Locus-Walker mentions during the Argus stuff that most he trains don’t survive the process. He’s surprised Alleria not only made it all the way through but that others of her race were able to do so as well.
Sounds to me like elves are happenstancely capable of doing it but most other races are not.
It kinda makes sense considering how elves tend to react to different types of magic. Night Elves and Nightborne could probably also become a variety of Void Elf if that ends up being the case.
That is my assumption as well. Though without blizzard properly fleshing it out we’ll probably never know.
I also get they don’t want to be too limiting either so I don’t think they will bring it up directly.
Yea it’s not something I ever expect them to expound upon or explore, but it’s certainly something interesting to contemplate.
Chris Metzen never liked that the Blood Elves joined the Horde…
and the Alliance just had too much High Elf built into it in the first place. Alleria and Vereesa for instance.
So you’re in this situation where you’re making the Elves Horde to give some koreans a pretty race to play but then you’ve got novel characters where it doesn’t make sense for them to switch factions. Elves were the magic users of the Alliance. They’re the Mages and the Priests in Warcraft III.
They could have used another race, but there is a race we already associate with that thing and like.
No we’re not in that situation because Blood Elves make sense Horde, it sounds like you are just as intent at misunderstanding their reasons as you are purposefully misunderstanding people’s positions in these discussions, it really is an across the board theme that’s apparent.
This is super harsh but I won’t lie I lol’d so well done. 
(Commentary): This is subjective. The last we saw of the Blood Elves, Kael’thas had been scorned by a human controlled by a Dreadlord, failed by Illidan who couldn’t slay Arthas and avenge the Blood Elves, and really, the only positive interaction Kael’thas had with any races that were playable in WoW at that time, was with the Night Elves who… were Alliance in WoW.
(Commentary): That’s where, in my opinion, it becomes evident that Blood Elves were put into the Horde explicitly for reasons not in the story, but from marketing polls. Relations between Night Elves and Blood Elves had actually ended on a pretty good note. They’d worked together, provided mutual aid and support, and Kael’thas even helped save Tyrande’s life. The Night Elves would’ve already encountered High Elves among Jaina’s forces back on Kalimdor as well. It seemed as if the two races were on good terms.
(Speculative): The most organic story at that point would’ve been Kael’thas seeing how Illidan, Vashj, etc… failed. The old ways, the ways his people clung to, of seeking more and more power, simply did not work. Reaching out to the Night Elves, to try another way to achieve survival, would’ve been logical.
(Commentary): Instead, the Night Elves were written to suddenly be antagonists to the Blood Elves. Rather than the cordial cooperation and interactions we saw in the past, suddenly the Night Elves have fielded an army in Quel’Thalas to investigate, ‘reckless arcane magic use,’ there after ignoring it for 10,000 years in Dire Maul. I mean, throughout the entirety of Vanilla the Sentinel Armies couldn’t be bothered to, you know… do their duty and protect the sacred forests of the Night Elves, but suddenly the Blood Elves are going Horde and there’s this thread between the two races that needs to be severed despite it making no sense for the Night Elves to take any interest in Quel’Thalas by their own initiative.
(Commentary): One can argue that Garithos soured the Blood Elves’ relations with humans, but what about dwarves? The Wildhammers in particular have held historically good ties with the High Elves. Between them and the Night Elves there really should’ve been more reason to seek the Alliance. What did the Horde have? The Forsaken? The undead who literally cannibalized their loves ones and destroyed their kingdom? The mere sight of the Forsaken should’ve been enough to get any Blood Elf to pick up a sword and start swinging it. Instead in what can only be the most bizarre twist on Stockholm Syndrome the Blood Elves embrace the Forsaken because Sylvanas is among them.
(Commentary): The Horde really had nothing so vital to the Blood Elves that they should’ve wanted to join it. So many races in the Horde have been traditional and even ancestral enemies of Quel’Thalas. Blizzard had to tailor the Blood Elf starting quests in such a manner as to cut as many of the lingering strings Blood Elves had to the Alliance as possible, and in the process damaged the narrative of the races involved. I already noted how utterly absurd it was for Night Elves to be in Quel’Thalas while their own sacred forests are lousy with Satyrs, Corrupted Furbolg, Demons, Naga, and Orcs.
(Conclusion): Personally I think what is done, is done. As flimsy and damaging at the Blood Elf starting experience is, it is canon. I think it could’ve been done better, much better, but there are limitations to the story that can be told in an MMO. What I find more disturbing is Blizzard’s inability to write the Blood Elves independently of the Alliance. Whenever they come up, they’re always interacting more with the Alliance than the Horde. Even in the case of the Nightborne it feels like someone at Blizzard went, “Hey, I just played WC3 again and Night Elves and Blood Elves being friends seems cool. Let’s make some Night Elf offshoot race for them to be friends with. It just felt so natural and organic and would be great story.”
They’re literally the same race with different mutations, and have separate customizationa already.
This is a fan fiction of wishful thinking imo pushed by Alliance stans, yes they worked together. So what? They had NEs working with Orcs at Hyjal too… and? Night Elves went Alliance, it doesn’t seem out of character for Night Elves to be skeptical of Highborne descendants, and at the time of them ‘working together’ they literally were shocked to see each other. Like I’ve heard of so many reality tv stars who hate each other and then they go on a talk show and are like “yeah I ran into them, there was no animosity I think we were genuinely surprised to see each other” but then next season of the Real Housewives they’re back to it. I don’t understand why you or anyone would push more onto what isn’t there then what is explicitly ended up being shown by Blizzard unless it’s to just complain about Blood Elves and come from a place of like I said some fan fiction wishful thinking.
I wouldn’t put credence on it at all and the Sylvanas connection makes 100x more sense.
It’s like annoying parents who keep talking about who you could have married when you ended up marrying someone else like at some point get over it, like yeah I could have went left instead of right because I walked on the sidewalk today, just because you feel I should have went left doesn’t mean it was the right choice.
And to clarify like you said what’s done is done. To keep invalidating Blood Elves constantly, and then wonder why Blood Elf fans don’t care for HE fans its not a shocker to me when there’s like a clear path from point A-B of why they dislike HE fans, and I only say that in context of I think its unproductive to link questioning Blood Elves existence with trying to validate High Elves on Alliance. If High Elves can’t stand on their own as is without bringing up Blood Elves they don’t deserve to be playable in any capacity customization or otherwise, and I support the customizations that have been done as is as of now, and from what I have seen you aren’t anti HE.
I really have no clue what point you were trying to make… it went from high elves to void elves to capital cities to embassies
(Observation): Not from what I recall. There was no surprise in that meeting. After all, the Night Elves had already encountered High Elves among Jaina’s forces.
(Commentary): I simply don’t see it that way. We saw no animosity. We saw cooperation and tolerance. It’s like encountering a cousin you haven’t seen for decades, helping one another out, and then a week later they’re sending you hate mail. It’s so illogical and out of left field it makes absolutely no sense.
(Observation): The Sylvanas connection was forced pretty hard, but that is my opinion. The Blood Elves should’ve hated the undead above all else, including Orcs and Trolls. We’re talking about the race that successfully destroyed Quel’Thalas and nearly wiped the High Elves out. One can argue that Blood Elves could make the distinction between a Horde manipulated by the Legion (they weren’t by that point but let’s run with it), and the Forsaken who weren’t in control of themselves. The problem is it has to work one-way and overlook some pretty big issues. Perhaps the biggest is that the humans the Blood Elves had the biggest problem with would’ve been the Lordaeron humans, the ones who produced Arthas and Garithos. For reasons unknown, they now hold Stormwind humans responsible for them. “These Orcs and these Undead aren’t the same as the ones who destroyed our kingdom and brought genocide upon us, but those Humans way down there unrelated to the ones responsible for our suffering are Humans so we hate them.”
(Commentary): I apologize. My goal is not to, ‘invalidate Blood Elves.’ To be honest, that’s impossible. They exist, they’re in the Horde, it can’t be invalidated. I just feel the decision was based in marketing more than lore, and the story has suffered for it. If Blizzard could just, for once tell a story with the Blood Elves that DOES NOT require or involve the Alliance, I’d be a lot happier with them being Horde. It’s been how many years since the Blood Elves went Horde? I can’t even remember a significant story for the Blood Elves since where the Alliance hasn’t been their primary partner.
(Conclusion): It’s been over a decade. Blizzard needs to stop telling us stories of the Blood Elves with the Alliance and focus on stories with Blood Elves and the Horde already. They’re a Horde race; they should be doing more with the Horde than with the Alliance.
This is correct.
In the Mists of Pandaria CE ‘Making Of’ disc, it is explained that Blood Elves were added to the Horde at the last minute. Originally the Draenei were going to join the Horde and Pandaren to the Alliance, however due to interest in the Asian* market, this was changed to Blood Elves in order to capitalize on the JRPG boom at the time.
*Asia continues to be WoW’s biggest source of income, followed by Europe, and lastly the Americas. It makes sense that Blizzard would cater their content to appease the biggest spenders.
Kael literally says he’s surprised to see them there. Theres only so much like you said they can do with a video game story to show things but explicitly stating it seems like as good as any.
Weren’t they fighting to like save the end of the world? Did they have much time to make a point, when they agreed to work with Jaina and Thrall it was just a general “yes we’ll work with these orcs and humans” they didn’t take the time to roll call everyone did they? And despite working together to save the world, they identified with the Alliance more after that, and in WoW Jaina’s Theramore was not the main body of the Alliance, nor did the main population of Thalassians exist within it anymore.
They literally worked together one time, and you seem to see it that way probably because again wishful thinking on your part, the very fact is it literally wasn’t that way.
They had a cultural reset, they were looking for allies, and had been spurned by Alliance time and time again, and no amount of wishful thinking otherwise is going to make the story any less valid.
I don’t really think it benefits Blood Elf players to be linked with High Elves , whether its some delusional warfront escapade HE fans wished had happened, or the form of the SC lurking around every corner, it really only benefits HE’s to cling to BE story for relevance. But I would say if any Horde race has too close workings with Alliance its not even Blood Elves its the Tauren.
I don’t understand this, the Alliance were there partners as Jaina purged them from Dalaran? The Alliance helped re take the Ghostlands? We see Blood Elves all over Horde lands, from Azshara, to Ashenvale they sent an emissary who ends up being assassinated just an interesting quest, to being throughout Forsaken lands with an Ambassador in Sylvanas’s court for years.
(Commentary): I don’t think it benefits High Elf players to be linked with Blood Elves, for that matter. There are more stories for High Elves with the Alliance at this point.
(Commentary): I can’t say I agree here. The Blood Elf storyline is far too connected with the Alliance one at this point. The Tauren are a Horde race, and they fit in with the Horde. One can argue about Baine being Anduin’s new boyfriend or whatever, but at the end of the day, Baine isn’t all the Tauren. We’ve seen dissidents among them.
(Observation): The Blood Elves, though… whether its positive or negative, just keep getting pulled into these Alliance narratives. The Alliance goes so far as to defeat Kil’jaeden, purify and restore the Sunwell, etc… High Elves, the people the Blood Elves exiled, are members of the Alliance, and now the Void Elves as well. In Wrath, rather than seeing the Blood Elves with their own settlements for Horde questing, they ended up rejoining Dalaran, a city made up of Alliance races; Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, and High Elves. Come Mists of Pandaria we’re given knowledge Lor’themar was even considering leaving the Horde for the Alliance until Garrosh pulled some Sylvanas-level Chessmaster moves with the Theft of the Divine Bell. Rather than seeing Lor’themar confront the Horde’s sins, seek out allies in the Horde, form closer ties and friendships, we got a patch where the Blood Elves are fighting the Alliance (Kirin Tor/Silver Covenant) only to learn that lesson of working together because of course that’s the only end to faction conflict we can get.
(Commentary): Even in expansions afterwards its just more of the same! In WoD the Blood Elves are there to work with the Draenei. The Draenei! Why not work with the Orcs? Why not the Arrakoa? Why not look into the magic of the Gorian Empire? Anything even a little closer to the Horde. In Legion everyone went neutral, but when it came time for Suramar to be liberated, it was, again, Blood Elves and Night Elves working together, this time with High Elves thrown in. The Kirin Tor was also there, because apparently it just didn’t feel Alliance enough without some Humans thrown in. I mean, why not let the trolls get a moment to shine here? Or the Orcs? Gul’dan, the Orc more responsible for the damnation of the Orcish race than any other, was a major antagonist. Why couldn’t the Blood Elves have been working more with Orcs at Suramar? It could’ve been a fantastic moment for the two races to experience common ground and grow together in a more organic way!
This is a lie. I’m sorry but it is 100% not true.
If you look both of these are from the 2005 Blizzcon, well over a year before Burning Crusades was released.
Page 2.
With that out of the way, Dabiri was finally ready to get to the good stuff – and there’s a whole lot of it coming our way. He first introduced the new playable race coming in The Burning Crusade – Blood Elves. These Night Elf cousins were once members of the Alliance, but when their homeland and source of magical power were destroyed by Arthas, they were left powerless and desperate for a magical “fix.” Now they’ve allied themselves with the Horde in order to discover new sources of magical energy and hunt down the demons who destroyed their homes.
Page 2
Metzen went on to explain the backstory of the Blood Elves, which we covered in this profile piece. Afterwards, the floor was opened up for questions from the audience.
Naturally one of the first questions was about the new un-announced Alliance race to be featured in the expansion. Metzen gave no hints, and implied that they’re still working out all the details. But he did acknowledge that once everyone hears about the new race, part of it will make sense, and part of it will make everyone go “huh?” …We can’t even speculate. (But it won’t be Pandas.)
One gamer asked why the Trolls would ally with the Blood Elves – or any type of elf, for that matter. “I want that guy escorted out!” Metzen bellowed to laughter from the audience. But then he explained that the Horde is “an alliance of convenience.” The Blood Elves hate dealing with the Trolls or the Orcs, but need their help to reach the Outland. And, while he didn’t give details, Metzen explained that the Blood Elves have something the Horde desperately needs that helps to hold the fragile truce together. We expect more to be revealed in the game itself.
As you can see they had always planned on giving Blood Elves to the horde, the whole last minute thing never existed.
Sorry Wiccan you are awesome. I just get so tired of seeing this lie about my favorite race.
(Commentary): Well, planned since an Asian poll, at least. But yes, for Burning Crusade it was decided early on. John Staats confirms that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/9fb2bo/john_staats_ama_author_of_the_world_of_warcraft/e5v3p5t/
All I’m reading is that some guy on Reddit is claiming there was a poll. I’m not seeing any proof of this poll. Where I have provided proof that it was never a last minute decision to give Blood Elves to the Horde. I stand by it was always there decision to give Blood Elves to the Horde. It was angry Alliance players that decided to start the whole Blood Elves only went Horde because of Asian women.
I would like to see felblood Customizations for Blood Elves, but I’m probably one of the few. I would also say San’layn but I honestly hope that they can someday become an allied race.
it really is just denial at this point. no one can provide any source for a poll. its literally a vague memory and a ‘vague memory’ would be laughed out of court. its a never ending effort to undo WC being different and restore a tolkien status quo
Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me. Maybe it is the ears, they act like antenna. Maybe the creative director was drinking Tequila too.
Bottomline, they should have just given the Alliance High Elves, void elves are ridiculous. Their origins is cockeyed lame-brained nonsense with a rabbit out of a hat.
Instead of weak copy cat made up races like the ones we have recently given us, they should have had given each race different body types and shapes. I figure their core graphics cannot handle too many different wireframes running around though. So we get this junk.