The Unofficial High Elf Discussion Megathread

Community General Discussion
10137

I think people and ideas evolve. A comic saying something does not mean it’s an immutable rule.

Actually, not. The area itself is barely used in questing. There’s 2 interactable NPCs and 3 objects, and an alternate phase (the Horde attack) that could easily be maintained. It’s not used for anything else.

An elven district behind the mage district is yet another idea I’ve contemplated. I have a lot of different solutions for things, some of them even mutually exclusive. I like to keep it open, so whatever comes I’m okay with it.

10138

I would really like a full elven district in stormwind but at the same time I do believe org and stormwind may be getting updated sometime soon so it would be weird to add an elven district to just change the entire city soon after.

10139

The addition could always be as part of an update. The Mag’har, for example, use space within Orgrimmar that already exists. An Elven district could be added to Stormwind, and when High Elves becoming playable, be their starting location.

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10140

true but the way I see it is high elves being a pre order bonus for the next expansion but the capitals wouldn’t get updated until the 9.0 pre patch.

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10141

My idea would be making a new island off the east coast of the Eastern Kingdoms as their new “Homeland” since that side of the map is underused and it would allow for them to use their Elven Frigates like in Warcraft 2.

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10142

I like that idea.

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10143

Hey I also had the Idea pre-Legion, but I only revisted it recently.

Yes this is true, but the questline I made wasn’t shared. But in it they change the tree into something else, it won’t function as a Dream Portal Tree anymore because one it’s unfair. And two you can shut down those portals, the one in Feralas was supposed to be closed in Cataclysm but I suppose Blizzard forgot that in Legion.

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10144

Thanks!

Yes, I pretend he’s a Frost specialization Battle-Mage. :slight_smile:
Until they give us High Elves, he’s my high elf.

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10145

Dropping in again to voice my support for high elves in the Alliance. Never give up the fight people.

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10146

waves Hey y’all! Hope you have been doing fine.

I do find the starting area discussion interesting, but I think It’s a lot depending on what group of High Elves we are playing as. Even if we are talking about unification, it’s important to think about what group is spearheading the effort.

If it is the Silver Covenant, Something related to Dalaran’s holdings -like Hillsbrad’s Crater- or one of their settlements, like Windrunner’s Overlook in Crystalsong Forest -A “Snow Elf” aesthetic could work really well for the Silver Covenant and for the game as a whole.

If it is Stormwind Citizens, maybe the Mage’s Quarter would be the best place; with the addition of the new portal’s room, it isn’t hard to envision more real state being added to the Mage Tower there that way. Also, the possibility of using the area used by the Portal to the Everbloom. That is already an area used by the Kirin Tor offers more connections with Dalaran and the SC as well.

If it is the Highvale, The Hinterlands could work, but we would see a downplaying of the arcane side -which, having Dalaran as a thing, maybe wouldn’t be much of a real issue; High Elven Mages would just keep training more in Dalaran with Quel’danil representing a more in tune with nature way of living-

Frankly, I don’t see High Elves regrouping and striking on their own. Much as Gnomes are to Dwarves, they are too intertwined with humans at this point to want, or being able, to go in their own. Quel’danil could become a major settlement for High Elves and heart of their culture, and maybe something more with time, but it would have to start more as a gathering place for them as a scattered people, more symbolic than actually a seat of power.

High Elves would continue to live mostly as they have, with humans in human cities, and any “Starting Area” would be either on a human city, or a symbolic cultural centre more than an autonomous city-state. That would come with time if so.

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10147

He lives!

Hey.

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10148

I’m a bit late to the party on the whole social approach to magic, but I’d like to throw in my two cents anyway (because what the hell)

To me, the High Elves surviving their magical addiction essentially through a mix of going cold turkey and dosing themselves with magical artifacts is a major plot point that would play into their cultural or social make-up, as well as inform their position on magic. High Elves never rebuilt their kingdom like the Blood Elves did, and even after the sunwell was restored, they basically had to live in other races’ settlements to survive.

This is a long way to fall for a proud race that once taught humans how to even use magic in the first place. So a huge point about High Elves is that they spent the last 20 years eating humble pie. There’s still a pride there, but most of that haughty superiority complex has been beaten out of them.

They’ve also experienced firsthand probably the worst of their magical addiction and living through it. Silvermoon tried to ignore it or sequester it away, but for the High Elves? Not an option. Seeing the worst of what magic can do can change someone, so while I imagine most High Elves aren’t as strict or rigid about using no magic whatsoever, there would still be a considerable amount of High Elves that decided they were just not going to use it anymore anyway. A lot of High Elves might distrust all magics now on some level, or at least want to steer clear of it as much as possible. They don’t have to be strict or militant about it - they might just not really…like it all that much anymore. Think of it like a recovering drug addict being shown the drug they were addicted to for years, a drug that also killed their best friend. They’re going to want you to keep it away from them.

So! I guess how I envision High Elf society is based on that. I envision High Elf society being relatively low magic, with the bulk of the people in a settlement being honest, hardworking individuals that take joy in innocent work like farming or carpentry or blacksmithing. But magic users would still exist as well - mages and priests would still live their lives without judgement, but they might be few in number, and much more averse to using magic without justification. For example a High Elf Priest might heal a broken bone, but only by using a small healing spell after bandaging the limb and letting it set in a cast. A High Elf Mage might gather wood for a fire rather than casting a spell to create a magical campfire, and so on. Magic can still be a part of High Elven life, but High Elves know better than to use it to the excesses that the Blood Elves do.

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10149

I’m not sure Stormwind and Orgrimmar are even going to exist by the end of the expansion. Everything seems to be hinting that all of this is just a warm-up and that :poop::poop::poop::poop: is going to get real in the final patch.

10150

I’m fairly confident that the portion of your quote that I’ve placed emphasis on above wasn’t referring at all to the ramifications of being without a source of magic (i.e. literally dying or becoming Wretched), but it again forced me to imagine what playable High Elves might be like if their culture was an amalgamate of Dalaran-based HE’s and Quel’Danil-based HE’s.

The Arcan’dor cleansed the Nightborne of their addiction, affording them the freedom to live without being shackled to any particular source of magic; High Elves could feasibly achieve the same thing by leaning heavily into Shamanism.

10151

I wasn’t being literal there. I just meant they are not used to a life without magical contraptions and effects making it easy. Kinda like modern man “can’t live” without technology.

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10152

I was thinking about the major hubs we see High Elves living on, and I think their architecture shouldn’t be just Blood Elf architecture painted blue. Let’s take a look:

Quel’danil Lodge

Farstrider Lodge

Allerian Stronghold
https://tr3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2007/09/20/b32e8f30-c3bb-11e2-bc00-02911874f8c8/4230_terrorkar_forest.jpg

Dalaran City

All those images show that High Elves settlements are a mix of Human-Elf Architecture, save some cases where we see Night Elf Architecture(Lodges) for Rangers, and the perfect example being Dalaran, that show a nice balance between both cultures that make the city feels unique.

What you guys think? How the High Elf buildings should look?

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10153

The lodges using Night Elven assets doesn’t mean they embraced this kind of architecture, it’s just that in Vanilla they didn’t bother to make unique buildings for them, so just reuse Night Elven buildings because… elves.
In the cataclysm revamp, for some reason (laziness probably) they didn’t swapped those with High Elven buildings like those we see in the Allerian Stronhold and Wintergarde Keep (which are basically Blood Elven buildins with blue, which is fair considering that the Allerian Elves are from Quel’thalas).
I think that the oficial High Elven architecture is the one we see in Allerian Stronghold and Wintergarde keep, but if we want to set them apart from the Blood Elves we should use a Dalarani architecture but with slight inclinations to more traditional Thalassian architecture.

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10154

If High Elves got unique architecture, I’d make them like the thatched High Elf houses in the WC3 campaign. I always loved those.

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10155

they don’t even seem to have special architecture for velves. It’s basically purple belf.

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10156

I think it’s fitting that the high elf lodges are based on Kal’dorei designs. Seems the farstriders were closer to their night elf roots.