I do think void elves have been executed very well, and it’s super weird to me. Everything else in BfA has been a three ring poop circus, but the one aspect of the story that’s been treated with due attention and nuance is the arbitrary objectively bad idea yanked out of nowhere at the tail end of the last expansion?
I really don’t even know what’s going on at Blizzard anymore. Aside from all the grotesque abuses of late-stage capitalism, of course.
I was afraid you didn’t notice.
Could be explained by the massive egos outside the Story department letting the actual writers write for Void Elves while they themselves vomited all over the main story beats
That’s just my natural musk.
Again, I point to Pandaria. The entire concept kept me away from WoW until the Siege of Ogrimmar after leaving towards the start of Cataclysm because it was Cataclysm.
Biggest mistake of my life. I adore Panda-land. I call it Timewaste Isle, but I still occasionally do the rounds (and see a lot of people still camping the mounts), so obviously there was SOMETHING I liked about it.
If you mean by, “highlight,” that Void Elves are a representation of everything wrong with BFA, yeah, that makes sense.
One could go on. Void Elves as they are right now are an absolutely horrible addition to the cast of playable races in this game, and Blizzard shouldn’t be so much embarrassed as mortified that they failed this hard. There is no excuse.
That’s quite the assumption there ace.
Void Elves didnt do a lot sure but what little they did was interesting and had some fun characterization to it.
What does this have to do with Void Elves?
This is your opinion, clearly people in this thread disagree.
Nightbourne refused to sell me their arcwine because they went Horde. They made an enemy for life that day.
That’s fair. Speaking on behalf of the total population of everyone everywhere is a mistake. That said, I’ve rarely found anyone who’s liked the Void in Void Elves. It’s something the race has never had any connection to prior to Alleria, and few people even cared for it then. The bigger issue is that as far as the Void Elves are concerned, the Void may as well be arcane magic, just purple.
My gripe is that they didn’t do enough.
For a race where their focus is studying and mastering the void, they were absent for every void-related story of this expansion, only showing up to fight the Horde. This race needed development, desperately, and this expansion was loaded with plot points that could’ve fleshed them out immensely! I will never forgive Blizzard for making Void Elves nothing more than quest fodder for the Horde to feel good about killing.
As for the missed plot points:
Uldir: There’s an artificial Old God (void entity) that can destroy the world, and who introduces Alliance players to it? Is it the Void Elves? Have they been looking into all this dark/void magic in Nazmir? No, it’s Brann.
Eye of N’Zoth: Uh, oh! Eyeballs are getting slapped onto people’s foreheads, corrupting them, making them hear whispers and see things! Surely the void magic experts can fix thi- no, nevermind. Tidesages got this handled, why would you even think of the elves studying and mastering the powers of the void before the water mages?
Naz’jatar: The Horde has Blood Elves and Nightborne teaming up to take the fight to Azshara, representing their people’s most ancient traitor and oppressor. Azshara’s vile Naga forces are employing all kinds of sinister magic, including the use of Void Magic, with an entire area in Naz’jatar devoted to it. Surely the Void Elves, who have as much reason to hate Azshara as any elf, would be here, studying the Naga void magic and devising defenses and counter-measures and- Nope. The only Void Elf you’ll see here is generic guard NPCs. Why would they want to fight the Naga, or study their unique use of the Void, right?
Ebonhorn, and the Cure to the Whispers: A major part of the Void Elf identity (other than the color purple), is being constantly assailed by the Whispers of the Void, attempting to drive them mad. You’d think when Ebonhorn began to be corrupted, that the Void Elves would’ve been sought out. Surely they’ve been working on a cure for this, no? Apparently, no. They’re not even involved. In fact the answer was in Karazhan the whole time.
Visions of N’Zoth: An Old God is literally launching invasions around the world and driving people insane en masse, corrupting the world. Where are the Void Elves?! Nowhere, apparently. It seems they’d rather chill in the Telogrus Rift than even study what’s going on, let alone helping combat it.
Like I said, BFA was bad, and Void Elves are an analogy as to why.
I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to like Void Elves. If you like them, please, keep enjoying them. Me personally? I am horrified at how they’ve been mishandled. For a player race, they deserve so much more. Compare them to the Nightborne, or Highmountain, or Zandalari, even the Vulpera or Mechagnomes, and Void Elves have had no effort put into them at all in just about any way.
You’ll never see me arguing against having seen Void Elves more. I would have loved more content with them and Umbric in particular
That said I thoroughly enjoyed what we did get which says alot considering how much I hated 90% of this expansion.
As far the Void goes I can only speak for myself. I very much enjoy that aspect of Void Elves as its manifested in some very fun ways for my Void Elf in RP
It’s also entirely possible Blizzard is saving them for a proper Void threat, and also trying to make a distinction between Old Gods and the Void. Keep in mind void elves weren’t turned voidy by Old Gods, it was the Void itself!
It could be that Old God involvement simply isn’t the “pure” void they are experienced with, and thematically Blizzard would rather not have them mixing between the two, for fear of blurring that line.
Umbric is just one more issue with the Void Elves; he may as well be the only one. Umbric is a fantastic character and I do want to see more of him, but he’s honestly the only named Void Elf with any kind of personality. He doesn’t even have much of a backstory, which is depressing. We have no idea what part of society in Quel’Thalas he comes from, how the Third War affected him, how old he even is, etc… He’s a fun character, but where is his history?
And one character does NOT for a well fleshed out race make! We should’ve seen at least two more developed, and at least one of them having been a Shadow Priest, the class/spec that best exemplifies the race. It’s a bit sad when the Void Elves’ best (and only) character is a Mage, not a Shadow Priest.
You’re perfectly entitled to that. I hated most of this expansion as well. Zandalar was great, and Drustvar has easily become one of my favorite questing experiences in this game, ever. That doesn’t mean I don’t think this expansion was garbage.
At least the writers are starting to get away from, “We’re mages, but purple,” with the Void. In the recent novel at least.
Seeing Alleria use the void to forcefully extract information from the minds of the unwilling was more of what I expected of Void Elves from the start. I hope they do more stuff like that going forward, and that its not just an Alleria thing. She’s enough of an outlier as is.
You aren’t typically going to see me playing elves, but if I had to, Eldritch abomination elves are way more interesting and creative conceptually than any of the other elves in the game. I wish you could void them up more.
If that’s the case then Blizzard should’ve added them as a playable race then not now. Making a race with no culture, history, lore, characters, no fleshed out anything, and then not developing that race in any significant manner, is criminal. By all means, save the big moments for the Void Elves for the, ‘Pure,’ Void threat, but BFA should’ve been strongly devoted (on the Alliance side) to fleshing them out and giving them the foundation they need in order to actually succeed when the time comes.
Imagine if Blizzard added the Draenei to the Alliance in BC, there was no Draenei anything on Outland, they never did much of anything, nothing of them in WoD, and then Legion comes along and we find the Army of the Light and suddenly the Draenei are the face of fighting the Legion. It’d feel horrible.
A successful race needs to be properly seeded into the lore, especially if they’re to have any kind of significant narrative in the future.
I’ll make a Void Elf the instant they get a Void skintone. Blueberry ain’t cutting it.
I think Blizzard mishandling race representation in World of Warcraft is problem we’ve seen from them since Vanilla to be honest.
It’s not exclusive to Void Elves. I’m also not arguing that Void Elf representation in BfA was good but that what we did get I liked.
I agree wholeheartedly that several points in the expansion would have benefited from their inclusion.
But again this is Blizzard, sidelining entire races for the glory of Human Potential and such is a time honored tradition.
Absolutely agree with both of you there. BfA missed a LOT of opportunities with the Alliance, and a lot of their potential was lost on lackluster quests. I’m imagining a war campaign devoted to showcasing all the allied in a meaningful way instead of that strange san’layn inclusion.
Dont even get me started on how mishandled Lightforged Draenei were.
More Grand Lecter Enaara please!
This bothers me too honestly. They’re one step up from Void Elves since they at least had a patch and Argus to show off, but they were never fleshed out during that. At least they’ve got a handful of named characters with different personalities.
But again this has been a thing Blizzard does for years now.
Introduce characters, themes, concepts, and items in one expansion
Use almost none of it in the following expansions.
The problem is the Void Elves never even got an introduction.