It wasn’t, but whatever you say I guess.
It was, but I guess playing pretend is fun too.
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1: Blood Elf is a title, not a unique race. Blood Elves are High Elves. The argument could be made the fel corruption has altered them so that they might qualify as it, but it’s still the same group of people.
2: The “pure” High Elves (the ones you see as Alliance NPCs) did not follow the majority of their people when Kael traveled to Outland. Because of this they were not exposed to fel magic and thus retained their lighter skin and blue eyes.
3: Blood Elves joined the Horde solely for population balancing reasons. Blizzard wanted more people to play the Horde and they openly admit this. The lore for them joining the Horde (TLDR: A group of them didn’t like the path Kael was taking so they went back to Azeroth, hence why Horde ones have green eyes and redder skin) was made up on the spot for BC.
4: With that said, considering most of the races in the game are a faction of their race as a whole (i.e. Horde trolls, the Darkspear, are a single tribe out of dozens or how until recently the Alliance player dwarves were exclusively the Ironforge). I don’t see how the high elf faction that decided to remain with the Alliance is off the table narratively speaking.
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Not really but you do you, this is a minefield I don’t feel like walking in right now.
Chris Metzen, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2005, 1:55 … 'Blood Elves were chosen as the Horde expansion race in the Burning Crusade because designers were thrilled with how well Samwise had redesigned the classic wood elves with the night elves. And they knew that, “one day, high elves are going to have to get a facelift, too.
“ I don’t think anyone has abused high elves to this degree ,” Metzen said.
https://www.lby3.com/2005/10/29/blizzcon-chris-sigaty-explores-the-lore-of-warcraft/
Blood Elves were designed for the Horde with a rewrite of the classic High Elf Trope, just as Night Elves were designed for the Alliance with a classic rewrite of the Wood Elf Trope.
Blizzard, at least 14 years ago, committed the High Elf Lore, legend and history to the Horde.
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By rewrite you mean made them both boring?
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Their eye color is not a valid argument to validate that they have been altered in any real meaningful way. Some Blood elves have gold eyes, are we to now suggest that they are a new, separate race from Blood elves? If this was a feature they believed is a way of defining different races of elves, why would they use it as a customization option for the very same race?
There are a few examples of Blood Elves with Blue eyes on the Horde, from the Frosthand mages in Dalaran, to Lanesh the Steeweaver in the Sunreavers. Although admittedly whether or not these elves are simply High elves who’ve repatriated to Quel’thalas, or are simply Blood elves that were not corrupted by the Fel is up for debate.
This is true. Unfortunately when this die was cast, the likeness of playable High elves was pretty small.
The problem has never been from a narrative standpoint, as Blizzard has shown us time and time again that they will change any amount of lore to suit decisions that may effect gameplay in one way, or another.
So when they say things like “There are not enough High elves to be playable!” It’s just a way for them to rationalize a gameplay decision from a narrative standpoint, and whether or not lore up to that point supports those claims, any future content is likely to further that prospective as to cement the logic behind those choices.
They don’t want to make an identical copy of an already playable race from the Horde, on the Alliance, and they are likely to change any amount of lore to suit that perspective.
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It was also said the Korean market played a significant role in them being added. I find it more likely Metzen was told “figure out a way to fit them” in, as rewriting the classic high elf trope doesn’t necessarily mean having them side with the orcs that slaughtered them not that long ago.
For context think of what a Warcraft fan would know right before BC was announced. Saying the Blood Elves were joining the Horde was one of the biggest “WTF!?” moments in the lore and left many confused because narratively it made zero sense. Imagine if the Night Elves just suddenly out of the blue decided to join the Burning Legion, that’s what it was like (again, this is from the perspective of the established lore at the time). Metzen wrote both WC2&3, I find it unlikely he made a 180 without outside pressure.
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When the conversation switches from trying to rationalize the logic of the lore into discussing developer decisions then you know its going in a right direction.
Here is my take. Hear me out.
They “can” do literally anything they want to. It’s a request to say “they can make High Elves for the Alliance.” It’s not a discussion to be made because Blizzard isn’t going to NOT give a race to the Alliance because it’ll make the Horde mad. (Void Elves are the best example of this.)
They most likely won’t do it as stated, the theme of a short pale skinned elf is the Blood Elf.
Asking for High Elves are like giving the Blood Elves to the Alliance pretty much from a lore point of view, a dev point of view, and the Horde point of view. From the High Elf lover point of view and the Alliance point of view this may not necessarily be true.
One thing they could do is make it to where Void Elves are allowed to strip their void powers and/or control their powers.
Another option I see is to make them a neutral race. This would almost please everyone but be annoying at best. At least the Alliance have the Velfs and the Horde have the Belfs. So there is that to start from when you make Helf a neutral race.
Making them a neutral race fixes the point of view issue from a dev point of view but it causes a problem with the Alliance point of view because now it just disregards the obvious Helf presence that is scattered all over the damn place. High Elves are embedded into the Alliance at this point and they show up everywhere as being Alliance except for a tiny amount of exceptions. Also this will still make the Horde point of view angry because they still feel like they’re giving up their unique race.
I think I have the best compromise that would make the least amount of people angry…
Give the Horde San’layn Belfs and the Alliance their Helfs. This would mean the Horde and Alliance both have a “themed Elf” and a variation of the base model. Helf for Alliance, Belf for Horde.
To me this is the best solution.
While the Horde get the honestly cooler San’layn the Alliance will just get… blue eyed Blood Elves. Everyone wins. Lore is consistent. Dev problem is compromised with the fair skinned elf being changed to both factions with a wonderful trade off from the San’layn Horde addition. The Horde won’t really complain because… San’layn and yeah the Helf is already in the Alliance lore anyways.
Make Horde San’layn and the Alliance High Elf.
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This is a made up argument. It means nothing. High Elves predate Blood Elves and they were in the Alliance long before Blood Elves were even a thing. Not to mention the fact they are all over the Alliance even now as NPC’s.
There is absolutely NOTHING that is crucial about it. If it was crucial as to when the Elves were playable you would be out of luck as High Elves were playable in WC3.
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Posts like these are why everyone hates us High Elf fans. ;-; We should try sticking to one thread at a time.
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The objections I have are refuted by how they implemented allied races. I don’t want a slightly modified copy of blood elves to be given to alliance, but it was a course they chose.
This. Some of the anti crowd aren’t against the idea of High Elves as an allies race, they’re just tired of seeing multiple threads about the same topic at once
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This is what it would take for me.
All you need to do is have folks on both sides of the divide to stop posting about them on the internet completely for a year. Not one mention. Then they can have it.
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I can say it’s illegitimate to continue to stamp one’s foot when you’ve been told more than once the answer is no. I can say it’s illegitimate to continue to spam the forums over and over with nonsensical comments that do nothing. Not saying you, in specific, but as Casmir (the guy who made the original helf mega thread) said in another thread last night, these types of forum threads are spam. Keep it in the HE megathread.
I don’t care about any of this. Blizzard doesn’t wanna add them. They’ve made it clear.
I could say the same to you. Watcher said that exact comment. Let it die.
Edit: And for the record, I don’t argue with helfers. I stay out of your mega thread for a reason. Or the HE love thread. I will never support playable helfs. What you want is an echo chamber. I’m fine with giving it to you. But these threads are unnecessary. Completely unnecessary.
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Sounds like not purple Night Elves.
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“Uh but Blood elves are kinda High Elves”
Is barely a valid argument, considering he’s cherry picking in his statement and is only half right.
But because edgelords don’t want people to have things because of things like early forum spam turn their lives upside down, his words are taken as gospel.
They haven’t, they’ve said they’re open to Allied Race suggestions, and that’s what the subject is.
Except for we have the entirety of the games history as our validity, you have 1 dev with blatant Horde bias from his history in WoW, you can not like High elves and the forum spam, I don’t like the spam either, it only rials up the masses.
But you can’t pretend you have equal validity when it is in reality just your personal feelings on High elves as your “evidence” against them.
I’m a simple man. Watcher is the lead game dev. He is everyone’s “boss” in this situation. If the boss says no twice in interviews and then doesn’t do it when he had the perfect opportunity, that being when void elves were brought in, there’s a reason for it. And I respect that. The behavior on the forums is what makes me hope they never get added. It’s nonsensical.
And we all know: “If you wanna play a fair skinned elf, the Horde is there for you” = no.
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I’d love the link for the interviews where he blatantly says “No we are not adding High elves, ever.”
And yes the reason is them trying to sell the then-new Void elves.
That explains a lot. Thank you.