Those Dalaran elves are also members of the blood elves. So any differences they would have would also exist in the blood elves.
Void elves.
I find it funny that you literally have to jump through hoops to make a distinction that has no reason whatsoever to exist and the one time they create a valid one apparently it’s “nope you must do it exactly as we want, sorry Blizz or no dice.”
And then cart around a modified night elf model (lol) as some kinda way forward when there’s no way to say why blood elves wouldn’t have these options considering only a decade has separated the two groups and everything the alliance elves have the horde ones do as well minus who their friends are. Woodsy elves? The Blood Elves would have more of them by virtue of being way way more numerous overall than the alliance ones.
Highmountain are on the same faction and had a built in lore reason since they had been separate for thousands of years. Something the alliance elves have nothing for and only the void elves do.
I don’t see how that has bearing on anything. I’m saying that mechanical choices in the game sometimes creates a distasteful need for wonky lore to back it up. Essentially we’re agreeing, just in a backwards way. I’m saying I’d rather not make up reasons to make a race look slightly different. Make them look as they’re meant to. No need for vastly different models.
Was kind of a reinforcement, that there’s no real reason why they’d be really any different which has been put forward as some reason why it’s totally alright to basically copy a horde race to appease some people.
Even slightly different I don’t see it happening, nor do I feel it’s a strong argument that they would really be much different especially considering the developers saying they’re essentially being assimilated into other cultures and aren’t really going to be their own thing, more like they’re going to lose any kind of identity.
Gotcha. Yeah, I’m not someone who wants to see High Elves added, for the same reason you’ve said. They’re a piece of the past. What few are left have broken off into their own culture, and I don’t personally see their numbers growing. If anything, they’re on the track to total extinction as they are.
In a few thousand years, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some single character known as the Last High Elf.
I would consider that since blood elves are high elves there’s no real reason to make the distinction, it’s just the nomenclature will stop being used and that the last high elf would be if all the blood elves would die out, really. Nothing stops them, theoretically, in the future of changing their name back (even if unlikely since it’s meant to be a badge of honor of their dead, not something bad,) so it’s kind of a weird thing to think about, you know?
The issue is they’re not displayed as a piece of the past. They’ve remained vital within the experience of Alliance players. We’ve worked with High Elves, and even with Void Elves added we continue to work with High Elves. We see them in our Capital City, entire patches have them representing the Alliance’s efforts in various locations, etc…
This is a fact that even those who don’t believe they should be added cannot argue against. High Elves are a nearly ubiquitous presence within the Alliance, and have been included in just about every expansion since the game launched.
Since they’re not a piece of the past, but are an active part of the present, you cannot blame Alliance players for wanting to play one of the original core races of the faction. The fact the Horde was given a version of High Elves is inconsequential to the fact that High Elves remain such a part of the Alliance player’s experience.
It is called lifestyle choices. Do you honestly believe that everyone of the same race in the WoW universe has the exact same body build? The way the races are like that in game is because of game limitations. They can easily go with a different model for something that is genetically the same species.
That’s because they still exist in some number and are a part of the story. I can’t blame people for wanting to play one, sure, but people seem to fail to comprehend what “they’re not playable because population” actually means.
The very fact that they’re unplayable shows us that they’re not numerous and Blizzard wants to portray that. They are legendary creatures that show up in legendary situations and we witness that, because we are also legendary. They don’t show up in simple quests asking us to go gather boar pelts at level ten.
The best stories are shown, not written, and I truly am not trying to be belittling when I say this, but I feel like most people want to play them for aesthetic reasons without care for what they actually are in the story. Or if they want to play them as Silver Covenant “pure elves”, they’re willfully ignoring a large part of their history to try and justify something that they want to see but have been told isn’t in the cards.
I get it, but at the same time, we have to draw line somewhere before justifying means to an end begins to jeopardize the integrity of the story that Blizzard wants to tell.
They’ve already given Alliance Void Elves and that appeased some people. Don’t you think they had a reason not to add High Elves?
The argument of Population has not been used or supported by anyone from Blizzard since Burning Crusade, I believe. Even Ion himself hasn’t pointed out population as an issue, which is smart considering Void Elves are far fewer than High Elves in number.
I disagree. If you level through Alliance content you’ll find High Elves asking you to do perfectly mundane things. Vyrin at the Lodge in Loch Modan asks you to hunt a bear to show up some uppity young hunter, for example. In the Hinterlands their quests aren’t the stuff of legend, it’s the stuff of survival. In the Eastern Plaguelands the quests you get from the survivors of Quel’Lithien Lodge aren’t all that legendary either.
So passing over that fact, I think the bigger issue here is, “If they’re legendary, that only makes people want to play them more.” We’re Heroes in the story of Warcraft! We like being legends. All the more reason to add High Elves, really, if they’re seen as this legendary creature.
Mixed lineage which does have precedence dating back to the first Guardian.
The Sunreavers are the Elves in Dalaran who became Blood Elves. Everyone outside of that group has been portrayed as a High Elf.
Or, High Elves with mixed lineage, much like the Kul Tirans. Void Elves have a different role and don’t fit the same role as High Elves.
Which has been countered left and right time and again. We’re not the ones moving the goalposts.
Well it worked for the Nightborne and Zandalari so it’s actually quite a viable idea not to mention popular, apparently. Multiple people have also just explained to you that there is both room and precedence for mixed lineage ie a legitimate biological reason aside from eye color that goes well beyond ‘a couple of decades’.
And Void Elves as they stand consist of a crack elite squad and we have nothing indicating otherwise. So the population argument sailed a long time ago and to argue otherwise is completely disingenuous.
This stopped being a valid argument so much when they introduced Void Elves and Mag’thar Orcs however.
Perhaps before, when they made a starting city for races it mattered. Like, the High Elves suddenly having their own capital city would be bizarre. But they’ve moved away from that practice and plenty of Allied Races have incredibly small populations.
The currently stated reason is that they were trying not to blur faction lines too heavily… Though they did not say it was impossible that High Elves would be added.
I honestly don’t feel like Blood Elves personify the Horde though.
If the Alliance got Trolls, Tauren, Orcs or Undead I’d think it would blur the lines. But the Alliance has always had High Elves running around. Odd to say blurs faction lines but then have Alleria, Vereesa and Brightwing running around Boralus.
Honestly it’s kind of odd that the Blood Elves don’t have a new ranger general that we pay attention too… no important Windrunners left in Silvermoon? They could introduce an interesting character there.
Laidrin feels like the only important Blood Elf. There should be more important Blood Elf characters, especially in their war room.
High Elves don’t deliver anything vastly different enough from a Blood Elf in terms of looks/aesthetic, a Void Elf in terms of model and animation, or a human in terms of culture.
They have no identity of their own anymore, and haven’t ever since the high elven people moved forward as a majority. If High Elves deserve an identity in WoW, it’s that they’d be content to mix with humans and live with humans rather than stay with their family and homeland, so I feel as some do that a Half Elf would deliver pretty much everything High Elf fans want in a race that could write its own, very much Alliance story.
People, I would like to share that two more High Elves have been added to Stormwind. Those are Silver Covenant Battle-mages working as Dalaran portal keepers.
I think that not using the Thalassian model didn’t have to do much with lore, but rather to appeal to some players that object against using a “Horde” model to make a Alliance allied race. Honestly, i think that using a different model on the High Elves is unnecessary for 2 reasons:
Blizzard already made a Alliance allied race with the Thalassian model, and the High Elf NPCs always used it since BC, it shouldn’t be a problem to give the possible playable High Elves the Thalassian model since we already have it but with different colors.
As Archmage image show, even with only the eyes and hair color being different in game, the High Elves look different enough from Blood Elves, if we add different hair styles, hair colors, skin colors, tatoos, arcane markings and different idle stances it would be more than enough to make them visually distinct without distorting their visual essence.