“But they might have better customization and racials and content and all sort of things!” Again, unfounded fearmongering.
And let’s be clear, players are not constantly flocking to the “new”, AR are consistently FAR behind their core races, let alone the most popular ones. This is simply wrong.
No; you could actually attempt to look at precedent, similar cases, player trends and overall distribution to actually have a case that’s not based on baseless speculation. That’s what I’m saying.
And now you are ignoring the obvious point of why BE players would change race for one so similar to the one they already have.
If you have to add the caveat that HE’s being “better” somehow you are simply making the obvious point of “oh wow an overall better race might draw people!”
I have been always open to the notion that Blizzard could choose “whatever reason” to make HE’s have different skin color and hair -I was okay with VE’s being made out of High Elves-
So to claim “they are the factors you REFUSE TO CHANGE” is simply, well, false.
What I will say about that is the balancing act required to keep the High Elf lore consistent while adding an external force that changes their appearance.
But let’s be real, “Nigthborne get to be purple Nigth Elves but High Elves can’t have anything NEAR a human skin tone” is simply, hypocresy.
This is exactly what i thought. I’m pretty sure Method and so many other Mythic and Heroic guilds didn’t changed from the Alliance for the Horde because they wanted to play Blood Elves.
Oceanic realms are dominated by the Alliance despite the Horde being overall the winning faction. (sarcasm alert) Can someone explain this curious event because i tried to play a Alliance Blood Elf in one of those realms but i couldn’t, wasn’t like the Blood Elves the reason why the Horde is the dominant faction? I thought it would be the case why the Alliance was dominating there.
If the blood elf identity is only their appearance, then maybe there would be a point, but they are more than that, and that’s not a strong point.
A different stance, different model, non identical skin tones that range from pale to dark, different shades of hair, non glowing eyes, all options that have been suggested here. They would have distinct silhouettes with just a stance and model change alone.
And no, if their model is changed they don’t cease to be high elves. They still have their lore, their history.
Yes it is Avarie, Humans are small eared Blood Elves since they are fair skinned and blonde too, but Blizzard named them Humans not to make it obvious.
on every occasion development has spoken about playable alliance high elves in detail in the past 12 years, they have pointed out their rarity and their near extinction. two of those occasions were even post the addition of void elves and lightforged draenei
we are just about done with this entire expansion where the only ‘high’ elves who could have had any kind of presence were frostfenser seraphii and vereesa(who appeared in her usual role of support). so either you are right from your flawed observations in game and your attempt to make them square with your own pre-conceived biases, or development is correct and the reason they keep bringing up the population issue in regards to playable alliance high elves alone is that they mean what they say and there really are only ‘a couple’ to bother about
still, the main issue is the gameplay reason. that high elves are blood elves and the high elf fantasy is already playable
I don’t think expecting a new playable race to have updated customizations, and potentially better racials" is fearmongering, considering that many racials are outdated, and useless in modern WoW.
And yet is exactly what happened with Blood elves. It went from Alliance outnumbering Horde, to Horde severely outnumbering Alliance with the release of a single race.
And would what that be? More speculation, and theorizing with no solid, proof or facts to back what the end result might be.
It’s that they’re potentially adding an identical race that would be updated, and improved from what we have now, which would very likely include new customization, new content, and new racials.
It’s like setting someone down in front of two computers, and saying “Hey, look at this awesome computer with an awesome graphics card, and CPU from your favorite PC company” And unveiling the EXACT same computer, simply updated with an even better graphics card and CPU, and then acting shocked that people might choose the new and improved one.
And yet almost EVERY single example in the mega-thread surrounding distinctive customization seem to always revolve around keeping X and Z the same, that even after Void elves were implemented the VERY first thing players asked for were “Hey, can we have fair skin and blonde hair please”
It just seems so strange to me that people continuously downplay the importance of these themes while also refusing to budge on changing them for the race they want. I can tell you that if High elves underwent the SAME theme-change void elves went through, they would be significantly more receptive to the idea than adding a carbon copy of the blood elves to the alliance.
And we’ve been over the whole “Nightborne” and “NIght elf” example, which really isn’t fair as Night elves have 12 different skin colors, and share only “one” with the Nightborne, which doesn’t even match either. You can still look different from a nightborn scheme wise as a Night elf, while a Blood elf could look not from a high elf.
Which is entirely different visual fantasy from playing an elf altogether. Which is why “elf” is the re-occuring adjective when describing these themes. Or else the Horde would have lost its mind when Kul’tirens came out.
Have all the humans you want, that isn’t the concern. Especially when you’re asking for the same biological race that currently exists on the Horde.
Not even close. The High Elf fantasy is the High Elves of Warcraft 2. The High Elf fantasy is all the High Elves that are allied with the Alliance, the High Elves that are allied with Alliance factions, and the High Elves that are friendly with the Alliance and hostile to the Horde. There is a noticeable presence of High Elves within the Alliance.
I said this once and I will say it again. Blood Elves were High Elves, but High Elves are not Blood Elves. They are two different groups now and that’s what they will remain to be.
Alliance was over-represented in Vanilla partly because priest racial skills were imbalanced. Dwarves’ Fear Ward was obligatory in raids. TBC normalized priest skills, removing that need to go Alliance.
From TBC to MoP, Horde racials were very imbalanced, further causing people to go Horde.
The addition of blood elves did make Horde more visually appealing for some, but don’t forget that blood elves were the only Horde paladin option back then.
Horde was already on top of higher level content when Blizzard unified the auction house. That eliminate one of the few Alliance advantages that remained: the larger player base that allowed for cheaper crafting materials. There was no more advantage in remaining Alliance.
Now, as for why blood elves dominate the Horde:
Nearly half of blood elves are paladin or demon hunters. Almost 1/4 of the blood elves are demon hunters, which is only available to them. Paladins were only shared with tauren, who are nowhere near as popular. Addition of zandalari now added another popular option.
Racials: Blood elf racials were very good for most of the time.
For most of the game, blood elves were the only Horde race that wasn’t goofy or hunched. Wanted a “cool” option? A pretty character? An imposing warrior? A cute look? Only blood elves could provided those.
In short, blood elves are popular mostly because the other options were not. However, now you have non-hunched orcs and zandalari as imposing alternatives, nightborne as pretty ones and soon vulpera as cute contenders. For the first time in over a decade we are seen blood elf representation decreasing (meanwhile, orc representation has increased).
We now also have another paladin option.
If only we could have more demon hunter alternatives…
While I don’t expect a sudden change (allied races still need to be unlocked, after all, so it’s not a fair competition), I do think blood elf numbers will decrease over time. I’m eager to see what people will choose main when we have 9.0 and a new level cap to reach.
high elves as a people left the alliance, a few(literally) remained. after a national tragedy they rebranded themselves blood elves and later joined the horde
And those are the High Elves we are talking about. The few that remained, the few that continue to support and be friendly with the Alliance. There is a lot more High Elves than there are Void Elves. There are more High Elves than there are Mechagnomes, and there are a lot more High Elves than the Lightforged Draenei.
High elves were alliance anyway, before blood elves were made playable. People want the alliance to not get a race they’ve interacted with since vanilla just because the horde has them.
Besides, if purple elves aren’t alliance exclusive, flesh toned elves aren’t horde exclusive. Especially since the horde didn’t have purple elf npcs from vanilla to the end of legion, whereas the alliance has had high elf npcs since vanilla.
Not playable though, they did not have a playerbase and considering the aftermath of WC3 did not have exclusive rights to the Thalassian race, or their allegiance.
There might be. I won’t say that’s false, but we can’t claim that it’s true either. The truth is that we don’t know their exact numbers
But we do know there’s more than a few, Blizz has seen fit to use them as generic nameless NPC’s after all. That’s not something they could do if there’s canonically only 5 left
And Blizzard does that on purpose. They don’t specify the numbers because they want to have that freedom to add requested allied races. But there is such a thing as common sense. How many Lightforged Draenei could there be on that one ship after thousands of years of fighting the Burning Legion. The only one that I might agree to is the Mechagnomes. Maybe there were more rustbolt rebels than we saw.
