It’s strange because apparently the whole Silithus world ending bit was supposed to be foreshadowing for the next expansion and now they are like, “Oh, you guys are interested in this?”
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I think the intention of the sword was to A) Place it in a zone you could actually walk right up and see versus something like burnt Teldrassil that’s just a painting/facade and B) Localize it in a zone nobody would really miss.
I doubt if the goal was an old world zone update, even if it was to get sword-stabbed, that they would have picked Silithus.
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but that isn’t a high elf. We want high elves. not dragon elves. Not light elves. not fire elves. not anything but high elves.
also i think the idea of playable dragons works best as a new class.
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A dragon like Allied Race would make sense if they were Neutral, not exclusive to the Alliance, the Dragonflights were always Neutral. They could make a nice Allied Race using the Thalassian model but there are two more popular concepts in this line: High Elves, they are not dragons and they are not blue-eyed Blood Elves, and San’layn, those cool undead vampire Blood Elves.
The idea is good, dragon tattoos with horns, unusual hair colors and styles, could make a idea for a Allied Race of Dragon Aspects that wanted to be humanoids . It’s just that it couldn’t be a substitute for High Elves because Dragon Aspects in human forms are Dragon Aspects, not High Elves.
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Posts like these remind me that Warcraft has simply too many elves, semi-elves or elf-derivatives.
As for dragons, they generally take on human forms just as often. Bronze flight in particular loves appearing as elves, though, for whatever reason.
Other universes also have plenty of Elves, even Tolkien’s universe (the one that served as a base to all modern fantasy settings), it’s not exclusive to Warcraft.
Anyway, as long as Elf variants aren’t forcefully created (citation not needed) i will be fine with, i like Elves just like most people, they are popular. Elf hating seem very unreasonable.
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In World of Warcraft: Chronicle Volume 1, a couple of the interesting divisions between the various sentient beings on Azeroth are highlighted and explained:
- It is intoned in the Chronicle that there exists a very deep, very violent rivalry between the elves and the trolls. This is mostly a result of geopolitical history (i.e. the Night Elves conquered and laid claim to large swaths of their neighbors territories), but it’s likely exacerbated by the fact that the Well of Eternity quite literally adjusted the physiological structuring of all elves to be more reminiscent of the Titans.
- It’s posited that, playing out on Azeroth, there is a somewhat muted conflict between those races borne of Titan influence, and those whose origins are “foreign”. A notable manifestation of this conflict being the give-and-take between humans and orcs, but also things like dwarves/orcs or gnomes/goblins.
The Alliance was the faction for Titanic races, as well as for elves.
The Horde was the faction for non-Titanic races, as well as for trolls.
This understanding of the setting is now largely defunct, because 2005-2007 Blizzard couldn’t be asked to actively improve upon the existing (lack of) appeal of the Horde’s membership and, instead, they elected things which were previously developed as Alliance-aligned assets ought to be given to the Horde to improve the receptiveness of players to the Horde (referring to Blood Elves here).
The thing is, Blizzard could probably redirect the narrative back in the direction it was originally heading with a little time and a lot of focus. If they were so inclined, this is probably how I’d roll out new additions over the next few years:
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Mechagnomes (A) and Gilblins (H) (or Vulpera (H)).
We know they’re coming at some point, so just release them and move on.
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Worgen-based AR (A) and Forsaken-based AR (H).
I suspect that the Forsaken-based Allied Race will be something akin to Nathanos, but the Worgen-based Allied Race is sort of an unknown. As we’ll probably be seeing both of these races being “seeded in the world” during 7.3, and we’re nearly certain that 7.3 takes place in Ny’alotha, I wouldn’t rule out a playable group of Worgen that are inundated by the energies of the Emerald Dream (or, the Emerald Nightmare), and these would probably end up being Night Elves if we were being realistic.
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Those would finish off the BfA additions. The combinations that follow would be in no specific order, and the intent of their implementation would be to reinforce the divisions as outline in the Chronicle (i.e. the Alliance is supposed to represent the Titan-based races and elves, while the Horde is supposed to represent non-Titan-based races and trolls).
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Dark Trolls (A) and Amani Trolls (H).
The purpose of adding Amani Trolls to the Horde is to iterate that it is a troll-heavy faction, while also providing a little more intrigue to the roster of available races; while the intent behind adding Dark Trolls to the Alliance is to highlight a sub-grouping which features prominently as a deviation from traditional allegiances (as with Blood Elves and Nightborne joining the Horde, deviating from thousands of years of historical tradition), and additionally as a mechanism for tightening the cohesion of the currently disparate groupings of “naturalists” that exist within the Alliance.
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High Elves (A) and San’layn (H)
I recognize that suggesting another Thalassian-based group for the Horde seems peculiar, considering the preamble above; I’d posit, however, that the San’ayn are similar enough socially and culturally to basically function as an attache to the Blood Elves (i.e. like Blood Knights, Farstriders, Magisters, etc.) without seeming out of place. Not to mention, they’ve become an enormously popular request.I don’t have much to say about High Elves that the thread hasn’t addressed more thoroughly, but I will say that it’d be nice for them to have a sort of tempering effect on Void Elves – such that it becomes clear that the Thalassians on either faction are very clearly positioned, socially and culturally (i.e. Blood Elves and San’layn should be shown to be both socially and culturally similar, while High Elves and Void Elves should be shown to be both socially and culturally similar).
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Wildhammer Dwarves, Frostborne Dwarves, and Vrykul (A)
These additions both reinforce the theme of the Alliance being primarily comprised of Titan-based races, and would more-or-less mean that all conceivable variants of Dwarf as playable.
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Grimtotem Tauren, Taunka, and Ogres (H)
These additions reinforce the theme of the Horde being primarily comprised of races which aren’t Titan-based, and would bring the Horde very close to having all conceivable variants of Tauren as playable options. In conjunction with the previous bullet, this would also means than both the Alliance and the Horde would have access to virtually every racial variant introduced in Classic, TBC, and WotLK (excepting Broken Draenei, which absolutely should’ve taken the place of Lightforged Draenei, and whom now are something of a nightmare to contrive an introduction for).
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Mogu (A) and Yaungol (H)
This secures the final variant of Tauren for the Horde (realistically we should probably start expressing that as “variants of Yaungol”, because that is what all Tauren are), and a decently requested Titan-based race for the Alliance.
If anybody has any thoughts regarding any of these additions, especially the talking points introduced beneath High Elf / San’layn, I’d love to hear them.
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I’m a far cry from hating elves, but with High Elves, Blood Elves, Void Elves, Night Elves, Nightborne, Naga, Satyr, San’layn, Felblood Elves, Dark Trolls, and things like Dark rangers, there are simply a ton of elf-based or elf-related races in WoW.
Actually, from what I’ve seen of the various Dragonflights, Elves are their preferred forms- with the exception of the Black Dragonflight who do indeed prefer humans.
The Red Dragonflight mostly take on forms of high/blood elves with a few outliers, I can’t recall a Blue Dragon that “mortal form” wasn’t an High elf with the exception of Kalecgos’ half-elf disguise (correct me if I’m wrong- I’m no expert), Green Dragons prefer Night elves with a few High elves, Bronze dragons seem split but heavily prefer High/Blood elves and Humans, and as I mentioned Black Dragons prefer Humans.
This is what I’ve observed at least. I know there are outliers (Like Chromie and Rhea) but Elves seem to be the most popular by far.
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Blue: Kalecgos is half-elf, Saragosa and Kirygosa have human female forms, rest use mostly elf with some gnomes.
Red: Mostly human with a few high elves, a night elf and a goblin
Black: Almost entirely human, with a few outliers like Sintharia
Bronze: Majority elven, but humans not far behind, with a few gnomes including Chromie.
Green: Almost exclusively Night Elves, unsurprising given their connection to the Emerald Dream
I’d probably cut it in ranges roughly 55-65% Elf, 35-45% human, and 5-10% Other.
I wasn’t off by too much. I could’ve sworn that there were more Red Dragon elves, but I could be mis-remembering things. I don’t recall the Blue Dragon gnomes though- could you tell me where you saw them?
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My musings on your post:
I think with the Worgen-based AR and the Forsaken-based AR will go the way of Void Elf/Nightborne in that they are flipped. Barring some next-level lore ignore, Blizz is setting up Calia and “Redeemed” for Alliance, which would be the “Forsaken-based” race, and rumors exist of a shapeshifting troll type for Horde as a Worgen type (something about cat shifting trolls).
As for Dark Trolls/Amani Trolls:
I don’t see any reason or inclination for Dark Trolls to join the Alliance. I also don’t see Amani joining the Horde while Blood Elves still exist within it. If Horde were to get Forest trolls, it would be within the Revantusk tribe that is already within our ranks.
Regarding High Elves/San’layn:
I’ve said elsewhere that the only way I could see High Elves being balanced out would be for San’layn on the Horde. Each would have a fair and a dark take on Thalassian elves. While I think narratively it would be rather banal to give each faction a scoop of each arbitrarily, I can’t see High Elves otherwise going playable and having two Thalassian reps on Alliance when the core race is Horde.
Wildhammer/Frostborn/Vry’kul for Alliance:
I’d support these additions, but I don’t know how inclined Blizz would be to do Vry’kul anytime soon with Kul’tirans filling a “towering human” type race so recently.
Grimtotem/Taunka/Ogre: I don’t know if we would get Ogres, as much as I’d like them, or instead get Mok’nethal through Rexxar. Taunka already fight within the Horde.
As for Mogu/Yuanghol:
I firmly believe these two to just hate everyone so much that neither would join the Alliance or Horde. I group them into ‘enemy-always’ races like Naga or Murlocs.
I’m also not sure I agree with the whole “Titanic/Non-Titanic” division of races being something Blizzard at all intended to follow the faction divide. Most of that titan seed race lore wasnt even established, and in fact, a lot surrounding Sargeras, Eredar and Draenei was retcomned in TBC-era in the time when you’re talking about Blood Elves going Horde.
That said, I’m curious why there’s no Hozen/Jinyu or Sethrak mentions on this list, given the popularity of the latter, and the fact the former already fight for the factions.
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I agree with you on High Elves being paired with San’layn. It’s the only way to have parity. And not for nothing, both are highly requested which would garner good will from the player base, generally speaking.
And just think… the topic of High Elves would finally be over!
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There’s also High Elves with Forest Trolls leaving the Horde with 3 Trolls and Alliance with 3 Elves.
Then at a latter date they add Wildhammer Dwarves and San’layn leaving equal Elves for both factions and the Horde and Alliance having more Trolls and Dwarves respectively.
There are ways to keep it “Fair” without being a direct 1 to 1 persee.
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There’s also a bit of a ratio difference between how many players play the Elf’s and how many players play Trolls.
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True, but it was more a comment that I couldn’t see Alliance getting two Thalassians when that’s a core Horde race, without another (San’layn) to balance that.
Your example would work better with another Night elf variant, like Court of Farondis Azuna ghosts or something.
I wasn’t directing that at you, but take a walk on the forums and the hate will be there, and it’s irrational at best. Anyway, as long as only the requested humanoid Elves became playable it’s fair game.
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Idk, been dealing with Elf hate since Blood Elves went Horde. I’ve pretty much ignored it out of my existence by this point.
Keep in mind they could go with the Night Elf remodel rout or make an entirely new model with the intent to use it for San’layn latter.
Second one is unlikely given Kul Tiran taking so long but it might work for 2 races.
That has a bit to do with Racials and Gated Classes as well.
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Thalassians are not a core Horde race, Blood Elves are, while High Elves are part of the Alliance regardless, it matters little that they are a minority, the Allied Race system is perfect for subraces like them.
Thalassians are present on both factions, with the High Elves being on the Alliance and Blood Elves in the Horde, it’s not like we are asking to be given a group of already Horde Blood Elves.
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