Honestly with the topic of High Elves, I never understood why they didnt just do it.
Im well aware of the arguments on both sides and that they have given us some newer options for the void elves to make them -look- more like high elves… The very few there are… But the way I see it if they can take a separate kingdom of humans, make them fatter or more muscular with different hair and facial options, combined with a few cultural differences… While just being another human race, then they could have easily done the exact same thing to High elves while still making them different enough from the Blood Elves to justify it.
They have the Art team capable of doing it. I’m also aware allied races are done which makes me sad…
Ideally though, if I were in Blizzard’s shoes and had to execute a way to do this - I would create an ingame event that removed Void Elves of their ‘void state’ but having sided with the Alliance no longer welcome back to Silvermoon or the Horde; and thus join banner by the Silver Covenant after being trusted allies with their leaned faction.
This would be a good story to go off, because you could then create an event in Quel’Thalas that sparks a discord and not-so-much a civil-war of sorts, but a portion of disagreeance to their direction leading more Elves go to the Silver Covenant further increasing their ranks.
Though I’d say this all would obviously be after the Silver Covenant or Vereesa Windrunner make a formal apology for brutally murdering them (Including the innocents) during the ‘Purge of Dalaran’ — Yes you are wrong, if you believe they the Silver Covenant had every right to go about their actions; they went overkill.
Gameplay: Give them an NPC the race can speak towards, to change between the Velf racials and the new ones (Which would be the same as Blood Elf racials) and potentially give Blood Elves the same deal but justify it with some lore-mumbo-jumbo.
Additional comments on statements made:
They are LITERALLY the same. You can’t disagree on this. It’s canon. Whether you like it or not.
‘Blood Elves’ or ‘Sin’dorei’ is simply the term they used to honour the fallen from Arthas - where over 90% of their race was wiped out.
It has NOTHING to do with genetics, or their eyes. Their culture is mostly the same, though Blood Elves have evolved their culture with new events & lessons that came by their people later on.
It’s been stated that the Silver Covenant is an extremely small portion from the Quel’Thalassian elves that are still alive, hence why I recommended their ranks increasing with various lore events.
I agree on that.
Personally I find the best way to execute it, is to remove ‘Blood Elves’ and ‘Void Elves’ and add a ‘Thalassian Elves’ in Allied races (Neutral Race selection, like Pandaren)-- Then select the faction in character creation, and explain the decisions made by your character (Whether it was from the beginning, or later on with the discord).
From then onward, for the Alliance you’d have a better chance at building up ‘The Silver Covenant’ own’s culture, story and start forging their own new kingdom or make preparations to perhaps striving to move back to their homelands through ‘whatever means necessary’; and the Blood Elves would have their own conflicts and intriguing stories too. Both factions & players of each get a win.
Dalaran isn’t Silver Covenant. Though Silver Covenant serve Dalaran, there’s a tad of a difference. We know in Legion Dalaran became neutral again but yeah.
To put it in a more understandable term it’d be like “All Silver Covenant are aligned to Dalaran, but not all of Dalaran is aligned to Silver Covenant.”
SC was formed to protect and serve dalaran. dalaran is not part of the alliance. it is neutral and by extension the SC
if jaina never went to isle of thunder neither would have the SC. if khadgar never participated in the battle for suramar, neither would have the SC and you would have only seen them if you played a hunter where you would have witnessed them join the unseen path with the farstriders
i mean can you imagine another 5 expansions go by and this all you guys have still and still misrepresenting it on purpose
“ok ok, we admit it SC is a dalaran thing but what about the stormwind population of 2 elves!!!”
It’s not a strawman, it’s factual. Silver Covenant are predominantly against the Horde, regardless of Dalaran’s ultimate stance. They speak out against it.
They join the Unseen Path with the Farstriders but that was in the face of the Legion who sought to annihilate their world. Even when Khadgar held the vote to re-invite the Horde back into Dalaran to help unify their efforts against the Legion there were those that disagreed. They can work together for the greater good, but so can the Alliance and Horde as whole factions.
If you played or quested in Wrath of the Lich King, or look at other Silver Covenant dialogs you see it amplified. Heck there’s still some Silver Covenant places you go as Horde and it’s ‘kill on sight’.
Generally I was strongly & vehemently against ‘HiGh ElVeS fOr AlLiAnCe!’ but Void Elves is an abomination to lore, and harms the Blood Elves story in the process. I’d rather destroy that race (Void Elves) and the crumby ‘lore’ they have for that and replace it with more decent story and simply make the neutral race where these threads can finally hush hush.
isnt that neat? they chose to work with the farstriders instead of bolster alliance forces during what was considered the apocalypse in wow
the only votes that matter are the six. if SC wanted to follow jaina back to the alliance, they could have
neither the SC or the sunreavers participated in faction warfare until mop. not sure what the point of this is but things are back to normal under khadgar and i doubt we will get a rehash of this ever again
What if instead of cleansing Void Elves of their void. Have the High Elves get devastated again and have them directly join the Void Elves and accept the Void into their lives?
Then we have what we should have had.
The future of the Thalassian Elves will be Blood and Void!
All they need to do is add more normal hair styles and colors, it’s quite simple and very likely to happen after Shadowlands when customization is back on the table.
Wasn’t really needed as the was already deemed in the Alliance. When you reached Prestige Rank 2 as Alliance she’s even present in the throne room. She also stands with the Alliance in BFA when they confronted Sylvanas.
They may abide by neutral terms when suited, or deemed; but them along with Vereesa are leaned more towards the Alliance.
They may not had warfare but they were still heavily based to one faction over the other. Aside from providing sanctuary to their respective factions and siding with them in the argent tournament there’s other references made towards their dismay to eachother and their held ideals or personalities.
I’ve argued on many, many threads (Seriously, these Alliance High Elf threads are like a cancer) - I took the liberty of going through my activity history and finding one from quite awhile back where I provided a supermassive nuke on one of them where I strongly argued against, so if you need an example for proof I’ll happily provide one - Just give the alliance high elves already - #597 by Aussielight-dathremar
Might be a misunderstanding on this thread - I’m not ‘All for Silver Covenant High Elves’ but I’m more against Void Elves and consider it the ‘lesser of two evils’.
youre for a SC AR which makes as much sense as a farstriders AR. it shows because you recycle the same dishonest points the lotr fans always bring up
vereesa also helped my horde hunter recover thas’dorah. prestige in legion and this, neither instance breaks neutrality. that she is an advocate for the kirin tor and her people to serve the alliance is no secret. but its just that a desire
look she represents an extremely small group who have rejected the path their people are on but still chose the neutrality of dalaran. but you know who didnt? alleria and the void elves, and the SC isnt out there like that(confirmed by blizzard develoment)
I said for story-wise they could depict that. For Allied race, I wasn’t for a SC AR for moving the Elves simply to a neutral race slot and removing the other two; then moving the direction of story depending to what faction you picked. I said that in the my original comment too.
Overall, if Blizzard got their $#!% together I’d like them to fix up Void Elves + their lore, patch up the Blood Elf lore they damaged with that (Like what’s up with Blood Elf Shadowpriests if 'All shadow & void users are to be exiled / not welcome) and avoid the High Elves statement altogether.
When I said I was generally strongly & vehemently against ‘HiGh ElVeS fOr AlLiAnCe!’ you said -
After which I referenced a thread where I argued strongly against them leading after a massive text I put in. I have the odd feeling you didn’t go through that reference, so I’ll leave the statement in this thread too because I feel you’d also agree with references made within, given your stance on the subject (Which respectfully I understand) —
Ready? Let’s begin!
(Full-Disclosure: These examples have been used multiple times; I am not the author of the complete following texts, but the points made still stand) -
1: “High Elves are different enough from Blood Elves!”
I see this one a lot, but no. Sorry. They aren’t. The High Elves went through no mutation, no physical change, no evolution or otherwise genetic alteration after Quel’thalas was sacked by Arthas and the scourge. Kael’thas renamed the High Elven people Blood Elves in memory and honor of their fallen, and for no other reason. It’s been only 30 or less years since Kael’thas renamed his people Blood Elves. They are racially, genetically, identical. While people love to think of High Elves as “pure” or Blood Elves as “tainted”, which are both untrue, given the recent golden eyes of the Blood Elves, it doesn’t appear that tapping demons’ magic to sate the elves’ magical addiction did anything cosmetically permanent. Blood/High Elves that succumbed to their hunger became Wretched. Blood Elves that overindulged in fel became Felblood Elves.
2: “Blizzard did Pandaren for both sides, they can do Blood/High Elves on both sides! How could it dilute faction identity more than Pandaren?”
I’m going to go ahead and say most people asking for High Elves don’t play Pandaren. Why? Because they represent the lowest number of players within their own faction out of ALL races. Last number estimates show about 2.5%, per faction. Combined across all of WoW, roughly 1 in 20 plays a Pandaren, whereas Blood Elf numbers are the most populous among Horde races, having been roughly equal to Human numbers in Alliance for most of WoW since TBC.
Also, for or those that don’t know, Blizzard regrets doing Pandaren as a Neutral race, to the point that I can say we’ll likely never see another Neutral race. Since MoP, it’s basically impossible to write Pandaren lore now, because their forces are split faction, and we haven’t seen them do anything notable in WoW since MoP. Their identity is basically nothing.
3: “High Elves’ lore and history is rich enough to stand alone!”
Except any High Elf history is also Blood Elf history. High Elven buildings, tabards, crests, architecture, vehicles, weapon style, etc. is Blood Elven except painted blue. The only notable High Elven characters left are Alleria and Veressa, but Alleria now leads and represents the Void Elves going forward, leaving only Veressa. The two have been separate for only 30 or so years. Not nearly enough to diverge or have enough unique history.
4: “Nightborne are just Night Elves, so we should get High Elves even if they’re just like Blood Elves!”
Nightborne spent 10,000 years in arcane isolation from Night Elf society. They physically changed from the powers of the Nightwell, and their culture changed immensely from worship of Elune. They bear little cultural similarity to current day Night Elves.
They are far more similar to the Blood Elves in that isolation around a magical font of power changed them drastically over time. Blood Elves originated as Highborne Night Elves that were cast out for continuing to practice in the arcane. This doubles as a lore reason as to why they find allies in the Horde through the Blood Elves, as they can empathize with their plight.
5: “High Elves chose not to feed on demonic magic! They sated their magical addiction through other means! Their culture is so different!”
If I make myself a ham sandwich and offer you one, but you tell me you don’t like ham and would prefer a turkey sandwich, I wouldn’t turn around and call you culturally different from me.
Regardless, as of the end of The Burning Crusade expansion, where Blood Elves were introduced to the Horde, the Sunwell was restored as a font of Arcane and Holy magic, removing the inherent need for Blood Elves (or High Elves) to sate any magical withdrawal. Lor’themar has also continued to allow High Elves to make pilgrimages to the Sunwell. You can see High Elves in a post-TBC-era Sunwell during the Quel’delar questline, and more recently, the Nightborne recruitment questline, where he even granted Alleria an audience.
6: “We can make High Elves different enough from Blood Elves! Look at all these tattoos and tribal motifs we made! Void Elves are not what we want!”
Re-imaging the High Elves to all look like extrapolations of some Warcraft 2-Era rangers isn’t solving the problem. The problem is that Blood elves are High Elves. The problem is that the fantasy of a traditional LOTR “High Elf” is a Blood Elf.
Blizzard hasn’t been deaf for all these years when Alliance ask for High Elves. It is NOT a secret, but they likely took a look at High Elves and agreed that they are just Blood Elves in fantasy, skin tone, hair color, origin, and feel, with the only difference to speak of visually being eye color.
So they made an attempt to see how they could spin and mix up a Thalassian elf enough to merit inclusion on the Alliance. They made a compromise. They gave it a prominent Thalassian leader with strong Alliance ties, and they provided it with a unique, flavorful aesthetic to set it apart from other races, most importantly their Blood Elf counterparts. In these areas, I think Void Elves were a success. They also currently number greater than any other Allied Race of either faction, so it sounds like most Alliance are enjoying them.
7: “You say there’s not enough High Elves left, but there’s even less Void Elves, yet they are an Allied Race!”
Let’s start with basic stuff. Actual NPC numbers, towns, factions in WoW, etc, do not represent canon numbers. WoW is a representation of a multi-game IP. Example: The canon number of people in Goldshire is somewhere in the thousands, where as in game, I don’t think you can find more than 30 NPCs.
The point being, we don’t know how many High Elves are left. We also don’t know how many Void Elves were created. People’s perception that there’s less Void Elves than High Elves is based on in-game representation, and Void Elves were literally just added, so of course there will appear to be less. This has definitely changed going forward as you can already see them in BfA events, and they even have their own Island Expedition team. High Elves, barring a single NPC here and there, will only see less and less limelight as Void Elf stories move forward.
8: “High Elves were there in the Nighthold cut-scene! They represented 1/3rd of the forces there!”
The two main factions involved in that quest were the Blood Elven forces under Liadrin and the Night Elven forces under Tyrande. Veressa made an appearance so Elisande could insult her and her people for diluting their bloodline with humans (ouch!). Because she showed up to help Tyrande with a glaive thrower and a few of her Silver Covenant does not somehow equate to being one third of the forces there.
9: “Blizzard reverted their stance on Classic Servers! If we make enough noise and cry enough, they’ll cave on High Elves!”
No, definitely not, and if this is the reason you keep arguing about it, please stop. The two are not at all the same. The lack of Blizzard Classic servers was causing unauthorized private servers to pop up and recreate this experience, and Blizzard has to protect their IP, so they shut them down. However, they realized there was more of a crowd/market for this than previously thought, so they announced official Classic servers to cater to this demographic.
If you honestly think there’s as many people clamoring for High Elves as there were for Classic servers, you severely overestimate your vocal minority.
10: “Ion doesn’t know his lore. Ion isn’t listening to us! Ion should be fired!”
While this isn’t exactly an argument and more of an opinion, I’m including it here because it’s flooding the forums while High Elf Hopefuls go through their stages of grief. Ion isn’t Lead Game Director because he doesn’t know his lore. He’s also not the only person that weighs in on these decisions, though it’s easy for everyone to bash him because he is the messenger.
Ion in my opinion does what any good developer does: experiment, keep what works, cut or fix what does not. Through the Q&A’s, we’ve seen the progressing stance on unpopular things in Legion like Legendaries, RNG, AP grind, etc. and in BFA, all of these are getting addressed, while popular things like Mythic+ are seeing dungeons specifically designed around it.
11: “If Blood Elf is the High Elf Fantasy, then NIghtborne is Dark Elf Fantasy, and Horde are getting those! They look just like Night Elves!”
I would say no here. Nightborne were isolated for 10,000 years from Night elf society. That’s as long as it took for Night Elves to transform into High Elves after their exile, leading to the creation of the Sunwell, and those two are obviously different races.
If you hadn’t caught the obvious, the Nightborne was basically a Legion-era retelling of the Blood Elf storyline:
“An elven people (Blood Elf/Nightborne), physically and culturally warped by thousands of years by exposure to a mystical font of power (Sunwell/Nightwell), find their leader had consorted with the Legion (Kael with Kil’jaeden, Elisande with Gul’dan). A splinter faction within these people (Scryers/Nightfallen) rise up to overthrow their leader and purge them from Legion taint and control.”
The only difference is that Velen reignites the Sunwell, whereas Thalyssra decides to destroy the Nightwell. Either way, they culturally and visually clash with Nigh Elves, who have shunned practice in the arcane since Azshara and The Sundering, having only recently allowed Night Elf mages to tenuously practice since Cataclysm.
Back to the question, Nightborne were given unique idle animations, had the Night Elf signature flip jump removed, and given only one eye shade between them. Nightborne get Warlock as a class option. Nightborne also have severely limited customization options, less than that of any Allied race despite being the most fleshed out in Legion. Whether that serves to severely limit their palette, or indicates they were merely worked on first, I don’t know.
I find Nightborne plenty different from Night Elf, considering the entire first story arc in Legion is dedicated to explaining and detailing this, and given the changes mentioned above.
12: “High Elves being barely different from Blood Elves is just like Lightforged Draenei being barely different from Draenei, or Highmountain being barely different from regular Tauren!”
Yes, of course. But unlike High Elves, Draenei and Tauren are not crossing faction lines. They are just more Alliance Draenei. More Horde Tauren. More Alliance Dwarves. More Horde Orcs. The only two Allied Races thus far that “mixed it up” would be the Void Elf, a compromise to the Alliance to get the Thalassian model, and the Nightborne, a compromise to the Horde to get the Night Elf model.
Using any other comparisons between Allied Races to merit High Elves is a pointless endeavor, because Blizzard specifically catered these two to be opposing and opposite compromises for each faction. For an Allied Race that “crosses faction lines” a more drastic set of rules and distinction would be required.
13: “All the reasons Ion gives for not allowing High Elves could be used to exclude Void Elves!”
I’m seeing this one echoed quite a lot, probably because of Taliesin and Evitel’s two videos (which, by the way, end up with the result that High Elves probably don’t make sense).
To reiterate Ion’s main points of reasoning for why High Elves weren’t going to work, taken from the two live interviews:
-Too similar to Blood Elf in aesthetic (Fair-skinned, tall, majestic, blond-haired)
-Blurs the lines between the factions (Both visually, and by population numbers)
-No clear idea of who/what High Elves are as a larger faction (Splintered groups)
-No hub where High Elves would pull from (Sort of related to the above point)
Void Elves, by comparison, addressed these in the following ways:
-Changed the visual aesthetic, dark to pale grey skin, dark hair with animated glows and tentacles, vastly different hairstyles, armor type, void skin racial
-Ties Void Elves to Alleria’s story with the Void, Alleria staying with Turalyon firmly on the Alliance, being the link to bring them into the fold (not unlike how Sylvanas became the link for Blood Elves to join the Horde)
-Clear idea of who the Void Elves are, Blood Elven exiles who dabbled in Void powers, Alleria and Locus Walker teaching and helping these people to harness and control these powers. New Blood Elf and High Elf exiles find their way to Telgorus Rift.
-A clear hub in Telgorus Rift, where they can study and practice their, frankly dangerous, void powers away from public eye. Reinforces their initial idea as a crack elite squad of Alleria’s
The mistake people make when they use this line is that High Elves not being playable was because Blizzard couldn’t bend or understand the lore enough to make it work. That’s just not the case. We’ve seen Blizzard do major, drastic ret-cons or lore changes to merit inclusion for a number of things. Blood Elf Paladins and Draenei that weren’t Broken back in TBC, etc. To think they couldn’t have easily made High Elves ‘make sense’ lore-wise is not the issue.
The real problem is that they visually, culturally, and aesthetically were not distinct enough from Blood Elves to merit including them on an opposite faction, and so Void Elves were the end result of the iteration Blizzard went through to give Alliance a “flavor of High Elf”.
CLOSING STATEMENT
At the end of it all the core issue that, especially in Battle for Azeroth, the faction identity is important, as are the races within those factions. Adding High Elves would indeed damage that identity. To say that adding High Elves to Alliance wouldn’t cause damage to Blood Elven or Horde identity is ignorance. Blood Elves have been part of core Horde story for over 10 years now, while High Elves have been a “me too!” inclusion at best, or completely absent at worst.
Moreover, the High Elves per current lore in Chronicle left the Alliance under Anasterian Sunstrider following the Second War (the one Alleria gained fame in), and any current-day remaining High Elves who did not follow Kael’thas or Lor’themar were fringe groups mostly Dalaran associated (remaining a mostly Neutral city-state).
While I know this post won’t silence any of the increasingly desperate, baseless, or straight ignorant arguments being brought to this forum, reddit, MMO-Champion, the extremely radicalized/disturbed people on the “High Elven Discord” and the rest of the greater internet, I feel this forum needed a point by point breakdown of the broken record that is the High Elven argument.
Can’t quit the helf spam, can you? You already have a STOLEN Horde model, with perty pink skin and blue eyes. Is there no satisfying you lot? Are you so utterly incapable of being grateful for the unprecedented, special treatment you’ve received?
No, it really isn’t. Night elves are not restricted to any of those physical characteristics, and boast a wide variety of skin colors, hair color, etc. While Blood elves and High elves are pretty much identical. Not only are the skin colors between Nightborne and Night elves vastly different, the option for a Night elf to choose starker contrasted skins from their allied race counterpart sets them apart from this comparison. This is not the case in the example you’ve given, whereas a Void elf could actively choose options that can make them appear unique, while blood elves can not.
A base race is meant to be a template, a host of different walks of life a player can choose from, while an allied race is meant to demonstrate a very specific path members of a certain race may have taken. They are a contrast to the base race, otherwise these options would have simply been added as a customization option. Nightborne are highborne Night elves who chose to isolate themselves and evolve through the Nightwell, Void elves are Thalassian elves who choose to meddle with the void, and were corrupted by it.
The exchange was given the moment the Alliance got the Blood elf model, while Nightborne got a different model from Night elves, and a restricted level of customization and skintones. This is not a comparable example, as one example involves a race giving up all of it’s unique visuals, while the other is only faced with losing a few, if even that.
although tbf the spam and gaslighting is the only way it can work. if you say something often enough and loud enough, that big lie will eventually become part of the thinking and understanding of the mass audience. so we are at the point of a thread where very few people will keep reading but the first post is all they want people to see
How was it stolen exactly? It’s not like the alliance hacked the game and made void elves a playable race. The people that own the game and the model gave it to the alliance.
The op even mentions Auric Sunchaser, the leader of the High elves from Allerian Stronghold. I always find this amusing because the High elves at that Hold actually abandon the Alliance once they reach Shattrath as they weren’t present during the original splintering, and instead become neutral refugees to both factions. But even then we see some examples of those High elves joining the Blood elves among the Scryers in Quel’danas.
The very leader of that Hold, Auric Sunchaser immediately returns home as a high elf representative for the Blood elves, which is a more permanent position than envoy, or spokesman. Additionally he refers to Lor’themar and Rommath as his “lords” and counts himself in sharing in their goals.
Which is likely why the High elves from Allerian Hold were noticably absent from the faction conflict in BFA, as it would involve fighting their own people and present a conflict of interests. Not a single High elf force in an expansion centered on the faction conflict.
yea i always laugh at the mention of allerian stronghold too
ros’eleth was another elf at allerian stronghold. she talks about nothing but the farstriders and magisters. im pretty sure she returned to the farstriders in fact. she even followed them to help the unseen path in legion
Most young high elves outgrow the ‘I wanna be a Farstrider’ phase by the time they’re taken as apprentices. Then, it’s onto the ‘I’m going to be a magister’ stage.
I don’t think I ever quite outgrew the Farstrider phase, to be honest. No one dreams of growing up to be a seamstress, but we can’t have the Farstriders running around naked, as my mother used to say.
Ahahaha, I’ve said it many times; but surely you know what it’s like arguing with these threads. @_@ The ‘broken record that is the High Elven argument’ keeps on coming by.
