This is something that came up sometimes in the past threads(beginning of 2018), and I dont know if all of you had the oportunity to see it. But, back in Warlords of Draenor, during an interview Ion answered a question about Brown Orcs Sub Race, and he also mention High Elves in a positive way, as something they wanted to explore in the future.
Around 6:35:
Really insightful, but also disappointing, seeing how fast people can change their minds… 
Only a dev coming out and openly saying what happened between Legion and BfA will convince me that the planned allied race for BfA preorder wasn’t high elves.
Consider this:
What I think was really planned was that Alleria would become the leader of the high elves. She probably would have the void powers anyway (hinted way back in WoD), but it would be a personal story rather than a new race idea. By the end of Legion, Alleria’s return would lead the high elves to unite and become playable.
But… Alleria’s story was an internal success and someone probably thought people would like to be play as something like her. They pitched this idea and the higher-ups embraced it. Since the idea was introduced so later, it didn’t have time to mature, so we ended up with this mess of a race that wasn’t properly seeded and had to be fleshed out over the course of a single quick recruitment scenario.
I’d love to know what happened in the meeting that decided void elves would replace high elves as the fourth allied race. I’d also love to see what work, specially concept art, Blizzard had done prior to that change of direction.
A teaser that I finished in between work and coughing (ayy I hate having a cold)
https://i.ibb.co/NmMwGvY/Silver-Covenant-Scout.png
Highvale Swiftbale with Silver Covenant colors. Since it’s the mainstay HE look on the alliance, I really didn’t change much save for the gloves and boots. Hopefully I’ll have the lineup with all the recolors soon.
I think part of it is an example that they should have just handled the Void Elves more like Alleria, where they weren’t changed to be Death Knight Blood Elves and could have just been void-wielding High Elves seeking out a new direction in life that defines them away from Blood Elves without sacrificing all their aesthetics that make them distinguishable.
That or maybe Alleria could have just given High Elves an aspect where Shadow Priests are a workable part of their culture like the Auchenai.
It’s like how the Void Elf rift has a lot of High Elf tents and crates there, it’s like Blizzard is trying to have their cake and eat it too with Void Elves but it doesn’t work unless Blizzard commits to Void Elves looking more like High Elves and tying their backstory more strongly to Alleria’s 2nd war soldiers rather than coming up with some random Blood Elves that have no tie or easily built friendship with the Alliance.
But as I said at onetime, Blizzard are not very good at creating good backstories for Alliance races. In fact, I even half-expect High Elves will have some silly unnecessary backstory if they ever do happen.
The most unfortunate thing about the idea of the developers pitching “something like her”, is that they largely failed in that regard as well – with Alleria maintaining almost all of her original personality traits and societal values (i.e. she’s clearly a High Elf of the WCII-era), she doesn’t exactly jive well with the group that eventually became the Void Elves (who are clearly Blood Elves, albeit Blood Elves long disgruntled with the Horde).
There isn’t a good reason for why, if they wanted “something like her”, they couldn’t have utilized the High Elves (especially the Silver Covenant). Additionally, an enormous bit of what makes her particular narrative on Argus interesting is how she juxtaposes her extremely traditional personality and beliefs (i.e. being a WCII-era High Elf, through and through) and her utilization of a dangerous, maddening source of power. This is a juxtaposition that does not, and really cannot, actually work for former Blood Elves taking up the Void.
I wonder with who Alleria was such a success that they decided to make an entire race allegedly based off of her, yet give it next to 0 screentime, when it is the Allied Race that absolutely needs that more than any other because it has no past to sustain it.
Hell, they should’ve been given an entire zone just for them this expansion if we’re to take them seriously as a race, at the very least.
Highmountain Tauren had an entire zone for themselves
Nightborne got that and the bulk of Legion’s content
Lightforged Draenei at the very least were the main fighting force across 3 zones
Mag’har Orcs had an entire expansion
Dark Iron Dwarves have been around for a long time and have deep roots in the lore and story
Kul Tiras and Zandalar both have that and each got a small continent where we go adventuring with them.
If we indeed are getting Vulpera and ugh Mechagnomes, the former were the stars of one of Zandalar’s zones while the latter will at the very least be getting a mega-dungeon all about them.
Void Elves had nothing and still have virtually nothing. They’re currently a hollow race that exists solely for aesthetics.
Hell, I think even Umbric’s voice line about High Elves might be mocking how shallow he and his people are
“Why would you want to be a High Elf when you can look all tragic and brooding?”
I really loved this post, and I also think it makes a lot of sense, High Elves and Ogres were kinda the first Allied Races of the game, followed by Dark Irons and Mag’har Orcs.
But, I can’t deny this is really depressing, thinking that we were so close like touching it with our own hands… and where we’re now… ![:sob:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/sob.png?v=6" ":sob:")
This game has became so biased towards one faction in the last eight years, every week I wonder if I should stop playing. Because I’m missing the 10-man Mythic raiding since WOD came out. I’m also getting tired of this useless flying gating until mid-expansion, and I’m not enjoying playing as Horde anymore. But, meanwhile everyone else is going Horde lately…
I started this expansion as Alliance, I was Horde during Legion, and now I’m Horde again, because the Alliance faction have almost no endgame community at all, the Alliance is nearly becoming unplayable. But Blizzard are still trying to ensure they’re sending the Alliance faction to the grave, always puting the Horde interests first all the time.
My last hope is this year Blizzcon, if the next expansion is going to be Horde biased again without anything to help small communities, dead realms, faction imbalance or anything that prioritize the minorities. I’M DONE!
I just flag that persons post for trolling or spam depending on which I see it falling under. More often than not I flag them as trolling. For me it’s just sad you can no long place a person on ignore and never see anything they post.
Notice that, since void elves were created so late, they came after most of BfA 8.0 leveling content was already defined. That’s why you don’t see the damn void elves have any role in any of the stories regarding the void in Stormsong, Nazmir or Vol’dun, nor with the witches of Drustvar. And their role in the war campaign (which is max level content and wasn’t even voice acted, indicating it was worked too late) is pretty minor.
Why haven’t they got any spotlight after 8.0? Because they just don’t fit the story being told. They are just in for the ride.
In a playable high elf race, “void elves” could just be a new sect of high elf shadow priests that are trained by Alleria. Much like the blood elves has blood knights, farstriders and so on, high elves could have some “void mages” emulating Alleria.
Instead, Blizzard turned such a sect into a race that makes no sense.
Perfectly said.
I think there was an “anti-helfer” camp among the devs that felt high elves weren’t unique enough, but there was no other choice: Horde was getting nightborne, so high elves made sense at that point. But Alleria’s story gave them an excuse to rework the “high elves” radically. The end result was so twisted it lost its original purpose completely.
Maybe the introduction of Umbric and his group of exiles was actually a small mercy from the story team. A way to keep the original high elves a possibility.
I’m also adding a few more bullet points to my previous post as I remember more details that show how late void elves came to the party.
I’ve added:
They would’ve fit like a glove in Stormsong - people hearing maddening whispers, a new race of void creatures (honestly, K’thir could’ve been the Alliance’s dark void-race if they were treated differently), and all that jazz. I think the Horde campaign even hints at Tidesages using Shadow/Void being a known thing.
We could’ve quested through the zone with a Void Elf accompanying us, or perhaps met one along the way that was going to Sagehold to find more about how the Tidesages handled the Void. But all they added was a single pet tamer in the Shrine of the Storm.
That is such a good idea. They would basically be mind flayers from DnD.
And they use the Forsaken model, so Allied Race material right there.
Just write a story where either they were unwillingly corrupted (like the Void Elves), or even a race that no longer serves the Old Gods (like the Nerubians).
Did he even change his mind or is he indifferent and some other devs put the pressure on to dye them blue and try to make something new and exciting? I really think it is just him trying to defend a bad decision. Now that void elves are a thing, you can’t take them away though. So you can either add high elves or give void elves high elf customization. I think the second option would leave many disappointed though.
The only situation were making Void Elves out of Blood Elf exiles rather than High Elves would make more sense is exactly this scenario were they wanted to keep the High Elves as a possibility. There’s a chance that the devs in charge of making the Void Elves were already working on the High Elves but had to stop because the higher command ordered them to change directions, so they used Blood Elf exiles instead, so the High Elves they intended to be a stand alone Allied Race were preserved and intact.
That looks pretty nice!
Thing is, it’s not really a high elf thing to slurp up the latest magical power. It is however, characteristic of blood elves, who practice little restraint when it comes to magic.
Intentionally yes, but it’s more of a accident approach. Blood Elves seeking dark powers make sense, because it’s true that High Elves didn’t care much about power, but it still felt they chose those Blood Elf exiles over the High Elves because they wanted to keep the High Elves as a possibility rather than because they considered those details
Not the only situation, however.
It can also be that the real story behind the void elf couldn’t be told in a single scenario, so they made Umbric and his group to be the quickly introduced first void elves, but with the intention of expanding the story in a later moment, when they would have the chance to give the “race” proper development.
So beware.
I really want to believe that Blizzard have better things to than erasing a such a iconic and beloved race just to “develop” and push even more a past decision. Making Void Elves i mean, i really hope Blizzard will keep the High Elves out of this Void thing, i want to believe they didn’t want to disappoint their fans even more.