I agree with you here, although I do realise that the goofiness is a charm to some. But in the case of worgen and night elven males who have it in spades, I think it ruins their fantasy and seriousness - and it could have looked a lot cooler.
This ofc is subjective and entirely my opinion. Sometimes even having the role slightly slower, maybe an angled side twist would have done well.
It may do, though I am far convinced its anywhere near enough, it goes beyond just high elves, it’s high elf and night elf history, assets and calibre - you need that strongly on the alliance. It’s stronger on the horde thanks to Silvermoon, Surmaar, and the refugee status of night elves and high/void elves.
It will also take writing better stories for the alliance, not just humans, but elves and draenei, and dwarves etc. I think with a decision to minimise horde elf presentation and story telling would allow them to focus on elves being more a thing on the alliance which would help draw elven horde fans back.
At this stage, it is not enough to get even half of the population of elf horde fans, but all you need is about 1/4 and i think the shift in dominance from elven fantasy and portrayal from horde back to alliance might just do the trick for that quarter of horde elf fans.
I witnessed many a night elf switch to Nightborne and horde, and many a night elf switch to blood elf when those went horde. If those players come back, lore loving players, then it would help, it means the remainder would be just players who love the animations and models of the blood elves, not the lore, they won’t care that Silvermoon is in the hands of the alliance once more, or Suramar is occupied by Nightborne turned night elves and is the new capital of the night elves.
They just liked the model of the blood elves, picked horde, have their friends and guildlies there, they aren’t going to switch alliance because Night elves and high/void elves are powerful and getting good stuff. however I estimate maybe as much as a quarter or even a third of the horde elf fan base might switch, in particular the hardcore lore ones.
You people make it sound like elves were everywhere. They were not. There were a few units in Warcraft 2 and a whole story about the elves exodus from the Alliance in Warcraft 3. So yeah, I can blame obsessive people like you for making a big deal out of nothing. The elves you want have been part of the Horde for over a decade. The elves were not alienated, they joined the Horde.
And no, elves are not something the Alliance players care deeply about, it’s something you care deeply about, but for some idiotic reason you just won’t play Horde where the elves you want are.
And like I said, the elves are not a cure-all-problems solution. Especially with your dumb ideas about totally screwing the Horde in the process.
And even if that were true, let’s say Blizz does every dumb thing you suggested, they purge the Horde elves of everything and give it to the Alliance cause, well cause you say so. What if their new areas are nice? You’ll want those too and you’ll come up with another dumb reason like you are doing now.
Before we got NB elves and their nice city, you cried about getting the Belfs, now you want the NB elves too.
Like I said before, you people will say anything, claim anything, change any fact to get what you want, because you think you picked the right side, but you think all the cool stuff that is not on your side, should belong to you. So in the end we’ll be at this forever.
I’ve reposted this on one of my blood elf toons, just to prove that yes, I play the horde too, as stated, and not just a little. But firmly feel that blood elves and Nightborne are at core alliance races of the High elves and Night elves, and the major strength and assets of the Thalassians and Night elven race should be on the alliance in the hands of the high/void elves and Night elves, not the blood elves and nightborne.
Basically Nightborne and Blood elves should be exactly what the Night elves and High/void elves are currently, refugeees, homeless, and very very small in number, to allow players on the horde that prettier model and access, but nothing more, not the identity changing and shifting major play they’ve enjoyed so far.
Yeh it would be nice, I do think that the whole point of the allied races was to give a slightly more unique type of customisation to older races, in the fancy new alternatives we saw many new npc groups that popped up in classic and the expansions but we never got to play.
We wanted wildhammers, dark irons, mag’har, dragonmaw orc etc, Zandalari in the cool appearances they altered the playable races in expansions. We knew these had the same animations and similar appearances but wanted both the fantasy and the look.
Which is why it happens.
But nothing stopped them from doing what they did with Nightborne and Zandalari though - although they may have considered it as exceeding the workload of the point of sub-races. They’d have to answer that.
I would welcome high elves with new animations and more uniqueness from void/blood elves - I may actually play one if that’s the case, but i don’t expect it, as it stands I won’t play one. I would welcome their full accessibility on teh alliance, and i know alliance players would love it, but I also play blood elves on the horde, and already have swathe of tunes, void elves give a player like me who plays both factions something different, high elves do not.
But saying that I understand many alliance players won’t touch the horde - this is how blizzard wants it, picking a side, and would very much welcome a full high elf range on the alliance. I support them, though I won’t play one. I also am aware the race is native to the alliance not the horde, and strongly feel that the best parts of both the high elves and night elves should be strongest and most attractive on the alliance, and at the moment, they are on the horde, both in terms of appearance and in terms of assets like zones claimed and cities.
I think if they turned that around, it would impact the imbalance sufficiency, as even getting 25% of the end game horde elf population and elf population only going back alliance because these things are there will fix the end game imbalance.
25% might be optimistic, because most people have guilds and communities and are not going to switch alliance just to play the same thing.
it’s the hardcore fanbase into the lore that will be affected most, and if they switch back to alliance it might just be enough number wise, and the horde would feel like the horde again at least on the forums and main boards, and the alliance would feel like the alliance again.
The reason blizzard has struggled with the identity of the horde
is because they’ve confused it by throwing elves and humans (forsaken) on it and making a major splash of these alliance races. They’ve given them the best portions of both the High elves (in Silvermoon/Quel’thlaas) and the Night elves (in Suramar and the nightborne) - dominant on the horde.
This flies in the face of the identity of the tauren, orcs, trolls, goblins etc. Look at how welcome Zandalari were when they did a good job with a horde native race? The horde didn’t need Suramar and all the nightborne, it could have just had a bunch of exiles who were denied the arcan’dor and so never got healed back to their original night elven appearance, and were given shelter by the blood elves and access to the Sunwell, allowing them to keep their original appearance.
Bingo, nightborne on the horde, but without Suramar and all the assets, they’d be just like the void elves, a small group of powerful refugees, but not making a huge splash, tying in the opposite factions major races’ history and new assets ported over to the horde in a repeat of what happened to the high elves via the blood elves going horde.
Doesn’t matter what you post on. I could post on my Void Elf Warlock or Night Elf Druid and my views wouldn’t change either.
Nightborne and Blood Elves are not being made servants to Humans and the Alliance should never get Suramar and Silvermoon. Build up Allerian Stronghold on Outland and Hyjal, if you want Velfs, Helfs and Nelfs to shine.
That’s their problem. I happen to like the Horde elves. Because, like you say, they follow their own culture untainted by other races. The close partnership between the belfs and the nb elves was a stroke of genius in my opinion.
And along comes this guy while we are in the process of having belfs cloned and goes, “Yeah we should have those elves too”. So yeah, here’s a hint of what the Horde is supposed to “share” after they are done cloning the belfs.
Horde has to lose out on everything, to make my elves look and feel good.
How about, you take those concerns to the Blizzard Dev Team and ask that they build up Allerian Stronghold and Mt Hyjal. That way, your precious elves can look and feel good.
Also - the problem lies with the support for wanting them on the Alliance, which - if you don’t play a Human, you don’t like the faction.
Also I’d like to note how this guy makes a fuss about nelfs losing their tree as some kind of valid reason to demand stuff, but makes no note of the fact the Forsaken have lost their home and their leader which pretty much constitutes their whole identity.
So what Alliance race and what Alliance settlements should we get for our traumatic losses? I want Stormwind, personally. And Boralus. That would make me feel better.
I understand that ye are passionate about elves, but this discussion isn’t really appropriate to the topic of this thread. The Blood Elfes and the Nightborne are Horde, and they will stay Horde forever, if not because of the lore reasons then because of the gameplay mechanics.
I implore everyone to focus on the matters at hand, and that is the discussion about how the Alliance situation could improve regarding the high end content.
That’s not the point, the point is they are an alliance outfit, alliance themes, alliance values, it’s all baked in. Why do you think the night elves join the alliance instead of the horde, because the elves are an alliance thing.
The anomaly was when they decided to take a very alliance race and plunk it on the horde, because it was popular and pretty, so that people would pick the horde and fix the imbalance numbers. now the penduluum has swung the other way greatly. Do you not think the elves on the horde are the solution once more?
If a lot of alliance fans went horde because they were more attractive elven presentation there, surely some of those would come back if the focus was to shift back to the alliance right? I know it wouldn’t have a fraction of the impact on the horde as Belves/Nightborne stuff going horde had on the alliance, but it doesn’t need to. you’re not removing Belves from the horde nor nightborne, just witling them down lore wise.
Those who care about such things are smaller in number but more vocal, if they get enticed back to the alliance because of this, then it will help.
It will also fit the alliance theme far better for the elves to be strongly visible and impactful on there, than on the horde. They are not very horde centric race, never have been, they don’t need to play large and meaningful roles there, they just need to have model representation so pretty races and those who care about what their characters look like can be there.
Besides I think some would find the appeal of being the underdog Thalassian to the high/void elves and the underdog Shalassian to the Night elf quite appealing rather than being the dominant super elven power presence.
Blizzard can’t even use the elves effectively on the horde for fear they would totally dominate and eclipse the actual horde races… they are wasted on the horde with all that stuff.
Take Suramar too, the nightborne meant far more to the alliance night elf playerbase, the horde ones just wanted a fancy city and the cool factor, they hardly care about the Nightborne, till today, most of the Nightborne posts are from night elf fans, most of the horde elf fans are blood elves and harp on about blood elves.
There is almost zero interest from the horde playerbase on the nightborne, nightborne history and lore, nightborne future, it is nothing in comparison to the blood elves. You only get the likes of Leia responding on Nightborne topics when posters like me suggest most of them should come to the alliance. That’s it.
They have no interest, to them it was just pretty eye candy, to the night elf fans, it was like watching a highly anticipated part of their lore history form the War of the Ancients and the pre-sundering era, finally arrive only to be ripped away and given to the faction set up to be their enemies… it was waiting for something really attractive and impressive about the night elves to finally arrive, only to have it not given, and then given to the enemy faction, leaving you still with only ruins and forests, made worse by your home then totally destroyed and left as a remnant refugee state race.
It was far more impactful to night elf fans than horde fans, still is, and this is because the horde is not about elves, and the horde elf fan base are far more obsessed with blood elves anyway.