That’s tricky territory there because Blood Elves and Void Elves really are the same thing. They aren’t two different races, they’re two different societies of the same race. I feel like the void stuff was added in to justify them being actual separate races rather than copy-pasting Blood Elves into the Alliance. The only other races I can think of with a similar relationship are Humans and Kul Tirans, and I think those do a much better job of distinguishing Kul Tirans from other Humans through their cultural differences. Both in narrative and in how that’s reflected in gameplay mechanics. Worgen as well to a lesser extent but their focus has always been their Worgen curse, not their humanity.
Let’s set aside High Elves for the moment, because I don’t think anyone actually wants High Elves. Blood Elves ARE High Elves in every sense of the word. I think what people mean when they say they want High Elves is that they want to play Blood Elves without having to join the Horde since that’s a pretty significant choice. Void Elves almost feel like a monkey’s paw in that respect because now you can play an Alliance High Elf, but only if you also get void corruption. So your choice is either play Horde or play with void corruption? Which one are you better able to stomach?
Personally I think they should make Blood Elves a neutral race. If Silvermoon becomes a larger staging ground in Midnight to the point where it becomes a neutral city, I think that would help too. That is where most of High Elf culture lies after all. With the Alliance and Horde being closer than ever both in terms of narrative and in terms of gameplay restrictions, I think Midnight would be a good time to consider a change like that.
yeah blood/void elves need a contender for the beauty crown. a super attractive and elegant race with top notch graceful animations, should do the trick
I am aware, Belves became far more generic post TBC, especially after their “saga” was concluded with Arthas’ death. But I really don’t like how Void Elves were introduced as a rehearsal of the same themes of seeking forbidden highly corruptable powers as means to protect their people to the point of being shunned by everyone else including some of the people they wanted to protect in the first place.
I don’t see how neutral Blood Elves ruins Horde Blood Elves. What’s your concern here?
Alliance High Elves already exist in the narrative and I think that there should at least be as much effort to distinguish Horde and Alliance Blood Elves as there is for Horde and Alliance Pandaren.
Help me understand your hesitance here. I’m not a fan of how shoe-horned Void Elves feel either but at this point there’s no putting that genie back in the bottle and I think that the players who want to play as Alliance High Elves should still be able to do so. At the very least, I think there should be a way to turn off the void animations of Void Elves in combat so that it’s easier to roleplay them as a regular High Elf.
Well for one you are trying to take a Horde Core Race to supplement an Alliance Allied Race, what would Horde players get in return for that?
Better yet why should a Horde Core Race be given to Alliance for the High Elfers when they got most of our customizations so they could play pretend on Void Elves.
I don’t think there’s any meaningful difference between a core race and an allied race at this point. I also don’t think that there needs to be a direct tit for tat exchange between the two factions in terms of playable races in the same way we don’t need to make sure every race has the same number of playable classes. I don’t think that expanding access to Blood Elves to the Alliance takes anything away from the Horde so I don’t see the need for compensation.
But as a separate matter, I’m open to making any race with a strong narrative reason to be on both factions a neutral race. Given how the first appearance of Draenei in Warcraft 3 strongly tied them to Kael’Thas’ Blood Elf crusade, I can see an argument for making them neutral as well.
Like I said, I think Void Elves were a mishandled half measure and if I had my way, they wouldn’t have happened. But they did and there’s nothing we can do about it at this point. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with “playing pretend” in a made up RPG in a made up world. Void Elves are quite literally Blood Elves. There is very little difference between them. I’m not sure why you’re taking such a strong stance against something that looks like a Blood Elf having an Alliance faction loyalty. Given how much sense Alliance High Elves make, I would even take it farther and allow them to turn off the void corruption animations in combat. None of that changes anything about how you play your Horde Blood Elf.
That is also coming soon, with the release of other classes for the Dracthyr, non Evoker Dracthyr will be able to remain in their visage in combat.
Either way, this is all a technicality, factions barely matters nowadays, I don’t understand this “You can’t have Y because X belongs to us” mentality anymore.
You say this because you would be benefitting from this as an Alliance player, thankfully the key person that matters which is Ion disagrees with you and went on the record more recently that they still do matter so thank goodness for that.
A player who wanted to play an Alliance High Elf and picked Void Elf didn’t “choose” the void. They settled for the void. I’m not proposing any mechanical changes to Void Elves, just the equivalent of a glyph to turn off the animations in the same way that a Balance Druid who “chose the Moonkin” doesn’t have to “get the Moonkin” through a glyph.
You literally are choosing the void because you are choosing to be a Void Elf the race is literally called Void Elf, if you want to be a Blood Elf/High Elf pick the proper race and faction.
I rarely agree with Moritz but seriously it’s pretty cut and dry.
