Wouldn’t a few less people nagging about it be a win?
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Not really no. Because the rest of them won’t stop, and it’ll have been proved that they can move the needle.
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Let’s see how it goes once Midnight hits or after.
I have a backup for my high elven fantasy should Blizzard to my own feel “destroy” the fantasy for me.
I’ll give you my gold if/when I quit 
Which is absolutely logical and not just confined to the Ren’dorei. With the SL customization update for all races, they have shown what is possible with the WoW engine. How many accessoires, hairstyles and tattoos you can have. So of course, people want to see more of it!
Had Blizzard ruled out High Elves by slowly having them be absorbed into the Sin’dorei and Ren’dorei factions, people would probably have calmed down. But even in the Void Elf introduction, they literally put High Elves in Telogrus rift, who were happy to study the void and master it like Alleria. If you want to blame anyone for the ongoing demands, blame Blizzard. They kept the Quel’dorei around and still prominently do so in Midnight. 
Of course, you would always have hardliners who would keep demanding until the name plate says “High Elf”. But I’d say that a big part of the HE fans are probably quite happy with the Ren’dorei compromise (As I said, it’s more than I hoped for).
As far as I’m concerned, they could give these tats to all Thalassian elves, with the Blood Elves having the most color variety. For Void Elves, blue, green, purple and silver, for Blood Elves red, blue, purple, silver, green and golden, with some design differences (just the like angular accessoires for the Ren’dorei).
If you think about it, it was there from the beginning. Alleria was what a trained Voidelf SHOULD look like - Umbric and his followers were basically an accident, mutated by their ethereal attackers. That’s one reason why the Ren’dorei bothered me so much in the beginning; with their origin story, Blizzard had underminded every single argument they had made for not introducing playable High Elves.
What do you expect? The High Elf community doesn’t speak with ONE voice, people have different expectations and demands, of course, Alfiriniel can only speak for herself. You will always have people who demand more - because all those who are happy with the compromise, won’t speak up anymore (I mean, why should they?).
The High Elven fantasy was always the Blood Elven one. It’s not destroyable objectively, only subjectively if you refuse to accept what the game has told you for 20 years.
Future customisation options will come as Haranir and Earther and Dracthyr are above all other races. But Blizzard will make a mistake if they don’t lean into the void in Void Elves. We have one void themed race. I pray Irisi and Mortiz see what they want realised.
Agreed, I also made a fully subjective statement 
The only thing the High Elves in Telrogus proved was that Alliance High Elves can and have turned into Void Elves, meaning you can roleplay a Void Elf with a High Elf background if that is so important.
And of course folks will always demand more, hence why nothing more should be granted. Void Elf customisation should be spent emphasising the void aspect, not furthering this ridiculous notion you can pretend to be an uncorrupted Alliance High Elf. As Moritz pointed out, the presence of Void Elf NPCs with normal skin tones means those tones are part of the Void Elf range and thus signify nothing.
They all still bleed purple.
And this is why I want High Elfs.
Void elf fans have their own wants independent from the HE, very understandably so. Its a different theme.
Half assing stuff will only leave 2 groups of people displeased.
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It also “proved” that “Pre-Blood Elf” High Elves were still a thing. Blizzard could have only made Blood Elves show up in the Rift or have Vereesa and the Silver Covenant join the Ren’dorei.
After all this time, after all these statements and (good and logical!) arguments why playable Alliance High Elves were not a realistic option, not only did they undermine all these arguments with the creation of the Ren’dorei, they even put Quel’dorei into the Rift.
What I’m saying is: You can blame the “High Elf crowd” and “their demands” if you want to, but it’s just as much Blizzard’s “fault” by not ending the HE story and even encourage further demands by keeping Alliance Quel’dorei around.
Again: Blizzard created the precedent for uncorrupted Alliance High Elves in the very introduction story of the Ren’dorei - with Alleria. It’s not a “ridiculous notion” if it’s in the story from the beginning. 
They kept High Elves around intentionally, if you want to deny that fact, well, I guess then …
You still haven’t answered my question: What exactly would Blood Elf players lose by an expansion of uncorrupted Ren’dorei customization? As in “I had it before, now it’s gone.”?
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Eh? We knew that Alliance High Elves still exist. The issue has always been their sole defining characteristic has been a political difference of opinion. The vast majority of Void Elves are former Blood Elves.
And in fairness they also removed those Alliance High Elf NPCs in the final patch of Dragonflight so you don’t see them anymore.
And I agree that Blizzard should have stopped using them. The logic of the Warcraft 3 story was that they should have died if they were so resistant to siphoning mana from living beings. I assume someone had a twinge of nostalgia for them. Still, their role, such as it was, has been usurped by the more interesting, thematically distinct Void Elves.
Also, Alleria is a Void Elf. She’s not an Alliance High Elf wielding void magics, she is a fully infused void elf. This has been confirmed multiple times. There are sources.
As for what is lost…
1.) Blood Elves lose the monopoly on the uncorrupted high elf fantasy, which is ours by right. Same as the Orc and Troll and Human and Night Elf fantasies are reserved to those races.
2.) An iconic Horde race, the most popular Horde race in fact, is made neutral, this comes at a loss to faction diversity and at a cost to the Horde.
3.) Void Elves are bastardised into being what they are not so a small group of people who refuse to play the fantasy they want via a Blood Elf can do the Warcraft equivalent of larping.
Now, this is normally where the catch 22 arises for Alliance High Elf fans. If you argue that the factions aren’t very important anymore, most do so with the intent that it justifies Alliance High Elves. Except if the factions aren’t important anymore…you may as well just play a Blood Elf.
But if the factions ARE important, and your attachment to the Alliance is that strong that you simply cannot play Horde…then tough. I am sure there are people out there who wanted to play a Worgen or a Human or even a Gnome on the Horde but had to make their peace with that and if they can, so can you.
Alleria has become a Void Elf, the Void Elf, the prototype of what a properly trained Void-wielding Elf should look like - and surprise, when she doesn’t intentionally infuse herself with the Void, she looks like her usual Quel’dorei self - she did even back then, when we met her in Legion. Right now, the definition of a Void Elf is: “Alliance Thalassian Elf, able to infuse themselves with the Void”
When Blood Elves were introduced in WoW, they already were corrupted High Elves. Green eyes, fel magic, demon cuddling… remember? In WoW, they never had the “monopoly” of the “Uncorrupted High Elf” fantasy, they regained the uncorrupted (or better, “less corrupted”?) blue (and yellow) glow of their eyes at the same time the Ren’dorei received theirs.
Nope. “By right”, it’s Blizzard’s. That said - brace yourself - people can play BOTH factions, you don’t have to choose.
But they are not neutral, we see that in Midnight’s story. You can’t argue that “they are Void Elves and all bleed purple” and ”have the more interesting void background” in one post and then claim that “they are just neutral Blood Elves” in the next. Which is it?
… what Blizzard intends them to be. It’s their race, not yours or mine. I always find it amusing when the same people who told the HE crowd for years that “it’s not their story and they should deal with Blizzard’s decision” are now just as salty when they criticise Blizzard’s decisions.
Factions and High Elves are two different topics, I never said that factions don’t matter.
Yeah, either that or these “people out there” looked at the Pandaren, Dracthyr and Stone Dwarves in the Horde and the Alliance and thought to themselves: “Well… maybe we should keep talking to Blizzard about these Alliance High Elves.”
As I’ve said, I’m fine with the Void Elf Compromise, pretty happy with it. That said, I’d love to see more customization options for all allied races in general - and if they expand on all of the Thalassian Elf tribe fantasies (yes, that includes Quel’dorei), I’m here for it. 
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However by introducing High Elves you effectively turn Thalassian Elves into a neutral race. Because High Elves and Blood Elves are physically and culturally IDENTICAL. They divide their societies in identical fashion share the same ranks and monikers and consider the same exact land their homeland. Hell both sides take energy from the same freaking source. Put a naked Thalassian Elf before any race of WoW and nobody will be able to tell if they are the High Elf or Blood Elf.
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How so? Last time I checked, high elves can’t have green eyes and neither should they
For identical thalassians you already have that with void elves. From afar, unless you look at the name plate it’s very difficult to tell if the elf is alliance or horde
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Void Elves do too… Umbric’s whole stick is about going back to Quel’thalas one day.
Could already be argued when void elves got added into Alliance. Especially when they got the additional costumization options.
Exactly this.
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I don’t know if it’s been mentioned but apparently a Starcursed Voidwing ability has been datamined with its flavour text matching that of Divine Steed. No doubt, plenty of people are abuzz that Void Elf pallies may be confirmed?
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They absolutely freaking can. Because for elves and any the eyes are basically a barometer of what kind of ambient energy is out there. Even Blood Elves slowly lost the green shine in their eyes since ever since Sunwell got restored they stopped using Fel Crystals to power Silvermoon just like they stopped taking mana from living beings. And that’s why some now display the gold shine in their eyes. It’s not permanent mutation because contrary to popular belief the Blood Elves aside from Kael’thas followers did not commonly drank on fel.
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But it was permanent, that was the whole point. Most Blood Elves were affected by it, whether it was from directly or indirectly interacting with the fel.
It’s not so much that the ones with previously green eyes lost them over time, but rather it’s the green being replaced by gold for those individuals. (The influence of the holy energies from the Sunwell purifying them, I guess, or some kind of lightforging-esque effects).
It would seem some are more influenced by others, like those who are actively using the holy light.
We don’t have any direct lore on it yet, though, so I’m not sure why you speak in such absolutes.
Because I’m aware of how the eye glow in WoW works? It’s always associated with Magical energies. This is why races deeply infused with Magic like All Elves or Draenei have glowing eyes. This is why powerful human Mages get glowing Eyes when casting particularly powerful spells. The Blood elves were exposed to Fel Energy for only 4 years and vast majority of them only did it through osmosis as they used Fel Crystals to power structures of Silvermoon and NOT draining it themselves. Takin in pure fel has far more drastic consequences than just a green glow in the eyes. We’ve seen what happened to those that alongside Kael’thas joined the Burning Legion.
Magic races glow in the eyes is very volatile. All it took was decently powerful arcane artifact and Valeera Sanguinar’s eyes temporarily turned purple. It doesn’t necessarily change their physiology. And unless the Blood Elf continues to drain fel their eyes with time will lose fel glow replacing it with whatever color is associated with their new “diet”.
The customization options that were a compromise your side does not accept. And even then Void Elves actually succeeded in establishing their difference coming from the fact they are Void beings. They shifted from strictly using the same iconography as Blood Elves (but blue). They shifted their organization and naming scheme for their ranks and roles.
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Yes, but we’re talking about the effects the fel had on their eyes specifically now.
If we go by what you said, then all the Blood Elves would all have golden eyes at this point, like Liadrin, which they don’t.
So, what gives?
We don’t really know whether the fel had a permanent effect or not for those who aren’t cleansed by the light, which is what it was about.
And at this point, all blood and high elves are indirectly affected by a light source, and their eyes aren’t all canonically golden.
You stated that the green dissipates for all blood elves over time, but that’s not the case.
The only thing we can see is that it’s replaced by another source of power for some elves.
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Alleria reached her powers by absorbing a Dark Naaru. She arrived by them a different way. Now we actually know
that that Naaru will be freed at the climax of the Voidspire raid and we don’t know what that means for Alleria or her status as a Void Elf though we will know in the fullness of time
. What we do know is that Void Elves born through direct Void infusion are changed on a fundamental level, they bleed purple regardless of skin tones.
And had they remained tainted by the fel then THAT would have been the de facto High Elf fantasy by inheritance and the fact that the mass of the population is affected. But they didn’t, the corruption was reversed and they are now, more than ever, Light Elves.
They can play both factions, but whether you like it or not those factions have to have meaning and that is achieved by differentiation. Blood Elves are an iconic Horde race and the true High Elves of the franchise and, like Orcs, Trolls, Tauren, Goblins and Forsaken I would resist sharing them unaltered to the Alliance.
This is the second time you’ve used this angle, that Blizzard has the right to do as they will with their franchise, which is of course correct. We are debating with what we know as of this moment as well as pointing out the consequences of certain possible choices. And Blizzard COULD do this…and it WOULD be bastardising Void Elves so people could LARP as fake High Elves.
You cannot maintain that factions are important whilst calling for the differentiation required for the factions to have meaning to be hollowed out. Either the factions are important, in which case play an Alliance Void Elf, or they are not in which case you can play a Horde Blood Elf. It is impossible to argue you can damage the factions by diminishing their unique selling points whilst saying you respect them. So why not be honest? You are quite happy to damage the Horde faction by making one of it’s core races de facto neutral so long as you get the option you want on the faction you desire. And if that is not possible, you are happy to bastardise Void Elves so they can be as close to that option as possible.
Yeah, the neutral races are always thrown up as some kind of gotcha argument. Lorewise their societies didn’t join either faction, it is individuals within those societies who join the factions. Gameplay wise they were implemented as neutral from the get go. And remember, Ion’s ‘the Horde is waiting for you’ response was from 2018, six years after neutral Pandaren were made a thing so they clearly felt the two situations weren’t analagous.
Because they aren’t. It’s a false parallel.
There are only two thalassian fantasies. Blood Elf and Void Elf. Everything you think of that you describe as ‘Quel’Dorei’? That’s Blood Elf. That is exactly what a Blood Elf is after all. Those ‘high elven transmogs’ I have seen some folks breathlessly talk about? That’s just the blue colour variation on the Blood Elf armor and weapon sets. The Void Elves got a whole equivalent set of armor and weapons. If the Alliance High Elves were regarded as an equal and distinct fantasy, they’d have their own transmogs rather than having to, once again, try and claim something that is part of the heritage of the entirety of Quel’thalas as theirs alone.
Except the reaction of those who rejected Void Elves proves they are not, and frankly the development of an entirely bespoke Void Elf aesthetic and little things like the fact THEY BLEED PURPLE AND HAVE TENTACLES ensure we can now regard them as being on their own path.
Exactly. We know, thanks to Boogily_Woogily, that Alliance High Elves are off the table as a standalone Allied race for Midnight and whether folks like it or not, if it isn’t happening this expansion it’s never happening. Even the Amani fans recognise that this is their chance and that if it doesn’t happen now it isn’t happening, so whilst I would hope Alliance High Elf fans have the same grace to recognise the end of the road when they see it as the Amani fans do, I won’t be holding my breath.
Further customisations for Void Elves is probably the only realistic path forwards, but as discussed that comes with its own pitfalls (namely irritating true Void Elf fans tired of seeing their chosen race treates as a fixer-upper by a group who want to play Blood Elves) and it should be resisted on those grounds. Void Elves need MORE, not less, void customisations and I am quite taken by the work done by real Void Elf fans in showing that.
We know Classic+ is in development, and there was a ‘leak’ recently that, whilst likely fake, does reflect community sentiment and expectation. I would be extremely confident that Blizzard is going to add High Elves as a neutral race for Alliance and Horde in Classic+, that’s pretty much a given. It’s also going to be a big selling point for that experience.
People who prioritise that fantasy can thus go there, to an alternate timeline, and enjoy the experience without the narrative of the real timeline and game having to be twisted around their desires. As classic+ will not be the true timeline, I literally couldn’t care less what they do with it.
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