Anyway, I've played horde many a time and I still do. Blood elves join the horde, cool story bro, I mean whatever, it doesn't sit right, doesn't make sense, but I'm just here to play the game, so if they want to have humans and orcs be buddies and fight dwarves and trolls... whatever, cool story.
I can tell you this though, they were a lot more engaging when it was humans/elves vs orcs/trolls - sure these groups could get a whole bunch of new allies. Sure the horde isn't limited to races westerners would perceive as ugly - you gotta have eye candy both ways right. But it became less appealing when you started mixing the themes of the two factions up.
If you ask me, it would be better for the horde's cool and beauty to come from something that isn't alliance in character/theme or presentation. Some of you have wrongly perceived I don't want the horde to have pretty stuff - you think this is motivated by some notion that the horde should all be bestial races westerners would consider ugly, have societies and civilizations westerners would consider primitive and savage ...
Oh my God, you have got me TOTALLY wrong. Firstly, i don't perceive that as bad or ugly. I'm more a purist, if night elves are presented as fierce but highly civilised living in a rural setting but having an advanced culture and civilization that may be in ruins but the capability to rebuild - i want to see what I was told about and what was written for them - I don't want to see that anywhere else. - if you assume that I don't like rural you've got me totally wrong.
I would have given the horde space goats instead, an advanced civilization, none human, but exotically beautiful. Because I'm not against the horde getting nice things, beautiful things or cool things, I'm against it getting alliance things, not because I hate it or have some massive issue with it, but because I feel it ruins it - ruins what I felt was special about warcraft - can play ESO and the other myriad titles out there if i want elves and orcs to be friends (I do play ESO too, not as much as wow though). Yet I've lived with it.
I felt the horde needed a more human race like race anyway, decades ago I said as much and felt it was humans they should customise. That the forsaken, shouldn't all be bent over zombies, but slimmer upright versions maybe the vampire twist to them - as a means of solving the popularity issue. At the end of the day, I now realise, the horde needed image surgery. Whether you did it via humans, elves or draenei or nothing related to the alliance, you needed to work at it.
I would have introduce half orcs, new races that I'd have made interesting and magnificent. Naz'jatar, Pandaria, Sky Reach of the Arrakoa are all examples of something not based on human or human like civilizations (like high elves and night elves have in the lore and game) that would have sufficed. And in fact still can.
It just so happens that now, there is a great need for this sort of shift to happen - and it so happens that consolidating the faction themes could really help and improve both of them, with great projected long term benefits. Avoiding it because you don't want to take from the horde is not going to fix things. For the alliance to pull players from the horde, the horde is going to have to lose something to the alliance, the alliance is going to have to be more attractive, and as a dev, you need to do what it takes to make that happen. Just because your horde favouring cronies would be angry or upset shouldn't stop you.. do what needs to be done now, you can turn it back later if you feel you need to, but you can't be afraid of doing it if it can really solve such a problem.
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Tanaria, you are just saying that because you're angry, and upset. And if other readers aren't smart enough to actually read the context, you rely on your good will stored up to sway them.. maybe that's your tactic.. they only need read to perceive what is going on.
in game lore narratives are constructs, the devs can change to suit whatever purpose and players are meant to interpret to the narrative of the side they support, it means nothing. I'm not going to tell you what to think, I have my own views on the in game events and tbh, they bear no relation to what I'm saying or proposing.. because such things always demand new lore and narrative.
or what do you think a new night elf city or carving up the zones as you have been talking about would mean. It would mean new lore, new narrative, this is not established lore, it is not canon, you cannot accuse anyone who suggests this or expands to include how they feel the story can lead to this as headcanon, that's not what the term is used for.
A developer decides what needs to be done and then write the narrative to make it happen. In this case, high elves need to be playable, all my proposals have done was suggest a way this could happen in the narrative.. it is not lore, because it isn't written yet - this is why it is a proposal or a suggestion, it's not very logical (or sensible) to call it headcanon... it's not smart.
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and for you too @
Ardensao
It won't.
Alliance has pretty good racials that often you see horde players complaining are too good, that's not causing the shift to happen.
in classic the horde had substantially better racials, and were still not the most popular faction, in fact were grossly out numbered. Racials is not the solution nor the problem, they can help lure and entice, but they are not the cause, and buffing the alliance ones won't solve your problem, it will just imbalance the game and cause another bout of complaints from all the competitive gamers - people who don't care about which faction is popular but just want to play the game.
They have to look deeper, and if they do, they will see what I have seen, image and popularity. The alliance has a terrible image at the moment, it's the lame and dull faction. Do something that will excite the alliance, and make the alliance cool. High elves returning and the kaldorei rising up will definitely excite the alliance, giving them cool stuff and writing them and their races up cool that would definitely attract.
They need something splashy and incredible.. at they have this in the high elves and the some total f everything the night elves are.. if they gather that together rather than spread it between the two factions, it can look incredible, short of that they'd have to give the alliance an impressive , beautiful and very cool race. Basically alliance dream. The beauty of the high elves, meets the civilization of the night elves, meets the coolness of the orcs, the nobility of the humans and the edginess of the illidari - but does all these things better.
In addition to that, they'd have to live with the horde continuing to have alliance influences in it via the way the blood elves and Nightborne are - which I'm sure you're fine with, but that comes at a cost. If you ask me, the easier solution is just to give the damn high elves and do it properly, and fix the Kaldorei so they 're amazing - no more broken night elves, subdued and used to make the horde look good.