High Elf Allied Race Megathread (Continuation)

Mowachassa-dalaran · October 27, 2019, 2:54am

I’m not a beverage though.

Hypêrspace-dalaran · October 27, 2019, 2:55am

where? didnt see it for some reason.

they are the only AR that dont have their own zone, nor quests, nor in game representation, till you have done the lightforged grind, plus another month of dailies (which is at least 2 months longer than the horde have to rep grind for their legion ARs, itself an oddity). they just aren’t there. imagine making an allied race with nothing to support their existence. you only know to grind for them because you’re told out of game, that they are an option. out.of.game.

Saralocks-frostmourne · October 27, 2019, 2:55am

I know. But it does sound like something good to drink.

Renotarshil-malganis · October 27, 2019, 2:56am

They have one.

In BFA they do.

Hypêrspace-dalaran · October 27, 2019, 2:56am

no, argus is where you grind their rep but they aint there

Renotarshil-malganis · October 27, 2019, 2:57am

But they have a zone where they all hang out in.

Renotarshil-malganis · October 27, 2019, 2:57am

It does sounds refreshingly delicious.

Alamara-goldrinn · October 27, 2019, 2:58am

On why we got stuck with void elves, I posted my original thoughts a long time ago. Here’s a copy of that post:

Only a dev coming out and openly saying what happened between Legion and BfA will convince me that the planned allied race for BfA preorder wasn’t high elves.

Consider this:

An expansion overall content is defined years in advance

The concept of allied races was probably defined even before Legion was released (I’d guess the nightborne storyline were a big part in defining it, but not before they had their NPC models done).

Over the course of Legion, the first allied races were already defined and worked on: nightborne, highmountain, lightforged and ???

Even lightforged, while introduced late, were seeded at in 8.0 in the Priest/Paladin questline with the Army of the Light and even (fully-covered) space draenei coming with Lothraxion to save Netherlight Temple.

There was no hint towards void elves during the whole of Legion. Umbric or his followers were not seeded before the void elves were introduced. The entire void elf storyline was completely missing from Legion.

Also, Steve Danuser said that the void elf concept came very late in the design process, after Alleria’s story proved an internal success. This means void elves were decided on in the late stages of 7.3 patch, the last true content patch of Legion.

You can also see how late void elves came to be by looking in to their racial crest, that has changed shape and colors multiple times, or in Alleria’s design (that has nothing to do with void elves because it was finished before they were defined as an allied race).

During Blizzcon 2017, when the allied races slides were shown in the WoW panel, each race has its own “capital” as its background. Except void elves, who were placed in a random Legion world. Telogrus wasn’t even worked on by then, despite being the simplest of the allied race hubs. Blizzard literally cobbled together their hub in less than three months.

So, which would be the fourth preorder allied race? What race was seeded or hinted all over Legion? High elves, of course.
– It starts with Magus Solgaze in Stormwind’s library during Legion prepatch. She’s there to study something for “the Ranger General” (Vereesa), hinting at the Alleria storyline.
– You also have the Silver Covenant in Dalaran in the prepatch event, but missing from it after the city was teleported to the Broken Shore.
– It also is hinted in the Unethical Adventurers encounter in Highmountain, which contains an Alliance group - with a high elf priest.
– It continues in the Thas’dorah storyline (Magus Solgaze appears in it as well, opening the portal to Niskara).
– When the 7.1 elven armies converge to Suramar, you have blood elves being buddies with the nightborne, hinting at which faction the later would join, while on the Alliance you have night elves and high elves.
– Elisande’s speech clearly places the high elves as their own race separated from blood elves, and to me is the largest hint that they were meant to be the nightborne’s counterpart.
– Vereesa is present for a brief moment in the Nighthold ending questline
– Vereesa and Arator have a proper role in 7.3 patch, searching for Alleria

What I think was really planned was that Alleria would become the leader of the high elves. She probably would have the void powers anyway (hinted way back in WoD), but it would be a personal story rather than a new race idea. By the end of Legion, Alleria’s return would lead the high elves to unite and become playable.

But… Alleria’s story was an internal success and someone probably thought people would like to be play as something like her. They pitched this idea and the higher-ups embraced it. Since the idea was introduced so later, it didn’t have time to mature, so we ended up with this mess of a race that wasn’t properly seeded and had to be fleshed out over the course of a single quick recruitment scenario.

I’d love to know what happened in the meeting that decided void elves would replace high elves as the fourth allied race. I’d also love to see what work, specially concept art, Blizzard had done prior to that change of direction.

Over time I got hopeful that void elves weren’t just a last minute decision and there would be a plan behind them. 8.3 has proved, thought, that there was no plan at all. They were a last minute decision.

Hypêrspace-dalaran · October 27, 2019, 2:59am

i’m talking about when you play legion. and its time to do the rep grind for allied races. all the allied races have full zones associated with them, not just home cities they hail from once you unlock them, but entire broken isles zones, with long quest chains. void elves do not.

Renotarshil-malganis · October 27, 2019, 3:00am

Not until they void bomb silvermoon or w/e.

Bourbonboxer-lightbringer · October 27, 2019, 3:02am

My point was that the original idea was Broken and High Elves…yet, there was issues:

Broken not having a female model would require them to make a new rig with its own customization (on top of designing customizations in general for Broken). Since we KNOW all the Legion ARs are basically reskins with unique customization…the release of being 7.3.5 must have halted this venture.
With Broken not being represent the void-afflicted race, Blizzard chose to do the LFD but with wanting to push this Light/Shadow BS…the paladin race of High Elves needed to be pushed off.

OR:

Blizzard decided that High Elves didnt have a reasonable reputation for them to work (since Nightfallenw as used for Nightborne, and Argussian makes very little sense). And with no other high elf appearances in Legion outside of the class halls…they decided not to go with high elves.
As replacement, they decided to follow the Alleria story and make something new. Vice versa…they didnt want to give Alliance two void races so switched Broken to LFD.

This was all assuming Nightborne were always planned for Horde AR, and ARs were decided late into development.

Mowachassa-dalaran · October 27, 2019, 3:03am

I do taste like it though.

Renotarshil-malganis · October 27, 2019, 3:04am

That’s not pg.

Saralocks-frostmourne · October 27, 2019, 3:05am

One thing I do admit though, every time when someone mentions Void Elves to being Blueberry flavour, I always seem to think of this song

Only because of the blue.

Renotarshil-malganis · October 27, 2019, 3:05am

I love this song.

Mowachassa-dalaran · October 27, 2019, 3:05am

If this is true, pretty sure there are plenty of scrapped High Elf assets for their playable models that didn’t saw implementation.

Mowachassa-dalaran · October 27, 2019, 3:06am

It was part of my childhood.

Renotarshil-malganis · October 27, 2019, 3:07am

Mine too. People thought I was weird.

Bourbonboxer-lightbringer · October 27, 2019, 3:11am

While I agree that high elves were my consideration for the first ARs, a lot of your deduction here feels filler-y. I dont have an issue with the high elf focus on Suramar (even if I feel its weak) and Argus…but everything else feels weak for logic.

Bourbonboxer-lightbringer · October 27, 2019, 3:11am

Wheres this from?