Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[sammygm]

Snip

LF Draenei didn't get their shaman class because they were never on Draenor to learn from the Orcs.

You have to understand that Blood Elves and High Elves aren't actually too different from each other. They split on a fundamental level, High Elves did not agree with the way Kael was leading his people, and then later with Lor'Themar siding with the Horde, which no doubt left the High Elves that remained with the Alliance bitter for their home land to side with the people they fought no long ago.

Their split wouldn't change the way they use certain magics, especially the Light, as I explain below.

I think making them similar would actually be better to show the struggle between High vs Blood, to show that they're indeed the same people fighting a civil war. Having them be different would make the High Elves just Void Elves, which would be honestly be a missed opportunity to build on the race's struggle. Talking about Void Elves, I doubt High Elves fundamentalists would look to keenly on Void Elves either.

Could they become paladins and priests? I believe they could, yes, because they were once. Perhaps they voluntarily gave up the holy classes because of the sunwell, or were they cut off? i honestly can't see yet the best solution to this.

High/Blood Elves never needed the Sunwell for their holy powers. It was their faith in the Light that they gained holy powers, the same way as Humans. And Blood Elves lost theirs because they lost their faith in the Light after the Third War. If they don't allow High Elves to be Light users they'd better have a really good explanation to why High Elves would voluntarily give up their holy powers, considering they've been part of the Church of the Holy Light for such a long time.

Should there be a difference, yeah sure. Not allowing them to be certain classes like Warlocks works within the lore. But to not allow them to be Priests and Paladins for the sake of having a difference is highly unnecessary, and takes away the special relationship they have with the Blood Elves.

[Deleted]

LF Draenei didn't get their shaman class because they were never on Draenor to learn from the Orcs.

Actually, Draenei shamans only became a thing on Azeroth, taught by Nobundo, who came into contact with the Elements while wandering Outland (as far as I know, anyway)

[Yelmurc]

I predict during BFA we will get High Elves and Ogres.

I think Blizzard is listening about the High Elves and I think the Kul’tiran’s skeleton are a template they will use for playable ogre’s

[Deleted]

Can we cut the Farce here. the only reason blizzard doesn't make high elves playable is because Ion says so and that is it. any argument you make be it numbers, apparent similarities, etc can be explained away if you hold other allied races to the same standard. not having high elves isn't the horde fault. its Ion's. so if you want to blame anyone blame Ion

I really don't understand why you High Elf fanatics cannot understand that your favored race is NOT IMPORTANT anymore to the game. Not at all. Silver Covenant elves are just lapdogs to their Kirin Tor masters. Blood Elves are the only true Thalassian Elves here, they have got plenty of story development. If anything of importance would be there for the High Elves, there would have been story written for them. But Blizzard obviously does not see story potential, and instead preferred to create Void Elves. Which in turn have plenty of story potential, in the dichotomy of Light vs. Void (Sindorei vs. Rendorei). End of story.

[The Stormbringer]

I think the Taliesin video won me over with the idea that High Elves should've been the Allied Race instead of Void Elves, and that they could still be a potential Allied Race.

[Ramz]

I'm aswell still for shamans it would be a solution to a lot of problems and could destinguish High elves from blood elves a bit more.
And Shamans + Light affinity is no issue, draeneis are doing it aswell.

I am strongly against elves to ever get shaman class. They never had a history of practicing shamanism, and it would be completely against their nature.

Also using draenei isn't a good way to show that this is justifiable. Draenei never truly represented what shaman class is about, it was never enrooted with their culture and imo they make as much sense as goblins. They're meant to be in very low number as not only they're still very light oriented, but also because they view elemental magic as "orc thing" so it's frowned upon.

They don't have any tribal background, they never practiced any ancient rites they don't have that primal quality about them. And after so many years they still look very awkward.

In WoD you don't meet any draenei shaman, nor on Argus, why? Because it was never their niche to begin with.

And I don't want for devs to make same mistake with elves.

And lastly- we really don't need anymore elves. Time to take a break.

[Deleted]

I am strongly against elves to ever get shaman class. They never had a history of practicing shamanism, and it would be completely against their nature.

After even trolls got Druids (and Druid lore was since then 100% tied to Cenarius), I do no longer hesitate to ask for Elf Shamans and don't let any lore reason count on that. Sorry.
Blizz has broken the lore for class restrictions long ago. They don't apply anymore.
If even druidism can be rewritten to have several strange forms that are not tied to cenarius. (Troll druids, Kul Tiras Druids, Worgen Druids) shamanism can aswell.

[sammygm]

Actually, Draenei shamans only became a thing on Azeroth, taught by Nobundo, who came into contact with the Elements while wandering Outland (as far as I know, anyway)

Ah yes, you are correct.

[Ramz]

After even trolls got Druids (and Druid lore was since then 100% tied to Cenarius), I do no longer hesitate to ask for Elf Shamans and don't let any lore reason count on that. Sorry.
Blizz has broken the lore for class restrictions long ago. They don't apply anymore.
If even druidism can be rewritten to have several strange forms that are not tied to cenarius. (Troll druids, Kul Tiras Druids, Worgen Druids) shamanism can aswell.

No druid lore is tied to emeral dream, Cenarious taught Night elves how to enter it. Trolls had their own gods that are from same family - they can shift in and out of emerald dream and since vanilla we saw them shapeshifting to be avatar of the Loa. Night elves have Cenarius, Trolls have Gonk. I don't see any break here. Break would be if Cenarius thought trolls out of nowhere.

I don't know what is behind Kul'Tiran humans it seems off but I'll wait until I'll hear the story.

Helves never were shown to practice or even be interested in shamanism. It's not their niche and they would just look out of place. No reason to add extra combo just for the sake of it.

[Lumineus]

Alright, so let me get this straight. This finally starts getting some traction and now we're bartering away Paladins so Blood Elves can feel more special? What. Try not to fumble at the ten yard line...

[Goldielocks]

I predict during BFA we will get High Elves and Ogres.

I think Blizzard is listening about the High Elves and I think the Kul’tiran’s skeleton are a template they will use for playable ogre’s

Where's the basis for this POV?

[Traycor]

I predict during BFA we will get High Elves and Ogres.

I think Blizzard is listening about the High Elves and I think the Kul’tiran’s skeleton are a template they will use for playable ogre’s

Agreed.

I really don't understand why you High Elf fanatics cannot understand that your favored race is NOT IMPORTANT anymore to the game. Not at all... If anything of importance would be there for the High Elves, there would have been story written for them.

See the video below. Near the end it shows one of the very recent stories that placed significance on the High Elves as a people. There were other recent stories as well, but this makes for a good example.

[Theodarzna]

This video is perfect but I still fear the problem of Ian and his team's bad decision to push ahead on Void Elves and early on insult the idea does reflect a level of internal ignorance by the Dev team that IMHO considers Alliance lore an afterthought. The very fact that they decided on Void Elves reflects IMHO an incredible lack of interest in the Alliance player base. I mean, the one AND MOST CONSISTANT request since day dot has been this and despite it being prossibly the easiest thing to do, they decided to do extra work and create a rather lackluster race that nobody had ever heard of nor asked for instead and some have the nerve to call it a "Fair compromise".

[Traycor]

Alright, so let me get this straight. This finally starts getting some traction and now we're bartering away Paladins so Blood Elves can feel more special? What. Try not to fumble at the ten yard line...

I lol'd.

But yes, it's a difficult line figuring out what compromises are needed and which are not. We don't have design documents, so it's hard to figure out when the level of change is sufficient.

- - - Updated - - -

This video is perfect but I still fear the problem of Ian and his team's bad decision to push ahead on Void Elves and early on insult the idea does reflect a level of internal ignorance by the Dev team that IMHO considers Alliance lore an afterthought. The very fact that they decided on Void Elves reflects IMHO an incredible lack of interest in the Alliance player base. I mean, the one AND MOST CONSISTANT request since day dot has been this and despite it being prossibly the easiest thing to do, they decided to do extra work and create a rather lackluster race that nobody had ever heard of nor asked for instead and some have the nerve to call it a "Fair compromise".

I think they assumed Void Elves were so cool that no would care. Now that it's obvious this is not the case, Blizzard very well might change their mind. They've set up a new system that makes it easy to do so.

[Theodarzna]

I think they assumed Void Elves were so cool that no would care. Now that it's obvious this is not the case, Blizzard very well might change their mind. They've set up a new system that makes it easy to do so.

I cannot for the life of me get into the headspace that made them think Void Elves were a good choice.

[DeicideUH]

I think they assumed Void Elves were so cool that no would care. Now that it's obvious this is not the case, Blizzard very well might change their mind. They've set up a new system that makes it easy to do so.

The question is: what can they do now? I really doubt they'll give us playable high elves (at least in the near future). So, how will Blizzard react to all the high elf talk?

I cannot for the life of me get into the headspace that made them think Void Elves were a good choice.

Agreed.

[Traycor]

I cannot for the life of me get into the headspace that made them think Void Elves were a good choice.

If you look at it purely from a design perspective, they thought it was a good decision. Different color pallet, tentacles growing from the head, different racials, different theme, etc... Designers like designing things that are different. It's just the nature of the work.

I honestly think they heard all the Horde players claiming that Alliance players just wanted the Thalassian model and decided that was true. So Blizzard's only constraint was that the new race have the Thalassian model. Hence, Void Elves.

Which to me proves that the High Elf fans weren't vocal enough about exactly what we wanted. So I made this thread as part of the dialogue to show Blizzard what we do want.

[Theodarzna]

If you look at it purely from a design perspective, they thought it was a good decision. Different color pallet, tentacles growing from the head, different racials, different theme, etc... Designers like designing things that are different. It's just the nature of the work.

I honestly think they heard all the Horde players claiming that Alliance players just wanted the Thalassian model and decided that was true. So Blizzard's only constraint was that the new race have the Thalassian model. Hence, Void Elves.

Which to me proves that the High Elf fans weren't vocal enough about exactly what we wanted. So I made this thread as part of the dialogue to show Blizzard what we do want.

The fact that they listened to what Horde players though Alliance players wanted is exactly a problem if indeed it went down like that. I think Ian and the Dev team don't actually listen to the Alliance player base very much, but instead hear what Alliance wants as filtered through the Horde player base.

It doesn't matter how vocal we are when the Dev team seems to listen to Horde player base more and is apt to give them whatever they like and only hears the Alliance player base through the Horde player base as an intermediary. This owing to the fact that most of the Dev team are Horde players.

[Deleted]

The question is: what can they do now? I really doubt they'll give us playable high elves (at least in the near future). So, how will Blizzard react to all the high elf talk?

That kinda depends on how many allied races they're going to implement and how fast they're gonna do it. If they're gonna do a lot of them and implement some in mid-expansion patches, then prospects of HE eventually getting their turn are pretty decent.

[Theodarzna]

That kinda depends on how many allied races they're going to implement and how fast they're gonna do it. If they're gonna do a lot of them and implement some in mid-expansion patches, then prospects of HE eventually getting their turn are pretty decent.

With all the screen time High Elves get, they've deserved the first available slot. They've guest starred in the Alliance more than playable races at this point.