But this is also true for the Blackhand Orcs which are playable now. They don’t exist anymore but you can play them too.
Garithos is my spirit animal.
The bug reporter adds legitimacy. /signed
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Not what I meant. There are very few non-playable High Elves on Alliance side that still call themselves that and then there are playable Void Elves and Blood Elves.
All three of these are High Elves when it comes to physiology/genetics. The distinction in the case of the non-playable High Elves on Alliance side and the playable Blood Elves on Horde side is political.
Thalassian Elf, in my opinion, is a redundant umbrella term because speaking about physiology/genetics all three, playable Blood Elves, playable Void Elves, and non-playable High Elves are High Elves with the only one of the three possibly differing slightly genetically being Void Elves due to having been infused with the Void.
Making it
Thalassian Elves:
- Blood Elves
- High Elves
- Void Elves
In the race selection window is acting like the difference between Blood and High Elves is physiological and not political and, in my opinion, is only done because the person writing it was aware it’d sound off to make it
High Elves:
- Blood Elves
- High Elves
- Void Elves
Because two of these don’t identify as High Elves and the one group that does is not playable because only a very small number of High Elves still identifies (politically) as High Elves and while it’s to be assumed the population of Void Elves can grow as more Blood Elves decide to research the Void and as a result can’t be near the Sunwell anymore, I’m not aware of anything in game that points towards the population of self-identifying High Elves growing.
The problem with the suggested categorization I have (and the person that made it even stated it like that) is that it dumbs down important political reasons as to why Blood Elves and High Elves aren’t on the same side politically and why Void Elves can’t be on Horde (Sunwell) etc. to cosmetic “themes” which just doesn’t do any of the three groups justice.
Further, regardless of what I think about a playable race that self-identifies as High Elves on Alliance, such a race just does not exist for now and I hope it won’t exist unless it is developed through writing that e.g. The population of High Elves that identify as High Elves is growing for some reason.
That isn’t necessarily a faction thing because Blood Elves are proud of what they have endured and even if they didn’t side with the Horde anymore they’d be unlikely to suddenly call themselves High Elves again, so growing numbers of High Elves that call themselves High Elves would have to come from a) reproduction or b) Void Elves being purified in some way - but even in this second case Void Elves are Blood Elves who decided to research the Void and I’m not sure why they’d suddenly view themselves as High Elves if they somehow managed to entirely get rid of the Void within them if they even wanted to.
So there’s no real reason as of now why they’d just sneak (self-identifying) High Elves into this because they aren’t playable and there’s also no reason as to why we need a big umbrella category for two playable races.
The distinction between Blood Elves and High Elves is neither physiological nor cosmetic (yea, eye colors, but other than that) but political. The distinction between Blood Elves and Void Elves is researching and being infused with the void which has led to not being allowed near the Sunwell. Making these distinctions nothing but a cosmetic difference/choice and lumping them all together takes away from the reasons these three groups aren’t just the holy kids, the fel kids and the emo kids at highschool but have important reasons for being where they are now and calling themselves what they’re calling themselves that go beyond “well purple is my favorite color”.
Just my two million cents though.
3 Likes
The race selection window includes different playable options - some of them are different species, some of them are the same species, but with a different political affiliation.
We have Humans and Kul Tirans, who are the same biological race - only politics separate them.
We have Pandaren, who are the same biological race - only politics separate them.
And then we have Blood Elves and Void Elves - I’d argue they’re the same race, being politics and the type of magic that they use/are infused with that separate them (I know many of you in particular argue they’re a different biological race - that’s another debate we could perhaps have in another thread so as not to derail this one too much).
Including High Elves as a subrace tag to both Blood Elves and Void Elves is only logical. And would make a lot of players happy. Including some Blood Elf players who roleplay as High Elves who came back to Quel’Thalas. Or Void Elf players who’d like to roleplay as both a High Elf and Void Elf, as Alleria would define herself according to Danuser.
It’s crystal clear to me that Blizzard isn’t going to add yet another Allied Race slot for High Elves, as it would be redundant. And including different racial tags to all races is something I believe is easy and quick to implement. I really don’t see the problem with this at all. Other races could benefit from this as well - Trolls, Orcs, Night Elves/Nightborne, Gnomes, Dwarves… The EU forum user named Moira suggested this idea last year and has actually proposed nice UI changes to reflect this:
Blood Elves:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/856252583722614786/890326937644449842/image0.jpg
Void Elves:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/856252583722614786/890326938068058112/image1.jpg
Nightborne:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/856252583722614786/890341882947846194/image0.jpg
Trolls:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/856252583722614786/890342091320860702/image0.jpg
Night Elves:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/856252583722614786/890342142910804054/image0.jpg
Dwarves:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/856252583722614786/890342236443795516/image0.jpg
Draenei:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/856252583722614786/890342331876778004/image0.jpg
Gnomes:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/856252583722614786/890342561309405234/image0.jpg
More info here:
10 Likes
How is that logical? High Elves aren’t a sub race and Blood Elves aren’t a sub race of High Elves either. They’re 90% of what once was the group that called themselves High Elves.
Also, if you read what I wrote, my issue with the categorization that person suggested is a) it ignores that neither Blood Elves nor Void Elves identify as Thalassian Elves or High Elves but as Blood respectively Void Elves, b) it dumbs down histories of abuse/being abandoned from home/being infused with and fighting the void to cosmetic choices c) it ignores self-identifying High Elves aren’t a playable race as of now and there is no indicator their population is growing as of now.
You know I like and respect you, Leinadh, but I just can’t agree with you on this.
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Blood Elves:
Void Elves:
Nightborne:
Trolls:
Night Elves:
Dwarves:
Draenei:
Gnomes:
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That Nightfallen one is a little bit scary. We should get that.
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Yeah, you’re right they’re not a subrace. I didn’t mean “subrace” literally, but rather a simple UI option to change your racial name tag. I think it is logical for a few High Elves to keep referring themselves like that, whether they join Void Elves or Blood Elves. I’m not sure Blood Elves would be very happy to see High Elves coming back to Quel’Thalas and not taking the name of Blood Elves (I think they would consider it an insult, I think), but I’ve seen a few Blood Elves roleplaying that way.
I don’t think being able to choose “High Elf” as your racial name tag would automatically cause those negative consequences. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Oh of course! We don’t have to agree on everything, I like you as well! 
It’s good and healthy we disagree on certain things, especially if we treat each other with respect, like we’re doing here. Thank you for that. 
Kein Ding 
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Jesus Christ, that Nightbourne frontal is staring into my soul.
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Thanks for your TL3 powers! <3
EDIT: Ooops I replied to the wrong poster HAHA
I meant Allerio 
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I lost TL3 a while ago…why must you hurt me so.
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I lost it while I was inactive last year. 
I haven’t been able to get it back again
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Where is that from? That’s pretty neat.
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I included the link in my post! 
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To be fair they lost all their novelty after the Sunwell restoration. You can’t really “Remember the Sunwell!” with it sitting right there.
Now they’re just post relapse flavored High Elves.
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Does anyone else find it creepy this many people are focused on blonde hair/blue eyes/white skinned–
Oh. Oooooooooh. You are all terrible people…
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Don’t need to tell me twice.
I don’t know if it’s creepy, but it is quite disgusting what you’re trying to insinuate.
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I think the only thing really problematic here is you, and people like you, trying to undermine others by likening them to serious problematic elements in our history.
If it were simply about the colors people would have been happy with Humans or Blood Elves. Regardless of what trolls, detractors, and others, have tried to argue over the years it’s become clear that players want High Elves because they believe it represents a specific narrative tone that they want; it’s about a story they perceive to be worth having, not just what it looks like.
Void Elves failed not just because they had the wrong appearance, but because the very thing we didn’t want was given to us twice over. Many of us rejected Blood Elves for their choices during their addiction phase and how that colored their people. To be given Void Elves, who were expressly shown to be Blood Elves (the exact people we didn’t want to begin with) to start out, that ultimately went through even more magical tampering, violation, and incontrovertible alteration, is just completely blind to what we were asking for.
It’s like someone asking for plain water, and specifying no lemon because they’re not interested, and spitefully giving them lemon-lime water because “well you didn’t want lemon, right?”
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Why do I have to agree with you on this post? Ugh, I feel like I am too full to agree on something tonight. But I agree, both aren’t subraces, but are still the same race of what they once called themselves. But maybe having the options then to change our nameplates would be cool. But I still rather the High Elves playable as a seperate group for the Alliance.
4 Likes