Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[DeicideUH]

You know something tho? I am happy with this, but, something feels off...

These feel kinda rushed -as per the clarification VE's will retain their underwear- if you look at these, they are very simple texture swaps that anyone can do really easily and fast...

This is not about this being a lie, but, what if the reason these dropped so suddenly, it's because bad news are incomming? But they'll go, hey, remember when you got Helves? that was fun!

or is this just paranoia?

I think next build will come with the blood elf options enabled, and that means blue eyes.
From the images, the void elf skins are not ready, that's why they just used belf skins.

So, to avoid forum implosion, Blizzard decided to announce it first.

[Monster Hunter]

Doesn't matter. You were wrong. Blizzard no longer cares about Alliance players having access to a model identical to blood elves!!!

--- snip ---

a Fiero looks like a ferrari.

its still a Pontiac though.

[Dastreus]

This is so messy dear lord.

I was reeaalll tired when I wrote it.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

as said many times before, the only reason why Umbric and the PC got tinted was because of Durzaan's curse. The new generation of Void Elves weren't so they get to keep their fair skin

But isn't that just speculation TBH? Not that I disagree, but so far there aren't "new" void elves than the ones made by that event.

But we do need confirmation as how and when and from what new VE's are being made. That has not been addressed.

I think this is exactly how the devs view it, all the allied races save for vulpera can be folded into the core races, with nightborne the other cross faction race getting the similar void elf treatment (I.e. getting night elf body sizes,skin tones and hair colours and vice versa) folding them in, with new allied races being actual races like Ogres or Saberon or hybrids like Mok'nathal, half elves & half orcs

Indeed. I do hope NB get something nice around the same time that VE's, specially since we have yet to see the NE customizations officially.

While I would like to see most AR condensed into core ones, I don't see it happening soon, but hey! I really want to be wrong

Actually, that's a very good way of doing it. It would be pretty good if they did things like that.

Right?

I think next build will come with the blood elf options enabled, and that means blue eyes.
From the images, the void elf skins are not ready, that's why they just used belf skins.

So, to avoid forum implosion, Blizzard decided to announce it first.

Love that explanation, hope it's just that XD

[Thalassian Bob]

I don't really know where should I go when my questions here were ignored and when I asked them outside here it got reported like, what gives?

Anyway:

1. Since Blood Elves are High Elves and the only thing that differs is the political stance, why do people still claim the Purge of Dalaran was a racist motive and genocide when Jaina only teleported the Sunreavers into prison and the ones who did the actual killings were... the High Elves?

2. Why didn't the Silver Covenant and Argent Crusade High Elves even bothered to at least help cleanse the Ghostlands?

3. Now that Nathanos (and hopefully the Royal Apothecary too) are gone, is it finally time for the Highvale and the Quel'lithien survivors to rejoin the Blood Elves?

1. It wasn't a racist attack per se, when it was high elf on "high elf" violence, but it was ideological prejudice. Real-world comparisons might be drawn from the Bolshevik repression of the "kulaks" or, conversely, the McCarthyism-era witch hunts for "Reds" in the US. Targeting political groups was originally going to be included in the UN definition of genocide before the notion was vetoed by the Soviet Union because it would mean they couldn't oppress their domestic political enemies without it being labelled genocide.

Arguably, Jaina's fixation on the Sunreavers could probably be viewed as racist though.

2. I imagine Argent Crusade high elves were too busy helping out in Northrend or the Plaguelands of Lordaeron to return to their ancestral homelands to help there.

Most of the Silver Covenant were probably banned from entering Quel'Thalas after the Northrend campaign, as we saw that Lor'themar had exiled their leader (and rightly so). Before then, since they are an organisation based in Dalaran, they may have been helping with reconstruction efforts there after Archimonde destroyed the city. And, by the time, they were finished there, they may have heard word that the Sin'dorei had aligned themselves with the Horde and then refused to return home in protest.

3. It's possible that some of the high elves you listed returned home to Quel'Thalas, but a lot of them had a real beef with the direction Silvermoon's leadership had taken the nation and it's understandable frankly. The Quel'Lithien elves were attacked by servants of Nathanos, so I doubt they'd forgive the undead presence in the Horde very quickly and the Highvale elves were also attacked by the undead and had a long-existing problem with forest troll incursions in the area. I doubt they'd be particularly keen to return to Silvermoon either.

It's possible that some of the more coll-headed members of their ranks like Aurora Skycaller survived the grizzly fates met upon their peers and, with desperate times calling for desperate measures, decided to return to Quel'Thalas. But, I think the more likely explanation for blue-eyed elves amongst the blood elves is; Farstriders who never got too close to the fel crystals, magisters who are regularly wielding the arcane which, at this point, is superseding the effects historic fel-usage and perhaps high elves from the Allerian Stronghold (some of whom lamented terribly the idea of not being able to go home (when they though Quel'Thalas was full of elves like those who followed Kael'thas over the abyss) or Dalaran who were just too homesick to stay away from Quel'Thalas.

[Austilias]

It may feel good, but was it about getting the last laugh to you?

Nah, I always loved the High Elf aesthetic/lore since I started WoW at the very beginning of TBC and started religiously reading all the lore on Wowwiki/looking at all their art/etc. I especially wanted to actually play one when I started roleplaying in WOTLK, and that desire never went away. If anything it grew.

Getting the last laugh over someone like Obelisk, who was (past tense now ) perhaps the most obstinate and determined anti-playable-High Elf debater I've ever seen on any WoW/WoW-themed forum over the past few months/years, is just the cherry on top

[ravenmoon]

Nah, I always loved the High Elf aesthetic/lore since I started WoW at the very beginning of TBC and started religiously reading all the lore on Wowwiki/looking at all their art/etc. I especially wanted to actually play one when I started roleplaying in WOTLK, and that desire never went away. If anything it grew.

Getting the last laugh over someone like Obelisk, who was (past tense now ) perhaps the most obstinate and determined anti-playable-High Elf debater I've ever seen on any WoW/WoW-themed forum over the past few months/years, is just the cherry on top

I can see your comment getting 100 upvotes in the first hour

- - - Updated - - -

How can they go extinct when they're right there?

All Blood Elves and all Void Elves are High Elves. Thalassian elves from Quel'thalas. Some High Elves now choose to call themselves Blood Elves after the events of WC3. Some High Elves choose to call themselves Void Elves. Others yet, however few, probably still prefer the original name. But it's all just a name. All of them are technically High Elves, still. That's their biological race.

Exactly, it reminds me of those who like to convince me the highborne are insiginciant, barely there etc, and I'm like you've got htis wrong, htey'r right there and been commissioned to train Darnassians who want to do arcane magic - whether former ones who put it off for 10k years respecting the ban or brand new novices.

We see many camps of students and returned hghborne in Azshara, Stoneatlon, Deralas, how can they be near extinct or insiginificant given we keep seeing htem in every expansion since cata....

Excatly the same arguemnt for high elves, whether Dalaran ones, or in Stormwind, whether Silver Covenant or a void high elf - they're there. The idea was not to make high elves redundant, who concludes that? The idea was to give you great choice in what you could play.

If we're going by numbers void elves, night elves, blood elves, gnomes, Draenei, tauren should not exist as playable because they've all had extinction level catastrophes - and yet there they are.

[Daevelian]

Nah, I always loved the High Elf aesthetic/lore since I started WoW at the very beginning of TBC and started religiously reading all the lore on Wowwiki/looking at all their art/etc. I especially wanted to actually play one when I started roleplaying in WOTLK, and that desire never went away. If anything it grew.

Getting the last laugh over someone like Obelisk, who was (past tense now ) perhaps the most obstinate and determined anti-playable-High Elf debater I've ever seen on any WoW/WoW-themed forum over the past few months/years, is just the cherry on top

I will admit, this is a very large reason why i am glad for this outcome.

[shoc]

I hope the internet archives this thread for future anthropologists to read. They won't believe how many people got caught up in pointless, pedantic bullshit that only ever boiled down to a single artist in California somewhere tweaking a couple textures. They will think that we lived in a golden glimmering utopia if the color of an Elfs hair in one particular game made the top 10 list of concern in someone's life.

[Monster Hunter]

I hope the internet archives this thread for future anthropologists to read. They won't believe how many people got caught up in pointless, pedantic bullshit that only ever boiled down to a single artist in California somewhere tweaking a couple textures. They will think that we lived in a golden glimmering utopia if the color of an Elfs hair in one particular game made the top 10 list of concern in someone's life.

technically compared to every other age in history this is the closest we have gotten to utopia.

[Segus1992]

Still no high elves. Just blood and void elves with blue eyes. All those people who say this is not about eye color will still be arguing they want the entire race with racials as high elves. And special high elves starting scenario.

You cant never do well with those people.

Let's be fair, those who asked for High Elves didn't -really- ask just for the blue eyes option - they wanted a dedicated race with a capital city, faction leader, voice work etc.

But that was never going to happen because what they were, in the character creation screen, would just be Blood Elves with blue eyes.

This was the best outcome a realistic High Elf hopeful could've asked for.

[Lahis]

Let's be fair, those who asked for High Elves didn't -really- ask just for the blue eyes option - they wanted a dedicated race with a capital city, faction leader, voice work etc.

But that was never going to happen because what they were, in the character creation screen, would just be Blood Elves with blue eyes.

This was the best outcome a realistic High Elf hopeful could've asked for.

To be fair, no new race since Draenei and Blood Elves has received a Capital city.

[Segus1992]

To be fair, no new race since Draenei and Blood Elves has received a Capital city.

Right, but they have all received an area dedicated to their race - especially if we're only considering the "real" races (only Kul Tiran and Zandalari of the Allied Races).

[Lahis]

Right, but they have all received an area dedicated to their race - especially if we're only considering the "real" races (only Kul Tiran and Zandalari of the Allied Races).

Oh, right.

Boralus and Daz'alor were introduced before the races and function as expansion hubs instead of traditional race capitals so I mentally filed them to different cabinet than capital cities. Though I suppose that means Kul Tirans and Zandalari are the first new races with Capitals since TBC.

[Kyriani]

I see it as Blizzard declaring "High Elves" as a soon to be extinct parent race with Blood and Void elves being its divergent evolutionary branches with the first going further into the Holy Sunwell theme while the other is all about void and shadow.

If I could take a guess "Alliance" High Elves are set to disappear soon with Blizzard eliminating the root of the problem by making them go back to Silvermoon since the war is over or follow Alleria with nothing else in between, did anyone say timeskip after Shadowlands?
I wonder what may happen to Vereesa in such scenario though.

While I can agree with your assessment that Blood Elves and Void Elves are the likely branches of Thalassian to continue going forth, why would the Alliance High Elves return to Silvermoon? They weren't living in human lands because of the war between the Horde and the Alliance or because they couldn't go back to Silvermoon. They could go back to Silvermoon at any time. They live in Alliance settlements because they chose to stick with the Alliance decades ago. The have friends and families where they are now just as the High Elves in Dalaran have lived there for 3000+ years and have no reason to return to Silvermoon.

I think the more likely scenario is that civilian Alliance High Elves (current npcs) who want to serve in the Alliance military or become adventurers (read: become players) will join the ranks of the Ren'dorei to be more capable and battle ready. Over generations we'd inevitably see the old Alliance Quel'dorei replaced with new generations of Ren'dorei (this assumes normal procreation is possible for Void Elves). It's not something I think we'll see happening "soon" though, but the longer WoW and other media continue to tell stories in the Warcraft universe, the more likely we are to see it start happening.

In any case, it seems that the legacy of the Quel'dorei will go forward with both Blood Elves and Void Elves. Both are High Elves at their core and the forthcoming shared aesthetics seem to indicate that.

[Yarathir]

Well, pretending that I'm something is not good enough for me, but the reactions seem to be mostly positive so I guess most people are happy with this "compromise".

Like I said, I'm sure they're just acknowledging that a High Elf allied race or (god forbid) a full on race has been out of the cards at least since Void Elves were added, if not before.

That's probably why.

- - - Updated - - -

Also just want to point out it's hella funny how many people are going "so blood elves are basically neutral now" LOL

Blood/Void Elf High Elves are doubleplus traitor agents.

[Lahis]

In any case, it seems that the legacy of the Quel'dorei will go forward with both Blood Elves and Void Elves. Both are High Elves at their core and the forthcoming shared aesthetics seem to indicate that.

I suppose if WoW 2 or some other Warcraft RPG that let you choose your race were to exist (and set sufficiently far ahead in the timeline), they could replace Blood Elf/Void Elf choice with Thalassian Elf race.

[Yarathir]

This is not about this being a lie, but, what if the reason these dropped so suddenly, it's because bad news are incomming? But they'll go, hey, remember when you got Helves? that was fun!

I assumed that they rushed this out (while the original plan may have been to add these skins to Void Elves in like 9.1 or 9.2 alongside the other AR customization options) in order to avoid the biggest flamefest and forum war that would have arisen if Blood Elves had just gotten blue eyes. Without Void Elves getting High Elf skins (until 9.1 or 9.2, but people wouldn't have known that until those patches)

[kingarthas]

Lorewise is it possible to be warlock with blue or golden eyes? Or paladin without golden eyes?

[Oswen]

While I can agree with your assessment that Blood Elves and Void Elves are the likely branches of Thalassian to continue going forth, why would the Alliance High Elves return to Silvermoon? They weren't living in human lands because of the war between the Horde and the Alliance or because they couldn't go back to Silvermoon. They could go back to Silvermoon at any time. They live in Alliance settlements because they chose to stick with the Alliance decades ago. The have friends and families where they are now just as the High Elves in Dalaran have lived there for 3000+ years and have no reason to return to Silvermoon.

I think the more likely scenario is that civilian Alliance High Elves (current npcs) who want to serve in the Alliance military or become adventurers (read: become players) will join the ranks of the Ren'dorei to be more capable and battle ready. Over generations we'd inevitably see the old Alliance Quel'dorei replaced with new generations of Ren'dorei (this assumes normal procreation is possible for Void Elves). It's not something I think we'll see happening "soon" though, but the longer WoW and other media continue to tell stories in the Warcraft universe, the more likely we are to see it start happening.

In any case, it seems that the legacy of the Quel'dorei will go forward with both Blood Elves and Void Elves. Both are High Elves at their core and the forthcoming shared aesthetics seem to indicate that.

Just like Danuser talked about roleplaying "Allerian stronghold elves going home" I could see high elves going back to Silvermoon since, with the war being over and no faction hostilities, there really is no reason not to go back to their country while still remaining "friends" with humans, dwarves, gnomes and all those they decided to side with with all this time.
Some however, just like you said, will probably prefer to remain as a militant force in the Alliance and join Alleria and the Ren'dorei instead, delving further into void magic without being shredded by ethereals in the progress, explaining their retained appearance.

In that scenario, especially if a timeskip truly happens at some point, the "High Elf" moniker would be extinct in an ideological way since all those who wanted to keep on with "the old ways" can now really do so by going back to Silvermoon just like before while also not being forced to hate and fight humans and the like.

In the end though Blood Elves aren't 100% the same as how they were before though, with a stronger focus on a, now also Holy, Sunwell their culture already shifted and will probably slowly keep doing so in both a biological (golden eyes etc) and ideological way, just as the Void Elves will in the opposite direction and in a more apparent way.

Quel'dorei legacy will continue to keep on living in both but at the end of the day it will still remain something from the past, bound to a world that really isn't the same anymore.

...and Blizzard will feel all mighty and smart because they will have finally fixed the 14 years old Thalassian debate that started all the way back in Vanilla and TBC.