I think the salient point there is that your two examples are ARs that are members of the parent race’s faction. That’s a distinct difference from mirroring a race across faction boundaries. Yes, Pandarens are a thing, but they were designed from the start to be neutral with both faction versions given relatively equal weight in terms of story development and lore. It’s also a model that has never been repeated and if Blizzard thought doing another neutral race (which is essentially what’s being asked for here; Thalassians being playable on both factions) was a great idea and a money maker it would have already happened. I think the closest they will come is the addition of GMO-Thalassians to the Alliance with the implementation of Void Elves.
The Blood Elf/High situation is different in that until 15 years ago - out of the ~7,000 or so years that Thalassians have been a race - the story was a shared one.
I personally prefer Void elves, but the massive threads against high elves don’t have a single argument that isn’t flawed.
Ion says Blood Elves are high elves, but then let lose Mag’har Orcs which are orcs. The lore supports high elves, yet high elves in my mind have generally remained neutral but leaned more toward alliance. Just make high elves neutral and let each player decide, but also give alliance a cat race to counteract Vulpera love. I think this is the best solution for the debate.
Then give horde those water goblins, that should have been their allied race anyway.
Let us choose high elf as a neutral race. The lore is basically that some high elves were never part of Void Elves or Blood Elves and some Blood Elves expunged their fel infused blood, and some void elves expunged their void infused blood. Make this allied race very difficult to unlock, I mean lore master or something. That is my opinion. They should be very rare.
Murg, what is the real point of having factions when Blizzard can’t seem to keep factions in check? They are clearly trying to make the game feel more one sided, and at the moment, it doesn’t feel like “Horde vs Alliance”, and the story involving the faction war is really making no sense in the end…
Again, numbers for a playable race don’t matter. If the argument against High Elves is “They’re too few” then that should disqualify Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei from being playable. Numbers don’t matter in WoW. If they really want or need a reason to justify High Elves having a bigger population they can say there was a sizable minority of them who migrated to Stormwind once it was rebuilt after the Second War. Sparing them of the Scourge rampage in Quel’Thalas.
They don’t even need their own Kingdom (although that would be cool if they got one.) You can make a Thalassian District in Stormwind City for them with everything they need. It would fit perfectly in that area behind the mage quarter. Either that or there could be another version of Dalaran which serves as their racial hub. But Stormwind isn’t a bad choice either, they’re one of the few races you can put in Stormwind and not have it look weird or out of place.
You mean…the actions of a single blood elf who was working on Garrosh’s orders means the murder and punishment of an entire group that was unaffiliated or responsible for the action?
If we’re going to go on this logic, should the Alliance not be put to the sword for the actions taken against Thrall and the orcs after the second war?
Or perhaps, going after the alliance for the actions of Garithos towards Kael’thas and his blood elven brethren?
If a singular person can be used to justify ethnic cleansing, then the Horde is surely innocent despite their actions of burning Teldrassil. It just doesn’t function well as an argument.
I don’t think anyone is seriously citing numbers as a rationale these days. You’re right in that Void elves put that one to bed.
Dalaran is canonically out, since it’s officially neutral. Stormwind makes sense. All that having been said, I’m opposed to them being playable at all since it’s not blurring faction boundaries to clone BEs over to the Alliance, it’s obliterating those boundaries. Pandarens were designed as neutral, with both faction’s groups given roughly equivalent backstory time and they were new to everyone on both sides. HEs are not the same.
You also forget Jaina wasn’t strictly alliance before that…She was justifiably not happy with the horde already because you know…Garrosh mananuked her city Theramore, killed many loved ones of hers, and guess who was complicit with that action too? Blood elves.
Answering while blatantly disregarding someone elses response to your logic by repeating the same thing is not how dialogue works and is the root of many of our world’s problem.
This train of thought would be legit if high elves didn’t exist. No one is asking to ship the blood elves to the alliance, they’re asking for the high elves who are alliance to be playable.
He had not previously responded to me, as I had not previously made that statement. He was essentially saying “asked and answered, you don’t need to respond” and I don’t think that’s how this works.
They are asking for a Horde-only playable race to be cloned (with a new heritage color palette) to the Alliance. There is a loss here, one of faction identity, it’s just one you and others choose to dismiss.
The high elves are already alliance though, this would only apply if they didn’t exist already. As I said previously. This isn’t copying a race, this is simply making them playable based on the fact that they’re already alliance.
