High Elf Allied Race Megathread (Continuation)

[Mythliel-stormrage]

Yeah especially now that Night Elves have gone all Dark Elf extreme.

[Nindraine-moon-guard (Nindraine)]

I’ve always likened the difference between a High Elf and a Night Elf’s respect of nature as the difference between a Ranger and a Druid, in that while both have immense respect and love for nature, a ranger respects and reveres nature, while a druid worships it. A High Elf may plant a garden bed out of their love for nature, but they’ll tend to it, crop dead growth, weed the garden bed and nurture it, while a Night Elf would instead leave the land to grow wild and untamed - balanced, yet not constrained or refined.

Whereas on the other hand a Blood Elf would cast a spell on the thole thing so they didn’t have to bother with getting their hands dirty with such a menial task as gardening in the first place.

[Azgoroth-lethon]

It’s not nonsensical. There’s a very clear story behind why the elves joined the Horde instead of the Alliance. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t invalidate the narrative. Do you write up the author of every book you read to tell them they’ve written it wrong when you find something you don’t like? Blizzard is creating a piece of fantasy, and it’s their right to take the story where they want it to go. The kind of cut and dry story that would have led the high elves to the Alliance is immature and boring anyway.

I personally felt emotional playing through the heritage armor quests for the blood elves. Blizzard took the trope of the “good guy elves” and spun it around. They were betrayed, shattered, and defeated at the hands of their allies. Blood elves are a prototype of the battle between the supposedly “good guy” racist humans and another race that has suffered enough under them to make their way to the horde. They are the high elves, it’s their culture, their city, and their sacrifice. The story of the wind runners is the story of the blood elves and the horde.

So as Ion said, if you want to play a high elf, roll a blood elf. They are the high elves. The devs want to return to the original drawing of sides and aren’t going to do another neutral race, and don’t want the ambiguity of allowing a small splinter faction of blood elves to be playable on the Alliance. This thread is just asking to defy lore and the long term health of the game so people can play out their personal fantasy in Blizzards game.

[Vitori-proudmoore]

As always, stopping in to show support for High Elves! Loving all the concepts, keep up the great work everyone!

[Fyrebusche-wyrmrest-accord]

It’s not nonsensical. There’s a very clear story behind why the elves joined the Horde instead of the Alliance. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t invalidate the narrative. Do you write up the author of every book you read to tell them they’ve written it wrong when you find something you don’t like? Blizzard is creating a piece of fantasy, and it’s their right to take the story where they want it to go. The kind of cut and dry story that would have led the high elves to the Alliance is immature and boring anyway.

I personally felt emotional playing through the heritage armor quests for the blood elves. Blizzard took the trope of the “good guy elves” and spun it around. They were betrayed, shattered, and defeated at the hands of their allies. Blood elves are a prototype of the battle between the supposedly “good guy” racist humans and another race that has suffered enough under them to make their way to the horde. They are the high elves, it’s their culture, their city, and their sacrifice. The story of the wind runners is the story of the blood elves and the horde.

So as Ion said, if you want to play a high elf, roll a blood elf. They are the high elves. The devs want to return to the original drawing of sides and aren’t going to do another neutral race, and don’t want the ambiguity of allowing a small splinter faction of blood elves to be playable on the Alliance. This thread is just asking to defy lore and the long term health of the game so people can play out their personal fantasy in Blizzards game.

all this ^

same. im so glad the devs didnt create a copy paste of LotR lore. blood elf heritage scenario was the best!

[Tröut-stormrage]

As always I support the High Elf playable race. For Quel’thalas!

Also third forum in a row Blizzard, cmoooooon. Cmooooooon.

[Somand-proudmoore]

This looks like a peach skinned Nightborne

That’s odd, seeing as I made it entirely with Thalassian body parts.

wish i could get that hair color tho. the kirin tor blood elf in the horde portal room has it ive seen other NPC blood elves with it too

I’d like this hair colour on Blood Elves too. I made it myself in GIMP by changing the values on the blonde hair, but it does look similar to a DK hair that Blizz loves to use on non-DK NPCs.

[Fyrebusche-wyrmrest-accord]

I’d like this hair colour on Blood Elves too

frost mages need it

[Lancelot-lightnings-blade (Lancelot)]

frost mages need it

I still don’t get how Blizzard thinks those hairstyles are icy enough for Death Knights, but what, somehow too icy for Frost Mages? Free the hair colours Blizzard.

[Nindraine-moon-guard (Nindraine)]

The story of the wind runners is the story of the blood elves and the horde.

Except how two of them are on the Alliance? And none of them are Blood Elves? >.>

[Fyrebusche-wyrmrest-accord]

allerias story is also part of the void elf story

[Filthenstein-tortheldrin]

It’s quite simple, anyone who doesn’t want content to exist for others is selfish and petty. Let people have their high elves; who gives a crap. Just don’t give them the same animations and aesthetics as BEs like Blizz lazily did with Void.

This is a running theme with WoW community too. Undead paladins, the feral Shirvallah form coming back in glyph form. These petty and selfish people chime in stating “NO,” because, what, freaking LORE? Get over yourself and the game. Blizzard literally adds entire islands to the sea, and to me, NO ONE can argue race/class combos after draenei and goblin shamans. Guess what? They weren’t a thing…until they were. All Blizzard does is add a couple lines of story in a patch and voila, goblin shamans. So tired of these aggressive lore people trying to waylay peoples’ fun.

[Leinadh-stormrage]

My goodness, those look AWESOME.

[Nindraine-moon-guard (Nindraine)]

Warcraft’s lore has always been pretty malleable at the best of times, so yeah, I do think that the playerbase (or at least aspects of it) on both sides definitely have a tendency to hold the lore as far more sacred than Blizzard themselves have ever done.

[Azgoroth-lethon]

Their story is part of the overall blood elf storyline. They’re on different sides to create narrative tension. It’s called storytelling. Ultimately the conflict boils down to the loss of their family members and the invasion of Arthas. If you took the time to understand the heritage armor quest, the section at Windrunner tower is meant to show that.

[Bagzak-rexxar]

Just wanted to say that I’d be happy to see High Elves. It has been a long, hard battle for High Elf fans, and I wish y’all the best of luck!

And if y’all need a Horde counterpart to High Elves, I’m sure the Ogres would work perfectly. Both races have been long overdue to be playable, in my opinion. ^^

[Photius-dalaran]

looks at silvermoon and lorthemar

the vast majority of thalassian elves joined the horde. as stated multiple times by blizzard, they are high elves with the right to define what it means to be a playable high elf in WoW (which happens to be as a horde blood elf). the tiny group of alliance loyal thalassian elves who are thematically, biologically and culturally identical to the blood elves should not have the right to redefine what it means to be a high elf because they kept an adjective. keeping them as NPCs and story tools maintains that

… You clearly don’t even understand what he posted. Yet you replied with this nonsense. Ridiculous, complete and utter straw man.

[Êadweard-moon-guard (Êadweard)]

I like this troll.

[Azgoroth-lethon]

Go watch the video by Ion. Giving every player exactly what they want should be apparently illogical. There has to be give and take to create the proper tension in the story and make the game mechanically sound. Otherwise, you’ll end up with something unplayable, largely due to unintended consequences. That’s why even though people on the forums have been complaining about flying, high elves, group finder for forever, Blizzard only sometimes compromises. I think Blizzard has made a lot of mistakes over the years, but drawing lines in the sand and saying no isn’t one of them. In fact, the game is worse off for adding things in the game that ended up trivializing what made the game great in the first place.

[Nindraine-moon-guard (Nindraine)]

So you agree that there is a dramatic, tension-filled narrative that is being told between the different groups of Elves - High, Void, Blood, and even Undead.

Great! We do too. That’s part of the appeal of High Elves - it’s another facet of that story, a different perspective and angle on the continuing fallout from the fall of Silvermoon. In the same way that the Heritage Armor quest tells us about the High Elves who used that event to come together and, through much suffering and hardship, build a new, glorious civilisation, we want to see the story of those that saw the rise of the new Blood Elf way of life and were dismayed, scared or refused to cast aside old friendships. We feel that there’s a lot of story to be told in delving into the other side and learning about their story, too.