It’s always kind of odd to see people basing their entire argument off of this premise that they understand what the developers think.
Where we’ve seen evidence of senior game developers that are for High Elves.
As far as overstating racial differences between High Elves and Blood Elves go, you’ve said that they’re not different cultures.
I’m never going to argue that there is as great a distance between Sin’dorei and Quel’dorei as Sin’dorei and Ren’dorei (as far as cosmology is concerned.)
I don’t foresee Sethrak happening, mainly because they’ve had far more showing as working with the Horde in questing than Alliance through Vorrik and all that.
But man, finding out they use a lot of lightning magic… they’d make a great fit if Blizzard capitalized on the lightning aspects of Alliance more. Wildhammer Dwarves, Jaina’s staff, High Elves to some extent, the Tidesages, there’s a lot of cool potential to make lightning a thing for Alliance like how they made blood a thing for Horde with what the Blood Elves do. (Though they don’t capitalize on that as much as there’s potential for either sadly.)
I really want a reptilian race of some kind. I’d even much prefer that over more mammal ones like Vulpera and Furbolg, but I only find those two more likely because they are just way more seeded as close allies to their respective faction than anything more reptilian, it’s quite a shame really.
Yeah. I’m over it. The game has always had a lean towards Horde Bias as far as culture is concerned, and that was fine when they were the under dogs. but they’re not the under dogs anymore and it’s time that the developers showed a balanced viewpoint between the two factions.
They are indeed harmful to relationships across factions, but these political happenings haven’t really changed the nature of their being.
While the High Elves and Blood Elves despise each other for the most part at the current time, their culture remains relatively unchanged. Before the faction split, nearly all of the Thalassian Elves were situated in Quel’Thalas, considering that they were still known as the High Elves when Quel’Thalas was founded. They were all the same magic-hungry, palace-city adoring Elves that they are now, so I take a bit of an issue when some people out there try to claim that this has somehow changed and that the High Elves have developed a vastly different culture from the Blood Elves.
At the present time, only a few years after the Thalassian Elves split into two factions, a majority of the known High Elves lived in Stormwind or set off to establish small communities of their own among other High Elves. These High Elves had begun to establish a new culture, but this was largely due to the High Elves being outcasts of the Alliance and not possessing the numbers, wealth or power to establish a new Palace-City of their own. In other words, their state of living was essentially forced upon them. However, most of these High Elves have been wiped out. I can’t remember their names off the top of my head, by I believe two or three High Elf lodges were wiped out throughout the course of WoW.
The Silver Covenant, on the other hand, has strong ties with the Alliance. Unfortunately, much of their lore in WoW has been focused on their military actions and hatred of the Blood Elves, so we haven’t really seen much on how they are living.
While I’m not trying to inflate the differences between the four Allied Races you just mentioned, the Highmountain Tauren at least have antlers and a different fur pattern. The Nightborne have different facial structures.
These four Allied races are sub-races or new races as far as the lore is concerned, but Blizzard just hasn’t done that great of a job reflecting it with their in-game models. Lack of creativity? Laziness? I don’t know.
I don’t like how the Highmountain Tauren have nearly the exact same rig as the Tauren, rather than having their rig be based more on a moose rather than a bucking bull, but that’s just the way Blizzard did it. Some of the Nightborne NPCs looked quite different from the Night Elves, but the player models we were given ended up being modified clones of the playable Night Elf. The Lightforged Draenei, for a race of beings supposedly being reshaped by the light, ended up having different coloured eyes and a different skin colour.
The Blood Elves and the High Elves though, I mean… we’re talking nothing but a difference in skin colour in the realm of a few shades of white, peach and pink – as if it were a light tan or a sunburn. As far as I know, we don’t even really know if this is a legitimate racial difference.
However, similarities and differences between the physical appearances of the Allied Races and the core races aside, they all still have more physical differences than the High Elves and Blood Elves do – but, this isn’t an issue. The High Elves and Blood Elves ARE supposed to look alike because they are the same race. Their significance as an Allied Race wouldn’t come from their physical appearance, it would come from their affiliation with the Alliance, their new relationships and clashes with the Blood Elves and the Horde.
I completely forgot about the mind-control efforts. However, while this is true, it’s not like the High Elves are saints. The High Elves cut ties with their own people in order to maintain what was a shaky relationship with the Alliance at the time. The High Elves and Blood Elves were treated fairly poorly by the Alliance, especially by the Night Elves and Humans from Lordaeron. The Night Elves were so strongly against the use of arcane magic that they threatened the Highborne with death. They didn’t end up actually inciting committing genocide against the Highborne, but the Night Elves did condemn their lifestyle and exile them from their lands, where they (the Highborne) went off to found Quel’Thalas and become known as the High Elves. The Humans of Lordaeron, especially Garithos and those that served him, mistreated the Thalassian Elves so grievously that Kael’s band of Elves would have eventually have been set up on a mission to be killed or would have been executed. Because of some of these happenings, the overwhelming majority of Thalassian Elves decided to cut ties with the Alliance.
One of the Silver Covenant’s prime directives is to sabotage Blood Elf operations. They have always been openly hostile towards them. One could argue that the High Elves have betrayed their people and sided with the Alliance in spite of the Alliance having treated them so poorly.
I don’t think that the High Elves are really any better than the Blood Elves at this time. No, there is nothing out there that shows the High Elves using mind-control or anything, but not enough time has passed for the High Elves to develop into something significantly different. The High Elves are still dependent on magical sources of energy and sustain themselves with it.
We will have to see where Blizzard takes their lore. If Blizzard continues to guide the High Elves into an existence that separates them from their past as the same type of Thalassian Elf as the Blood Elves (beyond politics and allegiances), I think we could have a potential candidate for an Allied Race. Part of me wants them to end up like Warhammer’s Wood Elves.
I’m sorry, but Lightforged Draenei are literally paler Draenei with different colored eyes. Full stop. The only other differences are a permanent forehead rune, and tattoos, neither of which is all that noticeable at a glance.
That’s where I think you are wrong. There is lore. Blood elves being displeased with the Horde and ditching them is good drama. Too bad they have to turn their skin blue and fill their heads with voices. Maybe second generation void elves will be able to join without the negative repercussions.
There are several High elven lodges, but the only one that’s been “wiped out” is the Quel’lithien lodge in the Eastern Plaguelands. Most of the elves there were turned into wretched, but a handful still survived. I think you’re over estimating their losses.
Also I don’t get where you’re getting this “palace-city” thing from. Care to share any sources?
Tbh, I don’t really care about Sethrak or any other Allied Race Megathread at this moment. I think I’ve only posted on Vulpera thread a couple times, but I’ll be probably staying as Nightborne for the foreseeable future.
I’m just really mad about how people react to Alliance requests in general, seems like Alliance is not allowed to request anything cool, even when it makes sense .
I never claimed to understand what each individual developer thinks, but we do know that Blizzard – or at least, the important decision makers at Blizzard – doesn’t want to implement the High Elves right now. We’ve had numerous Q&As and blue posts about this.
I also never said that the High Elves and Blood Elves do not have different cultures. I said that their cultures are very similar, mainly because the overwhelming majority of their history is shared. What I said was the exact same was their race.
That’s rich.
Quel’Lithien is one of them, for your information, since you don’t seem to know anything either. Wiped out some time after they became Wretched.
It’s all made up lore tho amirite? Even the bits about the Highborne and the Night Elves, the Humans and Thalassian Elves and so on.
Again, please understand that I acknowledge this about the Lightforged Draenei. Still, the Blood Elves and High Elves have even less physical differences.
Right now, sure. Once High Elves are added, not really. They’d be about the same as Draenei and Lightforged Draenei. Different skin/hair/eye colors, optional features like tattoos…
If they want to deck out customization for them, I’m all for it. Believe me, I’m on board. They just have to stop making strange decisions with Allied Race candidates.
I don’t know why you keep throwing in disconnected remarks, like your little Void Elf–Blood Elf bit there. I hope you don’t think too highly of your post content, because you’re not that hot yourself.
FYI, I’m not fond of the Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei at all. Pretty sure I’ve shared that opinion already. While the Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei are sub-races and actually have a different essence of being, their culture isn’t anything to be amazed at.
The “Disconnected remarks” are comparing the logic of your statements to relationships that already exist in the game.
Which is related because your arguments about High Elves are meaningless. They’re meaningless anyways because despite writing well you lack knowledge of the lore and nuance on the topic. But even if you did know what you were talking about, it goes back to the fact that it’s too late.
Political differences not enough? Pandaren.
Appearance differences not enough? Pandaren.
Cultural Differences not enough? Void Elves.
Also, at this point the weight of the developer commentary is on our side, so it’s pretty pointless to invoke that too.
I am going to beg to disagree with you 100% of the people I know who play Horde do so for the racial’s as they give them a leg up in all areas of end game content. The ones that play for aesthetics play Alliance. Granted this only speaks about the players I am personal friends with away from the game.
Great intentions, attempting to compare the logic of my statements to relationships that already exist, but wasted.
Concerning the Pandaren, you need to understand that the Pandaren were fabricated as a neutral race that gets to decide which faction they choose to join. Yes, there are IDENTICAL Pandaren playable on both sides, but this is how they were introduced.
Concerning the Void Elves, while their physical differences are passable enough for them to be an Allied Race, there isn’t really anything else special about them other than their use of Void Magic and having them be a sub-race of Thalassian Elf because the Void reshaped them. (Edit: In other words, you seem to take issue with the lack of cultural distinction between the standard Thalassian Elves and the Void Elves and I pretty much agree with you here)
If you can’t seem to accept or excuse the Pandaren’s implementation when considering the High Elves, then it is YOU who doesn’t possess meaningful arguments when it comes to them and it is you who lacks knowledge of the lore. If you understood their design, their introduction as a neutral race and the choice given to the player at the end of the starting zone, you wouldn’t be using the Pandaren as an excuse for why we likely don’t have High Elves right now.
When the Thalassian Elves were released as a playable faction in the Burning Crusade, Blizzard decided to give us access to the overwhelming majority of them under the Blood Elf faction. Why? Don’t know, because they felt like it. Blizzard never designed the playable Thalassian Elf like they did the Pandaren: the players were not given a choice, they were required to play as a Blood Elf. We don’t know for sure, but It’s not unreasonable to assume that we were never given High Elves because they were too similar to Blood Elves. Until Allied Races became a thing, none of the core playable races were all that similar aside from the Worgen having access to a human form.
Now, with Allied Races, we have been given various sub-race-like variants of existing core races. Some of these races are sub-races that have been reshaped by magic with little else going on for them, some of these races have vastly different cultures and different models in spite of being the same race as a core race, some of these races have similar cultures and merely possess a different skin colour. With some of the already playable Allied Races being very visually similar in spite of having experienced supposedly major transformations, you need to understand that we now have two playable Thalassian Elf races. This may not matter to you because your desire to play as a High Elf may usurp reason and the chance to provide variety for the playerbase, but right now the High Elves don’t deserve a spot because Blizzard decided to give us the Void Elves for whatever reason. Terrible decision, if you ask me, but this is what we were given.
I like to think that my thoughts on why we don’t yet have the High Elves resonate fairly well with Blizzard’s. We don’t have the High Elves in spite of their supposed popularity, so there must be some reason why Blizzard has refrained from making them playable at any time during the last 10 years… but if you want to dismiss my arguments concerning the High Elves as meaningless, I suppose you have a better idea of why Blizzard has refrained from making them playable and why Hazzikostas keeps telling us that we essentially already have access to them via the Blood Elves? Either your claim of senior developers yearning for High Elves isn’t as widespread as you think, or Hazzikostas has an unrivaled monopoly when it comes to High Elf decision-making.
What are you talking about
Night Elves weren’t part of the Alliance of Lordaeron. They came after High Elves were already there.
Who in the Alliance treated them poorly? By the time Kael’thas came to work under Garithos, those were already the Blood Elves.
The High Elves still loyal to the Alliance to this day are likely the ones that dissented when Anasterian left the Alliance after the Second War. The ones that were banished to Quel’lithien are mostly dead.
![:rage:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/rage.png?v=6" ":rage:")
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