The Unofficial High Elf Discussion Megathread

5. Do not look for Frostfencer Seraphi in Boralus. Blizzard likes to taunt us. He is part of Auric's Angels, and literally says. " Hello there. Come to have a look at the best?"
10/14/2018 04:10 PMPosted by Sapheon
The nearest things to have High Elves on the are either any of these 3 Options.

1. Main a Draenei - have an Orb of Deception and look like a Blood Elf on the Alliance for only 5 Minutes. Obtain an Orb of the Sin'Dorei too also helps.

2. Roll Horde - It sucks but you will have the Blood Elves. Or look at my Armory, get the same Blue Hair, and Blue Eyes I have. Only Death Knights can have this look. If you get a Blue Cape, and the right Transmog. You can look almost like High Elf.

3. Void Elf - Accept the Alliance, and almost High Elf. But you dont get Paladin or Death Knight. But at least you will be the nearest to the race on Alliance.


This isn't directed at you specifically, but it is fascinating that people are willing to be so flippant about High Elves but are totally OK with Horde getting exactly what they have historically asked for with no deviations.

They even ripped Maghar from a different dimension to "convincingly" provide all possible Orc clans in one convenient allied race.

A lot of people here joke about people just wanting "white" elves, apparently oblivious to the irony of claiming their "whiteness" as being unique and feeling entitled about it as dark elves are distributed like candy. Watch us get our 5th variation in Undead Elf pretty soon.

Physically, it's about having a natural skin tone color irrespective of its tone. I would love to play an olive skinned (like myself) elf. It's about looking... well... normal. A human with pointy ears.

So why not play a human, you might ask.

Fact is, High Elves aren't defined by their skin or eye colors. Those are arbitrary. People want to play as the faction, as the theme, as the identity that literally no other race can provide.

Seriously. The possibilities of the Blood Elf / High Elf intraracial divide coupled with the High Elf / Human interracial connection throughout the millenia has and will continue to fuel many stories to come playable or not.

My favorite elf origin in Dragon Age is City Elf. It's how I imagine my Stormwind High/Half elf to look like. A downtrodden High Elf who sacrificed a lot to remain true and loyal to their Alliance friends and traditional High Elf values of idealism and honor.
I am only giving people options, if you look at my character. It looks like a High Elf, I have the Blue Eyes, and the Blue Hair. Yes, I know we all want to be Alliance, I get it. Well at least Void Elves, still look cool, but no Death Knight or Paladin =(.
10/14/2018 04:22 PMPosted by Sapheon
I am only giving people options, if you look at my character. It looks like a High Elf, I have the Blue Eyes, and the Blue Hair. Yes, I know we all want to be Alliance, I get it. Well at least Void Elves, is better than nothing. Void Elves still look cool, but no Death Knight or Paladin =(.

So why aren't you asking for high elves? You want them so ask for them.
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10/14/2018 04:18 PMPosted by Mythlor
This isn't directed at you specifically, but it is fascinating that people are willing to be so flippant about High Elves but are totally OK with Horde getting exactly what they have historically asked for with no deviations.

They even ripped Maghar from a different dimension to "convincingly" provide all possible Orc clans in one convenient allied race.


I feel this way too. Just look at the new customization for Night Elves, we have been asking for so long to be able to change their eye color between golden and silver for both genders and Blizz still failed to give what we asked, always twisting our requests.
10/14/2018 04:22 PMPosted by Sapheon
I am only giving people options, if you look at my character. It looks like a High Elf, I have the Blue Eyes, and the Blue Hair. Yes, I know we all want to be Alliance, I get it. Well at least Void Elves, still look cool, but no Death Knight or Paladin =(.


I pretend my Human mage is a half elf since Blizzard has used the Human model as one of its many placeholders for Half Elves (both mortal and humanoid form dragons).

Yeah it sucks that High Elves, Half Elves, and humanoid form dragons all share the same Blood elf with Night Elf voice placeholders but what will you do. I keep expecting them to tell me Ishnu'alah.
10/14/2018 04:13 PMPosted by Sapheon
5. Do not look for Frostfencer Seraphi in Boralus. Blizzard likes to taunt us. He is part of Auric's Angels, and literally says. " Hello there. Come to have a look at the best?"
Also apparently one of the Void Elves on the Riftrunner team uses Paladin like abilities.

This is hearsay as I haven't experienced it myself, still gotta do more Islands on my Horde character!
Blood Elves, now actually have three eye color options. Green Eyes (Regular), Blue Eyes (Death Knight Only), and Yellow Eyes (New Feature). I roll mostly Draenei.
10/14/2018 04:25 PMPosted by Lisbick


I feel this way too. Just look at the new customization for Night Elves, we have been asking for so long to be able to change their eye color between golden and silver for both genders and Blizz still failed to give what we asked, always twisting our requests.


I actually just realized that. It's definitely on the nose.
10/14/2018 04:28 PMPosted by Sapheon
Blood Elves, now actually have three eye color options. Green Eyes (Regular), Blue Eyes (Death Knight Only), and Yellow Eyes (New Feature). I roll mostly Draenei.


Death Knights don't have the same eye color. Their eyes have a necrotic glow shared by all races. It's not their actual eye color which is obscured behind the glow.

High Elves have blue pupils with white sclera, and if they have a glow (usually the males) they are aquamarine in color and not the same Death Knight light blue.

And canonically, High Elves have all "human" eye colors from grey to brown.. as well as violet. Them having only "blue eyes" is a very common misconception. Magic produces the aquamarine glow (much like it causes the glow in Light Blood Elves, Fel Blood Elves, etc...), not the pupil color itself.

The reason all High Elves in WoW have blue pupils is that they all use the same face maps in the Blood Elf NPC character creator, which all have blue eyes. If they ever gave High Elves their own character creator, we'd undoubtedly see all colors represented.

I'd want my Half Elf (if made) to have brown eyes.
10/14/2018 04:25 PMPosted by Lisbick
10/14/2018 04:18 PMPosted by Mythlor
This isn't directed at you specifically, but it is fascinating that people are willing to be so flippant about High Elves but are totally OK with Horde getting exactly what they have historically asked for with no deviations.

They even ripped Maghar from a different dimension to "convincingly" provide all possible Orc clans in one convenient allied race.


I feel this way too. Just look at the new customization for Night Elves, we have been asking for so long to be able to change their eye color between golden and silver for both genders and Blizz still failed to give what we asked, always twisting our requests.
Yes, people keep expecting High Elf fans to "appreciate the High Elf flavors" when simply put, why does that concession even need to be made.

People are making threads for Undead Elves, no Anti-HE posters here I've seen goes there and goes "if you want emo/goth Elves the Void Elves are your flavor of Undead Elf"

Or even for Wildhammer Dwarf fans, no one's going "just accept Dwarves as your Wildhammer flavor"

Imagine for those fans excited for Ogres if people went, "Kul'Tirans are a flavor of the Ogres, go play them and be happy"

It's straight up absurd. People know what they want and the reasons for why they want it, and have laid it out.

Blizzard just needs to follow through, something they have a hard time doing because probably they feel the need to spice things up.

Just as when players asked for player housing and Blizzard did their own version with the Garrisons, and look how lame that turned out.
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Stop trying to make High Elves happen, Gretchen.
10/14/2018 04:37 PMPosted by Calero
Stop trying to make High Elves happen, Gretchen.


*looks at the Void Elf's shirt*

We wear Pink on Fridays. It's Sunday.

YOU CAN'T SIT WITH US.
1 Like
10/14/2018 04:25 PMPosted by Lisbick
10/14/2018 04:18 PMPosted by Mythlor
This isn't directed at you specifically, but it is fascinating that people are willing to be so flippant about High Elves but are totally OK with Horde getting exactly what they have historically asked for with no deviations.

They even ripped Maghar from a different dimension to "convincingly" provide all possible Orc clans in one convenient allied race.


I feel this way too. Just look at the new customization for Night Elves, we have been asking for so long to be able to change their eye color between golden and silver for both genders and Blizz still failed to give what we asked, always twisting our requests.

I feel the night warrior customization so lacking. A single skin with dark eyes. I was hoping for at least a few skin color variations.

And even worse than eye color: male night elves still lack a beardless option with eyebrows.
10/14/2018 04:41 PMPosted by Alamara

I feel the night warrior customization so lacking. A single skin with dark eyes. I was hoping for at least a few skin color variations.

And even worse than eye color: male night elves still lack a beardless option with eyebrows.


While the single skin is annoying, the eyes are navy blue with a missing glow texture so it's not the complete look right now.

The same thing happened with Blood Elves when their eyes looked like #1 without the glow. (Still looks a bit like that tbh).
In all seriousness, originally, Blood Elves were given to the Horde for the sake of evening out the faction balance. They gave void elves to the Alliance, basically giving them a more updated Blood Elf avatar that's better all around, and it kinda steals that thunder. The colored skin/narrative/lack of certain class availability will keep some people over on Horde side.

At the moment, the Horde narrative is railroading people into being mustache twirling villains. Some folks are really unhappy with that.

I hypothesize that an introduction of High Elves as a playable Alliance race, which steals even more thunder from the Blood Elves, would be the tipping point in unhappy Blood Elf players ditching the Horde. There is absolutely nothing Blizzard could possibly add to Horde to counteract that level of exodus, especially with the poor narrative.

While this would make the loud group of players very happy, it would also probably tip the faction imbalance into a really bad place that would be difficult if not impossible to correct.

Seeing as how Blizzard is all about that PvP right now, I don't see them messing with that.
10/14/2018 04:49 PMPosted by Calero
In all seriousness, originally, Blood Elves were given to the Horde for the sake of evening out the faction balance. They gave void elves to the Alliance, basically giving them a more updated Blood Elf avatar that's better all around, and it kinda steals that thunder. The colored skin/narrative/lack of certain class availability will keep some people over on Horde side.

At the moment, the Horde narrative is railroading people into being mustache twirling villains. Some folks are really unhappy with that.

I hypothesize that an introduction of High Elves as a playable Alliance race, which steals even more thunder from the Blood Elves, would be the tipping point in unhappy Blood Elf players ditching the Horde. There is absolutely nothing Blizzard could possibly add to Horde to counteract that level of exodus, especially with the poor narrative.

While this would make the loud group of players very happy, it would also probably tip the faction imbalance into a really bad place that would be difficult if not impossible to correct.


The population argument is tired. It's obsolete. It's nonsensical.

We're talking about an event that happened a decade ago, back when the game was still in its infancy. Most people are now established where they are, with friends and family and guilds. It took months to level a character to max in vanilla... People have far more alts than in vanilla, often on both factions.

People wanted to play Horde. They just didn't want to play a hunched back ugly. They can do that with Blood Elves.

And ultimately, given that there's a massive slant towards the Horde right now in every form of gameplay with population imbalances going as large as 60:40 in Europe, I find this argument to also be pretty ironic.

Take your current Blood Elves.
Remove those that want to be Horde but want to play non-cow Paladin or Demon Hunter.
Remove those that want to be Horde with their guilds.
Remove those that want to be Horde where all the top pve/pvp scene is.
Remove those that play Warlocks, Death Knights, and Demon Hunters.
Remove those that have no interest in faction changing their mains.
Remove those that cannot afford to race change.
Remove those that hate the Alliance
Remove those unwilling to level an Alliance toon to max, farm all the rep, and get the unlock
etc...
And this is all in isolation. The Alliance population continues to bleed to Horde.

Just saying 33% of the Horde's population would instantly switch to Alliance is pretty hilarious. And even if a whopping third of them suddenly switch to the Alliance, it would still not be enough to balance the factions.

And you know what? Even if they did. Why not? We need people to come back Alliance. I seriously doubt High Elves would fix the problem but it's a start.

So stop. Please.

10/14/2018 04:57 PMPosted by Aukraion
But High Elves, on the Alliance, will basically cause a max exodus on the Horde. So the reason it is not given, was for the faction balance.


Citation needed
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To be honest giving Void Elves, to the Alliance was risky. Given Horde Population of Blood Elves is at 34%. Horde is 49%, and Alliance 51% Total Population. All Realms, according to Realm Pop. So the fact that we got Void Elves, and did not affect the faction balance is amazing. But High Elves, on the Alliance, will basically cause a max exodus on the Horde. So the reason it is not given, was for the faction balance.
It would be cool to have High Elves, on the Alliance. I do like the Void Elves alot, so I am happy. I only wish Void Elves, could be Paladins and Death Knights.
"faction balance"

https://realmpop.com/us.html

*scrolls to 120*

*laughs*

*goes to EU realms*

*laughs even harder*

I know it's a genuine concern some people have, but it's really nonsensical. Faction balance is heavily skewed to Horde right now (~23% more Horde than Alliance on US) and Void Elves showed that most people aren't going to faction/race change their mains just to look like a recolored blood elf. The Allied Race/Faction barriers are just too high unless you already play both factions anyway in which case you're a drop in both buckets.

It's just statistically irrelevant and outright fallacious.
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