Concrete (non aesthetic) reasons to add high elves in Midnight

We need High Elves because people want to be militant Tolkien High Elf Huns to counter Germanic Orcs/Horde?

1 Like

Both of these things are true.

2 Likes

can we get a new night elf male model

yeah and they are sues
theres a reason his editors told him to write more hobbit stuff

1 Like

Have them stop being selfish self-centered narcissists and come home and join the blood elves.

Done.

2 Likes

Or an, ‘Army of the Light Draenei,’ allied race.
Or a, 'Nation of Kul Tiran Human," allied race.

The thing is, all playable races aren’t monoliths, but factions/nations. Your Orc is an Orgrimmar Orc. Your Human is a Stormwind Human. Customizations allow that to be expanded, but so do Allied Races.

We’re at a point where there isn’t much rhyme or reason explaining why one race is reduced to customization (Eredar), but another is allowed to be a full fledged Allied Race (Lightforged Draenei).

I’ve said it before and I’ll reiterate it here, but adding High Elves as an Allied Race, but keeping them visually indistinguishable from Blood/Void Elves, would be a mistake, in my opinion. I’m not against adding them, but making them visually distinct would be important. I look at the Alexstraza and Nozdormu visage models as inspiration as to how they can be visually set apart from Blood/Void Elves. All that would be needed at that point is an explanation for the distinction. Given that obesity is enough of a reason for Kul Tirans to look different enough from playable humans, the idea of a more athletic, fit kind of lifestyle distinguishing a High Elf Allied Race doesn’t seem so far fetched.

But again, there is no logic behind why a race is added as customization or made a unique allied race. Blizzard could very well add body types 3 and 4 as customizations to Blood/Void Elves, using the Alexstraza/Nozdormu visage forms.

1 Like

Plenty… Eredar and Draenei ARE the same race. The first Night Elf to encounter the latter mistakes it for the former. The only inherent differences are politics and exposure to fel energy. Valen’s own son started as a Draenei and died an Eredar.

1 Like

Your question would get more traction if you outlined what you wanted in a new model. I’d like one that looked a bit less than a vampiric misbuilt football player.

I don’t really see the sense in building a third high elf race around the “Farstrider” fantasy when the actual Farstriders belong to the first one and the Farstrider signature character leads the second one. That the devs couldn’t identify a “unifying theme” to craft a high elf AR around tells me they already felt that one was covered.

Their last word on playable high elves was that the high elf customizations both our posting characters wear might get expanded in the future; personally, I don’t think their reimplementation as a new race is the form that’ll take.

5 Likes

It is hard to say for sure. It might be just that the Lightforged were just a filler because they didn’t really have anything for the Alliance and just did something so they would be balanced with the Horde. Though I suspect it was more just because Blizzard was a little to excited by the idea of allied races and were not really thinking them through at the time.

Either way, I am pretty sure the Eredar being a customization was because Blizzard realized Lightforged as a separate race made no real sense. The learned from a mistake.

But that kind of makes them not High Elves. The High elf look exists for both Blood and Void Elves. So, if they looked different they would not look like High Elves.

And I keep going back to: What would a new playable High Elf race actually add to the game?

It would be less than Lightforged Draenei added, and they were largely a pointless addition. And it would be at the cost of a different and new race that could add more to the game and story.

3 Likes

There are High Elves. They are call Void Elves. They just need some High Elven updates and that’s it.

High Elves would be the most boring and lazy race to add to the game.

So there’s like a 65% chance they will be added.

1 Like

Well, he died as a Man’ari. Technically speaking, Eredar is the name for the entire race :dracthyr_nod:

Velen even says in the heritage armor quest that it’s time for them to reclaim the Eredar name and bring back what it means to be Eredar and unite everyone together again (Lightforged, Broken, Man’ari, Draenei, etc)

And so are Lightforged. In fact, Lightforged are just Draenei with extra light.

I think its more that they never considered one. They came up with Void Goddess Alleria and went, “That’s cool, let’s make a race out of it,” ignoring how little sense it made to do just that, and running roughshod all over the setting in the process to make it work.

Agreed. Like I said, unless a High Elf Allied Race is visually distinct, there’s not much point, and even then, something like body type 3 and 4 being added to Void/Blood Elves also is possible.

Yes and no? Like I said, Nozdormu and Alexstraza’s visage forms both have that High Elf look, but aren’t the same models used by Void/Blood Elves currently. I’ve never heard of someone looking at Nozdormu’s visage form and going, “Why’s that Night Elf so pale?” He very obviously looks like some sort of High Elf.

Ask that question of some Allied Races and you’ll find yourself without an answer.

What did Mechagnomes add to the game? Gnomes with 110% more Technology Fetish?
What did Lightforged Draenei add to the game? Draenei with 110% more Light?
What did Kul Tirans add to the game? Humans with 110% more weight?

At the end of the day, what all Allied Races add to the game is an option to immerse one’s self in the game with a race that is a part of, or allied to, one or both factions. That’s about the one thing they all have in common.

1 Like

That is true. And I would argue that history has clearly shown that Lightforged were a bad choice for an allied race. Making them an allied race was a mistake.

Because he is not a Night Elf. If there was a new race with his model that was supposed to be a Night Elf variant people would be asking that.

Alexstrasza’s visage model is elf-like, but it is not elf. So, if that model was used for Elves people would question it. They don’t because she is not an elf.

Kalecgos is similar. His model is clearly based on human with some tweaks made. Nobody says ‘he doesn’t look human enough’ because he is not supposed to.

They actually added some story, that could have been very interesting. They are culturally and significantly physically distinct. Blizzard has not followed through with development for them, but that is not surprising as even regular Gnomes are the least developed primary race. But, lack of follow through doesn’t change the fact that Mecha-gnomes are distinct from Gnomes.

Again, they are culturally and physically distinct. The same way Zandalari are culturally and physically distinct. And their differences and story were developed.

They didn’t. They were a mistake. They are treated very clearly as just Draenei. Them being a new playable race doesn’t add anything that just being a cosmetic difference would not have. I would argue Lightforged are the WORST allied race ever added. Because they don’t add anything to the game and are not distinctive.

I would argue High Elves would be even worse than Lightforged. We already have TWO High Elf race options.

High Elves are not physically or culturally different than Blood Elves. There were some political differences, but not cultural. They are certainly not physically distinct. So, to add High Elves you would have to tell a story about how they had something big that changed their culture and physical nature to make them distinct. You know, like if they got void infused. Oh, wait… :wink:

We already have High Elves in TWO race choices. We don’t need a third.

3 Likes

Could have been very easily.

Dalaran’s High Elves would be a part of that city’s culture, and thus culturally different from Void/Blood Elves (granted it’s hard to even say the Void Elves have a culture of their own, when their entire identity is boiled down to the color purple). We haven’t had a race that let’s us immerse ourselves in it’s culture before. High Elves could have been that race. Granted, Dalaran is gone now, so unless they do build a new settlement somewhere, that’s not much of a direction to go.

But again, I don’t think adding High Elves as an independent Allied Race is the right direction to go at the moment. Complete the customizations for Void/Blood Elves, and be done with it. That, or just merge the races already. You may say Lightforged Draenei were a mistake because they don’t add anything to the setting, but Void Elves actively damaged the setting with their addition.

1 Like

And Haymakers!

2 Likes

I think Lightforged Draenei were supposed to be the Alliance counter to what I suspect (Calia) the Horde would eventually get: Lightforged Undead. That’s a suspicion without a ton of evidence, but we know they specifically wanted a Light Zombie.

I don’t think they anticipated how much the Forsaken (and broader Horde) community would reject that, though, if it was ever a plan on the books.

3 Likes

Lots of things could have been done, past tense. :wink:

I think we agree on that point.

I would be very skeptical of that. I don’t think there was that much planning.

I really think it was they just didn’t have any good ideas. And, either because they needed to have an Alliance allied race to balance the one the Horde was getting or just an ‘over zealous’ excitement about allied, races they just rushed one out without thinking it through.

Contrary to the OPs assertion, Blood Elves are High Elves. What he proposes is, in fact, to change Blood Elves so they fit his vision of the Horde and then add what Blood Elves were into the Alliance.

Ie. this is proposal to take “Hight Elves” from the Horde and give them to the Alliance.

3 Likes