Void Elves were introduced with only void related customizations - the current game makes it very clear that the are strongly void related (Midnight seems to be depicting dichotomy between Light affiliated Blood Elves and void affiliated Void Elves). I fail to see how adding alliance affiliated High Elves would somehow strengthen Void Elves push for more void related customizations.
Out of the game it has to be noted that asking the team responsible for creating character customizations to create a whole new set for alliance affiliated High Elves would actually take resources away from making any customizations for Void Elves.
idk man I have a bleak feeling they’ll only ever add neutral races that can join both factions
so basically if you have a race you want playable that makes no sense as neutral (helf and amani) expect them never honestly.
A grim perspective but until they add a new race that isn’t joinable on both factions and is hard assigned to one faction and not the other and they start making new races in pairs again its probably not a coincidence that the last 3 new races (harronir included) are all neutral.
I think this is a problem that goes beyond the playable helf discourse, blizzard has put a lot on the chopping block for their new baby of content cadance, I think unless players say hey this thing you put on the chopping block does not belong there put it back we’ll keep getting neutral races.
High Elves are descended from the Highborne, but they have not always been with the Alliance: after Warcraft III, most became “Blood Elves” and later joined the Horde.
The few High Elves who remained loyal are a scattered minority without a true structure of their own, aside from the Silver Covenant, which cooperates with the Alliance but belongs to Dalaran, an independent nation.
In other words, not since Warcraft II onwards, but only at a certain point during it.
The example of garrisons is nonsensical and far-fetched, it’s as big a reach as I have seen on this topic. They were not offered as a version of player housing, they were inspired by the base building mechanic of old Warcraft RTSs.
And it is a reach because you are trying to equate the implementation of a failed gameplay feature with your proposal for Alliance High Elves. Were your analogy accurate, then what is coming in Midnight would not be real player housing, but garrisons. Again.
The goalposts have never been moved. The line is simple, Blood Elves ARE High Elves and thus High Elves are already playable and in a game based on two competing factions, one faction should not gain access to a core race of the other. If you want to play a core race on a faction, play that faction. It is a package deal.
The real problem is not you cannot be a High Elf, it is the faction they are on. Saying ‘the goalposts are being moved’ is disingenuous when they never have been. Nor does this suggestion offer choice, you don’t get more choice by duplicating options.
As for ‘making Blizzard aware’ that there is a demand, I have to assume that they know. Over a decade of complaining and the existence of Void Elves means they know, but the fact they created Void Elves should be a hint, and the fact they gave Void Elves those normal customizations an even bigger one.
This is an example of a poor argument from Aemilia. Firstly, it is a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Blizzard has already caved and added High Elf style customisations to Void Elves years ago precisely in response to the backlash from those who wanted High Elves when Void Elves were revealed. That those who led these complaints then decided it still wasn’t good enough is immaterial, once added the customisations could not be removed. Secondly, there is no reason as to why Void Elves cannot get more void customizations anyway, there is an odd presumption that Alliance High Elves are needed for this. Alliance High Elves are not the thematic counterpart to Void Elves. Blood Elves, de facto Light Elves, are. Alliance High Elves, biologically identical to Blood Elves to the point they are even connected to the same holy-arcane Sunwell, are also de facto Light Elves which I emphasise to point out that there is nothing that Alliance High Elves can do to differentiate themselves meaningfully from Blood Elves whilst remaining High Elves, because a Blood Elf is a High Elf.
The real issue with Void Elf normal customisations is that they crushed whatever miniscule space was still remaining for Alliance High Elves. At the end of the day, what proponents of Alliance High Elves are haggling over is a race slot so they can have racials where they don’t turn purple and when people mouse over them it says ‘high’ rather than ‘void’. That is literally what this boils down to. That is the sum total of difference they are arguing over. A racial and an adjective.
The Blood Elves and the Void Elves form a dichotomy between the Light and the Shadow, which reflects the narrative of the coming expansion. Alliance High Elves do not expand that story meaningfully. They are also not required for Void Elves to ‘explore their niche’ as Blood Elves are the counterpart to Void Elves.
And yet, at the time, garrison were interpreted as the closest thing the game had to housing: a base where you could settle down outside the faction hubs.
Likewise, non-void customisations for Void Elves can be interepreted as the closest thing the game has to High Elves on the Alliance.
My point is: when the game offers something that doesn’t tick all the boxes, there’s always room for improvement.
The goalposts have never been moved. The line is simple, Blood Elves ARE High Elves and thus High Elves are already playable and in a game based on two competing factions, one faction should not gain access to a core race of the other. If you want to play a core race on a faction, play that faction. It is a package deal.
When every single argument and example seems to be tossed aside conveniently as an outlier or something that can be dismissed out of hand, it does feel like the goalpost is being moved.
This argument has been said ad nauseam, so I will repeat my response to that argument. To say that Blood Elves are High Elves would be to flatten the identity of many lore characters like Vereesa Windrunner, Auric Sunchaser, and Alleria Windrunner. Not to mention, the many high elf NPCs that roam the streets of Dornogal, the Silver Covenant who have participated in several major conflicts in the story.
Also the devs have confessed that Blood Elves were added to the horde because Horde players wanted a “pretty race”, so I don’t understand how one can argue that you can’t “steal” a core race from another faction when the Horde not only gained a non-savage faction, but also access to an alliance only class in 2007.
As for ‘making Blizzard aware’ that there is a demand, I have to assume that they know. Over a decade of complaining and the existence of Void Elves means they know, but the fact they created Void Elves should be a hint, and the fact they gave Void Elves those normal customizations an even bigger one.
Using your logic, we should’ve shut up when J Allen Brack told us that we didn’t want classic. Maybe you don’t like classic, but it’s perfectly normal and justified to give a game you pay for and play feedback and requests.
And if you don’t like any change. Well, there’s a game for you: World of Warcraft: Classic!
This is an example of a poor argument from Aemilia. Firstly, it is a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Blizzard has already caved and added High Elf style customisations to Void Elves years ago precisely in response to the backlash from those who wanted High Elves when Void Elves were revealed. That those who led these complaints then decided it still wasn’t good enough is immaterial, once added the customisations could not be removed. Secondly, there is no reason as to why Void Elves cannot get more void customizations anyway, there is an odd presumption that Alliance High Elves are needed for this. Alliance High Elves are not the thematic counterpart to Void Elves. Blood Elves, de facto Light Elves, are. Alliance High Elves, biologically identical to Blood Elves to the point they are even connected to the same holy-arcane Sunwell, are also de facto Light Elves which I emphasise to point out that there is nothing that Alliance High Elves can do to differentiate themselves meaningfully from Blood Elves whilst remaining High Elves, because a Blood Elf is a High Elf.
You call my argument poor, and yet, you’ve mischaracterised my words and reduced it to a strawman.
I never argued for void elf customisation to be removed. What’s done is done. What I do argue is that, when put beside another newly playable race, the Void Elves would have their own niche to grow in rather than being a placeholder. Mag’har Orcs don’t take away from Durotar Orcs, neither do Lightforged Draenei take away form the Eredar Draenei. If you want a cross faction example, you have Night Elves on the Horde: the nightborne! I’m not up in arms because my precious Night Elves have been taken away by the horde, and I can still play one, with customisations that aren’t available to the Nightborne.
Regarding the blood elves, I would be mad if high elves had the darkfallen customisations. Those are for the blood elves only, and I feel like expanding elf options on the alliance doesn’t and shouldn’t take that away.
The Blood Elves and the Void Elves form a dichotomy between the Light and the Shadow, which reflects the narrative of the coming expansion. Alliance High Elves do not expand that story meaningfully. They are also not required for Void Elves to ‘explore their niche’ as Blood Elves are the counterpart to Void Elves.
Yet the High Elves don’t rely on Light nor Void. You have High Elf Paladins, yes, but they have largely relied on arcane energies and magic. Of course, they are connected to the sunwell but without it they have managed to get by on meditation and moonwells. There is room for High Elves, especially in a story about the “scattered elven tribes”, and to say there is no room for them is to engage in erasure
Once again: the void elves do have their own niche. Their existence creates and is defined by contrast to Blood Elves. How does adding alliance affiliated High Elves help expand their niche and allow them to grow?
Don’t know what You mean by this, but any High Elven paladin relies on arcane energy to sate their arcane addiction, whether he is Alliance affiliated or a Blood Elf, and regardless of the source of this arcane energy. For their skills they rely solely on light, they don’t convert arcane energy into light based skills. There’s no lore indication of that. In that regard, any Alliance affiliated High Elf is identical to Blood Elf. Especially now that both groups draw their energy from the Sunwell.
Sometimes I wonder.
Did Lor’themar exlie the people who refused to drain mana from living creatures because he feared they turn into wretched and attack bystanders or was it a show of power to let them go because it caused a politcal issue and he needed a unified people?
The way I recall it it was Kael’thas who exiled the ones who didn’t join his unification as blood elves, as the exile as I understood was a direct consequence of high elves refusing Kael’thas new ways.
Book lore tends to connect really badly with what we see in game so as a RPer it tends to be a blind spot for me.
I also think its rediculous I’d need to pay extra for lore while I’m already on a sub.
It was Lor’themar exiling the High Elves because they objected to engaging in Lifestealing/Manastealing on moral grounds - Kael’thas was busy on the Outlands by that point and off-shored all management onto Lor’themar.
On Player Housing: At the time they may have been the closest things THIS game had to housing, but they were not housing. Players knew what player housing meant, as did Blizzard, as competitors in the genre Blizzard was not ignorant of had already implemented player housing. Again, Garrisons were an attempt to realise the base building fantasy from the RTS in WoW and it was a spectacular failure. It is a reach in that you are arguing that what is coming in Midnight shows they will try again if the first iteration didn’t succeed. The counter-point is that Garrisons were never the first attempt at player housing, thus the example fails.
On goalposts being moved: You argue that the goalposts are moved because you write “When every single argument and example seems to be tossed aside conveniently as an outlier or something that can be dismissed out of hand, it does feel like the goalpost is being moved.”
That is conflating personal frustration, that your arguments and those of people who are likeminded are ignored or countered, with the idea that those against this idea are not receptive. The problem with your stance is that it only look at the issue one way, that you have a good case and that those who aren’t seeing it are ‘moving the goalposts’. The other way to look at your stance is that your case is fundamentally weak, and no matter what arguments you advance on its behalf it is never going to overcome that weakness.
It is the later statement which is true. For example, you state that “To say that Blood Elves are High Elves would be to flatten the identity of many lore characters like Vereesa Windrunner, Auric Sunchaser, and Alleria Windrunner. Not to mention, the many high elf NPCs that roam the streets of Dornogal, the Silver Covenant who have participated in several major conflicts in the story.” But the line ‘Blood Elves are High Elves’ was uttered by game director in charge of the game. You’ve set yourself not up against fellow WoW fans but the developers of the game itself. You then talk about lore characters like Veressa who is the sole High Elf character of note remaining, Auric Sunchaser who is an incredibly minor character who is only invested with meaning because of the paucity of High Elves of note and Alleria who is a Void Elf and thus not a High Elf. You are peddling absolutist headcanon. You have invested so much emotionally into proving that the Alliance High Elves are an important, valid part of the lore that the reality of a few scattered NPCs associated with Dalaran with a single NPC of note (Veressa) clashes with what you imagine them to be. This is absolutist headcanon, you are trying to overwrite what the game actually displays with your own version of what actually is.
Bald fact is, the Alliance High Elves simply aren’t important enough to factor in the consequences of accepting that Blood Elves are High Elves. Not only are Blood Elves being High Elves a hard fact, but they are a playable. High Elves are NOT playable on the Alliance faction. It is a deeply weird conceit that a non-playable group should be prioritised over a playable one simply to maintain the hope that one day they will be when all signs point to that not happening.
There were multiple reasons as to why Blood Elves were added to the Horde. The Chinese player base, addressing the faction imbalance that was prevalent in Classic, giving the Horde a race that could plausibly be Paladins just as the Alliance got a race that could be Shamans because the experiment of having two classes faction locked had proved disastrous (if you remember the bus shock times, you know what I mean). So many reasons in fact that it made perfect sense to do so. Once they were assigned to the Horde in WoW, the Blood Elves became an intrinsic part of Horde culture and aesthetics including everything that goes with them…and Blood Elven culture and aesthetics is High Elven culture and aesthetics.
On the Classic Example: Similar to garrisons, this is not a good comparison as a launching a different game mode is distinct from compromising the integrity of the existing game, as duplicating a Horde core will do. Ironically arguing I should play WoW Classic if I ‘don’t like change’ may come back to haunt you, as the only time Blizzard has mentioned High Elves recently was as an option for Classic+ (which is almost certainly under development). I don’t plan on playing Classic+ myself, but if it has a High Elf option it maybe that in a year’s time, as we look forward to the final patch of Midnight, you maybe the one who is told to play that instead if you wish to be a High Elf so much.
On Void Elves customisation: The overall point on Void Elf customisations is that adding Alliance High Elves would do nothing to limit Void Elves either way. The Nightborne are, again, a poor counter-example as they have a.) been transformed by long exposure to the Nightwell and b.) have an entirely different aesthetic, culture and approach than the Night Elves. The Nightborne are as much Night Elves as Void Elves are High Elves in other words. If you insist Nightborne are Night Elves, then by that logic Void Elves really ARE High Elves and you already have what you desire. In contrast, once again, an Alliance High Elf is only differentiated from a Blood Elf by a political opinion.
On High Elves in the dichotomy: Alliance High Elves are connected to the light-arcane sunwell as the Blood Elves are. And the entire point of Paladins is that they wield the light, they don’t wield arcane to use their powers though I have to point out that the arcane is much a part of the Blood Elven makeup as the Light. The Sunwell is Light and Arcane after all, not just Light, and Blood Elves can have purple and blue eyes. This is perfect example of what I said earlier, you are making stuff up to justify differentiation, becoming invested in it and then getting upset people are refuting your arguments. It’s because your arguments are based on what you have personally invented rather than what is factual.
Alliance High Elves are on the dichotomy with the Void Elves, they share the exact same point on the axis with Blood Elves because they are the same race. When it comes to a dichotomy, the clue is in the name. There are only room for TWO.
My argument is that void elf customisations were an attempt to realise the high elf fantasy from Warcraft II. You may argue that it’s had some success, since you have many non-voidy void elves now roaming azeroth.
If you want to talk competition, LOTRO has elves. FFXIV has the Erezen, Warhammer: Age or Reckoning had the High Elves. And Everquest had Elves. And these elves could quest and fight alongside their human and dwarven comrades, the kind of fantasy that’s missing from this game.
So I do feel justified in using this example because just as how Garrisons only partially fulfilled the players’ desire for housing, Void Elves having non voidy customisations only paritally fulfilled the players’ desire for the high elf fantasy (while the blood elf experience doesn’t even try)
That is conflating personal frustration, that your arguments and those of people who are likeminded are ignored or countered, with the idea that those against this idea are not receptive. The problem with your stance is that it only look at the issue one way, that you have a good case and that those who aren’t seeing it are ‘moving the goalposts’. The other way to look at your stance is that your case is fundamentally weak, and no matter what arguments you advance on its behalf it is never going to overcome that weakness.
It’s entirely up to you (and anyone who is willing to listen) to determine if what I’m saying is right or wrong, but I will keep advocating for high elves, present cases for their use, and perhaps help introduce ideas for how they could be added in a unique way that addresses concerns.
The debate is not finding a way for High Elves to be playable on the Alliance, it is between those who want them and those who oppose the request.
I need to address this. The high elf threads began with the intention of saying “we want them”, but also with a suite of fan art, manifestos, and documentation that could show how they could be playable. After all, there were many sceptics (including myself) as to how they could be added and sources like the Alurna’s Manifest address that. The debate is what we make of it.
Also it’s not mutually exclusive. You can have a debate about whether or not they can be added ,but you can also talk about how they could added or be made so that they address the concerns of those who are sceptical.
The Nightborne are, again, a poor counter-example as they have a.) been transformed by long exposure to the Nightwell
Okay. So, if Night Elves aren’t Nightborne, then Blood Elves aren’t High Elves, because Blood Elves have been transformed by a long exposure to the fel, while the High Elves weren’t. Someone made the argument that Nightborne are more urban (Suramar) while the Night Elves are more naturalistic. I would say the same could be said of the Blood Elves of silvermoon and the High Elves in the lodges.
Well, the modern High Elves are in lodges and refuse to return to Silvermoon (until it’s retaken by the Alliance)
then by that logic Void Elves really ARE High Elves and you already have what you desire
Again. Void Elves were transfomed by exposure to the void. High Elves aren’t.
an Alliance High Elf is only differentiated from a Blood Elf by a political opinion.
A different political choice has a lot of reprecussions. As argued before, there are plenty of rump governments in history that oppose the new regime. Moreoever, If it’s true that Silvermoon was conducting mind control on its citizens, then I think the “difference in political views” is quite significant. Maybe I want to play a High Elf that refuses to come home to a dictatorship!
But the line ‘Blood Elves are High Elves’ was uttered by game director in charge of the game.
Ion, while important, is only one person in the company, and his specialty is on encounters, mechanics, and raids. There are probably people within the company who do not have the same opinion, or whose opinions have evolved. Again, if J Allen Brack’s “you think you want it, but you don’t” argument should have been taken was holy writ, chapter, and verse, we would have never gotten classic. World of Warcraft would never change.
I’m not against the game. I want it to succeed, and here’s this classic fantasy race that is missing from the game that could make the game a lot of money in race transfers if it were to happen.
On the Classic Example: Similar to garrisons, this is not a good comparison as a launching a different game mode is distinct from compromising the integrity of the existing game, as duplicating a Horde core will do.
It is a good comparison, because I’m trying to say that Blizzard prides itself on listening to its fans and giving them what they want, and in this case, there was major opposition to it (of which I was a part of), but happened after much petitioning and a display that the demand existed. And you know what? I’m happy for the people who get to enjoy Classic.
If you want to make the argument about “compromising the existing game”, the game has changed so much that many things feel “compromised”. Did you know what Death Coil used to be a Warlock Spell before Death Knights, for example?
but if it has a High Elf option it maybe that in a year’s time
And there you go. I was going to mention the survey that asked about high elves, another piece of proof that they’re considering their implementation.
Sure, I’ll play Classic+ and try it, and play happily ever after on my high elf while you play happily ever after on your blood elf
There are only room for TWO.
There was room for two in the beginning: Orcs and Humans. Now that the game has expanded we can play more races. And yet there is one classic Warcraft race that’s still left in the lurch…
On the Void Elf-Garrisons comparison: How is this different from Void Elves? Quite easily. For one thing, the void elf customizations are an evergreen feature. Once they were added they could not be unadded. Garrisons in contrast were a single expansion experiment and when they failed they could be left behind with everything else about that expansion that was terrible. The comparison falls apart on that fundamental point alone, but if you want further elaboration on it comparing a gameplay system to character customisation is akin to comparing apples to an olympic swimming pool. You are trying to confect a comparison where none can work because you are talking about two entirely different things.
I regard your commentary about Elves fighting along Humans as revealing as it is an admission that what you are seeking is a stock Tolkien style set up for World of Warcraft, which of course is easily refuted by saying Azeroth is not Middle Earth. Things unfolded differently in this game universe. The High Elf fantasy is enjoyable once you pick Blood Elves, a core Horde race. It is hard to give credence to your assertion that the Blood Elf experience doesn’t fulfil the High Elf fantasy when the Blood Elf experience literally is what High Elves in Azeroth are. Again, this is an example of absolutist headcanon. You have determined what the High Elf fantasy is according to your own preferences and state the game is not fulfilling that fantasy because it doesn’t meet what you have decided they should be.
On Creating Ideas that address concerns: I’ve seen variations of this one for over a decade. You cannot. The logic is as thus. As Blood Elves are High Elves, there is nothing Alliance High Elves can do to meanignfully differentiate themselvs from Blood Elves because they are biologically and culturally identical. The ‘suite of fan art, manifestos and documentation’ are fan works of little meaning and are an outworking of absolutist headcanon…you and those who agree with you believe they can be implemented differently and so strive to ‘demonstrate’ this, but you never overcome the fundamental problem. The tattoo idea that has been proposed at multiple times in the past fails because it’s origin is in Warcraft 2, i.e. when everyone today who is a Blood Elf would have called themselves a High Elf and thus there is no reason why the Alliance High Elves would have an exclusive claim to them AND at the end of the day…it’s a tattoo. You don’t build a distinct race using a tattoo. They didn’t bother with the Wildhammer Dwarves, they just stuck their tattoos onto ordinary biologically identical Dwarves and told Dwarf players to roleplay. You are attempting to manufacture difference where none exists, that is why Blizzard had to manufacture REAL difference by turning a small group of rebel elves into Void mutants and those seeking High Elves rejected them.
Which is the real killer. The level of difference required to justify a bespoke different Elven race is the level of difference it required to justify the Void Elves, yet you argue the Void Elves aren’t good enough because they are too different. What has changed of course is that the Void Elves are FUNDAMENTALLY different…they’re void mutants, no longer High Elves in the truest sense of the word. This is why all the manifestos and whatnot limit themselves to emphasising cosmetic surface level changes, and why there is such defensiveness when a Blood Elf player asks ‘why can’t Blood Elves have those’?
On the Nightborne: This is a poor response. The Nightborne spent ten millenia bathed in the energies of the Nightwell. They literally drank the stuff. That’s long exposure. As for the urban-woodland split between Nightborne and Night Elves, that is a major differentiating factor, but so is their ten thousand years of separation, different skin tones, different musculatures, different ear shape, different overall culture…
In contrast the Blood Elf exposure was much more limited, they didn’t ingest it or directly consume it, instead fel crystals were scattered around Silvermoon to sustain the magics propping the city up and the duration of this period was…from year 22 after the opening of the Dark Portal (when Kael’thas was informed by Illidan that substitutes for their magical addiction were required) to year 26 when the Sunwell was restored.
So four years.
Four.
We are currently in year 42. The Sunwell was restored sixteen years ago in game as a font of light and arcane energy and ALL thalassian elves, with the exception of the Void Elves, feed upon it. And while you may try and invent a woodland culture for the High Elves, this ignores the fact that those lodges have been mostly destroyed (as have the cities where there were supposed to be relatively large High Elf populations). The comparison with the Nightborne is trite and unworkable.
As for the ‘reprecussions’ of a political choice, that is not enough to justify giving one faction in World of Warcraft access to the core race of another faction. If roleplaying that political choice is so important, play your Void Elf as a former High Elf who has REALLY committed to opposing Silvermoon by taking that final step of differentiation. Like Lyria Skystrider, though unlike her you would have never called yourself a Blood Elf.
On Ion: Here we go. You got a direct answer, one you didn’t like, from the guy literally running the game but you don’t want to accept it. Solution? Minimise the person who said it as much as possible. Sure, he’s the Game Director but he’s just ‘one man’ and maybe there are people in the company whose ‘views have evolved’. Yet the reason the High Elf topic has exploded again is precisely because the logical moment to reveal such an evolution would have been adding them as an allied race in Midnight and we got Haronir. It’s one thing to apply absolutist headcanon to the game, quite another to the company itself. ‘THE BOSS DOESN’T REALLY MATTER AND THERE ARE PROBABLY PEOPLE WHO AGREE WITH US WHO WILL GIVE US WHAT WE WANT. ANY DAY NOW. I KNOW IT’S BEEN TWENTY YEARS BUT THAT JUST MEANS THEY’LL SEE HOW LONG WE’VE BEEN WAITING AND GIVE IT TO US’.
And the presumption they will ‘make loads of money’ is spurious. What’s your evidence? That something You and those like you really want will generate lots of money for them? Funny that lines up that way doesn’t it? And yet if there was that much money at stake, why has Activision-Blizzard restrained themselves from accessing it? Could it be that there isn’t as much as you think and that they believe whatever they gained wouldn’t be worth damaging the core game principles such as faction diversity and the fact that the vast majority of players who don’t come to the forums and don’t care would see Blizzard giving the Alliance a duplicate of a race they can already play rather than something new? It is a dangerous trap to think that because you are vocal on a forum and that there are those who agree with you that your position is popular.
The survey is limited to Classic+ and they are considering it’s implementation in Classic+, but extrapolating that to retail is a stretch. Classic+ for example isn’t burdened by what retail is, already having High Elves playable as Blood Elves, and already having an Alliance version in Void Elves.
On the ‘there’s only room for two’…quoting Orcs and Humans as a counterpoint is like saying ‘banana’ as a counterpoint. It’s nonsensical in the context I was discussing. That is, a thematic dichotomy between light and void, between Blood Elves and Void Elves and that there is only room for two sides in a dichotomy.
Don’t know about others, but Tolkien’s Elves (as I know them, I only read LotR) aren’t like the Alliance affiliated High Elves depicted in WoW. Tolkien wrote his world as very black and white, with Elves being paragons of virtue.
So called “Alliance High Elves” aren’t paragons of virtue: they readily and without question killed innocent civilians during the Purge of Dalaran. Veressa planned and executed the poisoning of Garrosh when he was imprisoned and defensless during his trial in Pandaria - only Anduin’s intervention prevented Garroshe’s death. Veressa was even very close to joining Sylvanas in ruling Forsaken!
You can’t have Tolkien like Alliance affiliated High Elves in WoW, because that’s not how the current lore depicts them.
–EDIT–
Also, I believe that if You want to play a somehow Tolkienesque Elves, then Night Elves are the best pick. Friends with humans, defended the world multiple times, nature related - seems like a good fit
Not the playable ones, they only got differently glowing eyes and I imagine thats more like if you let a sponge absorb a colour dyed liquid, that colour will stain the sponge
but the sponge hasn’t transformed so to say, its only gotten saturated with the colour dye.
There was no transformation other then the glow of eyes turning green which is more an expression of the energies they are exposed too.
Not imbued with, exposed too.
If it was more then my sponge analogy, it wasn’t enough to be a permanent change as we now have golden (light based) eyes as options along with lore to explain it.
The ones that were transformed by fel, permanently if you want to count the eyeglow as a transformation, we kill in outland and the sunwell raid.
This is also why everyone says that the difference between helf and belf is not biological.
If I am not mistaken they were exposed to fel cystals for one whole year before they got rid of them in favor of their restored sunwell.
The majority of blood elves are about as corrupted as current orcs are, in so far they are born green because their parents were in contact with the fel once or they were close to someone who was fel touched.
