Is that dumb argument still going on?
Sorry, but that’s not true. 90% of the Kingdom of Quel’Thalas was destroyed by Arthas. The surviving 10% would rename themselves to Blood Elves, and then later 10% of the survivors would refuse to practice draining mana from living beings to sate their addiction, and be exiled to join the existing High Elves outside of Quel’Thalas.
High Elves outside of Quel’Thalas include not only the aforementioned lodges and the High Elves in Outland, but also those whom followed Jaina to Kalimdor in the Alliance Expedition, as well as the High Elves of Dalaran. Considering we know Dalaran’s population survived the Third War virtually unscathed due to the measures taken by Antonidas, that’s not a small number of High Elves either. Indeed, enough to organize into a military strong enough to be fielded across multiple wars and campaigns during WoW’s lifetime.
The fact is numbers don’t mean much. The whole, “90% of Quel’Thalas was wiped out by the Scourge,” was meant to emphasize the power of the Scourge and the suffering of the elves, not arguments about populations (which Blizzard has never cared about anyways).
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Legion however decanonized the High Elven population of Dalaran replacing them with Worgen.
Lol what? The High Elves of Dalaran weren’t retconned out of existence. The Worgen used the Silver Covenant’s headquarters to house the Alliance’s efforts in the Broken Islands. The High Elves of Dalaran didn’t just stop existing.
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Outside of the mages in the tower, and the assassins that pop out in the Quel’delar quest, they’re GONE save for a couple of innkeepers and shops. The High Elfguards have been replaced by Gilnean Worgen. Presumably they were pulled out in order to have that presence in the climax stages of the Suramar story.
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It never stopped Machet.
I’m just trying to ignore it now XD
But yeah I’m sorry I helped derail this thread along with others. Let’s get back on topic, yeah?
Solarion, I think what she’s trying to say is that there aren’t as many high elves left as you think there are. I know a lot of people hate this, but Blizzard has made clear time and again that High Elves aren’t numerous enough to be their own race. Almost all of them either died or went back home to Quel’thalas. There just aren’t many of them who chose the Alliance over their own country.
That’s not to say there arent any left. Of course not! I also think it’s funny that Blizzard says one thing, then creates the Void Elves who shouldn’t have nearly as many numbers as they do. So, I’ll agree with you that it’s bad Blizzard writing.
But, to the best of my knowledge, the vast, vast majority of “high elves” are called Blood Elves now, and they side with the Horde.
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Blizzard have lacked consistency in everything thus far.
Even their integrity.
I don’t know, the lead game designer cited the high elves’ negligible population as the reason they were dismissed as an Allied Race candidate. Surely you remember. It caused such a controversy Blizzard had blood/void elves inherit high elf customizations as a compromise.
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Ah yeah I remember that. It was funny seeing the levels of rage that induced.
Are we talking about the same Ion who said it wouldn’t make sense for Blood Elves to have blue eyes? Or that Zandalari Druids wouldn’t get dino forms? The man whom didn’t want the Zandalari to get Paladins, apparently having forgotten Prelates were a thing, or just ignoring it for whatever reason?
Forgive me for not taking his word as gospel. Aside from that, his words were along the lines that there wasn’t anywhere High Elves would come from, as in, a lack of home or presence in the game. A relatively weak answer given the obvious presence they’ve had throughout the game’s lifespan. Even as of WoD he had mentioned Mag’har and High Elves as races players wanted to see in the future.
Again, population doesn’t mean anything. We left Northrend with the Alliance’s losses having reached over 50,000 and Thrall saying the Horde had lost, ‘an entire generation,’ to that conflict. That didn’t really stop the ensuing wars in the years afterwards.
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And if we take Ions words to their logical conclusions, the blood elves shouldn’t have been playable either. Seeing as they loost 90% of their population to the scourge
The truth of the matter is, the devs were being childish about not wanting to add the High Elves as a playable race. So instead of just saying that, they all acted like a bunch of petty children about it. It would have been really easy to just give the alliance the Silver Convenant High Elves instead of the whole Void Elf nonsense they went with instead
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Yes. That guy. I don’t doubt his answer was no more than the flimsy justification for a gameplay consideration internally discarded (high elves as a player race), but I don’t think it’s correct to claim Blizzard “doesn’t care about populations” when it’s been their bulwark against this request since like 2005.
They’ve never walked this back, and the lore tends to corroborate it. The game, however, is so littered with high elf NPCs I’ve long wondered if a particular dev slipped on their troll face around WotLK.
And it was noted the Allied Race system was their way of circumventing that particular issue. Case in point, the Void Elves are an, ‘elite squad,’ of elves, whereas the Silver Covenant has at least a couple dozen, ‘Squads.’
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… and when Ion’s brain was picked as to why this never happened, he dismissed theirs as a fantasy already realized through the blood elves, and restated their negligible population. You can argue the vailidity of these statements; the population one certainly comes off as iffy, given the Silver Covenant’s decent presence.
But if that’s the devs’ go-to dismissal of high elves as a significant force on Azeroth, I don’t think there’s much credibility to your theory that their overall numbers poll comparably to their race’s acknowledged majority.
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My point was that their numbers are unknown. Numbers don’t really matter either, as has been pointed out before: The Silver Covenant alone likely outnumbers the Void Elves ten to one.
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True enough. FWIW, I agree wholeheartedly with your original take: had Alleria’s return as a void elf served as story progression for the Alliance’s high elves rather than the Horde’s blood elves, the lore would be much better for it.
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Fel and death don’t have the same affect on the well.
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Indeed. Even if Void Elves were still the goal, making them out of the Silver Covenant or, heck, even just the Second War veteran rangers lost in Outland, it would have spared so much damage to the Blood Elf narrative in the process. I’ll never understand why Blizzard felt the need to have the playable Void Elves come from the Horde’s Blood Elves.
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Blood elves unironically take a seat almost right next to void elves for me because of how inconsistent their lore is.
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There are so few highelves every one of them is an adventurer.