Quel’dorei High Elves as an Alliance allied race (Part 1)

Community General Discussion
1874

To be honest, Mag’har should just have been a customisation option of Orcs, not a separate allied race, because they -are- the same race. Horde didn’t really get anything new there, just skin options of an existing race with rubbish racials.

Zandalari do look different, and they are kind of the remnants of Troll Nobility, and do look different, so yeah, that was a new ‘race’ so to speak.

Nightborne are what the Void Elves are to the Alliance.
No one on Horde side (or relatively no one, I don’t remember any threads) were asking for them, or expecting them, in fact it came out of the blue, same as Highmountain Tauren. “Here, have a race of Elves who are really good at magic!” “Umm, haven’t we already got one of them?”

Well we got two reskins, an unasked for race, and one slightly different race. (I’m talking Pre Vulpera and Mechagnomes)

So if the Alliance get Void Elves who get the Blood Elf Options so they can look like High Elves, what would you suggest -would- be fair. Because you’re getting Options to play a race that has been asked for for fifteen years, the Horde is still waiting for its race that has been asked for for fifteen years (even though I personally hate playable Ogres as a concept)

So what is the equitable option for Horde, I mean if you’re talking skins and options from the opposing faction, then what is the option? If, as some here are, you’re talking High Elves as an actual additional Allied Race, then yes, completely, the Horde should get an additional Allied race as well, and if people on Alliance complain about it being a new race as opposed to High Elves, then they can do one, because people wanted High Elves, so its not the Horde playerbases fault if they get something new.

You see the problem I’m driving at here?

1875

If the horde gets a new allied race they would give the alliance a new one you know that right? otherwise it would be unrealistic.

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1876

Yes, absolutely. But thats what I’m driving at.

If as some people here want, the Alliance get a new Allied Race of High Elves -as well- as Void Elves, then what do the Horde get?

If the Void Elves get Blood Elves customisation so that they can look like High Elves completely, then what do the Horde get?

Don’t say red eyes or Dark Rangers or something like that, because they aren’t really that popular an idea apart from a few diehards, and also don’t make a whole lot of sense lore wise.

1877

I mean Ogres are atm Unrealistic because thet need a new allied race. And don’t get me wrong I have nothing against a ogre allied race. Then give the mok’nathal for mag’har orcs.

1878

Oh I do, I hate the idea, but some people have been banging on about it for fifteen years now, personally the idea of a race that is so thick it can only talk about itself in the third person is not appealing. But then that is the RP’er in me. I want something that is not just a “Me Smash Puny Thing, Raaargh!”

Now this could work. Because Mok’nathal are smarter than Ogres, and more articulate, and would be a nice compromise, same as High Elf looking Void Elves is a compromise.
Problem is, to get that Rexxar look, it would have to be the KT model but changed, because Mok’nathal are chonky lads and lasses, more so than Orcs. Which again unfortunately brings us to the problem of the Horde getting an extra model, whereas Alliance only get a reskin of an existing model.

Don’t get me wrong, I think they would be a popular choice, and I might even make a Mok’nathal if they were available, but I think it still strays into the territory of the usual suspects going “Horde Bias!”

Mok’nathal would be a perfect solution, to keep equity between the factions, so that is a good idea. I just reckon some people would complain about it.

1879

I think we all can agree on some random given out amnesia across the community when the Alliance gets some high quality models which aren’t reskins. I’ll be extra gentle today and will throw to the proposal even the Leaper Gnomes in for the Horde so they can also experience the gnome-factor.

1880

I think there are a lot of potential races which would make sense to implement. That could balance High Elves or Mok’nathal.

The Alliance could get: High Elves, Saberon, Arakkoa, Broken Dranei or Naga.

Horde could get: Mok’nathal, Undead Elves, Lightborne Undead, Nathrezim or Vrykul.

You could also argue for some of these being in the other faction or vice versa.

Furthermore, the point of adding more races should be to increase diversity in player expression, just like other customization options. So from my point of view, the more the races the better. I don’t see the point in being against High Elves. If players would like to role a character like Alleria, they should be allowed too.

To me, it is surprising that we still do not have these races, when there is a clear player demand for them, and at the same time Blizzard makes characters of these races protagonists in the stories. Why have cool characters like Rexxar, Sylvanas, Alleria, Narthanos and Calia all have unplayable races. If fans love the characters, why shouldn’t they be allowed to play characters that are like them?

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1881

Blizzard is out of touch.

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1882

But Blizz yeaa We just have to wait and see. ^^

1883

I sort of support and oppose this idea. I think there exists an aesthetic value in imposing limits. I don’t really see what Vulpera adds to the Horde’s overall aesthetic. They look sort of out of place to me. There isn’t a lot of lore about them either.

And some races kinda risk overlapping or stepping over other races’ aesthetic purposes. Like this person said:

The Nightborne doesn’t really offer anything new to the Horde. Pretty elves that are good at magic, big whoop. Personally, I would’ve preferred it if they had remained broken so that they were at least somewhat monstrous-looking, but that’s just my opinion, and I digress. Some of these new races received a bit of lore to support their inclusion into their respective faction, but this “bit of lore” pales in comparison to the original material.

So while on one hand it’s cool that we’re getting more choice and more room for expression, I worry that it won’t meld very well with the established aesthetic narrative. Some of these races feel a lot more half-assed than others, and because they’ve been relatively quick to shove new races at us, I can’t help but feel that they’ve overlooked more interesting options. The Taunka would definitely be a more interesting inclusion to the Horde rather than the Highmountain, and the High Elves would’ve been much more preferable over Void Elves. But because we already have the Highmountain and the Void Elves, Taunka and High Elves are kinda blocked now.

Also… I mean… Mechagnomes. Let’s talk about them. Their introduction was something that felt completely disconnected from the overall plot of BFA, and as such they’re kind of the most egregious out of all the new allied races. Do you honestly expect them to play a huge role in the stories to come? The gnomish playerbase have been whining for ages to be relevant and included into the narrative. Are those players now satisfied that they got this piece of content tacked on to an expansion that has nothing to do with them? Will we see more gnome content in the future?

I kinda hope not. Their doll-like appearences and squeaky little voices is never something I can take seriously. But that’s my (somewhat harsh) opinion.

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1884

I agree with the racials. But then again it is was the period where the Alliance cried bloody murder about racials.

But I do appreciate Blizzard making them into a proper race instead of a skin job.

1885

Yeah, the Horde had the magic-elf thing covered with the belfs. But Bilzz did an excellent job with the introduction of the NB elves. I mean nothing comes close to them by WoW standards, not even the belfs. Wish they would have done a better job with the player models.

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1886

Agreed, they had one of the best introductions out of all the allied races. I mean, the Lightforged were introduced by what was a giant Star Wars reference and a series of jokes… so the bar was kinda low, I guess. :stuck_out_tongue:

1887

But yeaa let’s just hope for normal hair colors and some normal hairstyles. ^^

1888

Gonna have to disagree with your opinion here. There’s plenty of races I dislike but I won’t deny fans of them their time in the light because of my personal disdain. Gnome and goblin players rarely complain about lack of time in the spotlight- rather we point out how infrequently we’re included, which is not the same. Of all the playerbases they’re amongst the most chilled about getting “their dues” and take what we can get (which isn’t a lot compared to everyone else) so it always makes me a bit sad when people want to deny even that because they personally dislike the race. Reminder: pre Mechagon the last major update gnomes got to their story was in Cataclysm. Let that sink In before you start advocating how we should get less because you personally dislike the race. By all means don’t play one, but let those who do actually get something every couple of expos yeah?

I won’t deny the mechagnome introduction was out of nowhere. The story itself though was pretty decent. Certainly more compelling than the mag har whom nobody queried joining the horde after spending 90% of an expo kicking their heads in.
If you think about it very few of the “newer” ARs actually have fluid introductions in the first instance. Nightbornes works okay because of the pace, it is generally one of the better stories. Velf came out of nowhere. Lightforged Draenei came out of nowhere (the Xenedar wasn’t a thing until Legion), Highmountain Tauren came out of nowhere (nobody expected us to meet a tauren sub race in an expo about exploring isles near ToS), Vulpera came out of nowhere.

Kul Titans, Dark Irons, Mag Har and Zandalari are the only allied races whom we’ve been built up till over time. The rest were created as necessary as their expo required, to be used shortly thereafter, even nightborne. Prior they were simply Highborne, but as soon as Legion hit suddenly they’re Nightborne and they’re different and this and that.

So let’s not pretend mechagnomes are the first race that turned up one day from nowhere. I’ll agree their thematic is a bit contrasting when compared with the others, granted.

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1889

My apologies on that, I could (and probably should) have left my sour opinion out of the post altogether as it didn’t really add anything. My main complaint wasn’t actually about gnomes getting content, but that the content they got was tacked on to something that really has nothing to do with them. It would have been preferable, in my opinion, if it had been more interlinked with the overall narrative.

The Lightforged Draenei quite literally appeared out of nowhere, but their presence was of relevance to the narrative development of Legion. That’s the key difference between Lightforged Draenei and Mechagnomes. That said, BFA has been a hot mess when it comes to narrative cohesion; there’s like five separate plots going at the same time, if not more (some examples include: Horde vs Alliance conflict & Sylvanas betrayal, Night Elves becoming Shadow Warriors or somesuch, Mechagnomes, Azerite and Azeroth dying, N’zoth…).

As for Mag’har and Dark Iron Dwarves… they shouldn’t really have been their own races, in my opinion. They should have been customization options to the core races because they’re practically the same. Which might sound hypocritical coming from someone who supported the idea of having High Elves, but my reasoning is that while High Elves and Blood Elves are genetically the same, their values and their allegiances are different. One is loyal to the Horde and one is loyal to the Alliance. Speaking hypothetically, had there been a human kingdom that swore fealty to the Horde I would not have minded seeing playable humans for the Horde, but there is no such kingdom in WoW. The High Elves are very real though and they have been, arguably, throughout the entire lifetime of the game.

In short: most of the allied races falls short in one way or another. It’s a cool idea that has kinda failed, in my opinion. I do think it’s good that people have choice and greater freedom of expression, but not when it’s at the cost of the narrative. And once more, I apologize for my tone at the end of my last post. My beef with the gnomes really has nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.

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1890

that’s actually true… good for those who actually liked it…but seriously…not many players playing gnomes?

and i hope they will finally make it in the alliance as allied race someday…

1891

God I hope we don’t get more Gnome content, Can’t stand the annoying little buggers, freaking hated mechagon with a passion.

Highly doubtful at this point as the Alliance has Void elves now and they fulfill the thalassian elves role for you that and with the story being expanded on them to the High elves becomming Void elves says things questionably about their futures as a race at all.

1892

Atleast we agree on one thing xD I don’t like them either but some people do and I am happy for them. But like Nixxiom and Moocluck I ask father winter for enternal suffering on all the Gnomes.

1893

I can definitely understand lack of narrative cohesion to be a big frustration, and I agree a lot of the allied races are suffering under it, just as a lot of other things in WoW are affected by this, especially in BFA. BFA was a huge melting pot of different narratives that had very little to do with each other.

This is something that could have been done differently and solved, when Blizzard was in the process of narrative planning and writing. At the same time, I also believe that creatively, it will almost always be possible to write a good story reason for adding more allied races. At a minimum, it would be at the level of what we got with allied races in BFA.

It is also pretty clear to me, that Blizzard created a bunch of new allied races, where some could just as well could be new skins for the old races. Which to me points the development team was trying to go for the quick and easy solution. Instead of going for more ambitious designs like the Taunka and Mok’nathal, they chose High Mountain Taurens and Mag’har Orcs.

However, for me, this also means that there are no reasons for not adding High Elves and Undead Elves for example. We just got a bunch of new skins of old races. They have different hair and racials, and that is basically it. Why not add two more?

In the long run, I would definitely hope for Blizzard investing the resources in adding more diverse races, that are not only different skin colors and hair styles of existing races, but actual new models.

In the short run, I just hope they listen to the community, and fulfill more of the players’ wishes.

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