So true! This!
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Uhm… No… That’s not how it works.
Everything we discuss here is in its written form. There’s no tones or body language to help in identifying meaning. A lot of communication among humans is non-verbal.
I interpret it in the way it is presented. You presented it as fact.
If you fail to get the point across that’s on you, not me.
And you presented it as fact that they did not have an identity, which is objectively false.
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It is quite fact in the form I presented it as.
The High Elves have no values, no culture, etc, they have no identity. What they have, is a Blood Elven identity, which I already pointed out. ‘High Elves’ means nothing though.
To think I meant ‘lacking identity’ in it’s literal sense is wholly foolish in the first place. Everything in the game has identity in it’s literal sense, even kobolds and murlocs.
They do in fact have an identity, because High Elven and Blood Elven identity is one and the same. Very few people have argued otherwise, save for a few Pro-Helfers who claimed High Elves had a completely different culture in the previous High Elf thread.
So to say “High Elves have no identity” is, again, objectively false, because their identity doesn’t “belong” to the Blood Elves.
It’s not a “Blood Elven identity” it’s more accurate to say “Thalassian Identity”.
Blood Elf and High Elf are just different labels.
Now where did I say you meant it in its literal sense?
You wouldn’t be trying to build strawmen again now Savotar?
I hope it’s rather that you misunderstood.
You just seem incapable of understanding that I mean they are the same, because you seem so incredibly biased that you think anyone who disagrees with you are screaming for playable High Elves.
Saeryn says:
High Elf ≈ Blood Elf = Thalassian Elf
Savotar replies:
High Elf ≠ Blood Elf
High Elf → Blood Elf
Except that things are not frozen, they can always work on them before making them playable (something I often repeat even on the old topic, some seem to have a hard time understanding this), and with blu eyes which are currently reserved for NPCs we can suspect that they may be doing an update on the High Elves and it probably gives them interest later. 
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Blue eyes are currently listed as a player option on belf on the alpha mines. Whereas red, purple and black are not.
Seems wierd to separate them if blue is also intended for NPCs, only, seeing as the eye colours are now being separated.
Speculation from this gnome: void elves get blue eyes and held coloured skin and hair. Lore written to confirm many high elves left are now committing to the alliance through Alleria and studying void, thus evolving their narrative beyond what vague state it is now and aligning it with void elves.
Blood elves get blue eyes.
Helf fans stamp their feet as this is not good enough. They need an entire racial slot , nametag that gives them exactly the same physically alongside a 2 min forgettable racial intro to make them happy as well as clinging to lore so vague it essentially needs to be written on the spot to give them current relevance. and tough luck if you’re an alliance player who thinks this is a colossal waste of AR potential when it can be achieved by upcoming customisation for Velf.
Personally I see no problem with giving Void Elves “Helf” customization options…
Would be a decent compromise in my opinion, as High Elves on the Alliance side would just be a carbon-copy of Blood Elves.
It would have to be, because they are the same people, just divided by political views.
And if the Alliance got a Horde race then the Horde would need to get an Alliance race to make things fair. And which race would that be?
Their cultures, largely values, etc are the same, yes.
If understood in it’s literal form, yes… it is false. Everyone has an identity.
That is a way to look at it, yes. The Blood Elves make up the main-bulk of this “thalassian” identity, so in terms of a narrative it is a Blood Elven identity… that is what people will think if reading about “thalassian” elves without any physical descriptors of the race itself.
Just stop with the attempts at the “strawmanning”
Are you not saying that High Elves have qualities, beliefs, personalities? That is what you are saying, right? That is what makes up an identity. So yes, in it’s literal sense they have an identity.
You mentioned they had political differences.
I pointed out that their political affiliations is not enough to make the two distinct in the story; despite their political affiliation, or even political opinion, they are still just Blood Elves in the Alliance. just like the xenophobic and the non-xenophobic High Elves were all just High Elves.
Stop strawmanning me Saeryn.
Exactly.
I maintain it will be extremely likely you’ll be able to make a void elf that has peach skin, blonde hair and blue eyes.
The only stuff you’re left with is void racials and nametag, but to me this is the most sensible way to include held, write their lore so they align with the velf and become one people, some physically changed, some not. It makes total sense and prevents held lore being stuck on belf forever.it resolves the problem of the helf culture dying out.
But i bet people won’t have it. They don’t want to play Helf alone. They want to play a very certain version of Helf that largely exists in their own minds as goody goody elves who are paladin centric and huge chums with humans. Helf have NEVER been that. That’s more like helf from Everquest. So they’ll never accept what blizzard does with Helf unless it is exactly what they think helf should be (read: a bland fantasy token good elf). Blizzard don’t do that hence belf joining horde. I suspect they’ll do it again by having the “high” elves navigate their survival by falling into the void, because anything is better than working with former enemies. People will still ask for an extra AR slot for them though.
And as for “give horde an alliance race then” horde don’t want alliance races so it’s hardly an appetising offer. Suggestions range between rogue humans (much wow) and Eredar (which makes zero sense) and undead nelf (much wow again) and important to note is these offers are suggested by alliance players, not horde. Horde ask for stuff like ogres and forest trolls and the occasional San’layn (makes no sense, BFA storyline literally shows that) and dark ranger (class, not a race, and red eyes may yet be a custom option who knows, which blows the need for an AR slot).
Sometimes I think people need to be more ambitious with AR demands, ask more of blizzard you know? Copies of races with an eye recolour is really all people ask for? Come on now.
And before the “Ur a mechagnome” we have completely new parts compared to OG gnomes. It’s nothing like “wouldn’t red eyed pale belf be cool as an allied race?”.
Well Legolas was quite bland but at least he had this “friendly” rivarly with the Dwarf Gimli and possibly Aragorn too…
do the High Elves of the Alliance even have something like that in lore ? I mean a bit of a rivarly with Dwarves and Humans to not make them completely bland? Like throwing jokes and banter at each others while fighting against the Orcs, or something like that 
For the blue eyes it is to be seen, after as regards the allied races it remains a question of points of view, certainly some think that it would be a mess to add the High Elves as others think that others Allied races that we had were already wasted and this point may be endless. For the Void Elves this Void infused into them is part of their identity, it would be stupid to remove that (and not tell me about the example of Alleria, it’s not the same process as that which changed the Void Elves and it’s not even certain that they can repeat it because the original author of this transformation is dead and I doubt he wanted to make these elves Void Elves)
And no, the High Elves present in the Alliance are not from the Horde, it is the Void Elves that they were. They are part of the same race certainly but that does not prevent them from waging war against them or even for some to commit a purge against them. In short it gives something to the Pandaren (but more worked I hope). The same people but two different points of view, but hey some are fans of others not but that does not prevent us from asking them.
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Exactly the same. Because they are the same.
Whether that is enough to make them a playable race is another discussion, some would say yes, it’s enough of a difference, others would say no because the only real difference to Blood Elves would be their political leanings.
Then I’d suggest arguing against the exact points I make, and not the ones I did not make.
I’m saying that High Elves have an identity, and it’s the same as the Blood Elven one, bar one or two inconsequential differences.
In my opinion if you say “High Elves” have no identity then by extension it’s the same as saying “Blood Elves” have no identity, because it’s (almost) the exact same thing.
And that is the identity and story of the “Thalassian Elves”, which applies to High Elves and Blood Elves alike.
Their political/philosophical differences are their only differences.
As of right now anyway…
They could expand upon the High Elves if they wanted to, but I doubt they will. The only reason to expand upon High Elven lore specifically is if they wanted to make them playable.
If they were to be made playable they would just be “Blood Elves in the Alliance” yes, and they would have to be.
If they were made too different they wouldn’t be High Elves anyway.
Will admit that made me chuckle.
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Nah people wouldn’t be happy with it…
I would like it, because it would explain how more Void Elves come into existence.
As of right now there’s a hole in the lore on how more Void Elves are supposed to be created. (Their creation was the result of a failed transformation ritual after all)
If they made “normal skinned” Void Elves, then it would be explain how more Void Elves come into being.
But yeh, people would hate it because the pro-Helfers wants, as you say, specifically the High Elves, i.e. the Silver Covenant High Elves.
I personally wouldn’t mind these being playable either, but I don’t care much either way.
I like the Void Elves well enough.
But to be fair I’ve seen quite a few Horde players ask for Eredar, which as you say makes no sense. They’re 100% demons.
Historically, in lore, the High Elves of Quel’Thalas were for the most part arrogant and xenophobic, viewing themselves as better than the rest of the mortal races.
With a few exceptions, such as Alleria and her soldiers. But most looked down upon the rest of the races.
Every time the High Elves allied with the Dwarves and Humans it was out of necessity rather than any desire to co-exist because they are so “chummy”.
The High Elves taught the Humans magic, but that was because the Humans demanded it in order for them to help against the Forest Trolls during the Troll Wars.
The Elven Magisters only taught the Humans because they had to.
So overall the High Elves were more akin to the High Elves of Elder Scrolls, arrogant people who consider themselves the betters of the rest.
Rather than the Tolkien Elves who fought alongside the Humans and Dwarves again and again.
After seeing their entire nation and people decimated to the point where extinction was a real possibility, all Thalassian Elves might be a bit more humble today though.
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Helf relationship with gnomes and dwarves is largely undocumented and just assumed to be “allies”. It is stated that humans and dwarves allied quickly because they had some shared interests in sharing war stories and smithing. Nothing like this is mentioned for Helf, their initial alliance is very transactional in nature “we’ll teach you magic if you help us with trolls”. Most helf beyond military personnel and mages in Dalaran did not interact with humans. Their relationship is painted somewhat frosty but allied nonetheless.
The held that remain presumably stay with the alliance because upon expulsion from their own kingdom they had nowhere else to go, but I doubt it’s because they’ve magically become best mates with humans by and large. They’ve probably grown closer over time due to isolation from their own kingdom, but to me it comes across that in general terms humans are happier mingling with dwarves and gnomes than helf, due to Helf having quite an elitist surface to them (they’re largely magic wielders and the vast majority of humans have no magical talent). So whilst I imagine human nobles and magi regard Helf well, anyone below that tier is probably largely indifferent to them and vice versa.
Just my take.
Guys and Gals, Check out the thread on this section called
" [New customization options for blood elves and void elves]"
Turns out Blizz confirmed Blue eyes for Blood Elves and…
Drum Rolls
High Elf skin colours for Void Elves.
It paid off dudes and dudettes…You can now play an Alliance High Elf. You waited long enough, so grats on that front!
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Just ignore the tnetacles and occasional void outburst 
Official Blizzard post :
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Technically still no high elves, so i say keep on going with these threads, forums will not be the same without them
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The best part about this, is that they might as well of just added high elves cause look where we’ve ended up.
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