Pretty sure I’ve read this somewhere as well and even tho I would of loved Pandaren back then, it just wouldn’t of made sense and in hindsight glad they didn’t. Since one of the only relevant Pandaren we know helped found Orgrimmar.
thats the fault of the alliance. we were hammering on the devs doors, asking for playable high elves, our high elves, like the silver covenant high elves and the lodge high elves. the devs were like….just play blood elves, they are high elves. and alliance was like… they’re horde drug addicts. we want the high elves who fended off fel by meditation and arcane magic artifacts, rather than mana tapping creatures and all the fel stuff, etc. in other words, we wanted the goody two shoe elves. so blizz made the blood elves into goody two shoe elves, thinking that would attract alliance high elf fans to the horde.
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Yeah Ion’s response of “just play Horde” is so bad. The Fel-addicted Blood Elves were interesting, but that doesn’t mean people don’t also want High Elves. Why should we not get both?
And now it has flip-flopped, with the traditional High Elves, but cosplaying as Blood Elves on Horde, and the Fel-addicted Blood Elves, now Void-addicted, hanging out on the Alliance. Very sus. Blizzard removed Blood Elves only to add them back later as blueberries while not appeasing really anyone. Not sure why we couldn’t have just had evil Blood Elves on Horde and High Elves on Alliance as intended.
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it was crazy. they knew we wanted the boring elves and instead gave us the edgy elves. perhaps they thought edge would attract og blood elf players back to the alliance, since by legion, alliance / horde pop was grossly imbalanced.
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Blizzard also keeps showcasing the High Elves more than any other unplayable race on the Alliance as our most reliable allies. Expansion after expansion we see High Elves constantly and in our hubs. Heck, the most used Visage look of Dragons is High Elf.
Blizzard knows that as they’re still the #1 most requested race even after they gave different skin tones to Void Elves. If anything, by doing that all Blizzard did as anger High Elf and Void Elf fans.
Void Elves have barely any lore, have the smallest population, and don’t even have a rep faction. While High Elves have all that and more.
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i’m as confused as you.
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Someone isn’t accepting the literal, actual word of the developers.
Obviously the vision for the Blood Elf storyline changed between WC3 and TBC. Obviously things are different TBC than they were beforehand. That’s half the point of this thread. Are you lost? We’re talking about how they evolved (and imo devolved) back into generic high elves. Keep up.
“… It is still unclear in my mind whether…”
Sounds like a you-problem, not a me-problem.
I fully accept that Metzen was not entirely sure about the overarching story he presented, and then we got an entirely different story from what he otherwise spoke about when the expansion was actually released.
He had some ideas during developement, these ideas changed during developement.
He spoke too soon.
But OP is absolutely correct. The Blood Elves did go back to being regular High Elves. That is their story. They went from torturing naaru, using fel to energize their city, compromised their morals by sucking magic out of living beings in order to sate their addiction. To not needing to do any of that.
They were a broken people who still had a great deal of respect for their people as they were in the past. I am not surprised that their story took them back to being regular High Elves.
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Bro, you can take quotes out of context to discredit an entire video (from the developers) all you want, it doesn’t matter.
Btw, I am OP.
You want generic high elves in the Horde. I wanted the Blood Elves of WC3, vanilla, and the beginnings of TBC. You know, the Blood Elves that all the concept art and years of written lore are based on? The grim, eccentric anti-heroes? The ones that, at least on the inside, fit in with the darker side of the Horde?
Even by the end of TBC, the door was open to create a really nuanced and unique race, divided between its craving for unlimited sorcerous power and their dedication to the holy energies of the Sunwell. But Blizzard took the easy way out. Yawn.
If your only argument is, “I like the way it turned out” then…so? I don’t like the way it turned out. I find it painfully generic and a wasted opportunity. If nothing else, it’s pretty damned funny looking back. Thats the point of this thread.
So what’s your point?
. . . sir, that wasn’t even remotely the point I was making.
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Blood Elves being on the Horde had nothing to do with Garithos and everything to do with gameplay
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I am not your bro.
And as I said, Metzen presented a half-baked idea, clearly, in the video you linked. All of what he said, was made redundant in the final product that was The Burning Crusade, prove me wrong?
What were you asked to draw magic from in the starting zone? Not the fel crystals, not a demon, no, anything with mana… arcane magic.
What was the purpose of the arcane sanctums according to the quests in the Blood Elven starting zone? To gather residual magic in the air.
What did we learn about the purpose of the burning crystals in the starting zone? They powered the blood elves’ experiments, and powered their floating buildings.
Metzen clearly presented a half-baked plan to the audience, or he referred to the Blood Elves who accompanied Kael’thas to Outland, either or. But it definitely did not apply to the Blood Elves in Quel’thalas.
They have been generic high elves since WC3.
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And tauren being in the Horde is also gameplay.
Trolls too.
And Humans being in the Alliance is gameplay as well.
“they have been generic high elves since WC3”
“Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”
Meaningless. I don’t care that you disagree with the intent of Chris Metzan in the year 2005. There are obvious ways the story could have gone without letting the Blood Elves stagnate. The original intent of the Blood Elves was to be a response to generic High Elves. You can not argue with that.
Obviously, the intent shifted. No one is arguing against that. You are arguing with yourself.
I find that shift in intent to be an amateurish waste of potential when they could have had a nuanced race with some ongoing conflict.
You know, something that they could expand upon organically as the story moves forward?
You know, Like what you’d want to do if you’re making an ongoing expanded universe?
You know, something to contrast the Horde Blood Elves with the Alliance High Elves? Something to better justify adding playable High Elves for the Alliance? Since they wouldn’t have been able to argue that they’re the same?
This was a bad decision. It spiraled off into all sorts of other bad decisions.
And now the identity of the Blood Elves is spread out across two factions and their identity has been further diluted by both Nightborne and Void Elves.
You disagree with my opinion. Woop dee doo. Why are you still engaging with this thread? What more do we have to talk about?
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Technically, the Thalassian Elves left the Alliance after Warcraft 2 when King Anasterian said the Alliance didn’t do enough to help his people from being killed and their lands destroyed by the Horde. A Horde led by Orgrim Doomhammer. The same Orc who Ogrimmar was named after. The same city that the Blood Elves now happily prance around in. Personally, I find it kinda hilarious.
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Omg you summed it up SO WELL! It’s such a shame and a waste! Maybe someday Blizz will do…something interesting with Blood Elves? We can hope at least. Honestly, I really wish ALL the races got more attention. Your culture and species should feel like an important part of your character identity in an RPG. Imo, anyway.
Same with your class, honestly, but that’s a discussion for another thread.
Not all Elves left. A lot of High Elves, who fought on the frontlines, ignored their King and stayed in Dalaran or continued working as Priests/Mages/Hunters in human cities as they didn’t want to abandon their human allies/friends.
The ones that obeyed were the ones already near their home or were assigned as the defensive force of said homeland.
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So are they still burying humans up to the neck in Hillsbrad to “farm” them?
ion was determined not to let us play high elves . he went to great lengths lol he started introducing them in every new xpac and made them a quest hub we had to access to proceed, then he would find some way for a sizable portion of those to be killed off.
since we asked for lodge high elves because they had successfully fended off fel addiction, he had them find an artifact that radiated so much power it turned almost all of them wretched. then everyone was given a quest to go there and kill them. woopsie, one lodge down.
then he had garrosh nuke theramore, where several had moved to be under jaina’s tutelage. they died. then he had veressa lead an excursion of high elves to isle of thunder, including the player character, and had the thunder king zap most of them out of the sky right in front of you. in legion, he had a squad of them killed by elisande during a quest chain. pretty soon, they stopped showing up, just rare sightings. as of legion, they no longer guard alliance dalaran. its to the point you might see one, mostly in telogrus rift.
and then he informed us that there wasnt enough to be a playable race lol
you cant make this stuff up
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We sure are! AND I’LL DO IT AGAIN YOU FILTHY ALLIANCE!
