When velves were revealed people kept going on about their future story and how they’d be leading the fight against void stuff, but so far, we’re at four missed opportunities, probably more.
- Stormsong - The entire zone was about void and old god shenanigans and the velves were absent.
- Ul’dir - The Alliance needed some kind of introduction to the raid and we went with Brann leading the charge against G’huun instead of the velves.
- Gift of N’Zoth - Rather than velves being the one to offer to cleanse it for Alliance players, it’s a Tide Sage. Great opportunity to show the velves’ effectiveness in combating the void’s corruption missed.
- Naz’jatar - Fighting the Naga and an Old God is about to be unleashed and the only velves there are generic 7th Legion guards. We could’ve seen velves studying the naga’s use of void magic, fighting it, learning from it, honing and expanding their own powers.
So, really, what was even the point of the velves at this point?
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We’ve been asking this since their introduction and prerequisites to unlock. Void Elves are Blizzard’s attempt to not only satisfy the Alliance wanting to play with the Blood elf model, but also attempt new lore. But every thing seems to be flopping hard in terms for development.
Void Elves have been killing fodder for the Horde in the invasions across Zandalar, and only represented by Umbric in the Alliance storyline. They’re glorified mages simply put. Portals… but SPOOKY VOID! They’ve done nothing to really establish the void as anthing different than the Arcane. Neither have they really established the risk of having Void-addled elves in the midst of the Alliance.
The Void Elves are a mistake in terms for lore as they fill a niche, and that’s all the are. They do not differ from your regular Blood Elf in terms for personality and culture beyond pushing the limits of research. You can take any blood elf persona and fit void somewhere in it.
In honesty; I’ve no faith in Blizzard’s lore development of the Void Elves. Alleria is entirely different to your standard Void Elf; that she retains control over her addled form; and is a hunter with portals. Hell, she doesn’t even assume void form at all which only makes this worse.
We should’ve gotten the Argussian Exiles from Draenor instead of void elves, who’ve got no ties to Argus, nor the broken draenei who’re arguably amazing in model.
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My issue is that they’re not filling that niche at all. Like you said, they’re fodder for Horde questing. They only come out for the Alliance when its time to fight the Horde, and never get involved in anything when we actually fight the forces of the void.
At this rate, I doubt we’ll see a single velf at all when the inevitable void expansion launches. Maybe the Lightforged will get some attention instead.
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The lore that exists for velves i like. Love their aesthetic and voicses too.
Im not sure blizzard considers any of this the " fight against the void" so to speak, thats probably in future expansions.
But other than cameos in some quests and as killable npcs, velves are absent.
Same could be said for every other allied race though. The only exception being Thalryssa and occuleth. But no other nightborne has been seen really.
Clearly zandalari and kultiran are an exception two sincd they have 3 zones each dedicated to them.
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https://media1.giphy.com/media/eHYazg6wGDqYE/giphy.gif
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While I don’t disagree that this isn’t the main fight, the velves are in a bad spot and need a lot of development and screen time. If even one of the above points I’d brought up had been touched on, the velves would be in an infinitely better place right now.
I mean, why we don’t see Umbric in Naz’jatar is just mind boggling. They could be capturing the brain squids and learning how they work, maybe even grabbing eggs to domesticate their own. There’s an entire area with the Shirakess (I think that’s how you spell it) which are void using Naga spellcasters.
I mean it’s bad enough that Tyrande and Malfurion are absent but this is just bad. Even if Tyrande and Malfurion were around, it’d just be a chance for the velves to prove themselves to the nelves, the one race in the Alliance they should really have to prove themselves to.
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To be fair, I’m sure the lightforged would combat the void before the Void Elves, reading through their lore and quests so far they don’t seem all that interested in comparison to destroying the void. It seems they just want to harness it. It’s just another version of the sunwell to them. They would sooner show up and absorb the void into themselves before they would destroy it. This is also perfectly demonstrated with alleria and the dark star on argus.
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Im not disagreeing. This expansion they have been absent.
Honestly id love to see more than tne “human and orc show” thar wow has turned into, especially on the alliance. I think warlords was the only time humans didnt have the primary spotlight.
Id love to see more velves going forward.
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If they’re not involved for the fight against N’Zoth, then really, there was no point to adding them as an Allied Race at all at this point. If Blizzard wasn’t going to start developing them out of the gate when they didn’t exist at all beforehand, then they shouldn’t have made them one of the first Allied Races to begin with. I’d rather we’d gotten the Krokul from Argus as an Allied Race.
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So far, it seems like ARs really aren’t supposed to have much after they are introduced. Highmountain and Nightborne are probably the absolute best we will see from AR stories since two zones were dedicated to them in Legion.
They couldn’t really get it right when they wrote for the races before Allied Races became a thing, I don’t see how they can juggle them and get it right as more are added.
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If that’s their mentality then they should’ve added an already well established race that you can fire and forget. Like the Korkul/Broken.
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…From Argus? They seemed like they were pretty much just scenery to me, so not very established.
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Better established than the velves were, especially when it comes to the void.
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You’re not technically wrong considering the void elves popped up out of nowhere, but really not THAT much more established.
I see Maghar and DI like the void elves. Yeah, they already existed, but one came from a portal through time and the other… I don’t even know. How did Dark Iron come about in BfA?
We’ve had Broken for ages though, and the Krokul were an interesting continuation on that, with a leader who had a chip on his shoulder where Velen was concerned. It could’ve made for an interesting unlock scenario.
At least the Mag’har were around since BC, and the ones recruited had an entire expansion about them. Dark Irons technically joined the Alliance in Cataclysm. Their inclusion as an Allied Race was just formalizing that, technically.
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-Needed to give alliance the blood elf model
-Felt that High Elves weren’t different enough from blood elves
-Thus we pull a made up race out of a hat as the lore jumps the shark even more
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People speculated about the lore reasons for void elves. The real reason that we have void elves is because someone at Blizzard thought they would be cool and they needed another Allied Race customization for Alliance. They are a contrived race simply meant as a selling point to the expansion.
There is no real lore behind them. Though, I still play them because of their anti-pushback racial.
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Still, there’s no reason not to use them. They chose to make velves. They should invest in them.
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Alliance races aren’t interesting to Blizzard. They just fill gaps as needed.
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Maybe I was just hoping them adding a race they thought was, ‘New and Coo,’ meant they’d actually, you know… put effort into it. Should’ve known otherwise once they actually came out.
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