Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[FlubberPuddy]

Using lor'themar and his scar is not an appropriate example. Lor'themar is the exact same (in all senses) as any other blood elf, he just has a scar. Alleria on the otherhand underwent a completely different transformation to playable void elves, hence her difference. Just like sylvanas, playable undead have never been able to look like their leader. That may change at some point (who knows), but for 15+ years that option hasn't been available to undead players. What makes void elf players more special than undead players?

1) I think at this point some people need to realize there's a lot more people out there who ultimately want more character options and lore does not factor in. Blizzard agrees with the way they're doing increased customizations.

2) Sylvanas is no longer the leader of undead. The new 'acting in leader' atm is Lilian Voss. Who, no surprises, female undead can very much look like.

3) Nothing makes void elf players more special than undead players, just the same, undead players are no more special than void elf players.

[Frenchvince]

The High Elf NPC who shares blood elf files is also updated.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...n00_104_hd.png

We can see that he no longer shares the BE theme but that of HE, there are silver jewels with blue and purple stones.

They are still there the high elves of the alliance.

<3

[Shayatu]

Plus, a lot of Forsaken players have been asking for thalassian undead for a very long time. They hoped it would come in the form of a Dark Ranger class or as a new race. In truth, the Forsaken should definitely have them. It has always been something the player base wanted. They have also been asking for the San'Layn, which is also understandable and even teased during BFA.

[Strippling]

Are you joking? How about the obvious gross demand?

The high elf petition had less than 700 signatories to it.. calling it a "gross demand" is a bit of an exaggeration.

A gross demand would be more a kin to the classic petition, which had over 200,000 signatories.

I never cared about lore, I've always only cared about the aesthetic and made no bones about it.

That's cool, and Ion gave you your answer in 2018.

- - - Updated - - -

1) I think at this point some people need to realize there's a lot more people out there who ultimately want more character options and lore does not factor in. Blizzard agrees with the way they're doing increased customizations.

2) Sylvanas is no longer the leader of undead. The new 'acting in leader' atm is Lilian Voss. Who, no surprises, female undead can very much look like.

3) Nothing makes void elf players more special than undead players, just the same, undead players are no more special than void elf players.

Doesn't matter if Lilian Voss is now the new learder, Sylvanas was their leader for 15 years. The reasoning why undead couldn't play as dark rangers is because lore wise the undead are specifically raised humans of Lordaeron. Likewise, void elves are specifically a group of elves who underwent a transformation that is specifically different to Alleria's. So lorewise it makes no sense to make them look like Alleria, and gameplay wise it makes no sense to make them look like Alleria as that'd essentially take away any physical distinction between them and blood elves.

[Shayatu]

Using one petition isn't enough to disprove us. And which petition are you looking at? The one I've seen was in the thousands. Plus, each time a High Elf thread in the WoW Forums has thousands of replies from many different people within a short amount of time. How is it not a high demand? Every new race topic that comes up, the high elves are always high up on that list. Not to say there aren't other important races that should be added to the game that a lot of people have been asking for.

Edit: Okay, I found the one you're talking about. Don't know if it's the same one I was talking about or another.

[Verbatim]

The High Elf NPC who shares blood elf files is also updated.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...n00_104_hd.png

We can see that he no longer shares the BE theme but that of HE, there are silver jewels with blue and purple stones.

They are still there the high elves of the alliance.

<3

Got a file ID on that texture?

[Thalassian Bob]

The High Elf NPC who shares blood elf files is also updated.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...n00_104_hd.png

We can see that he no longer shares the BE theme but that of HE, there are silver jewels with blue and purple stones.

They are still there the high elves of the alliance.

<3

High elves used to have distinct blue nail polish, underwear and different jewellery before the WoD model update. I suppose they're finally adding that distinction back in. I wonder if this means we'll be seeing more dragons present again in Shadowlands.

[Kyphael]

That's cool, and Ion gave you your answer in 2018.

And here we are in the face of exciting new customization options for all core playable races which sets a precedent for allied races getting their own expanded options. I know it's your thing to want to shit on people getting excited about getting something at the expense of your precious distinct faction restrictions, which I could care less about, but I'm excited for Void Elves getting new customization options in the future that allow them to look like their racial leader, and play out the High Elf fantasy on the Alliance, and that's really all there is to it, but rest assured, like I told Obelisk, when it happens, I will come back to this thread to brag about it when it happens. And like I said, the bragging will be shameless, and glorious.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

The High Elf NPC who shares blood elf files is also updated.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...n00_104_hd.png

We can see that he no longer shares the BE theme but that of HE, there are silver jewels with blue and purple stones.

They are still there the high elves of the alliance.

<3

Good for her!

haha, there has always been people that miss the blue nail polish on the HE NPC's so also good for them XD

- - - Updated - - -

The objection is not predicated on losing options.

The objection is predicated on a degradation of faction diversity in a faction based game.

Considering how much people have been vocal about Warcraft outgrowing the Horde/Alliance dichotomy by this point, this is not even a question for many at this point.

The faction dichotomy is at this point both a part of the identity of the game as well at its biggest hindrance narratively, which was thoroughly tested and found wanting during BfA. WoW cannot rely on the factions if their design of them is so monolithical it breaks immersion and dumbs down the narrative -which has become exponentially more about the large world threats rather than petty political struggles-

My point is not that we should "get rid of the factions" but that faction dichotomy alone can't carry this game forward at this point; continuing to put "faction identity integrity" as a priority just seems to be a handicap rather than a feature at this point.

Hence why I support ideas such as third factions or unlocking races from their faction, because this game evidently is struggling by continuing to present a hard faction dichotomy in a manner that makes sense.

IMO there is a need to downplay the faction's importance to allow the world to evolve, again, BfA has only cemented the notion that the focus on horde/alliance and the NEED to make it balanced because it's so focused as the identity of the game just hinders the game.

[Strippling]

And here we are in the face of exciting new customization options for all core playable races which sets a precedent for allied races getting their own expanded options. I know it's your thing to want to shit on people getting excited about getting something at the expense of your precious distinct faction restrictions, which I could care less about, but I'm excited for Void Elves getting new customization options in the future that allow them to look like their racial leader, and play out the High Elf fantasy on the Alliance, and that's really all there is to it, but rest assured, like I told Obelisk, when it happens, I will come back to this thread to brag about it when it happens. And like I said, the bragging will be shameless, and glorious.

You do you. Maybe try a different mmo though if you "could care less" about distinct faction restrictions. I mean that is and always has been a key aspect of WoW. Just a suggestion.

[Kyphael]

You do you. Maybe try a different mmo though if you "could care less" about distinct faction restrictions. I mean that is and always has been a key aspect of WoW. Just a suggestion.

Faction disparity doesn't define MMO's, and as much as Ion thinks it defines WoW, it doesn't, considering the most successful expansions didn't revolve around Alliance vs. Horde, but rather them uniting to fight a greater threat. Nevertheless, this isn't a "does faction distinctiveness define WoW?" mega thread.

[FlubberPuddy]

This thread also has thousands of responses, does that mean all responses within are counted toward people wanting playable alliance high elves? Same for over there, just because there's thousands of responses does not mean all within want the same thing. Moreover the official forums themselves are a shit show for establishing any kind of metric considering you can simply switch toons and artificially inflate either side. Likes are also a worthless metric, unless you go by individual post likes, but that too can be artificially inflated with toon switching as well. Likes displayed on the forum level are counting every single like within said topic regardless of position.

It's a very talked about request that doesn't need evidence because it's so well-known already. You attempting to disprove helf request isn't a big topic is like saying wf/tf, allied races, rng on rng on rng, gcd changes, pathfinder flying, etc aren't big topics. It's not hard to find people requesting helves.

There's a reason Blizzard incorporated a nod to the topic in their April Fool's, it's that big.

[FlubberPuddy]

My response was geared toward the claim of these HE threads having thousands of responses as though the only thing within them was blinding support, don't twist my words.

A topic being big doesn't mean there's no haters. There was no twisting.

[Strippling]

Wowhead is doing a livestream on twitch in the model viewer. They've just discovered blue eyes, and normal eye options for blood elves and many other eye options

https://www.twitch.tv/wowhead

Edit: pretty much an eye color slider, pupil options as well, scar options, white eyes, blue, teal, orange, etc..

Edit 2: dark skin tones

Edit 3: this doesn't confirm anything yet, but a strong indication

[Frenchvince]

Wowhead is doing a livestream on twitch in the model viewer. They've just discovered blue eyes, and normal eye options for blood elves and many other eye options

https://www.twitch.tv/wowhead

Edit: pretty much an eye color slider, pupil options as well, scar options, white eyes, blue, teal, orange, etc..

Edit 2: dark skin tones

Edit 3: this doesn't confirm anything yet, but a strong indication

Yes that doesn't confirm anything, in the Wowhead model viewer, the blood elf files are shared with those of the NPCs.
We will see what happens in character creation when the alpha is updated.
In any case, they have many choices of green / gold eyes of different shades.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Yes that doesn't confirm anything, in the Wowhead model viewer, the blood elf files are shared with those of the NPCs.
We will see what happens in character creation when the alpha is updated.
In any case, they have many choices of green / gold eyes of different shades.

I've been watching the stream, and to me it looks like they found the "glow" textures of the eyes, but not the "base" one, which remains the green one -whether is in there just not found or not in this build at all- so rn all they can do is overlay the glow texture over the green base, which just gives us different shades of green lol.

IMO with my basic knowledge of models, I don't think the new "base" colors are in the build, only the glows, but I do think it might be an indication of the colors that will be added. The other issue is that the eye glows may not be related specifically to blood elves since they are not labeled; there's overall a lot of eye glows, but they aren't sure to which race they are for.

[Frenchvince]

I've been watching the stream, and to me it looks like they found the "glow" textures of the eyes, but not the "base" one, which remains the green one -whether is in there just not found or not in this build at all- so rn all they can do is overlay the glow texture over the green base, which just gives us different shades of green lol.

IMO with my basic knowledge of models, I don't think the new "base" colors are in the build, only the glows, but I do think it might be an indication of the colors that will be added. The other issue is that the eye glows may not be related specifically to blood elves since they are not labeled; there's overall a lot of eye glows, but they aren't sure to which race they are for.

They also had the choice with a white veiled eye on the right or on the left like humans, I think that all the races will be entitled to it.
This option was only available for green and golden shades.

[Strippling]

They also had the choice with a white veiled eye on the right or on the left like humans, I think that all the races will be entitled to it.
This option was only available for green and golden shades.

There was an option for the blue shade as well

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

They also had the choice with a white veiled eye on the right or on the left like humans, I think that all the races will be entitled to it.
This option was only available for green and golden shades.

Indeed; what we know for sure is that there's A LOT of new eye glows -yay- but we are not sure for which races. Next few weeks we should have the update with the character customization so doubts will be dispelled then, but as it is now, the WoWhead guys didn't manage to make the new eye colors work -and I think it's because they don't have bases except green and yellow-

[Frenchvince]

There was an option for the blue shade as well

Only for green and golden eyes, we can review the stream.
I feel better in any case, Blizzard still wants to keep the High Elves for the alliance, for now.