thusly why i said earlier
i think it wouldve been fun and fascinating for belf fans of both factions to see their favorite models, idling differently, casting differently, different expressions, different attitude, different hairstyles, different beards and so on. ah, they missed so much opportunity with velfs, as they had the same animations and poses.
Honestly its the only real reason I started playing Alliance.
Most of my friends like the Alliance better because their the “heroic, civilize or pretty” side of WoW.
I was more into the whole story of the Blood Elves… that lead me to see myself in the Alliance as a Void Elf.
WoW avatars are build with old technology. The technology is pre 2004 because that part would have to have been implemented mid project at the latest. It’s over 20 years old.
Second Life came out at about the same time with similar avatar technology but they completely updated what they had, going from “classic” to “mesh” to allow sliders, variations, live animation capture, etc. But then Linden Labs doesn’t have to worry about creating content since in Second Life that’s the player’s job.
For Blizzard to upgrade avatars to FF14 level would be a major rewrite of that part of the code. Then the question of “what doesn’t get done so we can do that instead” becomes huge.
nah not upgraded animations, just different than blood elves. my fav animation in the game is the male blood elf healing animation, though i never play male blood elves. i also like female blood elf casting animation but these could all be replaced with different animations for high elfs. we know they can make new animations since they animated kul’tirans and dracthyr.
I’ve been known to confuse male blood elves and female orcs if they’re wearing the right armor, because they’re the same size and have a similar stance.
Kul Tirans are all one population that has not been cut off from mainland humans, but still managed to encapsulate three generic models for men and two for women plus a few custom models (Jaina, Ashvane, Harlan).
Yes, you could make the argument that from an in universe perspective the difference between HE and VE is just greater. But I am looking at this from an asset and gamplay implementation, and while I would love for HE to be their own AR for personal reasons, with how VE’s assets have been implemented, I genuinely don’t think it warrants being a new Allied Race.
Would like to, I do get why they may never be.
That’s the point. It’s one of the things that could have been a soft retcon that actually called back to the initial concept of Ranger’s in Warcraft 3 as being Half Elven. War3 was playing with the idea of their relevance back then, and although later lore has said how rare they are, they could have tweaked with the concept in Dalaran. Like saying that although Human/Elven offspring is rare, Half Elves actually can easily have offspring with other Half Elves.
I mean, Dragonflight completely did away with Dragonkind infertility without even addressing it. Some details can just be retconed if the narrative wishes to go another way, retcons aren’t bad on themselves.
I mean you’re agreeing that it’s not a lore concern but an aesthetic and resources one.
That’s fair as an opinion, but to say “oh the lore is very thin” nah, that is mostly bias that really doesn’t hold well under scrutiny.
Yeah? Why wouldn’t agree with that?
It’s entirely plausible neutral High Elves have returned to Quel’Thalas after all these years.
I don’t understand the point of bringing up Lanesh, I would like to know where did he come from! Did he return to QT after the Sunwell was reignited? Did he never get green eyes? What about Darnarian? I do wanna know those answers.
Kinda funny that you seem to be questioning if I am a BE fan on the post I say I get called a fake BE fan for wanting more alliance HE options hahaha.
So like the Alliance version of how the Forsaken didn’t fit into the Horde but was there as they had no other option.
I would but it’s rated T For teen apparently. I think it would be great to watch elves go 420 all day. 
Yes, exactly!
I mean, that’s a great summation of the attempts to make up lore excuses for a triplicate of the blood elves.
i’m already here. i’m a copy paste. dont new hairstyles, animations and poses at least solve for the virtual copy syndrome?
There is no lore excuses.
The Silver Covenant still exists and are Alliance aligned High Elves.
You say as you throw up weak excuses.
and ladies and gentlmen and zee, that is how we got to this point.
I don’t care for the entropic embrace shifting from void elves.
I just want Night elf paladins, and expanded night elf aesthetic armour and weapons.
now this is one of the few things about void elves i dont mind. but would be cool if nelfs got paladins.
I want both to get Paladins, especially if it meant that Void Elves could utilize this new “Cosmic Void” magic in place of the Light to achieve the same techniques. Alternatively, “Cosmic Void” could be used for a Priest tank spec that focuses on Void to balance out the Prot Paladin tank spec which focuses on the Light. Regardless, give Night Elves and Void Elves access to Paladin.
I am just glad they gave void elves an overall non-void aesthetic.
Other than that, I used to be in a lot of the threads from long ago. I feel like we got a fair enough compromise when they expanded the customization options way ahead of the rest of the ARs.
It’s almost like the elves they want don’t actually exist in the game’s lore at all.
If you’re referring to the fan made model, yes that is purely a mockup and has no basis in the lore. High Elves have the same physical structure as Void Elves and Blood Elves which is why the concept of giving them a unique model (such as the present concept of combining humans bodies with elf heads) isn’t quite logical. However, the reason it’s proposed in the first place is because of the irrational demand that Alliance High Elves should be visually different from Horde High Elves. The reason it’s irrational is because they are the same species, so it makes sense that they’d look identical. Visual distinction never mattered, especially given that there are already gameplay mechanics in place to provide distinction amongst the factions that are separate from the appearance of the NPC/Character model (tooltips specifying faction, PvP emblems looking different, name and nameplates with friend/foe colors, etc.)