Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Aucald]

Yet that is entirely subjective. Have elf fans in general been catered for in this game? There are currently two basic models of elf with two variants of each model with each faction having access to one variant of each model. Any fair outside appraisal should therefore conclude that elf fans, with access to four options across both factions, are well served.

You can contrast this with the experience of Werewolf fans. Not only must Werewolf fans within the Horde do without, but Alliance players (who do have access to Werewolves) have access to only one model of Werewolf whereas Alliance elf fans have access to two distinct types of Elves.

True, if we were talking about "Elf fans," which in this context we're not. If you were just a fan of Elves in the general sense you'd have quite a lot going for you between Elves of Blood, Void, Night, and Nightborne varieties. But we're talking about a more specific ask, and I think you know that (at this point you'd sort of have to). And like I said originally, it's an open question as to whether it's a deserved ask; but the request has been made all the same. It's been made for a long time, ever since the halcyon days of Classic WoW, when players first set eyes on High Elven exiles with their weird low-res models at the time.

Void Elves were an answer to the request for high elves in the Alliance. They have been defined as a different flavour of high elf, and something like a Blood Elf. The change that Void Elves underwent was a necessary pre-requisite for them to be added in the first place. While faction diversity, identity and integrity are abstract values when compared to the idea of 'let people play what they want to play', they are still values that matter tremendously.

"An" answer, yes, but in my estimation missing the mark pretty significantly from "the" answer. I would call them a different flavor of Blood Elf, myself, given that Umbric and his people were Blood Elves before they became Void Elves. I won't argue that the change was a prerequisite for them to shift factions from Horde to Alliance, either; but they still don't answer the original request because they're a different people on two levels of abstractions (one as former Blood Elves, another as altered by the Void into Void Elves). Now, whether or not one values faction identity or integrity over letting people play what they want to play truly is a subjective opinion.

Rather than celebrate they got a result as close as they did to high elves with Void Elves in spite of Blizzard publicly defending the values of distinct factions, they have chosen to interpret it as a 'defeat' or a 'slap in the face'. Despite multiple elven options, those who insist the demand has not been met refuse to accept the validity of the reasoning as to why they didn't get their ideal. And it seems only the ideal will do, even something as close as a Void Elf, for whom a personal lore explanation can be constructed that has them begin as a Silver Covenant member (in line with Moorgard's recent comments on the validity of headcannoning whilst roleplaying), is not enough.

The surfeit of options is not the problem, and never really was - the failure to facilitate the original request is the crux of the problem. The demand has categorically not been met, therefore it's understandable that those who value the prospect might be disappointed by the outcome. It would be akin to wanting a Playstation 5 for Xmas, but your parents instead get confused and buy you an XBox Series X instead. Both of them play modern gen games, sure; and they've got similar hardware, but it's not what you asked for or wanted. YMMV as to the severity of the proverbial recipient's reaction, but I think anyone can see where the problem is.

As for the more in-game rationale I still have not been sold on any reason why the existing High Elves exiles weren't chosen as opposed to the Void Elves. I've heard the many arguments, but all of them strike me as arising from a place of seeming Horde entitlement to both Blood and High Elves in the general sense. Stripped of long-winded explanation, the argument seems like "Blood Elves are High Elves, both Blood and High Elves are ours, and we will not part with them and the developers stand by it." Which, on the face of it, does seem to be how things are going - but it still feels like an entitled argument to me, and I can understand why those who want playable High Elven exiles on the Alliance side are by degrees upset by that outcome.

Should explicit, one hundred percent confirmation be provided of the obvious, that Void Elves can turn other Elves into Void Elves (and thereby completely meet the demand of those who seek an explicit SC lore origin), do you really expect that to sate this community in lieu of the actual aesthetic?

A transformed Void Elf from Silver Covenant High Elf is still not meeting the original request - it's closer, sure, and for some people it may be enough to satiate them, but it isn't the same thing and has the same lens of abstraction as the above, only one removed. I also doubt it will happen for several reasons, though I admit the possibility.

[Obelisk Kai]

While we disagree on a lot of things, the first part is definitely where we agree the most. I want something different and unique done with High elves which stays true to their lore. High elves REJECTED dark magic even at it's darkest for moral reasons, refusing to compromise what they thought was right. Having them go and use the most evil magic in the universe kinda defeats the point of High elves. That's why I always hated Void elves as a "compromise". It's no compromise, it's Blood elves 2.0 in the Alliance.

A compromise would have been High elves turning to nature, or being altered by Arcane magic or something.
And yes, High elves, the actual Silver covenant, not some Blood elf exiles.

Only one group of High Elves canonically left Silvermoon due to their reliance on draining arcane magic, the elves of Quel'lithien lodge. It has never been actually stated that the few other elves out there were similarly exiled. The high elf mages who remained with the kirin tor may have preferred remaining with the city they had come to call home. Quel'Danil's aversion to magic was established in the manga, which again is of extremely dubious canonicity given several of them have already been retconned (one tale implied Sylvanas could raise new Forsaken long before she met the Val'kyr).

And the Elves of Quel'lithien were so averse to using dark magic that they managed to get themselves all killed by messing with dark magic which goes to show that while all races may be different in Warcraft, hypocrisy is a universal flaw.

Void Elves ARE a clear repeat of the original Blood Elf storyline, but that original storyline was also concluded with the restoration of the sunwell and the restoration of the Blood Elves into being traditional, tokien style high elves in everything but a single adjective. Given that original storyline did have promise, it's resurrection in a void flavoured rather than a fel flavoured guise, particularly one without the narrative off ramp of the sunwell's purifying restoration, could be interesting.

As for the other suggestions of compromise, nature was out because Night Elves have that covered. That is their thing. Yes, Nightborne are a retread of the arcane elf angle embodied by the Blood Elves, but that's a consequence of their story as actual living highborne, they were written as arcane elves years before Blizzard even thought of creating the Nightborne. Blizzard wasn't bound by their own lore with the Void Elves as they were with the Nightborne. And given the Nightborne ARE the arcane elves, given nature magic was a duplication of the Night Elves and given the Blood Elves movement towards the light, void seems to be the obvious choice for a basis.

[elbleuet]

And the Elves of Quel'lithien were so averse to using dark magic that they managed to get themselves all killed by messing with dark magic which goes to show that while all races may be different in Warcraft, hypocrisy is a universal flaw.

Quel'Lithien lodge was the only non neutral area of the Plaguelands. When the zone was reworked in Cataclysm, they gave that excuse to remove the Alliance presence from the zone, nothing more.

On the other hand, Quel'Danil stayed Alliance, because the Hinterlands was not meant to be a true neutral zone.
I wouldn't read too much into this.

[Gurluas]

Only one group of High Elves canonically left Silvermoon due to their reliance on draining arcane magic, the elves of Quel'lithien lodge. It has never been actually stated that the few other elves out there were similarly exiled. The high elf mages who remained with the kirin tor may have preferred remaining with the city they had come to call home. Quel'Danil's aversion to magic was established in the manga, which again is of extremely dubious canonicity given several of them have already been retconned (one tale implied Sylvanas could raise new Forsaken long before she met the Val'kyr).

And the Elves of Quel'lithien were so averse to using dark magic that they managed to get themselves all killed by messing with dark magic which goes to show that while all races may be different in Warcraft, hypocrisy is a universal flaw.

Void Elves ARE a clear repeat of the original Blood Elf storyline, but that original storyline was also concluded with the restoration of the sunwell and the restoration of the Blood Elves into being traditional, tokien style high elves in everything but a single adjective. Given that original storyline did have promise, it's resurrection in a void flavoured rather than a fel flavoured guise, particularly one without the narrative off ramp of the sunwell's purifying restoration, could be interesting.

As for the other suggestions of compromise, nature was out because Night Elves have that covered. That is their thing. Yes, Nightborne are a retread of the arcane elf angle embodied by the Blood Elves, but that's a consequence of their story as actual living highborne, they were written as arcane elves years before Blizzard even thought of creating the Nightborne. Blizzard wasn't bound by their own lore with the Void Elves as they were with the Nightborne. And given the Nightborne ARE the arcane elves, given nature magic was a duplication of the Night Elves and given the Blood Elves movement towards the light, void seems to be the obvious choice for a basis.

Not correct! The Quel'danil Elves are likewise exiled, and Vereesa was named an exile and she wasn't from Quel'lithien, she lived in Dalaran at the time so it's likely the entire Silver Covenant has been exiled.

The Quel'lithien elves didn't technically mess with dark magic, they tried to use an Arcane crystal, a very volatile one, and it blew in their faces. It's still not Void or Fel magic though.

No race is going full on nature, when I say nature I mean in the same vein as Void elves.
Green skin with moss growing on it, grass/leaf/twig hair, bushy grassy eyebrows, and such.

And with Arcane I mean crystalline skin, and ethereal rainbow colored glowing eyes.
Basically do the Void elf thing but with the Silver Covenant and with a less evil magic. So far they've done that thing twice, with the Lightforged and with the Void elves.

[elbleuet]

Not correct! The Quel'danil Elves are likewise exiled, and Vereesa was named an exile and she wasn't from Quel'lithien, she lived in Dalaran at the time so it's likely the entire Silver Covenant has been exiled.

The Quel'lithien elves didn't technically mess with dark magic, they tried to use an Arcane crystal, a very volatile one, and it blew in their faces. It's still not Void or Fel magic though.

No race is going full on nature, when I say nature I mean in the same vein as Void elves.
Green skin with moss growing on it, grass/leaf/twig hair, bushy grassy eyebrows, and such.

And with Arcane I mean crystalline skin, and ethereal rainbow colored glowing eyes.
Basically do the Void elf thing but with the Silver Covenant and with a less evil magic. So far they've done that thing twice, with the Lightforged and with the Void elves.

And Silver Covenant's farstriders are actually former Silvermoon farstriders...

[conceptKitty]

Looked like it was just their irises to me?

No, their Sclera is blue too.
If I were a blood elf, I would not get "I'm finally a High Elf" vibe from this.
https://www.wowhead.com/news=311958/...in-shadowlands
Vs a High Elf

[Starla]

I'm not very good at posting photos but I know the male high elves eyes are glowy and teal colored, they look a lot like the examples we see from the new expansion features.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post31877299

[Varodoc]

Yeah, that pic doesn't look like a high elf at all. High elves have blue eyes, not azure eyes. that looks more like a death knight.

[FlubberPuddy]

If I were a blood elf, I would not get "I'm finally a High Elf" vibe from this.
https://www.wowhead.com/news=311958/...in-shadowlands
Vs a High Elf

Yeah. It's not gonna stop some folks from being inane about it though and declaring it so. There's already some of those comments in the last few pages of this thread.

It's pretty nice though because it adds further differentiation. Blood Elves so infused with magic compared to the High Elves who didn't lean in so heavily on its reliance.

Same as has been stated all the way back in the Warcraft Encyclopedia about how High Elves dealt with their magical withdrawal through sheer will as opposed to the Blood Elves claiming magic was required to deal with their withdrawal.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Yeah, that pic doesn't look like a high elf at all. High elves have blue eyes, not azure eyes. that looks more like a death knight.

I still believe this is just the WoWhead guys not being able to apply the textures as intended; all the Blood Elf eye customizations look more like bugs than intended (flat texture, lack of definition, etc)

[FlubberPuddy]

More explanations about why increased customizations don't account for lore, and the goal is simply to give players more options they want. The overall piece is on dark-skin BE, but the takeaway message is applied to the increased customizations as a whole.

https://blizzardwatch.com/2020/04/14...-violate-lore/

Pasting the pertinent bits

"Why has this change been made? Because some players want it. That’s it. That’s the whole reason. Players have said from the beginning they want more character customization. This is Blizzard giving it to them. That’s it. This is a gameplay decision, and it isn’t one that requires a lore explanation."

"There is no reason that Blizzard should bother to do anything to justify this, because the reason WoW hasn’t had this up to now isn’t lore based, it’s simply that the game didn’t have enough character customization options. They’re not going to go and put an entire Wildhammer Dwarf starting area to justify why your playable Dwarf has Wildhammer tattoos. You have them — tell whatever story you like. The game is going to facilitate you, not mandate to you."

"Blizzard is giving us more options. That’s it. They’re not going to stop and justify in lore why they’re doing this. They’re just going to do it and we’re going to have more options to make our characters stand out and really feel more like they’re our characters, which is to my mind all to the good. It doesn’t contradict any established lore, but even if it did, they should absolutely do it anyway. If it makes players enjoy their gameplay more to make their Elf, or Human, or whatever look more like they do? It’s a good decision and it’s one I support."

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Because Blood Elves are High Elves and in a faction based game where the attraction to and identity of each faction is predicated on consisting of unique, faction exclusive options, attempting to duplicate a core part of one faction to the other is deeply unfair. If you want to play a traditional high elf, that is a Blood Elf. If you don't like the company they keep, then you can play the variant specifically constructed for the Alliance. But that variant should remain a variant, both to protect the integrity of the Horde, the identity of the Blood Elves AND the identity of the Void Elves who deserve to be as much their own thing as possible without being turned into ersatz high elves.

This is just such an irrational argument when the posture is literally just keeping Void Elves as they are and just say "hey, they can also have a High Elf origin" through flavor text. You are trying to rationalize what is just at this point being mean spirited -my literal question was "How can you be so entrenched in an anti posture that you go against ANYTHING even remotely satisfactory from a HE perspective?"- And you go using the excuse of "faction identity and exclusivity" when what I am saying literally changes nothing of the current aesthetic or presentation of the Void Elves.

You are just arguing against anything, anything remotely closely to Alliance High Elf lore, it's downright ridiculous. I cannot take you seriously beyond this point because I cannot simply see any logic on this argument.

[Syegfryed]

Yeah. It's not gonna stop some folks from being inane about it though and declaring it so. There's already some of those comments in the last few pages of this thread.

It's pretty nice though because it adds further differentiation. Blood Elves so infused with magic compared to the High Elves who didn't lean in so heavily on its reliance.

Same as has been stated all the way back in the Warcraft Encyclopedia about how High Elves dealt with their magical withdrawal through sheer will as opposed to the Blood Elves claiming magic was required to deal with their withdrawal.

The silver covenant pretty much rely in magic as heavy as any other elf, this is so fractured that people want the high elf mages of the covenant, and also want at the same time the non magic ones, and like blizzard said, they just don't match and there is no main theme or point in then.

And with the Sunwell restored, everyone of then rely on it anyway, that spawn of time they didn't need it was short.

People are also grasping at straws about the blue-eye thing, too much to say eye color is not what made then different, but we are nitpicking about the eye color being slight different in the female model, and maybe im wrong but i think there is blood elves females mages with that kind of eye too, seems more like a npc bug since the male eyes are the same glowing.

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More explanations about why increased customizations don't account for lore, and the goal is simply to give players more options they want. The overall piece is on dark-skin BE, but the takeaway message is applied to the increased customizations as a whole.
"

But they did said everything is accord to lore, and checked the lore team, if it is true or not is another history

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

More explanations about why increased customizations don't account for lore, and the goal is simply to give players more options they want. The overall piece is on dark-skin BE, but the takeaway message is applied to the increased customizations as a whole.

https://blizzardwatch.com/2020/04/14...-violate-lore/

Pasting the pertinent bits

"Why has this change been made? Because some players want it. That’s it. That’s the whole reason. Players have said from the beginning they want more character customization. This is Blizzard giving it to them. That’s it. This is a gameplay decision, and it isn’t one that requires a lore explanation."

"There is no reason that Blizzard should bother to do anything to justify this, because the reason WoW hasn’t had this up to now isn’t lore based, it’s simply that the game didn’t have enough character customization options. They’re not going to go and put an entire Wildhammer Dwarf starting area to justify why your playable Dwarf has Wildhammer tattoos. You have them — tell whatever story you like. The game is going to facilitate you, not mandate to you."

"Blizzard is giving us more options. That’s it. They’re not going to stop and justify in lore why they’re doing this. They’re just going to do it and we’re going to have more options to make our characters stand out and really feel more like they’re our characters, which is to my mind all to the good. It doesn’t contradict any established lore, but even if it did, they should absolutely do it anyway. If it makes players enjoy their gameplay more to make their Elf, or Human, or whatever look more like they do? It’s a good decision and it’s one I support."

They are basically saying that it's new lore (retconned or otherwise) not that it's not part of the lore.

[FlubberPuddy]

They are basically saying that it's new lore (retconned or otherwise) not that it's not part of the lore.

I guess I should've added "don't account for previously established lore"

But yes I agree. And I think the main point being driven home is that lore will not stand in the way of giving more customization options to players.

[Kandriself]

I agree with Nick.

[Obelisk Kai]

True, if we were talking about "Elf fans," which in this context we're not. If you were just a fan of Elves in the general sense you'd have quite a lot going for you between Elves of Blood, Void, Night, and Nightborne varieties. But we're talking about a more specific ask, and I think you know that (at this point you'd sort of have to). And like I said originally, it's an open question as to whether it's a deserved ask; but the request has been made all the same. It's been made for a long time, ever since the halcyon days of Classic WoW, when players first set eyes on High Elven exiles with their weird low-res models at the time.

The request has been made. But it has also been answered. We are a long way from classic now and it's single elf option. Three more have since been added and one of those was a direct response to that request that was consistent with Blizzard's red lines. Does a request retain value simply because what was delivered was not an ideal? Should a request retain respect when clearly they have decided to disregarded the maxim that the perfect is the enemy of the good?

"An" answer, yes, but in my estimation missing the mark pretty significantly from "the" answer. I would call them a different flavor of Blood Elf, myself, given that Umbric and his people were Blood Elves before they became Void Elves. I won't argue that the change was a prerequisite for them to shift factions from Horde to Alliance, either; but they still don't answer the original request because they're a different people on two levels of abstractions (one as former Blood Elves, another as altered by the Void into Void Elves). Now, whether or not one values faction identity or integrity over letting people play what they want to play truly is a subjective opinion.

The request for playable High Elves cuts across that wider debate of which is more important, faction integrity or letting people play what they want to play. It is a subjective opinion for us as players, and had they decided the other way we wouldn't be having this conversation. But they did decide and they decided the other way. They created a variant form of high elf as a compromise that still respected their red lines.

The point of them being a different flavour of Blood Elves is semantics. Blood Elves are High Elves, the terms are interchangeable to the point that the Void Elves have been defined as both a different flavour of high elf and as something like a Blood Elf. Both statements are true. Whether a Void Elf began their existence as a Silver Covenant exile who willingly subjected themselves to the procedure or as a Blood Elf mage caught up in Umbric's initial failed experiment, the importance of that lies only in the mind of the player who cares enough to personally headcanon the origin of that Void Elf.
It is after all perfectly plausible to play a Lightforged Draenei as a survivor of the Exodar who has now gone through the lightforging process rather than as a long term crew member from the Xenedar. What practical difference does that make to the Lightforged Draenei player now? What practical difference does the headcanoned origin for a Void Elf matter beyond the personal satisfaction it imparts to that player? None beyond what value the notion has in and of itself.

The surfeit of options is not the problem, and never really was - the failure to facilitate the original request is the crux of the problem. The demand has categorically not been met, therefore it's understandable that those who value the prospect might be disappointed by the outcome. It would be akin to wanting a Playstation 5 for Xmas, but your parents instead get confused and buy you an XBox Series X instead. Both of them play modern gen games, sure; and they've got similar hardware, but it's not what you asked for or wanted. YMMV as to the severity of the proverbial recipient's reaction, but I think anyone can see where the problem is.

As for the more in-game rationale I still have not been sold on any reason why the existing High Elves exiles weren't chosen as opposed to the Void Elves. I've heard the many arguments, but all of them strike me as arising from a place of seeming Horde entitlement to both Blood and High Elves in the general sense. Stripped of long-winded explanation, the argument seems like "Blood Elves are High Elves, both Blood and High Elves are ours, and we will not part with them and the developers stand by it." Which, on the face of it, does seem to be how things are going - but it still feels like an entitled argument to me, and I can understand why those who want playable High Elven exiles on the Alliance side are by degrees upset by that outcome.

The original request could never be facilitated. This is not a case where the out of touch parent mixed up the requests and came up with the closest compromise, this is a case where the original request violated something Blizzard considers a pillar of the game. The real surprise isn't that they 'failed to facilitate the original request', it's that they went as far as they did in attempting to give those seeking a thalassian elf on the Alliance something at all.

And yes, it is entitlement. What's wrong with that? It's faction based game, they've encouraged factionalism. They've fostered it. They've facilitated it. They've marketed it to sell the game and it's expansions. They bellow 'For the Horde' and 'For the Alliance' at their conventions to stoke the crowd. They've told you it's a pillar of the game. They've used it to drive the game forward in multiple ways. And believe it or not, as the bickering that ensued among the crowd at Blizzcon when they were informed that the Alliance won both warfronts proved, plenty of people who play this game have an emotional investment in these factions.

So if the argument seems like "Blood Elves are High Elves, both Blood and High Elves are ours, and we will not part with them and the developers stand by it", well you said it and you aren't wrong. You're portraying it as a negative of course because it cuts across 'let people play what they want to play', but if Blizzard ever believed in that or had been converted to that philosophy they'd have used the narrative off ramp provided by the end of the Fourth War to significantly weaken grouping restrictions and let everyone play with everyone. They memorably didn't, using every opportunity afforded them at Blizzcon when asked to say it wasn't going to happen and that this is a pillar of the game.

And yes there are people who will continue to argue the faction system damages the game and they make a good argument but so long as the faction system exists I fully expect my faction's integrity and identity to be maintained. The fact that one small group of people can't play a duplicate of a core race of the other faction and feel aggrieved by that is likely not the biggest problem caused by the faction divide either, especially given they were given a 95% duplicate of that race which they then decided wasn't good enough because it happened to be blue.

As Pennem said a few days ago, you can't make everyone happy. It is his misfortune that those seeking high elves on the Alliance that are identical to a core Horde race are apparently the group fated to lose out.

A transformed Void Elf from Silver Covenant High Elf is still not meeting the original request - it's closer, sure, and for some people it may be enough to satiate them, but it isn't the same thing and has the same lens of abstraction as the above, only one removed. I also doubt it will happen for several reasons, though I admit the possibility.

It's the closest they are probably going to get. The outcomes at this point are either confirmation that Void Elves can turn other elves into Void Elves,in which case they will be playing a Void Elf...high elf like customisation on Void Elves which as discussed won't change the fact it is still a Void Elf (and which proves the anti High Elf position correct that demand is really driven by the aesthetic), in which case they will be playing a Void Elf...or they weaken faction grouping restrictions and Blood Elves can group with other Alliance players, which is still a Blood Elf but which is also a high elf.

The perfect therefore becomes the enemy of the good because none of the options that stand a chance of happening are the ideal and the ideal isn't going to happen.

- - - Updated - - -

Quel'Lithien lodge was the only non neutral area of the Plaguelands. When the zone was reworked in Cataclysm, they gave that excuse to remove the Alliance presence from the zone, nothing more.

On the other hand, Quel'Danil stayed Alliance, because the Hinterlands was not meant to be a true neutral zone.
I wouldn't read too much into this.

No that doesn't make sense. The Quel'lithien lodge was the only group who were explicitly exiled over the refusal to drain mana from vermin. This refusal has been held up as some kind of proof of High Elf virtuosity, so the fact they got themselves killed by messing with dark magics is important in demonstrating their hypocrisy.

If their fate is inconsistent with the narrative constructed of the magic avoiding noble High Elves, perhaps it is the narrative that is at fault rather than the events which do not fit it?

- - - Updated - - -

And with Arcane I mean crystalline skin, and ethereal rainbow colored glowing eyes.
Basically do the Void elf thing but with the Silver Covenant and with a less evil magic. So far they've done that thing twice, with the Lightforged and with the Void elves.

Which wouldn't be a high elf. It would be an entirely new kind of elf. It might satisfy you, but as with many suggestions put forward to square the circle of making high elves different from Blood elves it would probably fail because it actually changes them.

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This is just such an irrational argument when the posture is literally just keeping Void Elves as they are and just say "hey, they can also have a High Elf origin" through flavor text. You are trying to rationalize what is just at this point being mean spirited -my literal question was "How can you be so entrenched in an anti posture that you go against ANYTHING even remotely satisfactory from a HE perspective?"- And you go using the excuse of "faction identity and exclusivity" when what I am saying literally changes nothing of the current aesthetic or presentation of the Void Elves.

You are just arguing against anything, anything remotely closely to Alliance High Elf lore, it's downright ridiculous. I cannot take you seriously beyond this point because I cannot simply see any logic on this argument.

Not arguing against it. If you manage to secure explicit acknowledgement of it, great. But it's not strictly necessary now for any who wish to head canon that particular origin, just as those who will headcanon their Revantusk or Wildhammer will have to rely on headcanon to justify their origins. So long as the headcanon doesn't violate anything we know, it works.

[The Silver Covenant]

It is his misfortune that those seeking high elves on the Alliance that are identical to a core Horde race are apparently the group fated to lose out.

High Elves are a core Alliance race and have been heavily associated with the blue faction since Warcraft II. To state otherwise is to ignore Warcraft canon.

[Ramz]

I figured out that helves are like Bella Swan from Twilight. Every guy in the book was fixated over her ready to fight for her, but she was very shallow character that wasn't even good or remotely interesting person to justify the fight over her.

[Traveler Voltin]

High Elves are a core Alliance race and have been heavily associated with the blue faction since Warcraft II. To state otherwise is to ignore Warcraft canon.

they left after WCII except for a very small few.