The Draenei are a ridiculously massive retcon; Like they’re barely a footnote from the orcs perspective in WC1. Later they were incredibly hideous but got to exist. And then the devs created this beautiful race of space goats.
The blood elves joined the horde because it was the only logical choice; the Alliance had tried to genocide them and even if they hadn’t they were too far out of position to credibly support them against their most pressing threats (The amani and the scourge) while the horde were within spitting distance.
Yes?
Pandaria always existed bud, it was just a nebulous distance away.
Yes?
Not really; the Zandalari were always the most prestigous of the Troll nations and the Kul Tirans were always a naval power.
The Dracthyr backround makes sense in that they were a race that was kept hidden and in stasis and thus neither know anything about the world nor anyone in the world knowing anything about them.
The part that you’re missing short bus, is that this whole line of logic started as the Helves having a whole history of trauma and isolation and such which isn’t evidenced despite them having been around in some form or another since the game launched 18 years ago. Astroturfing this in now is absurdly bad writing and does nothing to make them a more compelling playable race.
I’m disregarding it because the Helves as they are right now are disconnected from that history; the Sindorei are the heirs to that tradition and thus I have to judge the queldorei on their merits from the past 18 years the game has been out. Something that for all your verbose text you have failed to clarify.
Blizzard has dangled Murlocs, ogres, tuskar, arakoa, quillboar, nerubians, naga, centaur, dryads, troggs, wolvar, furbolgs, ethereals, naaru, moknathal, mantid and probably 2 dozen other races in front of us.
That you have chosen to misinterpret this as being a sign that you were going to get them is not on them.
Sir, this is hypocrisy; you are simultaneously arguing that they’re all over the place and doing all kinds of things and at the same time insisting that they don’t do anything.
And out of those, the only ones that have been asked for and had an actual history prior to WoW are ogres. Murlocs and quillboar were random enemies and nothing more. The same goes for non-undead Nerubians. Mok’nathal was just a label that meant nothing aside from what Thrall said when he met Rexxar.
And none of those were asked for to the degree high elves were.
No it isn’t. As I said, they are there as accessories. Do you honestly think the Silver Covenant served any purpose other than telling us that high elves were still around? Likewise, high elves gained nothing from the Kirin Tor Offensive. Suramar was, again, just a reminder they existed but served no purpose for them storywise. There was no cultural or in-world progression for them in either case. That the most they ever got was a callout by Elisande in Legion should underline all the time they’ve been ignored in the story.
The point is that you claim they have nothing that gives them distinction. I’m pointing out that there’s a reason for it and could be addressed.
PS: World presence and story relevance are two different things. World presence is basically being there but does not automatically involve serving a purpose in the story. One example of world presence is the tuskarr in Wrath of the Lich King. They were there to help provide some quests and tell you there are walrus people wandering about. They weren’t instrumental in any of the events of Wrath, were victims of circumstance at most and didn’t play a role in Naxx, Ulduar or ICC. And you learned almost nothing about them aside from surface-level details.
Story relevance means the subject plays a notable or major role in the plot and gains something from it or grows in some manner. An example of this is the Nightborne, since their rebellion and development as a race is tied to the events of Legion. Without them, the armies of Azeroth would have had a much harder time and may have even failed if the Legion had not lost Suramar and the Eye of Aman’thul.
None of those were dangled like High Elves which have always served as key allies to the Alliance in WoW and already integrated into the Alliance.
Vereesa has served as a key commander of the Alliance in nearly every war in WoW and lead the Alliance forces with Tyrande to save the Nightborne. She also was a key leader in Mists and still serves the Alliance.
I can assure you as someone who played in ye olden days people would have given their right eye for murlocs to be playable on either faction.
Yes, it is. You are trying to have it both ways where they are important but also irrelevent and presenting both as truth when the reality is simply this: the high elves are a foot note in the game’s history much like the Tanuka or Saberons in that they exist but that there is no greater meaning to their existance and certainly nothing that justifies the obsession that they have garnered from a fragment of the player base.
I never said they were important. As I said, world presence and story relevance are not the same thing. You can have something that is just there and serves no story purpose, and that’s what has been done with high elves. The Argent Tournament would have still happened without them, and they gained nothing from it (other than increased requests for playable high elves). The Kirin Tor Offensive would have still been a thing without them, and again they gained nothing from it. The Suramar campaign would have still happened without them, and the most they got was a callout to remind us they still existed while looking like a third wheel on a bicycle.
The issue, is that people read into this and make wild assumptions first that they are coming and then getting mad when they don’t get something that blizzard neither alluded to let alone promised.
And the part that I think is really important, which gets glossed over by the obsessive proponents of High elf as a player race is that they don’t actually add anything to the game. Every other race whether you like them or you don’t presents a distinct expierience from the other’s and expands on what it means to be horde or alliance that is unique to them.
Nah, the point is that so many crucial elements of all these races were introduced only when they were made playable, you don’t get to pretend they are any different than High Elves getting a more nuanced representation if they were made playable.
Your bias is so all consuming you can’t even see where you are lacking logic. You’re free to not ever want High Elves, but the Pretzel Logic you’re using to try justify why High Elves wouldn’t possibly bring anything new to the table when every race that has been introduced did so with major expansions and retcons to their lore and background is outright embarrassing.
Your argument lacks logic and the only consistency it shows is a contempt for anything High Elf.
I also love how they’ve conveniently ignored my suggestions on what story bits beyond “lol elves with human husbands” are available for high elves despite asking.
But nah high elves have no other narrative beats they could pull from or use.
Dangling high elves over the heads of Alliance players since wrath isn’t a wild assumption. It’s what actually happened. Again, this isn’t like the Ginyu or tuskarr because unlike them, high elves have a history in the Warcraft mythos and with the Alliance.
A sensible creator with a vigilant CM team would have noticed that the inclusion of the Silver Covenant increased high elf requests (you don’t need to do extensive market research to see that coming), then do one of two things: 1) figure out a way to write them into the story and make them playable, or b) phase out high elves ASAP so that the requests die out. Blizzard did neither, despite having a perfect opportunity to phase them out going into Cataclysm. Regardless of whether it was malice or incompetence, it was a poorly-handled situation.
That part hasn’t been written yet because, as I’ve mentioned, nothing was done with them storywise despite their increased world presence.
Blizzard could release a short story tomorrow to fill in the blanks and that would give them distinction. Maybe they became proficient in combining arcane powers with machines. Maybe they’ve learned to become living conduits for magical energy. Maybe they learned to interact with the elements or enhance their connection with nature (building on the tradition of the Farstriders and elven rangers from Warcraft II). You can’t definitively claim they’d add nothing as a race because it’s not been written as of yet. As I’ve said earlier in the thread, this is why I don’t shoot down suggestions for what can be done with them so long as they make sense.
Won’t work now since they gave Velfs normal skin tones and hair colors and eye colors and the ability to remove the tentacles. You can make a Helf now, fair skin, blonde hair, blue eyes. They’re not going to make a separate race that is visually 100% identical.
The part you are missing is that unlike the other races there is a clear depiction and history present in the game for high elves that has been pretty consistent since Launch; Astroturfing in a diaspora story line at this juncture would be up there with the horde winning the last two wars with the alliance because of all the things we didn’t see.
You do understand that retcons are considered the mark of poor writing right?
They weren’t dangled, they were simply there like a dozen other races.
The Jinyu, tuskar and ankoans all have history with the alliance.
They did.
They’re called the Rendorei and as awkward as their inclusion is they bring more to the game then the Queldorei do as much as some folks don’t want to admit it. Hell they even included more appearance options so people could pretend to be Queldorei as a gesture of good faith.
Following this logic literally anything is possible, including the high elves packing their bags and joining up with the horde.
What they want is the Sindorei without the red background. Like if you listen to helf enthusiasts long enough it comes back to that.
Which works when it’s one-shot races that are there for filler and world-building. That doesn’t work for a race that has been around since the second entry into the IP and has been asked for as a playable race for years.
Not from before WoW. The long-spanning history is what high elves have over all the others you’ve mentioned with the exception of ogres (because ogres were with the Horde in Warcraft II).
Except Blizzard failed to do the critical thing you need to do in order to push something a person didn’t ask for onto them: give them impeccable presentation, provide a solid reason for why they’re getting the replacement instead of the thing they asked for, and make the replacement look like the best thing since sliced bread. And even then, your success rate is reduced to essentially a coin flip. Mind that despite all this, the onus is still on the person providing the alternative to do the legwork. The person receiving the alternative is not obligated to like it and are well within their rights to continue with their original request.
Being a constant reminder of terrible writing isn’t what I’d call “bring more to the game”.
Indeed, and my question would then be “why did you wait until now to do it instead of just leaving it as ‘all high elves are blood elves, and all blood elves joined the Horde’ back in TBC?”.
Its almost World of Elf Craft at this point. I cant blame the average player for getting them confused. Even Blizzard seems confused as for what elf type is called what now.
I miss the old High Elf Megathreads, despite the toxicity, I had a blast brainstorming ideas and learning a bit of English to argue with others. Even though I attended some English classes in the past, arguing with others is a lot more efficient and fun.
Thanks to High Elves, now I’ve access to nearly all the western content since I also have a good understanding of Spanish and Portuguese, which is my primary language.