Alliance to go to that situation where 1:1 races can be found between these two.

Obelisk Kai fails to understand, that High elves are part of the two faction narrative he oh-so-much cares for, and their part in that narrative is within the Alliance.

Those that want High elves to become playable, care about the factions, because High elves are not Horde, it's super easy to understand.

[FlubberPuddy]

No they weren't, how on earth did you reach such a conclusion?

Gameplay pillars weren't even touched. And as for story it was just expanding access to a class whose sole recruiting criteria is that the individual must be dead. As all the allied races are capable of being killed, having Bolvar the Lich King raise new ones makes perfect narrative sense because Arthas the Lich King could also raise new ones.

We raised new Death Knights during the Legion Death Knight campaign as well demonstrating it's possible.

But you can't magic more high elves into existence and a Void Elf Paladin is still an oxymoron.

So the devs made new lore stating new DKs are possible and not beholden to status quo made in Wrath, yet you think High Elves or Velf Paladins have to somehow stay beholden to a status quo of what's current? Especially when vanilla showed High Elves as sparse, then Wrath made them explode in population, relevance, and within the Alliance faction. And they've carried that forward since.

This is how your logic looks daft. It comes off as 'devs do change what they want when they want but oh no you cannot touch anything about this particular subject nuh uh never ever whatsoever.'

It's juvenile.

[ravenmoon]

[LEFT]

And Night Elves were originally intended as the Dark Elves of the franchise, hence the choice of their colour scheme. But lumping Night Elves, Void Elves and Nightborne together as purple elves is deliberate oversimplification. All three have highly distinct palettes, with the Night Elves vivacious skin colours contrasting vividly with the deliberately limited and striking Nightborne tones.

if you can acknowledge the distinct aesthetic between the purple elves, it surprises me you somehow think that highborne should be a horde thing with no room on the alliance for the very group which is night elven and part of it - despite them having a similar thing going in the magic elven area, they are different as you pointed out, and not just aesthetically.



It's also okay to have variations of a similar thing - Kul'tirans, Gilenans and Stormwind humans are all playable and are all similar being humans, but all have distinctive variations - I don't see why the horde having it's own arcane elf thing somehow make s the night elves ' own which ahs been a part of them from the start when the race was introduced, and still is today, underlining the intetion of the developers. Both highborne and Nightborne played a role in 7.0, even after the sub-races introduction, furthermore. Blood elves aren't highborne. They're a the new type of high class elf, but a different type forged under different circumstances with a different aesthetic etc, though having similarities.

Remember this Quest?



And the ones tha followed?

And the ones that followed? Here is a canon in game description of each of the elven groups from Night elf to Blood elf along the highborne line. The difference between highborne, high elves, blood elves. Each categorised and explained properly. So people don't get confused as to what. And also understand the characteristics of each.

Finally culiminating in a description g of the blood elves.

The Night Elves excised the highborne from their culture when they exiled them, that was the entire point of the schism and the resultant exile. The fundamental split in Elven society when looking at all races is between the highborne and the other Night Elves. The Highborne are represented in game by their true heirs, the Blood Elves and the Nightborne. 'Highborne' culture is therefore best understood as a culture of the Horde over which the Night Elves have little claim. Sure, some former Highborne who were hocked up in Shendra'alar for the past few thousand years have returned in recent years to justify Night Elf Mages, but they didn't exactly build a thriving civilization, did they? They squatted and hid away in ruins before being forced to return to Night Elf society, and even then they were barely tolerated until their actions during the burning of teldrassil won them respect from the rest of their people, but it seems to me they wouldn't have been able to display an ostentatiously 'highborne' look even if they had wanted to.

Just listen to yourself, the highborne are represented in game by the highborne. The blood elves are not their heirs at all, they are descendants who became High elves, they called themselves that. Not heirs tot he desire and greed of the highborne they actually looked down upon. Higbhrone are night elf. These elves are a major part of the arcane half of the night elves and a major part of the lore as their highest nobility and both their progressors and the ones who made the biggest mistakes. And they are still around, and part of the night elves. The high elves made their own way as Rommath makes clear in Suramar, their own path. Descendants, not heirs. Highborne and high elf are different, just as Kul'tiran and Gilnean are different (even if having similarities)

Darnassian group excised highborne, then brought them back - that's not an excuse for not having highborne, they're back, the excerising is not a feature oof the race, it's just a part of the story. A feature of the race is that they're highly magical and born from the arcane, extremely affinity with arcane magic and love nature intensely, and this reflects what the developers intended them to be, the best of both the dark evles and the forest elves, as they state quite clearly here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010205...667651,00.html

I just laugh because they've said it a few times before back in the day, but also shown it, the night elf lore proves this - the highborne and the arcane aspect of the night elf isn't killed off.. the Darnassians stop outright suppressing the arcane at the end of WC3, it is intentionally written to be that way, they gave them magical aptitude ,and they concoted a story that had them posses great arcane influence and then great nature ifluence, gave a reason for them to be in the state they were in wc3, then caused that reason to end .. proving to you that night elves wer enever intended to be pure forest elves, and no one should assume so because of their story, when the same story clearly shows you they are good at it, and that aspect continues and revives.

Highborne culture does not exist on the horde, at least not till the Nightborne came. The horde had high elf culture. They are not the same. Blizzard connects the high elf to the night elf via the highborne, but the highboren is a night elf culture, and prar tof it. the high elf is a different culture, a better one, fairer, less ridged, less extravagant, and less opulent, less indulgent and less reckless too. Not to mention it is under different circumstances, different philosophy and cultural setting.

The two are not mutually exclusive, many overlaps in many races happen, and there should be a connection between the elven groups, you don't have such an issue when Forest and jungle trolls overlap, why should you just because blood elves are on the other faction? They have totally different aesthetic to the night elf, even if both have an arcane culture. And the Nightborne does not nullify or somehow invalidate justification or reasoning for highborne either, Highborne are already there, were there first, and are at the core of the race. You can have both, with Nightborne bring a unique flavour (and this is good and welcome for groups that are very popular - you expand them, make more several options available), but it is the allied race, not the core, the core should have the best of the races features. The equivalent of saying the Nightborne invalidate the highborne would be saying the void elves make any more magical progress on the blood elves irrelevant, or that the Nightborne presences now means blood elves shouldn' have mmagisters..

It's stupid. you can have both void elf magic users and blood elves, they're different, both high elf magic users and blood elf ones, , both Nightborne and highborne - especially since Nightborne and hgihbrone are 2 different types of night eles and will have different aesthetics.

The Nightborne is this arcane wreathed gaunt night elf, the highborne is moon/star bright night elf in fullness of beauty , extravagance and wealth.

Compare:

AND

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ViTM4mx.jpg[/i


Or

And

Highborne and Nightborne already satisfy the faction separated aesthetic despite Nightborne being based on night elves, and there is every lore and playable reason for the night elf highborne to be shown properly, blood elves being highborne descendants is not an excuse, the horde don't have the highborne section, they have the high elf playable section, the alliance and the night elves have the highborne. THe horde have their variation version of the highborne in the Nightborne, who are a variant but aren't actually the highbonre, who are part of the core race..., like wise the alliance have their variation on the blood elf, which is the void elf. The Nightborne existing doesn't make the highborne obsolete or a horde thing, neither does the void elf existing make the blood elf obsolete or using shadow magic on their priests. And this is not the same as giving the alliance the playable aesthetic of the blood elf or giving them the playable aesthetic of the Nightborne - that's not what i'm saying here (that is the main thrust of this topic, but not what I'm referring to here). The existence of the Zandalari doesn't negate the darkspear shadow hunters, the existence of the high elf doesn't negate the existence of the blood elf, nor of the farstrider blood elves either.. nor does the existence and playability of the highborne who come first somehow negate or should be negated by Nightborne who are clearly a unique path or blood elves who are their own thing. Just because they look amazing.


One is a kaldorei, one is a Shal'dorei - similar, different versions of a night elf, and arcane wilding one at that but very different.

don't see why humans, draenei can't be mages just because blood elves can, or highborne though very much in the lore and existing as well as being playable, should somehow not have relevance or eminence as part of the night elves they are a huge part of, just because blood elves, a different elf race, are the descendants, not even highborne, descendants of them, especially when you the player know making them descendants is part of the story that connects the elven groups.

it's like saying Zandalari shouldn't exist or be prominent because the darkspear shadow hunter are the loa based aspect of the playable trolls and therefore we shouldn't see the original version in its glory. That logic makes NO sense..

[Ielenia]

Gameplay pillars weren't even touched.

Nor would they if high elves became playable for the Alliance.

And as for story it was just expanding access to a class whose sole recruiting criteria is that the individual must be dead.

You're being very dishonest here since you're completely ignoring the fact that this "sole criteria" read, in its entirety, "individual must be dead BEFORE the Lich King's attack on Azeroth". Which was the reason pandaren and the allied races were excluded, and their starting zone was locked in time.

You ignore the fact that a completely new starting zone was created. Completely new lore was written.

And you're completely okay with that.

But then you bring your double-standards to bear when you deny the "high elves as a playable race" the same courtesy.

- - - Updated - - -

It's because its nonsensical to have so much passion for something that will clearly never happen. Yet helfers still spam forums with rage demanding to have their fantasy.

For the record: you know something else "that would clearly never happen"? Classic servers. But here we are, aren't we?

[FlubberPuddy]

I also hope the "anti helfers" realize this thread only started up again because the opposition can't let people talk about something apparently "that will never happen."

Best way to have something die out is to ignore it completely. Just a tip for anti folks.

- - - Updated - - -

For the record: you know something else "that would clearly never happen"? Classic servers. But here we are, aren't we?

Not simply that either: transmogs, different faction characters on pvp servers, the abolishment of pve/pvp servers, cross-realm bgs, mercenary mode, LFD, LFR and just a plethora of other things that many detractors try to state "game will never have this!"

[Kheldin]

Blizzard got the same chance with High Elves/Blood Elves like they had with Pandaran. They used to be one race which split apart. The Blood Elves, as we know today, joined the Horde and the High Elves should join the Alliance under The Silver Covenant, which we already know since WotLK as an Alliance Faction exclusively made of High Elves.

So it would make perfect sense that High Elves become an allied race of the Alliance without having to do any lore twisting.
Classes like Priest/Mage/Paladin/Hunter/Rogue/Warrior are also very suitable imo.

I would reallly welcome this addition to the allied races.

[Sinraye]

As long as high elf is a subrace for the horde I don’t see why we can’t have high elves. For alliance no, with the simple reason that we would have the most popular horde race in the opposite faction. It’s like if humans were available to horde, e.g. defias faction. It would humonogize the factions. Furthermore High elves as a race are not united under a single banner, and their population is very small. I’m not saying there is no supporting claims(lore)that high elves should be available to alliance but it would damage the game by adding an established and popular horde race to the alliance hence should not be added to alliance.

[Varx]

I know im in the extreme minority but i still believe that only way to implement high elves is to give them the panada treatment and make blood elves neutral and change the race name to thalassian elf. Alliance faction would be queldorie and horde would be sindorie.

Then give the horde a new race that can be paladins to compensate.

The issue then would be velves and nightborne as the alliance would not have a horde rig swap anymore. Which would mean we'd need a panda horde AR and an AR that is an offshoot of the horde race that replaces belves.

I would say vrykul for the horde and kvaldir for the alliance as the AR to balance the NB.

[Katchii]

if you can acknowledge the distinct aesthetic between the purple elves, it surprises me you somehow think that highborne should be a horde thing with no room on the alliance for the very group which is night elven and part of it - despite them having a similar thing going in the magic elven area, they are different as you pointed out, and not just aesthetically

Just wanted to point out that the very quest you're using as proof it should be part of the alliance, outright states that the descendants of the Highborne became Quel'dorei which then became Sin'dorei.

By that logic, Blood Elves ARE the Highborne of the current WoW landscape.

That said, it could also be argued that the addition of Night Elf mages means a reintroduction of Highborne to Night Elf society.

[ravenmoon]

As long as high elf is a subrace for the horde I don’t see why we can’t have high elves. For alliance no, with the simple reason that we would have the most popular horde race in the opposite faction. It’s like if humans were available to horde, e.g. defias faction. It would humonogize the factions. Furthermore High elves as a race are not united under a single banner, and their population is very small. I’m not saying there is no supporting claims(lore)that high elves should be available to alliance but it would damage the game by adding an established and popular horde race to the alliance hence should not be added to alliance.

Your point is completely valid, there is no real reason why the horde can't have high elves either. It is quite possible! It may not be preferable though or desirable to some alliance high elf fans or blood elf fans, but I can assure you many more would be fine with it or even happy than would be annoyed.

Furhtermore, while they can have high elves, from a lore perspective do they want them? and would it be useful to have gaming wise? I think to be able to play a faction of blood elf holding on to the high elf ideals is nice, even if on the hhorde becuase they are something very fdifferent politically adn ideologically. So I would say, yes to both, and that it's okay to have them. They don't need to be obsolete as some are pushing for (because their real motivation is not to share model playable on the alliance).

But on the converse, because of what they have done with Pandaren, and now again with void elve sand nightborne, i also no logner see any serious problem in letting the horde's most popular race aesthetics be on thealliance. It doesn't diminisih the lroe at all (cos they're already there, and the lore is more interesting for it), , it won't affect horde populations, because most pepole play horde becuae it ist he better faction with better players, more runs, better racials and cooler stuff .. and if the high elf is available, well, it's pretty much feels like the same thing - you are not going to switch to alliance because high elves are available there, especially if they are on the horde already with blue eyes.

So high elves on both horde and alliance may make sense imo.

As a person that plays both a void elf and blood elf, while i like the highe lf idea, if one was made playable, I won't bat tan eyelid nor be rerolling any character. I would make my alliance paladin a high elf though and that'sa bout it, but jsut because i don't particularly feel the ened, doesn't mean i wouldn't find it nice or that it couldn't be interesting, nor does it mean i know some people would really like that..


The only way high elves could ever be a threat to blood elf numbers is if wow becomes really popular again with new players who love the fantasy genre. I don't see blood elf fans relolling just to play high elves.. and those who really love the high elf lore and will do, tbh, most of them are already alliance, and if they play horde, it's really just an extra character for them if their guild most likely raids horde, they'd be there.

THey woul dlove having an alliance high elf, and would appreciate being able to play their horde blood elf as a horde high elf who doens't hate humans. Especially if the high elves have a mission on the horde to bridge the dviide and bring peace.



elves are the most ppular racial group alongside humans, they need the diversification and attentio nthey are getting. Highborne, Night elves, void elves, blood elves, nightborne, san'layn - Illidari - pepople love this shit, with the exceptio of nightboren and void elves - all these groups have been around for a long time. Making highborne, sna'layn, high elves (whether on alliance or horde) playable or having a playable customisation is actually going tob e quite welcomed,

[Maljinwo]

Monkey's paw:

Alliance gets High Elves which are Blood elves with blue eyes
Horde gets an entirely new race with expansive customization

[Ielenia]

As long as high elf is a subrace for the horde I don’t see why we can’t have high elves.

Except that, according to the lore, it's highly unlikely the high elves would ever join the Horde, considering their recent past. Not to mention that's like saying the nightborne should be on the Alliance.

For alliance no, with the simple reason that we would have the most popular horde race in the opposite faction.

But you're fine with the Horde having the Alliance's most popular race? I.e. the night elves? Doesn't that stink of hypocrisy to you?

[Obelisk Kai]

So the devs made new lore stating new DKs are possible and not beholden to status quo made in Wrath, yet you think High Elves or Velf Paladins have to somehow stay beholden to a status quo of what's current? Especially when vanilla showed High Elves as sparse, then Wrath made them explode in population, relevance, and within the Alliance faction. And they've carried that forward since.

This is how your logic looks daft. It comes off as 'devs do change what they want when they want but oh no you cannot touch anything about this particular subject nuh uh never ever whatsoever.'

It's juvenile.

That lore wasn't 'created' by the developers. The lore that reflects the new Death Knights has been present for years. The Lich King can raise Death knights. We currently have a non-antagonistic Lich King who wished to raise a new generation of death knights. Nothing has to be retconned, or rewritten, or reimagined to support this outcome. It was all there, ready-made and completely in harmony with the game world as it is actually is.

As we saw with Void Elves, the developers are capable of inventing new lore in order to support new additions to the game, but as I recall the fact that Void Elves seemingly came out of nowhere is deployed as one of the biggest complaints about them. It is hypocritical in the extreme to say 'Blizzard could come up with brand new lore' to add high elves to the game for the Alliance whilst at the same time bitterly complaining about Blizzard inventing new lore to add high elves (and remember, Void Elves are a different flavour of high elf) to the Alliance because the new lore happened to render them blue. Now THAT is truly a juvenile attitude.

As for the high elven exiles being relevant to the Alliance faction, not only is that claim spurious, it falls apart under even modest interrogation. They didn't 'explode', they added a few more in Dalaran. And the only time they were relevant to the Alliance was when Dalaran joined the Alliance. And the only time you really see them now is if Dalaran is involved. They are more Dalaran relevant than Alliance relevant.

[ravenmoon]

Monkey's paw:

Alliance gets High Elves which are Blood elves with blue eyes
Horde gets an entirely new race with expansive customization

I don't think a lot of these alliance fans here mind, as longa s they get their blood elves with blue eyes. That is also worth factoring.

Nightborne were designed to be a sub race variation of night elf. blood elves were not, they are the high elevs in a new direction, but high elves still remain. Void elves are the variation of blood elf on the alliance model wise. But Void elf doesn't render high elf or blood elf irrelevant or obsolete. And nightborne certainly doesn't render highborne or night elf obsolete, since its on the other faction

[Obelisk Kai]

Nor would they if high elves became playable for the Alliance.

Faction diversity was explicitly cited as the reason for high elves not being made playable as an Alliance race nearly TWO years ago.

Maintaining a division between the factions was cited as a core pillar of World of Warcraft's development as recently as last Blizzcon.

In other words, playable high elven exiles within the Alliance, a duplicate of a core Horde race, undermine the diversity of the two factions and therefore undermine the two faction system that currently underpins much of the game.

Of course they have harm gameplay and it is disingenuous to say they don't simply because that facet of the game, the faction divide, is one you personally don't care about.

You're being very dishonest here since you're completely ignoring the fact that this "sole criteria" read, in its entirety, "individual must be dead BEFORE the Lich King's attack on Azeroth". Which was the reason pandaren and the allied races were excluded, and their starting zone was locked in time.

You ignore the fact that a completely new starting zone was created. Completely new lore was written.

And you're completely okay with that.

But then you bring your double-standards to bear when you deny the "high elves as a playable race" the same courtesy.

I fail to see how you are not getting the point. The lore that is behind the new Death Knights does not change anything we know previously and changes nothing in the status quo.

High Elves are already playable as a Horde race, confirmed by multiple sources across a decade and a half of time from Chris Metzen to Ion Hazzikostas and their in game absence on the Alliance has been explained as them being almost all dead.

What is disingenuous is you pushing a false equivalence that is easy to refute, but then continuing to push it as if it had not been refuted or the flaws pointed out.

For the record: you know something else "that would clearly never happen"? Classic servers. But here we are, aren't we?

That's a lazy response that predicates that because they changed their mind on one thing they are definitely going to change their mind on another. Brack gave his infamous 'You think you do but you don't' response in November 2013 when they announced Warlords of Draenor. They changed their minds later due to a massive grassroots movement aimed at securing classic servers coupled with a culture change in the wider MMO industry which saw MMOs facilitating older versions of their worlds.

In contrast the earliest negative response to the high elf community is from September 2005 when Caydiem explained why playable Alliance High Elves weren't a thing and every time Blizzard has commented on the topic in the nearly sixteen years since (four times longer than the vanilla server request being in the public consciousness) they have double down again and again and again on their desire not to duplicate a Horde race to the Alliance.

A does not equal B. And just because A turned out one way does not mean B will turn out the same way. That they can change their minds is not a huge revelation that shakes the foundations of this argument, that is always priced in. What is also priced in is an analysis of why they changed their minds in each circumstance you can cite, and why that doesn't apply to the high elf exile request, and everything they have ever said which doubles down on the rejection of that request.