Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[FlubberPuddy]

This topic has derailed into something else many times.. coming here now calling me out on where this thread is about and even gotten it wrong spoken like a true high elf fan.

Anyway dude goodluck debating with some one else, you not gonna argument me over anytime soon.

It gets derailed because the fundamental point isn't about 'a race of high elves' it's asking for Silver Covenant/other Alliance High Elves to be playable. Elves already in the Alliance since Vanilla.

No one gives a shit about blood elves in this request, but derailers will come and put the focus on that when it's not related at all to what the request is.

Not sure what's so hard to understand about it.

And no one needs to argument with you or anyone anyway. Thread is supposed to be focused on suggestions/differentiations that can make playable Silver Covenant/Highvale/other High Elves already on Alliance playable without regard to Void Elves or Blood Elves.

No different than people making threads on Wildhammer Dwarves and being told "roll a dwarf shaman there is your Wildhammer." It's derailing and not what the request is about. And guess what? Players are finally getting Wildhammer because Blizzard is finally adding the look in. Before then everyone understood a Wildhammer isn't playable, except for people who purposely are trying to troll or derail a thread.

Same thing happening here.

[Frenchvince]

Some new art, fresh from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...em_more_by_me/

I love the tattoos on the ears !

Most fan art that we see on high elves are oriented in the same direction, that of the ranger farstrider, and it suits them so well.
The blood elves have sort of become city elves like the ones from Suramar and this is reflected in their customization options.

Blizzard is very much helped by the artists of the WOW community to give it examples in order to differentiate between HE and BE.

[Alanar]

It gets derailed because the fundamental point isn't about 'a race of high elves' it's asking for Silver Covenant/other Alliance High Elves to be playable.

No one gives a shit about blood elves in this request, but derailers will come and put the focus on that when it's not related at all to what the request is.

Sorry but what you are saying isn't the case.. you can say it's about high elves, the other guy says it's about showing the differnces of the 2 elf grps and why they need to be Alliance. Look dude.. see how many pages this thread has? there is no way you can make sure it's about what you are saying a 100%, shit get derailed Always. Blood elves matter a ton in this topic because they are the same race, so OBVIOUSLY you gonna get the comments.

Nothing is hard to understand here for me lets to be completely clear, it's just that it's very hard to explain something to people and gets bombarded with cringy home made fan pictures and a bunch of headcanon and why I am so bad for speaking out. This thread is just pure toxic and enough is enough if you ask me.

the topic is dated and it's shows.. the las few pages is nothing but showing true colors of people and lots of people getting banned left and right, it's realy time to end this tbh. Realy would like to fill in a complain register if there was one about some people here.

[FlubberPuddy]

I love the tattoos on the ears !

Most fan art that we see on high elves are oriented in the same direction, that of the ranger farstrider, and it suits them so well.
The blood elves have sort of become city elves like the ones from Suramar and this is reflected in their customization options.

Blizzard is very much helped by the artists of the WOW community to give it examples in order to differentiate between HE and BE.

One of the comments in that reddit thread said has someone saying that Blood Elves and Void Elves are too magical and that they always pictured the High Elves as an in-between Night Elves (wood elves) and Blood Elves (magic elves).

I think that would be an appropriate interpretation to go towards.

It's funny to see people keep saying "you just want blood elves" when I don't think many care for what Blood Elves are/have.

I like that High Elves are exiled.

I like that High Elves aren't xenophobic/don't consider themselves superior to other races.

I like that they're refugees among the Alliance.

I like that they hate the Horde and dislike Blood Elves for joining them.

I like that Elisande says they're not worthy of the High Elf name because they chose to intermingle.

All those things are part of High Elves that aren't part of Blood Elves.

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Sorry but what you are saying isn't the case.. you can say it's about high elves, the other guy says it's about showing the differnces of the 2 elf grps and why they need to be Alliance. Look dude.. see how many pages this thread has? there is no way you can make sure it's about what you are saying a 100%, shit get derailed Always. Blood elves matter a ton in this topic because they are the same race, so OBVIOUSLY you gonna get the comments.

Nothing is hard to understand here for me lets to be completely clear, it's just that it's very hard to explain something to people and gets bombarded with cringy home made fan pictures and a bunch of headcanon and why I am so bad for speaking out. This thread is just pure toxic and enough is enough if you ask me.

the topic is dated and it's shows.. the las few pages is nothing but showing true colors of people and lots of people getting banned left and right, it's realy time to end this tbh. Realy would like to fill in a complain register if there was one about some people here.

If Blood Elves matter why are completely new threads made to discuss specifics on Blood Elves and why aren't they merged here? Why aren't Void Elf threads merged here, why is there a different Void Elf discussion thread?

Because everyone knows what's being talked about when mentioning High Elves, not the race itself but a specific group on the Alliance identifying themselves as such, except for those who come purposely to derail it.

If you feel the thread and/or topic is toxic/dated then you can show yourself out, no one is forcing anyone to come in here and comment on the thread.

I hope you and other detractors realize that this thread wouldn't be as big as it is if it wasn't for constant derailment. My proof is go see the other race request threads on the official forums that aren't as popular and thus have less detractors and look how small those are.

People love to troll, it's easy, it's quick.

Also there is a function to register complaints, hope you know that.

[elbleuet]

You cannot claim something is a bug when they have repeatedly been reported as a bug, and when given the opportunity to change them accordingly, Blizzard opted to just update them while keeping them blue eyed.
Let alone that voices has nothing to do with it. Of course they would keep blood elf voices accordingly.

And recognized as bugs. You just have to deal with it. You aren't getting blue-eyed elves anytime soon. That's an Alliance thing.
And just for recall, it took years and years to fix Arator's eyes.

Let alone that voices has nothing to do with it. Of course they would keep blood elf voices accordingly.

Of course it does.

It has been confirmed blue-eyed blood elves are not a Horde thing. If they were high elves, they would have... high elf voices. That's as simple as that. But they don't.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

One of the comments in that reddit thread said has someone saying that Blood Elves and Void Elves are too magical and that they always pictured the High Elves as an in-between Night Elves (wood elves) and Blood Elves (magic elves).

I think that would be an appropriate interpretation to go towards.

It's funny to see people keep saying "you just want blood elves" when I don't think many care for what Blood Elves are/have.

I like that High Elves are exiled.

I like that High Elves aren't xenophobic/don't consider themselves superior to other races.

I like that they're refugees among the Alliance.

I like that they hate the Horde and dislike Blood Elves for joining them.

I like that Elisande says they're not worthy of the High Elf name because they chose to intermingle.

All those things are part of High Elves that aren't part of Blood Elves.

That's a very interesting point really; even Night Elves and Nightborne are as well too magical, either by Elune and Druidism or Arcane.

High Elves could fill that niche of a more "grounded" or "practical" elf, where the iconic archetype focus on the wilds ranger or the marksman, all of this who harkens back to their initial appearance in War2. This is not saying that other elf groups don't have rangers, but that none of them have them as a priority at this point -I feel I have been making this argument for years heh-

As someone that also loves blood elves, high elves just fill a different niche. The BE are all about the reclaimed opulence, the "comeback", and being extra about it. I love that about BE's aesthetically. High Elves are the opposite in a way, the dogpiled that were left kinda lost and barely remain by either assimilating into humans or clinging to specific aspects of their culture, that they have to believe they made the right choice because that's all they have really.

Thematically High Elves could be so interesting and they are already there in the world, as I have said multiple times, playability is not an issue about lore, but merely gameplay design.

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You cannot claim something is a bug when they have repeatedly been reported as a bug, and when given the opportunity to change them accordingly, Blizzard opted to just update them while keeping them blue eyed.
Let alone that voices has nothing to do with it. Of course they would keep blood elf voices accordingly.

People have already pointed out how devs have said those are bugs, so it's this about not you believing them?

Regardless of it, what Ion's statements tells us is that blue eyes are not part of the aesthetic design they want for Blood Elves. So Blue eyes Blood Elves, whether they exist or not, are at best too much of an outlier to be a playable choice, which again, is based solely in a design choice from the devs.

It is, at its core, as discretional as High Elves not being playable, because aesthetically, they are just too close to Blood Elves.

So that's the thing, Blood Elves can't have blue eyes and High Elves can't be playable, even if both things can be easily explained by lore, because it's just discretional design choices. You can't make a lore argument on those because they are gameplay design decisions which then use lore to justify themselves post fact -like why Void Elves are blue-

What you don't realize is that by saying "Blood elves should totally have blue eyes" you are making the same argument that pro-helfers do "High elves should be playable", because you are pressuming lore dictates gameplay when it's the other way around. The only difference is that to you, your own biased design choice is the correct one, even when both are ultimately as subjective.

[Broflake]

we're likely to get playable "(high) arrakoa" before high elves at this point. Which would totally be 99% cooler.

yyyyyessss

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I quoted you because you've used moorgard's tweets as official statements. So has Obelisk Kai.

You didn't quote, you tagged, it wasn't necessary Pen. The discussion as to whether or not they are official isn't really much up for debate anyway.

I think what Frenchvince means is the developers have declared no blue eyed blood elves so asking a player why be against them is basically useless.

No, that is not what he meant. His point was its pointless to ask since devs weighed against it.
My primary point is that if a dev says no to one thing and therefore the argument is over, why does this not apply to the high elf request? It is a creation of a double standard to say "devs said no so dont ask" then say "but I can ask for what I want even if the devs dont support me.".
If one is okay, then the other should be fine.

You're not gonna get anywhere with that as since the developers made that decision you should essentially take it up with them.

Does this not apply to high elves as well>

You really show how much you don't navigate what Alliance players see/feel/do.

As an Alliance player, I don't agree with you on this statement. You are attempting to suggest that the vocal complaints of alliance players are somehow different from those of the Horde. Many of the complaints are applicable to the Horde because of the same designs.
Zandalari = straight backed troll = Kul tirans = strong man human
Different model for the same race.

Dark Iron and LF dranei = HM tauren and Maghar
Reskins of existing races.
Void elves and Night borne = elf swap recoloring. With nightborne being atrocious
Alliance players are not unique in their complaints.

The reason Horde requests are more feasible is because they are requesting things that are much more inline with Blizzard's design and general game design.
high elves are a copy paste of blood elves design wise. So its not going to happen and Ion iterated as such.

DID were a thing because they were something that could be accomplished.
Broken couldnt be for whatever reasons.

[Obelisk Kai]

Broken couldnt be for whatever reasons.

Occam's razor says the simplest and most obvious explanation is the correct one.

I figure they took a look at the effort it would involve to rig up multiple brand new faces on the Broken and just 'noped' out of it. Which is sad, I think they would have been more effective an allied race than the Lightforged Draenei.

[Broflake]

And recognized as bugs.

It has been quite clearly determined not to be a bug, given they've never been fixed and a dev commented that Lanesh's design has a story behind it. You can claim bug as much as you want, but there is little to indicate otherwise.

You aren't getting blue-eyed elves anytime soon. That's an Alliance thing.

You can't claim it as an alliance thing if there are blood elves with blue eyes.
Particularly when the Horde does possess the race you wish to play.

And just for recall, it took years and years to fix Arator's eyes.

It wasn't that it was fixed, it is that the option became available.
in WoW's hardcoded design, the face and eyes are linked together.
This is why when you select golden eyed blood elves, it goes through three faces rather than being a separate option.
Arator's eyes were never, lore wise, glowing fel green because he was never exposed to it, but it was the best they could do to show him in game.
The blue eyes were always an option, and now gold eyes are a correction, but Blizzard has intentionally left it alone.
So the claims of bugs isn't appropriate and to my knowledge, no dev has ever claimed sunreavers, frost mages, or bright sun and his buddies eyes were ever bugs.

Of course it does.

It doesn't. Sound files are just that, sound files.
A blood elf with blue eyes =/= bug
You're attributing something unrelated to support your claim.
The sky is only blue sometimes after all.

It has been confirmed blue-eyed blood elves are not a Horde thing. If they were high elves, they would have... high elf voices. That's as simple as that. But they don't.

High elves are the same race as blood elves.
Blue eyes are indeed a horde thing given the sunreavers, bright sun, lanesh, and I could go on.
High elf voices is for those who are...well..identifying as high elves.
If you're a blood elf, you get the voice, and then your eyes are whatever the devs want them to be. Your argument doesn't hold much weight to it.
Unless you wish to claim Sylvanas should be a night elf because she at one point, bugged and had night elf lines.

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People have already pointed out how devs have said those are bugs, so it's this about not you believing them?

Because they've said why THEY think its a bug, they haven't shown where devs declared it to be a bug.

The only difference is that to you, your own biased design choice is the correct one, even when both are ultimately as subjective.

The difference is that blood elves are playable, high elves are not. The two simply cannot be equated as the same.
Furthermore, you also appear to have missed my point is that both are player requests and if blue eyes can be shut down because a dev said no, then why does helfers not apply to the same thing?

My point is exactly the same as yours, but you misunderstood it because you jumped in without understanding fully where the discussion began on that point.

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Occam's razor says the simplest and most obvious explanation is the correct one.

I figure they took a look at the effort it would involve to rig up multiple brand new faces on the Broken and just 'noped' out of it. Which is sad, I think they would have been more effective an allied race than the Lightforged Draenei.

Not surprised to be honest. All of the allied races save for Kul tirans use an existing model, and are reskins.
That is why I hate the allied races.
Allied race really just means = reskins of what should have been customization options but we're blizzard and lazy.

[baskev]

They used other sources of magic to sate their addiction when the Sunwell wasn't available. The Sunwell is now available again so there is no need to consume magic from a different source. The exiles retain blue eyes because they weren't exposed to the fel ambience of the crystals in Silvermoon.

Learn 2 read. The new sunwell causes yellow eyes.
And not all are welcome or want to go there after all that has happend. And still not the whole point. years of being near such magic changes you. WoW has shown this several times.

Again, not true. If you had a jug of war and a bottle of water, the substance you are consuming from inside is still water. The Blood Elves drained arcane magic from mana wyrm vermin, the exiles used small relics containing arcane but in both instances, it was arcane magic that was consumed to sate the addiction.

False ( in part), they put up those fel crystals for what?!?!?!
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Blood_elf#Eyes read it...will yah.
So fel magic DID influence the eye color.

This strikes me as a case of confirmation bias. This topic has come up before, and the answer has not changed. Only a handful of blood elf skin tones were repurposed for use by the NPC exiles by replacing the green eyes with the blue. All selected tones come from the lighter end of the Blood Elf tonal range. But the point remains, all exile skin tones are available and in use by Blood Elves. And while it currently escapes me, one of the novels did make reference to a dark skinned high elf who would not have been impacted by the fel. I doubt ideology, the sole difference of meaning between the Blood Elves and the exiles, led only to the fairest skinned individuals remaining exiles. And I sincerely doubt Blizzard would be bat shit insane enough to imply that darker skin tones within the human range are the result of drawing on evil energies.

Facts are not bias, not pro or anti. They are observable things. Things that can been seen.
Most high elf ingame have been shown like this. Just look around. hell look at that cut scene i linked from suramar city.

Dark Iron Dwarves diverged centuries before the current time. In that period, multiple generations have lived and died. They also lived and died under the tyranny of the Firelord Ragnaros, whose presence has clearly had an impact on a group whose eyes are quite literally flaming and whose skin is ashen.
Frostborn likely diverged even farther back, several millenia most likely.
In contrast the exiles left just over ten years ago, which isn't even an appreciable fraction of an elven generation (they can live millenia) and their division is purely ideological.

Yes, but they change because they lived in a different area.
Man if only for my point there was something very corrupting near the blood elves. You know something that makes your skin turn green?!?! It has been shown ingame that fel magic is very potent.

Not a great point. There is after all a Goblin working for the Alliance, but that is no justification for the Alliance to get Goblins as a playable race. Leaving ideology aside, nothing differentiates a Blood Elf from an exile. They look the same. They have the same culture. They have the same theme. They are all bound to the same sunwell and will be subject to the same physiological changes the new Sunwell will cause, meaning they share the same destiny. In every way, Blood Elves represent the playable high elf option of world of warcraft. Duplicating that option to the Alliance degrades faction diversity. Their ideological differences are not enough to justify that sacrifice.

1 golbin...not 15% of the population...so what? there is just 1!!!!
They do differe...what is the difference between the horde and alliance....the believes they have. In your logic both should be on the same side. They are not...so something must make them join 1 side over the other...either the races/sub race they are or the believes they have.....

And where in my text did i ever write alliance should get high elves?!?!?!?! No where. My belief is that they should NOT do it for gameplay reasons. As for lore reasons...2 out of the 3 windrunner sisters and the families and other elves in their groups already proof they are at alliance side.

The population figure of a minimum of approximately 1400 individuals was arrived at using algebra and the figures that 10% of the high elf population survived the scourge invasion, 90% of those survivors became Blood Elves and 15% of those survivors journeyed to Outland. What it does not account for is loss of life due to the withdrawal when the sunwell was down among those unable to sate the addiction, those who suffered permanent mental and physical damage as a result of withdrawal, those who gave in and returned to Silvermoon to become Blood Elves, those who have since perished in Quel'lithien, and those who have died in the several struggles the silver covenant has participated in since wrath of the lich king. The 1% figure of the pre third war population figure was taken from classic. It is very likely much, much lower in number now as the exiles simply cannot replace their losses.

Yes i know these are not the precise numbers. But good enough to get the point across. Somewhere around 15% of the former silvermoon city high elves is not blood elf and works for/with the alliance. And find themselves a part of it.
1 out 7 is not a small group.

side notes:
Funny you sidestep the suramar city scene.....no answers for that huh?

as for your qoute from ion...The game itself has proven him wrong. And blizzard never has it wrong....you do not want classic remmember.


https://www.wowhead.com/news=312334/...tas-and-zoltan
the part: Blue-eyed Blood Elves are not planned to be character customization, just textures for NPCs.


But hey if ingame proof of the difference in looks is not good enough. Or a update post from blizzard...nothing will be good enough for you

[Obelisk Kai]

Untrue that "vast majority of Horde players didn't care about", Danuser admitted both sides were arguing for it and even internally they were making cases for each side. But they had to go with one and decided on Horde.

Danuser also stated they (Blizzard) knew that Nightborne would be one of the biggest 'gets' and the side that didn't get them would feel burned.

So, very very false that "majority of Horde didn't want" Nightborne. Both sides wanted them.

Interesting that it vexes you so much, probably because the information is easy to find that Horde greatly wanted Nightborne.

When I say the 'vast majority of the Horde' or the vast majority of any faction, I mean the totality of players, not just those who visit forums. Those who visit forums regarding World of Warcraft are but a tiny sliver of the game's overall population. This is why the forums and the feedback they offer needs to be very carefully parsed, as they can easily turn into echo chambers. Or, alternatively, a group of players can get into a debate and one side assumes it has majority support from the totality of the player base based on the tiny population of forum goers. The truth is, few things actually trigger the playerbase as a whole and reach beyond the forums. I have only seen three instances in wow history. The real ID fiasco, the flying fiasco in Warlords of Draenor and the desire for classic.

So while there was an active debate over Nightborne, there was nothing that communicated to players that the debate over Nightborne was going to be anything else than the same sterile topic people had had for years over a variety of other races we had met in any given expansion and then moved past. And the reason the Horde got Nightborne remains the same, the Alliance was getting Void Elves. A variant of our elf for a variant of the Alliance elf. Frankly I feel it would have been better to give Nightborne to the Alliance and Undead Elves to the Horde, that would have been a more logical outcome in my opinion, but I think their debates were skewed by the persistent demand from those who desired high elves on the Alliance.

No, this is you twisting words again. My entire premise is majority prefer to get what they've been requesting. You can only keep making arguments after you twist others' arguments and that makes yours look foolish.

No, you were quite straightforward. You began by complaining that the Horde gets everything it asks for you whilst the Alliance gets burned, and concluded by saying that Alliance players who would be outraged at the use of a rare racial addition to their faction being used up on the exiles would just get over it. All whilst the Horde would probably get something new and exciting, just to rub salt in the wounds. This appears to recognise a potential problem, Alliance irritation at how they think they are being treated, then to use that problem to advocate for what you specifically want, high elven exiles, whilst admitting that if the majority of the Alliance were upset at this (and they likely would be) they would get over it in time.

Your counterpoint that the majority would get what they are requesting seems ropey. As discussed earlier, forums are not accurate barometers of an idea's true popularity, they can help give an idea but that is all they can do. Take this thread for example, earlier det said that with over seventeen thousand replies and over eight hundred and fifty pages that the demand was there. Yet a cursory examination of the statistics shows that this thread is primarily bickering between two points of view on the matter and that of those seventeen thousand replies most come from the same batch of commentators. There are 40 posters who have contributed at least a hundred posts to this thread. You and I have contributed nearly three thousand posts between us on this topic, a gigantic chunk of the total, and that was just the two of us, which shows how even the biggest threads can distort perceptions and imply huge support for something simply existing and continuing to grow. The vast majority of players simply do not care about this.

People are happy to get increased customizations because they've been asking for it.

People are happy to get Dark Irons/Kul'Tirans (variant human body type)/Mag'har/Zandalari/Vulpera/Nightborne because they've been asking for it.

You can see it with so many other content in the game too.

People are happy for Shadowlands because of less RNG, no more TF/WF, level squish, faster leveling, removal of pathfinder in old expansion content, removal of rep tied to Allied Races, etc etc.

These are all things that are highly requested and when they're given it earns Blizzard praise.

Yet these have no real downsides beyond the time Blizzard must invest to realise them. What you continually fail to acknowledge is that your request for the exiles crosses genuine red lines that are important to Blizzard and to other people. There are genuine drawbacks to your request.

Also in regards to Pathfinder, pathfinder as a concept isn't being removed. Pathfinder in Draenor and Legion is now incompatible with the new levelling system which sets up muiltiple parallel levelling paths. It is the inconsistency of being asked to complete a set of tasks to unlock Broken Isles flying whereas Northrend flying has no such barrier, that is behind the removal. Were pathfinding really gone it would not be added in Shadowlands. All evidence points to Shadowlands retaining the pathfinder system.

And majority of players already know about High Elf request, just because you'd like to minimize doesn't mean it so. It's been brought to Blizzard's attention so many times over the past few years and they continually acknowledge the request or anything related to it such as no blue eyes for blood elves being asked about along with various media personalities/frequent wow sites because it's that much of a highly known topic.

It is estimated that the total number of people who have ever played World of Warcraft is something like one hundred million people. We can only guess at how many play today, but if I were to give a completely random ball park number, let's say eight million between WoW and WoW classic, a nice figure. How many of those individuals take the time to visit the forums? To participate in debates? To subscribe to youtubers, to watch their videos? Hundreds of thousands I am sure.

But hundreds of thousands are still only a fraction of the several million playing WoW actively right now. And a tiny fraction of those who have ever played the game.
So, once again, to say 'the majority of players' know about the request is unverifiable as most players don't actually go to news sites or follow youtubers or talk on forums, they just boot up the game for fun and play it. Now do the majority of the people who visit forums and follow youtubers and go to news sites, are they aware of the request? Almost certainly. But they are but a fraction of the total and it isn't right to attempt to appropriate 'a majority of players' when there is no evidence a majority of players are even aware this is a topic of discussion, let alone one that they support.

Chances are if you play Alliance you know about the High Elf request. Especially when the game peppers the Alliance side with them in major story beats, there's no way to not know about High Elves as Alliance.

Only way for one to not know is someone who 1) doesn't go to any wow media sites like wowhead nor watch any wow content creators and 2) avoids major story beats of Alliance questing.

Blizzard has already before said that the majority of their playerbase does leveling and questing so it's very highly unlikely for the Alliance playerbase to not know about this request.

Given the number of races players encounter in this game, I think that this notion players who otherwise aren't visiting forums or news sites in will pay special attention to the group you like the best might be overly optimistic.

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Learn 2 read. The new sunwell causes yellow eyes.
And not all are welcome or want to go there after all that has happend. And still not the whole point. years of being near such magic changes you. WoW has shown this several times.

That the exiles cannot visit the Sunwell in person is irrelevant. The Blood and Honor novella confirms that the Sunwell can be felt anywhere. In the Shadow of the Sun has a high elven exile feeling the restored Sunwell from Quel'lithien. They visit the Sunwell out of reverence and respect, but they don't need to visit it to partake of it's radiance.

And yes, different kinds of magic does change you. The Blood Elves got green eyes. That was the end of it. They are now getting golden eyes due to the Sunwell, the same Sunwell the exiles are hooked up too as well.

False ( in part), they put up those fel crystals for what?!?!?!
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Blood_elf#Eyes read it...will yah.
So fel magic DID influence the eye color.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Ask_CDev#A...wers_-_Round_3


How did the blood elven fel eye glint become so widespread? The Warcraft Encyclopedia suggests that Rommath only taught the blood elves of Azeroth about how to siphon arcane magic, as most of the populace would likely be "horrified" if they knew the true extent of Kael's dealings with Illidan.

The situation regarding blood elf eyes is, in fact, extremely similar to that of the green skin of orcs: just being around heavy use of fel magic turned the eyes of the blood elves green. You could be the most pious of priests or most outdoorsy of Farstriders, chances are, if you were a high elf in Quel'Thalas or Outland following the Third War, you were around fel energies, and your eyes would turn green. Like the orcs' skin color, such an effect would take a very long time to wear off. Fel magic works a bit like radiation in this sense; it permeates the area and seeps into anything in the vicinity. Anything near a source of fel magic shows signs of slight corruption, it just so happens that high elves and orcs manifest it in a very visual way.

The Fel crystals were used to supplement spellwork in Silvermoon. But the Elves themselves drained arcane energy from mana wyrm vermin to sate the addiction. But while they sated the addiction with arcane, they were in the presence of fel, and that is why the eye colour changed. And it is why the eye colour is now changing to gold because as the dev team answer makes clear, it just so happens that high elves...manifest it in a very visual way. All that is needed is the connection to the sunwell we know the exiles maintain. In the end, golden eyes for all. Same race, same destiny.

Facts are not bias, not pro or anti. They are observable things. Things that can been seen.
Most high elf ingame have been shown like this. Just look around. hell look at that cut scene i linked from suramar city.

And the fact is only a few blood elf skins were repurposed with blue eyes for NPC use. All those tones are available for Blood Elf use today.

Yes, but they change because they lived in a different area.
Man if only for my point there was something very corrupting near the blood elves. You know something that makes your skin turn green?!?! It has been shown ingame that fel magic is very potent.

The Orcs drank the blood of mannoroth. The Blood Elves were in the vicinity of fel crystals. There is a difference between directly ingesting the fel and being bathed in it's ambience.

1 golbin...not 15% of the population...so what? there is just 1!!!!
They do differe...what is the difference between the horde and alliance....the believes they have. In your logic both should be on the same side. They are not...so something must make them join 1 side over the other...either the races/sub race they are or the believes they have.....

And where in my text did i ever write alliance should get high elves?!?!?!?! No where. My belief is that they should NOT do it for gameplay reasons. As for lore reasons...2 out of the 3 windrunner sisters and the families and other elves in their groups already proof they are at alliance side.

Yes i know these are not the precise numbers. But good enough to get the point across. Somewhere around 15% of the former silvermoon city high elves is not blood elf and works for/with the alliance. And find themselves a part of it.
1 out 7 is not a small group.

The figure given was 10%, not 15%, and as demonstrated the exiles have taken something of a battering these past few years. So yes, they are a small group. They are a very small group. It has been pointed out on numerous occasions that they are a very small group. 1 out of 7 is your figure?

They are less than one in a hundred of the pre war population. That is a better measure of where they actually stand.

side notes:
Funny you sidestep the suramar city scene.....no answers for that huh?

You mean that they there were there? There were six of them. Elisande mocked them for interbreeding and assimilation.


https://www.wowhead.com/news=312334/...tas-and-zoltan
the part: Blue-eyed Blood Elves are not planned to be character customization, just textures for NPCs.


But hey if ingame proof of the difference in looks is not good enough. Or a update post from blizzard...nothing will be good enough for you[/QUOTE]

We have all seen the blue eyes news from Ion. It was confirmation of the status quo that held two years ago when the exiles were ruled out as an option on the grounds they and Blood Elves are the same race. Differing eye colours were brought up as known differences between the two groups, but the known differences were extremely minor with the overall point being they weren't germane to Blood Elves being High Elves.

The positive spin I take out of the Zoltan interview is that the blue eyes are intended for NPCs. Whilst I am saddened not to get blue eyes options, I can live with this outcome.

- - - Updated - - -

Not surprised to be honest. All of the allied races save for Kul tirans use an existing model, and are reskins.
That is why I hate the allied races.
Allied race really just means = reskins of what should have been customization options but we're blizzard and lazy.

I am unsure how they regard it themselves.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if we get no more reskins and that future allied races are brand new model pairs again, as with traditional core races, but they use the allied race system to skip the need for starter zones.

[Frenchvince]

Same race same fate, LOL

It's ridiculous, even Blizzard proves you wrong.

Anyway, if that's what you want to believe, it's probably good for your mind.

[bobwuzhere1224]

Same race same fate, LOL

It's ridiculous, even Blizzard proves you wrong.

Anyway, if that's what you want to believe, it's probably good for your mind.

High elves are connected to the Sunwell. They are going to get Gold Eyes eventually, so yes, he is correct when he says Same race, same fate.

[Shefu]

Don't you guys ever get bored of this after so many hundreds of pages? Get a clue already, High Elves ain't gonna happen.

Blood Elves and Void Elves. The end.

[FossilFree]

Don't you guys ever get bored of this after so many hundreds of pages? Get a clue already, High Elves ain't gonna happen.

Blood Elves and Void Elves. The end.

This like when people went in the Demon Hunter request threads and said they weren't ever going to happen.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

The difference is that blood elves are playable, high elves are not. The two simply cannot be equated as the same.

Furthermore, you also appear to have missed my point is that both are player requests and if blue eyes can be shut down because a dev said no, then why does helfers not apply to the same thing?

My point is exactly the same as yours, but you misunderstood it because you jumped in without understanding fully where the discussion began on that point.
.

I mean I am literally agreeing with you man, I'm telling you that blue eyes for blood elves and playable high elves are on the same bandwagon of arbitrary design choices and are as subject to be changed, whatever likelihood that is.

It's irrelevant if one is playable and the other not, because we are talking about arbitrary design choices to what's possible, which are dictated by whatever aesthetic design they are going for. If blue eyes don't "fit their view" for blood elves, they ain't going to happen, just as playable high elves don't fit either because they look too much like BE's. They are both entirely arbitrary design choices. and trying to say one is more valid than the other is like trying to split hairs.

- - - Updated - - -

Don't you guys ever get bored of this after so many hundreds of pages? Get a clue already, High Elves ain't gonna happen.

Blood Elves and Void Elves. The end.

This like when people went in the Demon Hunter request threads and said they weren't ever going to happen.

That's what people seem to not get; they could change their mind at any point, just as they could never. It's not like there's a higher power is sending them directives about game design and aesthetic choices. All of this is just the decisions some developers make, and could change at any moment, or not at all.

I'm not holding my breath for High Elves, but when people are all "they are NEVER going to happen" they are obviously talking more out of what they want rather than knowing something the rest don't know.

It's just all about discretionary design choices, hard to claim facts over that intrinsically malleable concept (insert every comic book retcon ever) this is what happens whith this type of franchise narratives, and I doubt there's a "Uncle Ben remains dead" clause on High Elves.

[Grythletubs]

I love the tattoos on the ears !

Most fan art that we see on high elves are oriented in the same direction, that of the ranger farstrider, and it suits them so well.
The blood elves have sort of become city elves like the ones from Suramar and this is reflected in their customization options.

Blizzard is very much helped by the artists of the WOW community to give it examples in order to differentiate between HE and BE.

I like it too! I feel like the obvious class choices for high elves would be hunter, mage and priest.

It's nice that reddit is so supportive and rational about high elves.
Then there's the wow forums that are an in between with a few overly sensitive incoherent trolls that creep into the high elf thread trying to constantly twist peoples words, but then again that's like 90% of the wow forums.

At least here I can read what the nay-sayers have to say without having to drink bleach lmao, despite their morally misguided intentions and disapproval of anything alliance related.

It's amazing how this thread is still going 2 years later!

We're likely to get playable "(high) Arrakoa" before High Elves at this point. Which would totally be 99% cooler.

I disagree! I think high elves are much cooler than some race of evil bird randos that are stranded on an alternate universe draenor haa. I wouldn't mind seeing them playable though!

[Ardenaso]

Occam's razor says the simplest and most obvious explanation is the correct one.

I figure they took a look at the effort it would involve to rig up multiple brand new faces on the Broken and just 'noped' out of it. Which is sad, I think they would have been more effective an allied race than the Lightforged Draenei.

Yes. Broken Draenei were more sensible Allied Race than a Draenei reskin that could've been an customization option

[Frenchvince]

High elves are connected to the Sunwell. They are going to get Gold Eyes eventually, so yes, he is correct when he says Same race, same fate.

Ok, ok, I will rather wait for the update of the High Elf NPCs which is in progress in the alpha of Shadowlands before saying nonsense.

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One of the comments in that reddit thread said has someone saying that Blood Elves and Void Elves are too magical and that they always pictured the High Elves as an in-between Night Elves (wood elves) and Blood Elves (magic elves).

I think that would be an appropriate interpretation to go towards.

It's funny to see people keep saying "you just want blood elves" when I don't think many care for what Blood Elves are/have.

I like that High Elves are exiled.

I like that High Elves aren't xenophobic/don't consider themselves superior to other races.

I like that they're refugees among the Alliance.

I like that they hate the Horde and dislike Blood Elves for joining them.

I like that Elisande says they're not worthy of the High Elf name because they chose to intermingle.

All those things are part of High Elves that aren't part of Blood Elves.

All the high-elf fan art will inevitably be a source of inspiration for Blizzard.
The customization options of the Farstrider or Alleria archer style that we often see on these fan art, are not available for blood elves. The door is therefore always open for the high elves as a future allied race.

I found this on twitter, a real magician this guy.


https://twitter.com/valarynn/status/1259385391557337088

A different position changes everything, as was the case with the nightborne.

[Starla]

A different position changes so little to make no difference that matters, imo.
They still look the same as far as playable races go.