Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Grythletubs]

Oh they will definitely be separate. Unhooking eye colour from the skins is one of the most fundamental changes they can make to character customization and one that is long, long overdue and will in fact be on every race in the game. I hope (allied races are up in the air).

As for the particular case of blue eyes on Blood Elves, everyone will spin the results a different way. Should they be granted, as I think they should, then that is an extra customization option for Blood Elves. If they are not granted, pro High Elf commentators will argue they are being 'reserved' for the exiles.

But we will not know until character customization is introduced in the Shadowlands alpha, so we are several months away from getting the information required to make an informed analysis.

So you're okay with the horde stealing an alliance race feature (high elf eyes) but you can't stand the idea of alliance players having access to their own race.
Wonderful logic, really sums up your novel over the last 2 years.

[Traveler Voltin]

i just feel like pointing out(probably again) before blizzard went full stupid. Alleria was supposed to have natural emerald green eyes.

so what is the problem with blood elves getting blue eyes?

[Obelisk Kai]

There are two races of playable Thalassian elves, one in each faction, it would be more judicious to propose as customization options for these two parts, the "Thalassian variants" of NPC non-playable from their respective faction,
You can not find ?

As you say, "the real players are more important than the NPCs" and especially the players of the alliance at the moment, given the disgusting allied races they have received ...

I cannot speak to the feelings of various Alliance players towards the allied races they received. But their feelings are in no way impactful when it comes to the potential customisations that will be offered to Blood Elves. Blood Elf players have consistently asked for warcraft 2 style tattoos and blue eyes and we hope to get these options with 9.0

Void Elves are the variant, not the standard, and they trod their own path. Blood Elves and the exiles are the same race and whatever is possible for one is possible for the other, as they are the same.

So you're okay with the horde stealing an alliance race feature (high elf eyes) but you can't stand the idea of alliance players having access to their own race.
Wonderful logic, really sums up your novel over the last 2 years.

The high elf exiles are not an Alliance race. The exiles are a dissident political faction of a horde race. If blue eyes, which at the end of the day is just an eye colour, are possible for Blood Elves (and all logic says they should be) then their addition as an option for Blood Elves will be welcome, especially alongside the other options we are doubtless going to be getting.

[Frenchvince]

I cannot speak to the feelings of various Alliance players towards the allied races they received. But their feelings are in no way impactful when it comes to the potential customisations that will be offered to Blood Elves. Blood Elf players have consistently asked for warcraft 2 style tattoos and blue eyes and we hope to get these options with 9.0

Void Elves are the variant, not the standard, and they trod their own path. Blood Elves and the exiles are the same race and whatever is possible for one is possible for the other, as they are the same.

The blood elves, high elves, void elves, dark ranger, san'layn are all Thalassian elves but they are not all in the same faction, whether as a playable race or NPC.

The void elves have gone their way, certainly, but the high elves have also gone their own way, that of staying in the alliance.

The potential candidates to be a future playable race or a customization option, according to the best known requests of the players, are obviously:
- the high elves, for the alliance
- the dark ranger / undead thalassian elf and the san'layn for the horde

Blizzard can't give the alliance version of an NPC race like that to the horde without explanation.

For now, the identity of the factions must remain, something important in the eyes of Blizzard.

[Obelisk Kai]

The blood elves, high elves, void elves, dark ranger, san'layn are all Thalassian elves but they are not all in the same faction, whether as a playable race or NPC.

The void elves have gone their way, certainly, but the high elves have also gone their own way, that of staying in the alliance.

The potential candidates to be a future playable race or a customization option, according to the best known requests of the players, are obviously:
- the high elves, for the alliance
- the dark ranger / undead thalassian elf and the san'layn for the horde

Blizzard can't give the alliance version of an NPC race like that to the horde without explanation.

For now, the identity of the factions must remain, something important in the eyes of Blizzard.

The exiles are not an NPC race. They are a dissident faction of a playable Horde race. There is little reason to restrict biological features from the playable version of that race on the basis of faction differentiation when the dissident grouping does not contribute to the identity of the faction. Therefore the sole rationale Blizzard needs to explain why Blood Elves may get blue eyes is that Blood Elf players have been asking for it. A lore rationale has been provided in the past however, that just as the holy aspect of the sunwell to which all non-void elves are connected is the source of golden eyes, so the arcane aspect of that very same sunwell could restore blue eyes to others.

There is not one high elf exile player within the Alliance who can object to this.

[FlubberPuddy]

I cannot speak to the feelings of various Alliance players towards the allied races they received.

This is pretty bullshit since I remember you making a thread about how the various Alliance players will feel towards getting Mechagnomes when they'd be inevitably paired with Vulpera and how Blizzard can stymie the upset that would occur.

Said thread: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...on-(Spoilers-)

Plus it's not hard to look and see that overall Alliance feel they got a shitty end of the stick for AR, despite some good ones like Dark Iron.

[Maxilian]

I'd be on for that. We haven't seen blood mage give belves red eyes so far, but I'm into it.

Well to be fair, most Blood Mages in the Blood Elf ranks do not actually use blood magic but fire magic (No idea why the name though)

[scubi666stacy]

So you're okay with the horde stealing an alliance race feature (high elf eyes) but you can't stand the idea of alliance players having access to their own race.
Wonderful logic, really sums up your novel over the last 2 years.

The Horde did not steal anything. High Elves do not belong into the Alliance anymore since they have become Blood Elves and have been deemed to extermination by Garithos and his ilk. Every "High Elf" who still plays an Alliance lapdog is disgusting.

High Elf NPCs are to Blood Elves just the same as the Defias Brotherhood are to the Stormwind Humans, for example. They are discontent with some decisions made by their leadership and now are enemies of their own people. That's it.

[Frenchvince]

The exiles are not an NPC race. They are a dissident faction of a playable Horde race. There is little reason to restrict biological features from the playable version of that race on the basis of faction differentiation when the dissident grouping does not contribute to the identity of the faction. Therefore the sole rationale Blizzard needs to explain why Blood Elves may get blue eyes is that Blood Elf players have been asking for it. A lore rationale has been provided in the past however, that just as the holy aspect of the sunwell to which all non-void elves are connected is the source of golden eyes, so the arcane aspect of that very same sunwell could restore blue eyes to others.

There is not one high elf exile player within the Alliance who can object to this.

High elves, not exiles ...
For information, not all high elves are exiles.

It was not me who made the rules, it was Blizzard who chose to differentiate the two races of Thalassian elves to give an identity to the factions.

Regarding the request of the High Elves by the players, The balance leans more towards the alliance than the horde, this request is not exclusive only on this thread, you should know it since the time that you are in this thread.

[Thalassian Bob]

Blue eyes are not a flag colour, they are a by-product of thalassian biology. Glowing green eyes has represented being in the presence of fel ambience. Golden eyes has represented a connection with the holy aspect of the sunwell. Blue eyes would similarly reflect being in the presence of an arcane ambience or a stronger connection to the arcane aspect of the Sunwell.

Blue eyes therefore should not be denied to Blood Elf players for the sake of a group of unplayable NPCs, as actual players are more important of consideration than npcs.

Given that the Void Elves have been entirely transformed by the void, it is hard to see how they could have green eyes. As proven by Xhul'horac in Hellfire Citadel, shadow and fel energies do not co-mingle (unlike arcane and holy which can safely co-mingle with each other). Thus part of the process of the conversion of the former blood/high elves into Void Elves will likely have been the purging of all remaining traces of their taint.



Races with non glowing eyes will get the standard, blue, brown, green, gray.

Some races do not have human range eye colours and will have extra options, for example Orcs will have red and hopefully other shades.

In regards to the Blood Elves, I hope that we will get green, gold and blue and several different shades of each. We shall see how far they go once the alpha begins and they introduce the customization options as the builds are updated.

That would be cool and it would make sense because I think high elves had a wide array of eye colours before the events of TBC, but they all had the otherworldly glow of the Sunwell's energies. Like I remember it being said Alleria supposedly always had green eyes for example.

And there's perfect justification for it. The Fel radiation could finally be dissipating (not just being overridden by the new Light-infused magic of the Sunwell). And the Thalassians natural eye colours are now returning.

I think actually with the precedent the other increased customizations have set, you're more likely to get blue eyes on Blood Elves.

Simply because Blizzard has introduced these customizations with no intent to explain them in game, this isn't like Allied Races where a story/lore explanation is given as to why a particular group joins the Alliance or Horde.

This is straight up just "here's some skins, because we finally have the technology/resources to do it!" hence the unexplainable options of such things as Dark Trolls (where a literal single one in existence didn't stop this option), Blood Trolls apparently (actual troll lunatics who we are killing right now), Dark skin rumored on Blood Elves (destroys the argument a couple years earlier about "these are your fair skin elves"), Dark skin on Dwarves, Muddy colors on all Forsaken, Sand Trolls (who have been our enemies), etc etc.

None of those have any feasible explanations, and frankly the playerbase at large doesn't care. Because the playerbase at large just want more customization regardless. With these new customizations, and there being no in-universe explanation needed as to why we have them, it becomes apparent that simply asking for what you'd like for your characters from the developers is all that matters.

And I just want to put a disclaimer at the bottom that I'm fine with every single option as I want WoW's character customization to become really free-form in the sense that of ALL the options given within the game you should be able to make the exact kind of character you wish to play for your own enjoyment (similar to goal of what Ion said with these customizations). I'm merely pointing out that this situation isn't like Allied Races where an in-universe explanation was necessary for the option to be available. And that the playerbase at large understands this as well and don't give a shit (because really who does other than gatekeepers) judging from we haven't seen very many, if any, complaining about the lore/story inconsistencies of the increased customization options.

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What I can already see happening if Blood Elves get Blue eyes is the inevitable petty people against High Elves exclaiming, "hah see, High Elves are back with Blood Elves" "I'm changing to blue eyes as I've been a High Elf all along!" and all that sort of behavior.

Similar to how when the PTR showed a changing of eye glow we had a few posters come in here and tease, "look now we have High Elves! LOL" like bozos.

Time will tell, I suppose! I'm in the same boat as you. The more customisation the merrier! Though, only as long as it seems plausible preferably. The Darkspears recruiting a few sand or dark trolls into the Horde, some Grimtotems pledging themselves to the Bloodhoof chieftan or the occasional Wildhammer paladin all seems just fine to me!

[FlubberPuddy]

High Elf NPCs are to Blood Elves just the same as the Defias Brotherhood are to the Stormwind Humans, for example. They are discontent with some decisions made by their leadership and now are enemies of their own people. That's it.

Well it's a good thing people aren't asking for High Elves to be playable on the Horde, just like no one's asking for Defias Brotherhood to be playable on Alliance.

People are asking for the High Elves currently in the Alliance to be playable. That's it.

These High Elves certainly don't give a shit what the Blood Elves think of them.

[Ielenia]

The Horde did not steal anything. High Elves do not belong into the Alliance anymore since they have become Blood Elves and have been deemed to extermination by Garithos and his ilk.

But not all high elves have re-branded themselves into "blood elf". We still have many high elves in Warcraft, and in the Alliance.

[Grythletubs]

I cannot speak to the feelings of various Alliance players towards the allied races they received. But their feelings are in no way impactful when it comes to the potential customisations that will be offered to Blood Elves. Blood Elf players have consistently asked for warcraft 2 style tattoos and blue eyes and we hope to get these options with 9.0

Void Elves are the variant, not the standard, and they trod their own path. Blood Elves and the exiles are the same race and whatever is possible for one is possible for the other, as they are the same.



The high elf exiles are not an Alliance race. The exiles are a dissident political faction of a horde race. If blue eyes, which at the end of the day is just an eye colour, are possible for Blood Elves (and all logic says they should be) then their addition as an option for Blood Elves will be welcome, especially alongside the other options we are doubtless going to be getting.

Except they are part of the alliance and therefore an alliance race.
They literally still identify as high elves.
Blood elves do not still identify as high elves.

So yes, you're essentially saying that it's okay for blood elves to steal eyes that are strictly related to high elves/quel'dorei/not-blood elf elves, who are strictly alliance or neutral, but you're not okay with alliance players playing these already available high elves.

Flawless.
Logic.

How about instead of your 2 year crusade over pixels that you won't even play, request that the devs eliminate the remaining high elves (by folding them into void elves/having them join the blood elves or whatnot) instead? That way it would finally actually make no sense for them to be played by alliance.
That would make much more sense logically.

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The Horde did not steal anything. High Elves do not belong into the Alliance anymore since they have become Blood Elves and have been deemed to extermination by Garithos and his ilk. Every "High Elf" who still plays an Alliance lapdog is disgusting.

High Elf NPCs are to Blood Elves just the same as the Defias Brotherhood are to the Stormwind Humans, for example. They are discontent with some decisions made by their leadership and now are enemies of their own people. That's it.

I did not say the horde stole anything, but that is what obe is suggesting, that blood elves receive blue eyes which is a feature strictly related to high elves.

Your stance sounds alot more like a personal hatred for high elves, completely unrelated to the fact that they're alliance, which is why people are requesting them.

You completely ignore that defias humans are factionless, if they were horde I would honestly not see a problem with people requesting them.

[scubi666stacy]

Except they are part of the alliance and therefore an alliance race.
They literally still identify as high elves.
Blood elves do not still identify as high elves.

So yes, you're essentially saying that it's okay for blood elves to steal eyes that are strictly related to high elves/quel'dorei/not-blood elf elves, who are strictly alliance or neutral, but you're not okay with alliance players playing these already available high elves.

Flawless.
Logic.

How about instead of your 2 year crusade over pixels that you won't even play, request that the devs eliminate the remaining high elves (by folding them into void elves/having them join the blood elves or whatnot) instead? That way it would finally actually make no sense for them to be played by alliance.
That would make much more sense logically.

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I did not say the horde stole anything, but that is what obe is suggesting, that blood elves receive blue eyes which is a feature strictly related to high elves.

Your stance sounds alot more like a personal hatred for high elves, completely unrelated to the fact that they're alliance, which is why people are requesting them.

You completely ignore that defias humans are factionless, if they were horde I would honestly not see a problem with people requesting them.

I don't hate "High Elves". I play one since TBC - a proud citizen of Silvermoon, and a Blood Elf.

What I cannot stand is the enormous revisionist density of some people who just cannot accept that Blizzard took a very specific story route for their High Elf interpretation in World of Warcraft. This is the core problem. Accept that Blood Elves are High Elves, and that they belong to the Horde.

[matrix123mko]

I don't hate "High Elves". I play one since TBC - a proud citizen of Silvermoon, and a Blood Elf.

What I cannot stand is the enormous revisionist density of some people who just cannot accept that Blizzard took a very specific story route for their High Elf interpretation in World of Warcraft. This is the core problem. Accept that Blood Elves are High Elves, and that they belong to the Horde.

But there are some foolish high elves that serve their human overlords.

[Ielenia]

I don't hate "High Elves".

This post of yours begs to differ:

Every "High Elf" who still plays an Alliance lapdog is disgusting.

I play one since TBC - a proud citizen of Silvermoon, and a Blood Elf.

Wrong. You play a blood elf.

What I cannot stand is the enormous revisionist density of some people who just cannot accept

There is no "revisionism" from our part, here. The high-elf supporters want to play a Thalassian race that has been part of the Alliance for many, many, many years. Simple as that.

Blizzard took a very specific story route for their High Elf interpretation in World of Warcraft.

And that "very specific story route" is the high elves who refused to follow the blood elves. That's the "very specific story route" we want to follow.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Well to be fair, most Blood Mages in the Blood Elf ranks do not actually use blood magic but fire magic (No idea why the name though)

I think it's just the snazz factor tbh

[Grythletubs]

I don't hate "High Elves". I play one since TBC - a proud citizen of Silvermoon, and a Blood Elf.

What I cannot stand is the enormous revisionist density of some people who just cannot accept that Blizzard took a very specific story route for their High Elf interpretation in World of Warcraft. This is the core problem. Accept that Blood Elves are High Elves, and that they belong to the Horde.

Correct, blood elves are horde. It's a good thing then that people are requesting the current alliance high elves, not the horde blood elves.

What you're playing is a blood elf.
Blood elves do not identify as high elves ever since they took the name blood elf.
Current high elves still identify as high elves ever since they took the name high elf ~3000 years before blood elves even existed.

Not sure how to break it down further for ya, it's not as complex and deep as some of you make it seem.

Your "proud blood elf" RP doesn't somehow amplify your logic, neither does your total disregard for what I stated about your comment about comparing faction-less humans to currently alliance high elves.

And by the way, no one has to "accept" anything, you're not entitled to what people want to play, especially when it has literally zero effect on your gameplay since you'll continue playing a blood elf just like you are now, whether high elves are made playable or not.

[Maxilian]

High elves, not exiles ...
For information, not all high elves are exiles.

To be fair, ALL HE are Exiled, ALL BE are Exiled, just ask the Night Elves :P (I know you initially meant from Silvermoon)

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I think it's just the snazz factor tbh

Sounds like a really Elf thing to do

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Sounds like a really Elf thing to do

It's about the A E S T H E T I C