Then why aren’t they called High Elves? Blizz won’t give nice things to the Alliance. They will give them Temu versions.
Really, where’s my bee mount?
Actually where’s my super op racials?
Actually, actually where’s my bonuses for playing my faction?
Actually, actually, actually where’s my built from the ground just for me Allied Race?
I could go on and on actually.
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Don’t you remember why the Alliance got this mount in the first place?
Do it, please. I want to know what else bothers you. The list seems pretty short for so much dislike.
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True words. We have playable High Elves on both Factions. High Elves (Blood Elves) were intended originally for the Horde, after the success of Wood Elves (Night Elves) in Vanilla.
"Blood Elves were chosen as the Horde expansion race in the Burning Crusade because designers were thrilled with how well Samwise had redesigned the classic wood elves with the night elves. And they knew that, “one day, high elves are going to have to get a facelift, too."
“I don’t think anyone has abused high elves to this degree,” Metzen said."
- Chris Metzen, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2005, 1:55.
https://www.lby3.com/2005/10/29/blizzcon-chris-sigaty-explores-the-lore-of-warcraft/
High Elves were given to the Horde. Planned for the Horde earlier than 2004, a Horde intended race.
"At the same time, we’ve added totally new newbie areas for the Blood Elves and Draenei so veterans can have a new low-level experience. But it’s not like we’re pocketing the Blood Elves and Draenei in their own areas and they’re locked out of the rest of the game. After level 20 or so we very quickly start breadcrumbing them all over the world and integrating them with the rest of the quests. One of the big fears we had was that if we added these cool new areas, the rest of your old world is empty all of a sudden.’
"That’s something we talked about four and five years ago."
(In about 2001.)
- Interview: Jeff Kaplan on World of Warcraft Expansion. MAY 9, 2006
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/09/technology/10warcraftqa.web.html
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Blood elves were given to horde because of Asian market and to save horde from dying, because nobody ever wanted to play horde.
Let’s be honest, if not elves horde would be extinct by now 50% playerbase in horde are elves.
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Elves are perfect, so naturally they are popular on both Factions!
I did quite a search for this however cannot find any citation other than here on the forums, or Reddit.
One of the main reasons Horde struggled so much in the early Vanilla years is because the Devs completed and polished the Alliance lands, cities and quests, and the Horde was unfinished.
I have never been able to find verified info regarding the Asian Market theory, other than amongst players who want Alliance HEs. If you can link it that would be great.
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/569/569746p2.html - Top 15 Things Every World of Warcraft Player Should Know
By Allen Rausch| Nov 30, 2004 Page 2.
I remember when our Guild left EQ for WoW back in 2004; more than half went to the Horde. Most of the women players went Alliance, because we wanted to play Humans and Elves, as most of us had Mained Humans and Elves in EQ.
I think it’s perfect that we have Elves Horde and Alliance side, I agree with you, the more Elves, the better! I’d love to see Tolkien’s Elvish dream realised here in WoW. (As a United Elvish Faction.)
The Light-elves, (The Vanyar).
The Deep-elves, (The Noldor).
The Sea-elves, (The Teleri).
The Dark-elves, (The Avari, or the Moriquendi).
The Nandor.
The Eldar.
The Green Elves, (The Laiquendi).
The Wood Elves, (The Silvan).
The Grey Elves, (The Sindar).
The Half Elves.
Perfection!
the bee ran away from all the vast unique mounts you got, they were afraid of all the monsters an decided to join the faction that had 20+ HORSES!
it was devoured by the monster under blizzards building, now the humans racial rep passive is next for sacrifice…
what bonus?
WE GET BONUSES FOR PLAYIN FACTIONS?!
you’re getting earthen too!
i dont see why everyone wants dirt made races…
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It was on reddit, wowclassic subreddit
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Now deleted? Not verifiable?
I got you covered.
For the link to the reddit, you can find it in this topic:
the actual quote:
They were distinct pretty early on - the Blood Elf starting zone was one of the earliest pieces of BC content and was highly polished by the time we rolled into testing.
I do remember a certain poor 3d artist having to chop the Silvermoon city into pieces because it was so overloaded many GPUs would overheat just loading it.
OH - one thing I vaguely remember was that Blood Elves were based on a STRONG request from a poll of asian players (either korean or chinese - I can’t remember which was live at that point) - where many remarked on the horde side that they and their girlfriends wanted a non-creepy femme race to play.
What many people don’t know: Blizzard tried to cater to the Asian market, which is why the original races for TBC were Pandaren and Blood Elves.
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The Blood Elves are the high elves! 
They were thrown out of the Night Elf society for destroying the world and still wanting to utilize magic. They founded Quel’Thalas. Truly. 
I’ve been playing a BE since BC. I personally don’t care for the name ''Blood" elf.
Their name is changed to be more dramatic/edgy. The song that Sylvanas sang was about them destroying the world w/the portal and the legion.
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They’re high elves, just not “alliance high elves” the blood elf storyline literally picks up where the high elf story leaves off in warcraft.
If you’re genuinely a high elf fan you would not care which faction they’re on, you’d just be happy to play as one. Enjoy Silvermoon, enjoy questing in Eversong, enjoy the heritage questline that has you reenact the the high elves defending Silvermoon from Arthas. Enjoy playing a non-tainted High elf priest or paladin.
Blood elves are by far the the greater successor to the high elves than Alliance High elves will ever be.
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Why not be happy to play as both though? Like if you’re a true high elf fan that would include their whole run wouldn’t it?
Or are you only selectively a high elf fan?
Thats what this reads like to me. (Not hate btw, I just feel the logic here isn’t as sound as you think it is.)
((Also applies to void elves imo))
I mean if someone is suggesting, or implying who is the "true"High elf (Like the OP) I certainly wouldn’t point at the group of High elves that made up less a 1% of the original population, or the group that pretty much abandoned their traditions and history to be absorbed into humancentric society.
If I were asked what I believed represented something like true or genuine Native American History for example, I certainly wouldn’t point at the ones running Casinos, or travelling around in Yachts over the ones that remained on their lands in the reservations and continued the practice of their traditions and beliefs. Let’s try not to split hairs.
Semantics-wise you’re correct, they’re all High elves, but if we’re asking who is a truer High elf, Blood elves take the cake.
Brownie Points: Hell, even Elisande tells the Silver Covenant that by debasing themselves and throwing away their history that they’re not even worthy of calling themselves High elves.
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Pretty accurate tbh. Blood elves are literally just called blood elves because they renamed themselves that in honor fallen elves after the scourge mess. So they are literally high elves that just gave themselves a different name. There’s no difference at all, with the exception of the name.
All high elves are known to reflect their magic usage in their eyes, it’s part of lore, so I wouldn’t even call the green eyes ‘unique’. It’s just more visible fel corruption they dealt with.
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Its not a matter of semantics.
Its a matter of whether or not you want to play with the entire high elven (thalassian) story available within the game.
OP is entirely disingenuous, they prove that a lot, but the reasoning behind a lot of high elf desiring players is a valid one. Blizzard literally throws the story before us time and again.
The Blood Elves are a big part of the thalassian story and they are definitely the “legacy” of Quel’thalas, but ignoring the story for their dissident factions (alliance high elves) seems like an equally foolish thing to just dismiss.
Ultimately I want to play the entire available story line, thus I’ve had blood elves (happily and giddily) since TBC and the moment Void Elves came up I literally came back to the game after being gone most of MoP and all of WoD. Now that I have high elf options I’ve got high elves too. Well… one left anyways… lol
I don’t see why we shouldn’t be allowed to play the thalassian we want to when they’ve been so regularly shown and operating alongside us.
I’ve gone over that a lot and its not about the race. lol Its a dig at Vereesa and nothing more.
Half Elves are rare. (At least until we get to Hallowfall apparently. rofl)
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You already have playable high elves.
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The problem is that whenever posts like these are made, they’re hardly ever innocuous requests, and almost always made with a mocking tone toward how “Blood Elves” aren’t High elves, instead of just requesting a certain group of elves they like.
I think I can say that many people would not be bothered if it didn’t always boil down to this concept of “I want to play the real High elves, not those dirty stinky fel elves” every single time it’s mentioned. If the High elves that remained renamed themselves something else, and people could request that group without constantly feeling like they need to imply that Blood Elves somehow have less claim to their own history and background than a group largely known for having abandoned it.
That’s the thing, I have nothing against wanting to play the Alliance High elves, heck I play one on Turtle Wow and I love her, but I certainly don’t go around sticking my nose up at Blood elf players telling them how they not actually the “real” High elves every single time the topic is brought up.
So if the debate is asked on who is the truer inheritor of the High elves I would always point out why it’s the Blood elves every single time.
At this point I think enough themes of Blood elves have been ultimately given over to the Void elves that playable Alliance High elves would honestly mean very little to me, but I could see it only exacerbating this toxic mentality of who is the “true” high elves simply because the Alliance ones never changed their name.
I could see it being a slippery slope where players lose sight of what makes Alliance High elves distinct from Horde Blood elves/High elves and then feel that they are then owed the Blood elf narrative as well, ultimately watering it down to satiate the Alliance Helfers much like the Void elves have. A few years ago I might have felt this was an absurd notion, but considering that Void elves have continuously stuck their hands into the Blood elf basket enough times until the only remaining unique feature of being a Blood elf is their hairstyles is a strong sentiment.
Elisande is not speaking to only Vareesa, she’s speaking to the group in its entirety like she had with the Night elves and Blood elves. She’s not looking to just make a dig at Vareesa to be mean to her, she’s ridiculing them all.
“Quel’dorei? You are peasants playing at nobility, all too willing to mingle with lesser races that dilute your bloodline. You are unworthy of the name high elves.” - This is not someone referring to one individual, this is someone referring to the group.
It would be weird for her to address all the night elves, all the blood elves and then Vareesa individually. She doesn’t even use a singular noun, only referring to them in a plural sense. She’s not even the only example of this happening, both Alleria and Sylvanas both ended up falling in love with humans as well.
The reason why they don’t have many Half elves was explained by Vareesa herself, who stated that High elves seldom give birth, and even moreso with twins.
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well you need to clarify if they mean you arent because belfs decided not to use the title, or you arent cause they say so. if its title related, then its true, you arent high elf, you’re blood elf. i would imagine, had the belfs been real, they would be insulted if you called them high elf because it would be interpreted as the person ignoring their suffering
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Again, this is semantics. Despite the name change Blood elves carry out and pass down traditional High elven practices and beliefs, wear High elven clothes, speak High elven, reside in the High elven capital and protect the central point of High elven society, the Sunwell. They reenact the events where they defended the Sunwell against Arthas as “High elves” to further honor the Quel’dorei who died fighting for their home. Alliance High elves don’t do any of this, they reside in Stormwind, abandoned their culture, wear humancentric clothes and speak common.
The problem lies when people misconstrue that the name “High Elf” is somehow a claim for all the aspects I just described regarding the Blood elves, ignoring everything about what separates an Alliance High elf from a Blood Elf.
If we ask ourselves who is the inheritor of the High elf story? Is it the 99% that left the Alliance and returned home (Comprised of the current Blood elf population) or the 1% that stayed with the Alliance and simply didn’t change their name?
Saying Alliance High elves are truer High elves for simply keeping their name would be the same argument if a group of Trolls suddenly started calling themselves High elves. They would be the “truer” high elves in a semantic sense alone.
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