If the Alliance can't get High Elves, Then Give the Option to the Horde

I think that was already done when they begged to be let back into Dalaran. I mean, you do remember that the humans that did the imprisonment under the orders of Garithos (who was from Lordaeron, mind you) were from Dalaran, right?

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that had the backing of the kirin tor, and led the remnants of the region

they didn’t.
they took an uneasy treaty after the alliance (as they saw it straight up went murder hobo on them for not dying

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No. Keep them unplayable.
Enough of this High Elf topic.

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I think that when the devs provide what a huge swath of the player-base has been requesting for double digit years, these threads will disappear.

Until then… well, it is a lumpy bed that they have made.

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“they” didn’t
a small subfaction (the sunreavers) did

In both cases -Garithos and Blackhand- is not the same leadership than the current incarnation, but one can be “reconciled” and the other not?

It’s funny that you mention the Kirin Tor in this -which also weren’t actually keeping oversight on Garithos orders- as by Wrath, the Blood Elves are very happy to dwell within Dalaran again.

The story could have gone either way, they just wanted to go with BE’s on the Horde. To be clear I’m happy with this development, Blood Elves culturally fit the Horde very well and I enjoy them there, but to pretend this is an inexorable development based on the lore rather than a calculated choice is profoundly naive.

Well Night elves aren’t “just” purple, they can be a variety of different colors as apposed to separate shades of the same color. Honestly the Nightborne could have been any color, and if they just so happened to resemble even one of the 12 colors Night elves can choose from people would point it out, while ignoring that blood elves literally only have access to light to dark shades of peach.

When there are less options that physically define a race, the ones that do exist play a more crucial role in identifying them. Blood elves are notoriously fair-skinned, blonde elves, it’s the fantasy the race was designed to fulfill within World of Warcraft, and clearly it’s not something Blizzard wants to share with another race, especially one on the opposite faction.

“A purple skinned elf” does not define a Night elf, as Night elves can be a wide variety of different colors. When someone chooses a Nightborne they can be either a dark purple elf, or a light purple elf, while Night elves can be varying shades of pink, blue, green, etc. A high elf however looks identical to a blood elf.

There’s a drastic difference between looking similar to another race that has a wide variaty of appearances that allow them to appear unique, and looking identical to another race with a very limited amount of customizable appearances.

They’re undead, and do not represent the same themes, or visual fantasy that humans do in World of warcraft. This is not “taking” from the alliance as they have been established race with their own narrative identity under Sylvanas since Warcraft 3. The Forsaken are by no means a “niche” alliance group that somehow tore away an Alliance theme.

At one point they may have been Alliance humans, but what themes, and fantasies they once represented have been altered, and too did their relationship with the alliance.

And so what? The Blood elves should have every single theme torn away from them and given away to other races? The alliance already got the Thalassian model, and all it’s animations with new customization options to boot and now you want the color scheme as well?

Why is it that the Blood elves are the only ones faced with this predicament? The only race faced with having every visual element that defines it given away to other races until nothing unique, or interesting remains? Every race should have some feature that can only be found with that race, some theme, or fantasy that players much choose in order to fulfill. It is not okay to tell players that have been playing Blood elves for over a decade that they shouldn’t be against a concept that tears away the themes that separate them from other races by adding an identical race to the other faction.

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I wish they had never cleansed the Sunwell. Edgy demonic magic Blood Elves fit much better with the Horde than their post TBC versions.

Edit: In fact, the article linked earlier in this thread, which had Metzen talking about Blood Elves prior to the release of TBC has all been either retconned out or changed completely. All the “reasons” they had for joining and being on the Horde had been wiped away within a single expansion.

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Very true, yet as the horde has expanded it’s themes, overzealous light wielders kinda has gotten its own niche on the horde. While the previous “Imma survivor at any cost and I dig fel” themes still exist within BE; Lanesh was such a BC era rogue!

and which incident was the most recent?
both sides failed to do what they wanted (destroy the elves)

the difference is
“humans” did it twice (arthas wasn’t dead yet)
first they were “abandoned” (they weren’t but it’s been the claim since wc3)
then a human prince drove a sword through their home
THEN when they tried to ally themselves with humans…they were sent on a suicide mission and then sent to execution for not dying like good little dogs

whereas the horde tried to destroy them…failed and didn’t come back after that

they’re not comparable

stop with conflating individual factions within a race as the entirety of the race
but A, dalaran has been the home of atleast some elves for ~2,000 years
and B. not all were ok with it, a subfaction pushed for it and got granted their wishes

not really, logically if 2 nations try to nuke you and you HAVE to ally with one you go with the one that hasn’t tried it the most recently

esp if one does it once and the other does it (in your view) 3 times in a row

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They were added to the Horde for multiple reasons.

Honestly it seems the Void elves have sort of taken up the mantle for the narrative that was originally meant for the Blood elves. Like Kael’thas the Void elves were not satisfied with the power they had and began consorting with dangerous forces they couldn’t hope to understand in their quest for even more power. In fact Kael’thas and his loyalists also began dabbling into the void, with the very first “real” Void elf being Astromancer Solarian in Tempest keep.

I believe that Blizzard decided to shift the narrative fantasy of blood elves into a more positive light due to their sheer popularity, eventually introducing a redemption arc that ended in the renewal of the Sunwell.

But primarily to boost player participation by giving an Alliance race to the monster faction.

#factsnotfeelings

Blood Knights that bent the Light to their will were a lot cooler too.

I’m very confident that for such a long lived race it really was just about “who did it last”

Well, Arthas went literally rogue and killed his own people first. Not to forget that the BE ended up allying with the same people that WAS under Arthas control during his attack on Quel’thalas.

But yes, as obvious by your logic, Humans are unforgivable because they are the same race than Arthas, but the actual people that attacked QT can be forgiven. You like to collect hypocrisies.

So on one hand you held humans accountable for Garithos and Arthas actions, but you completely disregard the actions of the Horde and the now Forsaken.

of course they are not comparable in your eyes! otherwise you’d have to admit Blood Elves needed to ally themselves with someone and at the end the Horde won -the fact they needed a pretty race probably the biggest reason, more than any lore one-

But you are the one blaming the alliance as a whole for Garithos and Arthas; a rogue element and a literal traitor that slaughtered his own people.

Like for real, if all the parameters are using is “who atacked us last” that’s just silly. Specially since the Forsaken are the ones that technically did!

I will say that the Horde had a far larger interest in the Blood Elves, that’s obvious.

But again, to say that BE ovbiously had to go to the Horde because the story is profoundly naive.

Funny thing was, it was never lore appropriate for every single Sin’dorei to have green eyes.

Not all Sin’dorei fed on fel. Kael’thas took his elves into the Outland, but if you feed on arcane, you have blue or white eyes. Most elves feed on arcane energy. Even the mana worms, and the magic artifacts that the elves in Dalanar fed on are arcane. Thus, a large portion of the Sin’dorei should have had blue eyes from the moment that they were introduced.

They certainly should have them now that the Sunwell is cleansed and part arcane, part holy.

If “ambient fel energy” from the crystals powering buildings in fallen Silvermoon were enough to turn eyes green, then every single “high elf” who went to Outland would have them, since there’s far more ambient fel there. But they didn’t.

Your blue-eyed elves are, according to lore, available on Horde side, though the option hasn’t shown up for players.

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“Cities that aren’t red and full of spikes and ugly monster people” is the response I most often hear from Alliance mains.

It’s funny how you Alliance-helf people keep insisting the Horde wants to keep them from you out of “spite,” and yet being consistent with the written lore and the current state of the Sunwell ends up with “if we can’t have them no one can!!”

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Sounds like a massive retcon given the sunwells’ significance, though sources are appreciated. And yes they’re elven, you were supposedly one of the ones that looked that way until you lost your magic source and started munching fel. BE with green eyes are a WC3 frozen throne thing, you’re like forgetting your whole history with these comments.

And hence it’s an issue, if Ion is going to tell players that BE are helves, then they need to have the corresponding customization options.