This is likely because void elves were an experiment. High elves were not used because blizzard didnât know if void elves would be accepted or not.
They are popular as we can see now however they donât fulfill the role of high elves. Blizzard kept high elves separate as a sort of backup. Blizzard will likely use them in the near future in an expansion after shadowlands.
With everything I have seen to me it is a sure thing high elves are going to happen. Blizzard canât announce things so far in advance. They however have been hinting at the high elf community to not lose hope. The timing for high elves in the story just isnât available in shadowlands so they wonât happen then unless blizzard wants to make a surprise allied race pair with the prepatch which is doubtful.
All of the BFA races were pre planned. Blizzard can now take fan feedback into account for future allied races.
This makes a lot of sense to be honest. Void Elves were a cool thing they wanted to introduce but it doesnât remove High Elves in the future.
Personally I love Void Elves, but I agree the narrative with them is completely different from what draws people to love High Elves.
Personally the more the better Elf love! Sanâlayn for Horde, High Elves for Alliance. Victory for Sylvanas! All that good stuff, it all stems from a love of WoW!
I think Iâd end up writing my character as King of Quelâthalas, hehe idk if Iâm cut out for that! I do have such high hopes for the writers working on Shadowlands though!!
Thank you for the compliment though! I do try in these threads, I support playable Quelâdorei but I am also a staunch Blood Elf defender.
And its also my belief Alliance HEâs can be implemented with no threat to Sinâdorei at all, and enhance the faction war some while doing so
100% correct there. We can further back this up with concrete proof from an example ingame where in Telgrus Rift we can clearly see High Elf scholars present there learning the Void from the Void Elves. If hypothetically speaking they learn the void magic without actually undergoing the sacrificial ritual, then that would mean they would retain their high elf skin and eye features while still becoming practionners of the void. This can fully justify more diverse skin tones for Void Elves. Since the void ritual can not be repeated, the void elves will eventually have to recruit more elves, so the future void elves will most likely be high elves.
So Iâm gonna tie my Blood Elf love into a question about High Elves and what Iâm excited about from Alliance Quelâdorei butâŚ
Iâve been taking my time on this warlock as Iâve said, and I took the time to get the Darkshore stuff which to be honest kept giving me gloves for the longest time but I finally got the stuff I wanted to look like my idea of a loyalist to the Banshee Queen, so now I can properly finish the quest line, as Iâve been summoned to Orgrimmar (itâs been sitting in my quest log)
And I got to thinking I love the Darkshore set on Blood Elves, I love the Blood Elf heritage set on Blood Elves. I kind of thought one, what is the Alliance Quelâdorei heritage set going to look like. And two a lot of High Elf fans seem to be big Vereesa or Alleria fans, and I hope there is some sort of (not warfront BFA is over) but some sort of warfront like experience in the future to tie in a second great armor to let High Elf fans feel some sort of connection to their favorite Windrunner sister. Personally Darkshore all screams Sylvanas loyalist to me, itâs subjective maybe others see something different it is what it is. But the point Iâm arriving at is when High Elves are implemented Iâll be keen on seeing their ties to their respective Windrunner, and maybe Blizzard will have some event or gear that screams Vereesa loyalist or an updated Silver Covenant storyline to make you feel extra loyal to that respective faction.
If not the ranger armor like Vareesa and Alleria, my guess would be the mage armor you see on the Alliance Shield Mages and Portal Mages in Boralus and on the airship for the Stromgarde Warfront.
In fact, I would almost guarantee it would be based on the mage armor.
Given that Sylvanas wears a very similar set of Ranger armor like her sisters, I donât foresee them making that set effectively Alliance only.
I foresee that becoming available to both Blood & High Elves and possibly even Forsaken.
Iâd be fine with a more mage like thing. Mostly Iâm curious what others are interested in as Iâm more a BE fan I just support the inclusion of HEs mostly because of the faction benefits in increased tension and I think it adds to BE story in a non threatening way.
I also got a bit ahead of myself post heritage armor but I hope there is some scenario / feature in the future like warfront that plays on their respective Windrunner so the gear from it can make them feel a bit more connected to their favorite Windrunner.
VE are largely a palette swap accompanied by absolutely terrible writing. NB had the entirety of Suramar to introduce and develop them. Which is why Alliance players getting exalted with the Nightfallen only to see them join the Horde felt like such a punch to the gut.
As for the model, modifying it along the lines of the artwork in the OP and through some posts on this thread would be the giving the Alliance an equivalent to the Nightborne (since they are a modified night elf model). If anything, VE are to the Alliance what Maghar orcs are to the Horde in that regard.
Mind that the writing could have saved void elves, and this thread and all those like it would likely not exist if Blizzard had taken the time to give the VEs a decent story and deal with the High Elf plot threads during Legion.
Iâll be the first one to say that they did the VE a great disservice by the way they introduced them. Their concept in my opinion itâs really good, itâs a real shame the execution was that bad though.
Still, regardless of this, they canât be dismissed as if the equivalent doesnât already exist, which the person I was replying to was essentially doing by only bringing up Nightborne.
That ship has sailed. Color palette swap or not, the thalassian model is already in the Alliance, to get one that is even closer to the original (because, despite of what that art might tell you, I can promise you that was the majority want, yes, not all but the majority, are just blue eyed blood elves and some blue tattoos) is something that wonât happen, or rather, should not happen.
Also, the comparison to Magâhar would only work if they were on Alliance but no, they resemble their parent race the most, so they are on the same side as regular orcs.
Even the compromise some suggest of making them look diferent entirely itâs sketchy at best, because if the lore hoops they made the VE jump to become playable are absurd, for them to come up with a reason for HE to look different would be similar as it would be a retcon. But then some lore inconsistencies are wrong while others are welcomed?
I agree wholeheartedly. As I said, the concept of VE is very interesting. The idea of having a sub faction that is more opposed to those that now honor their fallen joining the Horde going to great lengths to disrupt this, I can even imagine the HEs that went with Alleria finding this out and being mortified even. Then the possibility of rivalries and conflict within the Alliance as itâs heavily Light influenced⌠it would have been so good but yet, they blew it and even saying that they blew itâs an understatement.
Itâs all a matter of opinion. Some like the void elf concept, but I find the theme narrow. It feels like a spec of a class becoming a race. I feel the same way about lightforged draenei. Iâve struggled to level one of those as well for the same reasons.
The void elf story basically being tossed into their recruitment scene with nothing previous to them being added definitely doesnât help. They feel like blizzard remembered they needed a new race and threw something together at the last minute, which feels bad on its own, not even taking into account the whole high elf thing.
Seemed that they were created to fit the potential void theme for bfa⌠just like demon hunters in legion, which when the theme is over, they seem to lose their story, because they donât get a story beyond.
Void Elves being their own unique thing is what is important to me, they donât come from former High Elves.
They are this new concept like you point out Ely. That doesnât mean they canât use previous established concept to be playable in the future; ie: High Elves (which is what I think will end up happening as the April fools patch notes seem to acknowledge the High Elf topic of support!)
But the thing is VEâs have to come from somewhere; just because they come from BE now doesnât make them âBEâ you know? I say this disregarding any âHE customization for Void Elvesâ BTW, I just think that it makes sense for VEâs to bolster their numbers from any possible sources.
I donât see the logic on saying VEâs can be former BEâs, but not former HEâs. Honestly for logisticâs sake, they should be both.
To me personally they are still BE. Much more than High Elves. Itâs no different than if an orc was turned into a Void Orc, kicked out of Org, and joined the Alliance and became playable. Any stance against High Elves should be double when it comes to VE since they are directly from BE. Itâs also why Blizz canât make excuses anymore for why High Elves arenât playable. They dropped the ball with VE, and the request for High Elves is about giving the Alliance something that has been requested for a very, very long time and isnât a cast off of BEs.
Canât say âVoid Elves are a-okay, but High Elves arenâtâ
My perspective though. Void Elves are what they are and Blood Elves are what they are, but neither do much of anything for me. Been there and tried that.
I think VEs are a cool thing but definitely niche and no indication that it cancels out High Elves.
Sanâlayn comes to mind as another Horde Elf race possibility. We could see both Ogres and Mokânathal. No reason to have a cap on playable race possibilities imo.
But Void Elves stemming from BEs I think is pretty unique, considering the VE story sort of reminds many of the BE BC story but taken to the next degree, so it fits as to why Blizzard chose to make this new idea they had for an Elf race come from Blood Elves. And it sort of fits for Void stuff this expansion but again they dropped the ball where were they in the Nâzoth patch lol?
I am not writing off players who like BEs, VEs, Sanlayn, Ogres, or the Moknathal. To each their own. Now that the ones that are playable are there, thatâs what it is. As for the ones you mentioned that arenât playable yet, I donât begrudge the Horde players for wanting them. I donât play Horde anymore so I donât have a dog in those fights.
But BEs were supposed to be a Horde only thing. Protect the model, protect the faction identity. Okay fine. Jerk move for players who wanted High Elves before BEs were a thing, but it was the standard.
But that all breaks down real fast when you look at VEs. If Blizz truly wanted to protect faction identity then they should have been a Horde AR and NB an Alliance AR. Unique or not to have them swap.
VEs were a Legion thing. They could have actually built on them with the void themes from this expansion, but of course they didnât. Even if they did it would still be a mess in my opinion. They just⌠Screwed up entirely right out of the gate with ARs and story and design. Canât fix them either because their intro will always be what it will be and wherever they turn it will be a band-aid attempt in which they have to admit they messed up, which they canât do. They could be classy though and say âwe messed up, we canât change that, but here are HEs letâs make a clean break and do better from this point forwardâ.
