Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[FlubberPuddy]

No. They are High Elves fans. You really need to understand that Blood Elves and High Elves aren't the same group at all anymore. It's not that hard to understand, come one. You can do it, i believe in you !

He really can't wrap his head around the fact that there exists a group on Alliance that are high elves and Alliance players wish to play them.

It's like having two houses with yards separated by a fence.

On one yard there is a plethora of "Red Roses" that people are free to pick/interact with by the behest of their property owner.

The other yard contains a few "Blue Roses" that are blocked off by a fence, people can look but not interact with them at the behest of their property owner.

The people in that yard continue wishing to their property owner they could interact with their blue roses, all the while the people in the yard with red roses are looking over the fence and keep hollering "you want to play with our red roses!!"

That's Obelisk's mindset for you.

[elbleuet]

This thread was once such a nice place for high elf fans to share their ideas on how to implemente them, to share their pics about high elves as a playable race, to discuss about the lore...

Obelisk Kai and other anti-helfers completely ruined it just because they're obsessed to tell us "No I don't want you to get them, and you will not get them. Also blood elves are high elves, deal with it, bye.".

High elf fans are also to be blamed (myself included) for answering them whereas they have no intention to be constructive from the beginning.

I miss the old times.

[Aldo Hawk]

No. They are High Elves fans. You really need to understand that Blood Elves and High Elves aren't the same group at all anymore. It's not that hard to understand, come one. You can do it, i believe in you !

His pride is too sickening for him to admit how much he twisted facts and statements to defend a selfish point.

How many times has he repeated that Blood elves and High elves aren't different races, as if actually someone needed to be told that?

It's a lost cause, forget him.

[Obelisk Kai]

This thread was once such a nice place for high elf fans to share their ideas on how to implemente them, to share their pics about high elves as a playable race, to discuss about the lore...

Obelisk Kai and other anti-helfers completely ruined it just because they're obsessed to tell us "No I don't want you to get them, and you will not get them. Also blood elves are high elves, deal with it, bye.".

High elf fans are also to be blamed (myself included) for answering them whereas they have no intention to be constructive from the beginning.

I miss the old times.

I will just point out that this was never actually the case. A simple return to the start of the thread has the first 'anti high elf' post occurring on the fourth post and then popping up with recurring frequency until it was consumed by the usual debate. It was never really the pure haven you suggest it was, which isn't surprising. When this thread was initially created there were several threads on this topic raging.

This thread was chosen by the mods to be the megathread. It could have been any of the others. But let's not pretend it was more than what it has been.

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I'll take blonde, blue eyed night elves and brown skinned, and black haired blood elves as a clear indication of homogenization of elf kind, and shift in creative direction from previous restrictive decisions, but I have no problem waiting and seeing.

Then blonde, blue eyed gnomes are homogenized with black haired, brown skinned Humans? You are drawing correlations where none exist in an attempt to prove a point that doesn't make sense, that Blizzard wishes to homogenize the choices.

Which isn't even the matter being discussed. As options are expanded, particularly hair colour and eye colour, there is going to be some overlap in terms of the options offered and that doesn't matter. After all, blonde Blood Elves co-exist quite happily with blonde Humans without complaint. Blonde Night Elves will co-exist.

The particular point of contention is between Void Elves and Blood Elves, with attempts to degrade the differentiation between the two in an attempt to produce an ersatz high elf result and the fact that this result flies in the face of the rationale given for the creation of the Void Elves in the first place.

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Yeah, you might be right in it being unique to Kael, but it looks like that same person who found the skin textures has also dug up blue eyes (as well as other cool colours like purple and red) that are likely going to be for the blood elves (The one gold and grey one looks cool! Might be for Lor'themar-esque face scars!).


I'm really hoping we see some striking prime colour Farstrider-style tattoos as well! Something I've wanted for ages (along with Wildhammer ink!)! Combine the tattoos and blue eyes and I might retroactively start thinking of my hunter as one of the Allerian expeditions elves who decided to join the blood elven fold as opposed to maintaining ties with the Alliance back on Azeroth.

The larger skin tone spectrum is not something I for one am particularly supportive of. I'm all for a realistic range of Azerothian human skin tones because, like in our world, humans in Azeroth live in a wide variety of climates, but the high elves have lived in a single contained northerly kingdom for millennia - likely with very few generations between Dath'remar and contemporary Quel'Thalas. I suppose you could explain it as different shades of Kaldorei Highborne families developing differently once the Quel'dorei phenotype was properly established though.

It doesn't bother me enough to complain about it much either. Especially if it's going to make people happy.

That particular dataminer later stated the eye colours could be for Worgen, however the way they phrased it is somewhat confusing in that I am unsure if they are referring to both sets of eye colours they datamined OR the later four they datamined (implying the first four are for Blood Elves).

Yes, Farstrider type tattoos should be provided as a customization option for Blood Elves, reflective of their Warcraft 2 heritage. Some Troll, Dwarf and Orc tattoos have been datamined and they are all rooted in the culture of those races. Farstrider type tattoos are the most appropriate style of tattoo for the Blood Elves, particularly given as the runic tattoo style (depicted on the cover art of TBC but never in game) is more associated with the Nightborne now.

The broad skin tone range not being analogous to how it would have developed in the real world, I don't think that is important. It is better to have the option than to not have it, and all races with the human skin tone range are now getting an actual human skin tone range. Some things just don't need to be explained in a fantasy world. On this occasion, a wizard did it is a fine explanation.

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No. They are High Elves fans. You really need to understand that Blood Elves and High Elves aren't the same group at all anymore. It's not that hard to understand, come one. You can do it, i believe in you !

No, they are not. Blood Elves are a race. The group that calls themselves high elves are a rebel political faction of that race. The only thing differentiating them from the Blood Elves is their affinity to the Alliance. The fantasy they offer then is exactly the same as that offered by the Blood Elves, i.e the standard fantasy high elf. Unfortunately for those seeking them within the Alliance, the game is predicated on a two faction system, and the traditional high elf fantasy is now an intrinsic part of the Horde experience. Offering that to the Alliance devalues the divide between the two factions, and two strong, interesting factions are kept that way if they are kept distinct.

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He really can't wrap his head around the fact that there exists a group on Alliance that are high elves and Alliance players wish to play them.

It's like having two houses with yards separated by a fence.

On one yard there is a plethora of "Red Roses" that people are free to pick/interact with by the behest of their property owner.

The other yard contains a few "Blue Roses" that are blocked off by a fence, people can look but not interact with them at the behest of their property owner.

The people in that yard continue wishing to their property owner they could interact with their blue roses, all the while the people in the yard with red roses are looking over the fence and keep hollering "you want to play with our red roses!!"

That's Obelisk's mindset for you.

That is a terrible analogy as it infers difference. They are not different, they are the same. Under the correct analogy, both sets of roses would be red, with some of the roses from the first yard having crept into the second yard where a handful of them cluster need the fence dividing the two yards. If the owner of the second yard pointed at his wilting, bedraggled red roses and said they were as important a feature of his garden as the rows upon rows of healthy, well tended red roses are a feature of the first yard, the first owner wouldn't be impressed.

In the end, the second gardener gets some blue roses of his very own. Similar to the red roses, but distinct and different all the same. They never comprise as large a part of the second garden as the red roses do of the first garden, but they still contribute and best of all, they are most definitely his.

Convoluted metaphors aside, so long as the game comprises two unique factions, if you want to play a traditional high elf, the Horde faction is there. If you can't stomach the Horde, the Void Elf compromise is there. Either way you have options. If neither option suits, as someone said very recently, you can't make everyone happy. I believe you agree with that sentiment?

[Shayatu]

Like they did for the Horde Allied Races, you can alter the high elf model to be different from blood elves. Easy to understand, since the majority of the high elf population live comparably different lives from the blood elf population. It isn't only the skin tones and eyes we're asking for. We want to feel like we are playing a high elf that were exiled from their home, the high elves that remained loyal to the Alliance and lived among them and the dwarves for many years. Their values are different from the blood elves, and you can see how the blood elves react(ed) to that with the thalassians that don't/didn't agree with the direction their people were going. They were harassed, silenced, even brainwashed by the joined efforts of the Magisters and the "Priests". It's one of the reasons why I started to rp a blood elf ranger that smuggles Quel'thalas citizens out from the city to join with the high elves at their lodges, in Dalaran, and Stormwind.

There are definitely ways to make the High Elf race work for the Alliance, to make them look and feel different from the blood elves. Another thing that could also be done for the High Elf race is giving them the half-elf appearance, to further demolish the argument of their population size. Also, the case about the eyes. We don't want just glowing blue eyes. We want regular human-like eyes as well. To involve my rped stories, we could also arguably add a non-glowing fel green eyes. These could be the high elves that are from Outland and the blood elves that my character smuggled out of the city.

[Kyphael]

-snip-

Nobody is interested in arguing semantics anymore, or regurgitating the same arguments ad nauseam. Like I said, I'll come back to rub your nose in those Void Elf customize options when they, like blood elves are receiving options to look like their faction leader, receive customize options to look like Alleria.

[Obelisk Kai]

Nobody is interested in arguing semantics anymore, or regurgitating the same arguments ad nauseam. Like I said, I'll come back to rub your nose in those Void Elf customize options when they, like blood elves are receiving options to look like their faction leader, receive customize options to look like Alleria.

A Void Elf with high elf customisations is still a Void Elf, not a high elf. You are planning two years in advance to be gloating at me whilst waving your booby prize at me. If that makes you feel better, well you do you.

[Kyphael]

A Void Elf with high elf customisations is still a Void Elf, not a high elf. You are planning two years in advance to be gloating at me whilst waving your booby prize at me. If that makes you feel better, well you do you.

Could be less than two years! At any rate, like I said earlier, any rational player seeking to play out the High Elf fantasy on the Alliance would happily settle for Alleria-like customization on a Void Elf. If the shoe fits, and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

[Shayatu]

Only way I can ever see that working is if the void elf allied race were no longer just Void Elf. It would have to be the Exiled Elves, meaning both High Elf and Void Elf, rather than a reskinned void elf. That would also mean a change in the racials, which I doubt will happen. It'd be easier to give the Alliance the high elves as its own separate race.

[Gurluas]

Only way I can ever see that working is if the void elf allied race were no longer just Void Elf. It would have to be the Exiled Elves, meaning both High Elf and Void Elf, rather than a reskinned void elf. That would also mean a change in the racials, which I doubt will happen. It'd be easier to give the Alliance the high elves as its own separate race.

I'd be down for this as a solution to the issue.

[Shayatu]

A reasonable solution if Blizzard wanted to be stubborn. The void elf would become only an appearance. Maybe the racials can be chosen based off of which appearances you use, or by choosing it like the Zandalari totems.

[Strippling]

Well, there we go. @Obelisk Kai I know you want this thread to get to 999 pages, but Shadowlands Alpha is appearing like even Blizzard is tired of this trite old argument, and no longer care about your precious faction-distinct restrictions. I'm not here to argue semantics, just point out the obvious new direction. I told you some time ago I'd be here when you finally were made to eat crow, and I'm giving ample warning time that's coming, and the verbal rubbing of nose into the piss puddle will be aplenty and shameless! >:O)

High elf customizations for void elves is extremely unlikely. It'd do nothing but "un-void" them, which is kind of the whole purpose to their theme. Blizzard have already told you that blood elves are high elves, and if you'd like to play a high elf the option is already there for you and has been since TBC.

[Strippling]

Which is your opinion.

Blood Elves are getting the Lor'themar scar eye option to emulate their leader.

This is the same I've seen VE fans asking for about Alleria. "I want to look like Alleria" is a resounding commonality from those players.

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?

[Kyphael]

High elf customizations for void elves is extremely unlikely. It'd do nothing but "un-void" them, which is kind of the whole purpose to their theme. Blizzard have already told you that blood elves are high elves, and if you'd like to play a high elf the option is already there for you and has been since TBC.

The option to look like their racial leader, Alleria, like blood elves will now have the ability to look like Lor'themar Theron, would mean they're still void elves.

[Shayatu]

Blizzard have already told you that blood elves are high elves, and if you'd like to play a high elf the option is already there for you and has been since TBC.

Blood elves may have been high elves back in the day, but the high elves allied with the Alliance have never been blood elves. They have been very specific that they are NOT blood elves. In fact, they often find it insulting to be considered blood elf.

[Strippling]

Which is why this debate is moving past the possibility of a distinct allied race to the whole void elf skin angle.

Which just shows it was never about "lore", it was always about an aesthetic. If they cared about the lore so much they wouldn't ask for high elf options via void elves.

[Kyphael]

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?

Are you joking? How about the obvious gross demand?

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Which just shows it was never about "lore", it was always about an aesthetic. If they cared about the lore so much they wouldn't ask for high elf options via void elves.

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

[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.