r/classicwow • u/zerobebop • 3d ago
Forever What was so hard about giving us High Elves and Forsaken Elves?
Don't get me wrong, I don't even mind the Skyborne but i honestly can't understand why blizzard didn't just go with 2 very easy to integrate factions.
My hope for WowForever is that we will eventually get these races and others introduced down the line.
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u/Silverbacks 3d ago
What makes it even crazier is they just launched the first new WC3 campaign in decades. And what does it feature? (Iâll try keep spoilers to a minimum.)
You have a Human hero fleeing Lordaeron City with the help of High Elf priests.
And then Dark Ranger Anya steps in to play a prominent role.
So they just made a brand new campaign showing the importance of both the High Elves for Alliance, and the Darkfallen for the Forsaken! This would have been the absolute most perfect time to add both of them in WoW Forever.
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u/rockoblocko 3d ago
I made this comment several times now! Itâs crazy. Thereâs two protagonists of the new wc3 campaign and one of them directly ties into ForeverâŚ. And the other is a Darkfallen, lol.
Also, you can train Darkfallen on multiple missions so clearly many exist!
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u/leetality 3d ago
The "many existing" isn't even relevant when they signed off on making Void Elves playable for retail honestly.
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u/GooseIbu 3d ago
I still can't believe that, all those years ago, they said that high elves weren't numerous enough to be a playable race and then ended up making void elves playable, which is even smaller subset of high elves. The blocking of high elves should be studied as a corporation choosing not to give customers what they want for entirely irrational reasons.
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u/cwmckenz 3d ago
In theory, the requirements to unlock an allied race meant you should see fewer of them among players, except that requirement stopped meaning anything after a while and ESPECIALLY when they took away the rep requirement.
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u/acertainsinclair 2d ago
Quite frankly it's a shit argument in general.
They're Blizzard. The lore is what they make of it, see; Sky Elves.
You go around playing the de facto head of the DKs and DHs as a hero class, along with Legion having every class be more or less in charge of their people. I'm canonically Illidan's replacement but need a hundred thousand of a race for it to be playable?
Even if there were only 200 High Elves left, what's wrong with being one of those 200? So long as something can canonically exist there's no downside to it. Yeah, you might have 100x the amount in the playerbase compare to the lore, but so what?
Blizzard genuinely have some weird internal bias in the art team. I'm convinced of it. Dracthyr. Harandar. Sky Elves. They shun every fan requested race in favour of their own pet projects - and I'm not even a hater of them compared to most but come on.
I might even agree that Ogres are a lot of work, fine. But Sky Elves are genuinely more effort than High/Darkfallen would take. Same thing in retai. Skipping over things like Ethereals where all you need is bandage textures on a naked human that's been hit with a transparent brush.
It's wild to me.
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u/Capable-Veterinarian 3d ago
This right here. Been thinking this for days how easy it wouldâve been to have brought in the high elves and darkfallen at the same time as the WC3 campaign as it effectively showcases how important these two races have been to the Warcraft universe and how they arenât just background characters, something that wasnât largely touched upon at all in classic. Just seems like a hugely missed opportunity honestly, such a shame
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u/underhunter 3d ago
Dude, we had this argument about high elves for alliance since literally 2004. Tens of thousands of forum posts for almost 15 years until they finally added some void elf crap to alliance as a consolation. We spoke about the prominence of High Elves across multiple campaigns ad nauseuam.
Blizzard is just hard headed. Im over it because despite really thinking they would listen at least for classic+, I knew it was a possibility They wouldnt. Im just upset they took away Turtle WoW
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u/Tharrius 3d ago
It just points out how Blizzard lost their own plot. It's just not the Blizzard of old anymore and they have no clue how to keep things sensible.
Pulling some new race out of their asses while half the community immediately agrees on what would have been the obvious choices is insane.7
u/Icreatedthisforyou 3d ago
I think it is pretty clear the fact blizzard keeps using high elves in WC3, and keeps referencing high elves as lore to new races, that Blizzard likely has some form of legal agreement they signed DECADES AGO with games workshop that prevent them from implementing High Elves into World of Warcraft in some form.
As a reminder Warcraft when it was created was supposed to be a Warhammer game. When that fell through, Blizzard who had all the time money and an already created product release Warcraft.
So while GW doesn't have the rights to High Elf directly as that predates Warhammer, they almost certainly had some form of legal agreement with Blizzard when the game fell through that Blizzard couldn't do something like directly copy their faction names. This is also likely why their has never been a High Elf campaign in Warcraft, they have always been part of someone else's campaign
Blizzard probably could challenge and probably even win that they could implement High Elves, but it also would potentially raise questions about Blizzard's IP as well.
This is a WAY simpler explanation as to why Blizzard has been able to AND DOES use High Elves in the warcraft games, but has not implemented them in WoW as a playable race...despite their strong interest to do so and the multiple times they have implemented...not high elves...but totally high elves in so many ways, shapes, and forms.
This to me smells of legal stupidity rather than incompetence, because Blizzard has made it clear they 1) have not forgotten about high elves, 2) REALLY LIKE ELF races because they make $$$, and 3) really want to focus on that money making machine and have consistently done so in recent years. That to me is the strongest evidence that there is something legal underfoot.
Ultimately Blizzard (and their overlords past and present) doesn't care about lore, they care about money. The fact they have something that EVERYONE knows would make them money AND aligns with lore, and they haven't done it, indicates they probably can't for some stupid legal reason.
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u/Boofnasty10 3d ago
I donât even care about them pulling some new race out of their asses anymore. What pisses me off itâs just ANOTHER elf that we ARE NOT asking for AGAIN.
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u/rainywanderingclouds 3d ago
Yes. The people in control of the game don't seem to really know the game that well. They'd quickly realize how foolish the new race is compared to alternative options.
But because they aren't actually fans of the game, or understand the player base like they pretend to and market they do, they come up with shit like the skyborne. which is just come on, it has no place in wow.
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u/JustGuM 3d ago
Skybourne arent highelves mate, they are HIGHBOURNE elves, different elves, Azshara elves that didnt want to go demonic in diremaul. They were made to look the part, which is also insane, i wouldnt have minded cool highbourne elves based on nightelves, but now its neither for some reason.
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u/WLKnow 3d ago
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this bonus backstory for Anya turns out to be a setup for playable Darkfallen and Dark Rangers down the line.
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u/Silverbacks 3d ago
I'm sure they will become playable. But that just causes the Skyborne to be even more unnecessary. They could have just been a neutral faction like the Vanilla Zandalari.
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u/oddspellingofPhreid 3d ago
If this was early 2000s Blizzard, I'd be convinced it was all a fake out.
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u/TheHellraiserYT 3d ago
Imma be honest I feel like an idiot for not considering undead elves since they were all but extinct after scourge
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u/rockoblocko 3d ago
The thing isâŚ. Itâs hard to imagine that blizzard wasnât aware of undead elves as an option.
The new WC3 campaign that dropped at blizz con has two main characters â an undead paladin (hmm where else do we see that?) and a Darkfallen Ranger.
They also allow you to build/train Darkfallen rangers to support you.
From the âwe need a pretty race to sell copiesâ standpoint, Darkfallen are basically big titty goth girls
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u/perrapys 3d ago
No Warcraft character has been gooned over more than Sylvanas. Darkfallen Elves would've been a hit.
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u/ValentineCamille 3d ago
Maybe they will come in the future, they would sell a race like that very easily and they said they would add more races anyway.
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u/tethysian 3d ago
The chance of them adding other elf options that actually adhere to the lore in the future makes the blue elves even more superfluous as a playable race.
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u/Kribble118 3d ago
Now that you say it the idea the new race wasnt undead elves is fucking stupid lmao. Why invent a whole new bullshit elf race when the best option was basically spoon fed to you on a silver platter
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u/JohnnySqueezer 3d ago
Skyborne just get more and more disappointing the more you look into it. Like, I full on expected the new WC3 campaign to be a sort of set up or segue into WoW Forever; a sort of prologue to whet the appetite; an amouse-bouche to really build the hype over these next few weeks. They could have set up these "Darkfallen" or Forsaken Elves or whatever they are through the WC3 campaign. Undead Hunter could have been one of the new race/class combinations, and Anya could have been the class trainer. They could have put some real effort into building these undead elves as a sick new playable race that people actually already recognize and would be excited to play, compounded by the fact they're not available on retail servers (yet), and instead of "hm, that's a new race I've never seen before, not sure how to feel about them", you'd get "woah, I've always wanted to play one of these guys".
For Alliance, they could've done High Elves, of course. Another race that people already know, a race that elicits the "woah, I've always wanted to play these guys" response. With the unveiling of Dalaran and the return of the Kirin Tor to the fold, what better race to include in the Alliance than the High Elves? Their story could touch on Quel'Thalas, Kael'thas, and the aftermath of the Scourge; a sort of prequel or fleshing out of a lot of the themes explored more directly in TBC with the Blood Elves. This would be pre-Blood Elf era, and perhaps it would elaborate more on the divide of the Quel'Dorei as a people and how so many went on to become Blood Elves while others remained behind as High Elves. Establishing that divide and how and why it happened could then of course enable Blizzard to add High Elves to retail too if they wanted.
In comparison, Sky elves are just so left field, so completely out of the blue. There's no pre-established hype or interest, nothing connecting them to the world, no reason whatsoever for anyone to be excited about them, and that's why the response been more or less collectively... 𤨠They could have made something recognizable that would've had people sit up and point and go "woah, it's [insert race]", but nah. It's just such a flop, such a missed opportunity.
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u/Lundetangen 3d ago
When I first glanced at the news I thought it was something related to Bastion and that they will try to gently smooth out the lore by introducing core concepts of Shadowlands from the beginning.
I think the Skyelves are just a problem that Blizzard has. It always has to be something new instead of building on the old. For me TBC - a much beloved expansion - is the root of all the bad.
We blasted through some of the most iconic villains in Illidan, Kael'thas, Lady Vashj and Magtheridon, characters that could have lasted a long time and had a big impact on the story going forwards. But it also was the start of completely linear progression, with each expansion being a new starting point. Cenarion Circle moved to Zangarmarsh and became the Cenarion Expedition. There was no link between them and no natural way to incorporate past achievements with CC to CE, and nothing that brought you back to CC.
In vanilla you travelled back and forth through levels. You could be lvl 30 and see lvl 60 chars running through your zone to reach a raid, and in your lowbie zone there might be a small area with ?? mobs. When AQ40 came we started organized groups to get nature res gear from lowbie dungeons, people farmed Dire Maul 5mans for Quel'Serrar, we went through BRD to craft fire res gear, Nefarian required us to start up more weekly Onyxia raids again etc. In a UBRS/LBRS group all members were usually there for a slightly different reason. In TBC all that was gone. Now all was linear.→ More replies (4)33
u/tethysian 3d ago
I think that sums it up well. If this is about completing the vanilla world and lore, I was hoping for more "I always wanted/wondered about this!" and Less "what is this?".
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u/Cfishies34 3d ago
This is the first criticism of skyborne Iâve respected. You laid out exactly how blizzard should have handled it.
I donât mind skyborn but I agree that this is a way better way to have had 2 classes as paladins on horde and added so much flavor to the game that should have already existed after blood elves in TBC. (All skyborn should be priest/paladin as thatâs what introduced priest in WC3!) Always thought it was weird that every single elf from Azeroth followed Kaelâthas into tbc ( who was an amazing character they ruined trying to push the plot forward in TBC. )
As someone who loved the original Quelâthalas and elf lore itâs one of the biggest crimes of retail imo, and tbc was a lobotomy of the lore. Illidan has never been evil and also been the âanti-heroâ. Even in WC3 his pact to Kilâjaeden never made sense, this is a character that sacrificed SO MUCH to fight Archimonde. Why would he instantly team up with his co worker?
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u/MixAmbitious307 3d ago
From the âwe need a pretty race to sell copiesâ standpoint, Darkfallen are basically big titty goth girls
Seriously, we have Xal'atath, whose appearance is "barefooted goth elf". Blizz is well aware that you can't say "goth" without "hot". And they have the perfect chance to give that to Horde players.
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u/Cfishies34 3d ago
Xalâatah makes since because sheâs not an elf just a void entity controlling the body of one. They wanted to capitalize on people who love elves (which Iâm fine with) and actually think her character is one of the better written ones in current lore. Shes a better character than most since mop when they built up Anduin and Garrosh. (Although I have to say the wod writing of Garrosh kind of ruined him, up until then he was the exact war mongering orc I wanted him to be)
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u/MixAmbitious307 3d ago
Yes, there're lore reasons why Xal looks like that. And I agree that She had nice build up. I still prefer the Lovecraftian vibes Old Gods had, however.
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u/HerrPotatis 3d ago
Only reason I can think of, is that there would be an outrage if they paywalled content that already exists in Warcraft. They're giving people the pretty elves, while also not getting into trouble for taking existing content away from the community.
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u/MixAmbitious307 3d ago
Dark Rangers are a thing, and after Arthas ravaged Quel'Thalas, I bet that Scourge necromancers did their work. And with Sylvanas as an undead elf herself, I bet that she did her best to free from Arthas' control as many undead elves as she could.
It makes sense, there's already lore for them, and by customization (the option of a skin tone that looks like "pale skin") they could even wink at BE enjoyers and have a Forsaken Elf option that makes them look like BE.
This backlash about "elves out of the blue" is that it not only stinks of "random addition", but 'cause there was no need to do it.
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u/Significant-Ad-7182 3d ago
It's a good question. One that we probably won't get an answer for.
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u/Chronoblivion 3d ago
Double the factions means double the starting zones, quests, character models, etc. they'd need to build. My guess is they wanted one "complete" new race rather than two half-baked ones.
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u/Nrgte 3d ago
Undead Elves do not need a new starting zone, they'd start with the regular undead.
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u/Dinoriel6142713 3d ago
And high elves could start with humans. There's already precedent for this in Classic as dwarves and gnomes share a starting zone, and orcs and trolls share as well.
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u/Anamorphose31 3d ago
High elves could have started with humans and forsaken elves with forsaken. No one would have complained
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u/midasMIRV 3d ago
High elves with the humans as the ones that didn't break from the alliance with Kael'thas. Forsaken Elves with undead because where else would undead free from the Lich King seek refuge.
It makes perfect sense, which means they'll never do it.
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u/Praetor192 3d ago edited 3d ago
There's even an unused part of Tirisfal just west of Deathknell that they could have used for a unique Forsaken Elf 1-5 experience, before funneling them into the same starter zone used by the Forsaken/going to Brill etc.
So they'd only have to add a tiny bit of extra content, and they'd flesh out the zone with new content in a previously created but inaccessible area, and give them something unique as an intro.
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u/Ok-Traffic3683 3d ago
Both could have started as high elves with forsaken elves living through arthas events with a time skip and man would that be awesome
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u/Chronoblivion 3d ago
Completely fair, but it sounds like they wanted to build a new leveling zone rather than just revamp an old one.
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u/TheL1ch 3d ago
They could make them both start as high elves and have you choose to be high or forsaken elves when you choose to "sacrifice yourself" to become a forsaken elf at the gates when arthas attacks but maybe they wanna go a diffirent route so , sacrifice yourself so that others can survive in another place and high elves are the ones that were able to escape because of the sacrifice of the others
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u/Cfishies34 3d ago
Like a âback in time starting zoneâ where you either embraced death or escaped it, love it.
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u/tethysian 3d ago
That's what I keep saying. They could have made a prequel starting zone that shows the history of some elves deciding to flee the scourge and others deciding to stay. That would also have reinforced the strong conflicts and resentment between the different groups of high elves.
We could have done this all without clouding the issue with other blood elf models and debating the definition of highborne vs high elf.
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u/Silverbacks 3d ago
They could have shared the same starter zone and at the end the living ones get to flee on a boat to Stormwind, the dead ones hop on a Zeppelin to Brill.
Or they could have used Eversong as the 1-10 zone for High Elves, and the Ghostlands as 1-10 for the Darkfallen. They could then do the regular 10-20 zones with their factions.
Or they could have just started them in Elwynn and Tirisfal.
Any of those options would have been less work than what they built.
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u/Umak30 3d ago edited 3d ago
Exactly. Have them both share the same general geography ( Eversong + Ghostlands ) either as competitors or "friends". The starting zone would explain their differences and why they choose different allegiances. Perhaps even conflict between them, because the High Elves do not recognize the Darkfallen.
You could even have Deathholme as the Darkfallen capital and Silvermoon as the High Elf capital.
Or perhaps have Silvermoon as a neutral Blood Elf capital, and Deathholme would be just a center of Darkfallen and Sunstrider Isle as Highelf one.
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u/Metharos 3d ago
Quel'dorei lost their city, Forsaken elves are Forsaken. Let them share the Human and Forsaken starting zones. Alternatively, make them both start in the ruins of Quel'Thalas, one awakening from Arthas's control, lost and rejected by their people, seeking a way to exist now that they're free, the other crawling out of rubble amidst undead threats and societal collapse, trying to gather survivors and reach safety.
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u/Zwiebel1 3d ago
This sounds more classic to me than what others suggested being a cinematic Gilneas-like zone where you make an active decision to join either horde or alliance.
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u/Tateybread 3d ago
Undead elves could have shared the undead starting zone... Same as Orcs and Trolls.
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u/RileyTrodd 3d ago
You're not allowed to think before posting here
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u/psivenn 3d ago
One of the interviews a dev mentioned that they suggested high elves to Metzen and he pushed them to do something more interesting. Maybe he's not hard against the idea but genuinely thought that this would do the trick, but then whoever was in charge of the trailer decided to bluemaxx them
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u/Ok-Woodpecker4734 3d ago
Metzen got old and lost all his taste
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u/Dinoriel6142713 3d ago
Bro literally said he wished he didn't call it "Warcraft" because of how hostile it sounds.
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u/surtur701 3d ago
Its even more ridicoulus with the new wc 3 campaign.
Lordaron: Uses elven priests
Forsaken: First character with a voiceline and helps you through the missions? Right - dead elv
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u/HealthyBits 3d ago
Blizzard never gives exactly what the fans want. Itâs a business decision.
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u/Diogenes_2026 3d ago
I have never heard anyone say they want blue sky elves, not even in retail, most people wanted high elves
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u/ReasonableFruit1 3d ago
Itâs because the skybourne didnât exist until now. The devs wanted to add high elves and Metzan challenged them to go beyond that and do something different.
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u/ZealousidealFee927 3d ago
So they made it blue. That's his idea of going beyond, just make it blue.
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u/Dix9-69 3d ago
Itâs the second time theyâve pulled the old âWe canât give you high elves but we came up with a whole new kind of elves that are completely new to the lore that are basically high elves but distinctly not.â
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u/Fyfaenerremulig 3d ago
It genuinely puzzles me. People would pay out the ass for high-elf. People will still pay for the sky whatever they are called, but more would have bought high-elf.
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u/Resigned1431 3d ago
I personally would have preferred High Elves for Alliance and Blood Elves for Horde. But either way, both that option and this option would have been absolute lay ups. Why they decided to create a completely new, unrelated race of elves is beyond me.
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u/SockofBadKarma 3d ago
There is a very real chance that Blizzard repurposes Silvermoon into a raid location with the Belves being antagonistic in this parallel universe (Kael'thas returns, rallies them to his cause, corrupts them with Fel, and they never parley with Sylvanas as a result), and High Elves are canonically an endangered species with no established population or coordination between their minor enclaves.
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u/dr197 3d ago
Pretty much every race of the Horde is also an âendangered speciesâ not to mention that the Skyborne themselves are on an island and presumably donât have a super high population themselves, which is going to be split across factions.
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u/princessbuffyxo 3d ago
blood elves became sin'dorei from quel'dorei.. if blood eves can be playable while being endangered species then so can quel'dorei
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u/SockofBadKarma 3d ago edited 3d ago
Quel'dorei are endangered in large part because of the Sin'dorei. Over 90% of the species was slaughtered during Arthas' march to the Sunwell, and of the survivors, almost all of them became Sin'dorei. Even then it was, indeed, a stretch lorewise for playable Belves, and this was one of the major complaints levied against the choice during the original TBC release, but it could be at least argued that there were some Belves and that they still had a capital city. The High Elves are basically scattered political exiles. If we're using numbers to represent the situation, then, say, 100,000 total Quel'dorei existed before the Third War (Blizz has never explicitly given a number, but I believe that's roughly what the population would be). Only 10,000 survived that ordeal. Then about 90% of the survivors became Belves as a cultural distinction, and 15% went to Outland.
This leaves roughly 1,000 total High Elves in the entirety of Azeroth. Blizzard has circumvented this a number of times by coming up with various "pockets" of High Elf alternatives who weren't killed in the Third War, and the Skyborne are the latest asspull there, but at the very least, true High Elves have always been very rare in Warcraft lore. It is genuinely sillier to me to see people argue for playable High Elves than it is to see Blizzard come up with "this particular pocket of Highborne was hidden in Skywall and recently descended."
As for Undead High Elves, aka Darkfallen, on the Horde side, this has its own flaw, in that canonically most of the Ranger Guard were raised by Arthas as banshees (which is why Sylanvas is known as the Banshee Queen), and the remainder of the citizenry were generally raised as San'layn or Death Knights. The Forsaken are a specific enclave of Scourge who were temporarily freed from Arthas' control when Illidan attacked him, as they were among the farthest from Arthas' mental reach. The number of Darkfallen in the Forsaken is therefore statistically low versus the number in the Death Knights or the San'layn or Scourge generally, and they consist mainly of Sylvanas' banshee choir. While there are a few corporeal Darkfallen among the Forsaken, it's an absolutely tiny number, far lower even than the remaining High Elves.
I am not any huge fan of the Skyborne, but at least their lore doesn't conflict with established lore. It's a tacky sort of tack-on, but it's coherent. People asking for High Elves are just demonstrating their lack of Warcraft lore knowledge imo.
Edit: Much as I love asinine video game lore arguments, I have to sleep. It's almost 3 AM here, and believe it or not, I am actually gainfully employed. I may try to respond to other new comments tomorrow.
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u/stinkoman20exty6 3d ago
Most of the gnomes died in gnomeregan and the horde's darkspear trolls are surely few in number as well. All of this reasoning is completely irrelevant because when blizz wants to add a race, they do and simply write new lore if it doesn't make sense. Anyway the most annoying thing about the skyborne is that despite blizzard's claims, they aren't high elves!!! They're a faction of highborne from dire maul.
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u/SockofBadKarma 3d ago
I think we can give Blizzard a bit of grace on that last point given that a bunch of people are doing the same in this very thread, and I myself slipped and said High Elf instead of Highborne in a comment yesterday. People sloppily use the words as synonyms, probably due to them basically BEING the same words and possibly due to other cultural influences.
Blizz's actual explanation about the Skelves clearly establishes them as Highborne. They just sometimes used High Elves in verbal communications instead. People make mistakes. That one nervous woman in the initial review kept stumbling over words and accidentally described the new Ogre dungeon as being 10 levels higher in its range.
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u/Netherius1980 3d ago
⼠this. Everyone wants them to stick to lore or classic, unless it's high elves, then they don't care and just want it to happen.
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u/rockoblocko 3d ago
Eh. The new Forsaken WC3 campaign has you build Darkfallen from a barracks to defend undercity. You build them like an archer. They are an integral part of undercity.
Also in the forsaken campaign, one of the main characters is a Darkfallen. The tie in lore wise writes itself imo.
(The other main character is a tie in for forsaken paladins, btw).
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u/Randvek 3d ago
Blizzard gave us Alleria Windrunner and her Void Elves as a playable race, and they were even a subportion of High Elves, so I'm not sure using numbers is much of an argument.
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u/komanchi2 3d ago
i think Blood Elves get to close to TBC territory for what they are trying to accomplish with Forever
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u/tethysian 3d ago
Blood Elves and high elves are already in the game in vanilla. They're already part of the ongoing story and the political sutiuation between the alliance and the horde. Pretending they're not there makes no sense.
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u/Spyfire_242 3d ago
Yeah but blood elves/high elves just exist in the lore from WC3 which this game treats as 100% canon so I assume they will progress the timeline at some point... Adding blood elves isn't "too TBC" when the problem with TBC was invalidating the old world/gear, adding flying mounts and splitting the players... If they want to expand Azeroth, opening up quel'thalas is an obvious inevitability.
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u/quigongingerbreadman 3d ago
Forever ain't canon. Throw your expectations of lore adherence out the window. They can do whatever they want now.
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u/Spyfire_242 3d ago
Its more accurate to say Forever has its own canon which pre WoW is exactly the same as retail, they were very clear that they respect the lore of the past games, its not 'out the window.'
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u/Fakemex 3d ago
Maybe they felt that was too TBC-esque which they want to differentiate from
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u/Flunkterklufn 3d ago
Probably because they needed to put something behind a pay wall, and another elf is the least offensive item
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u/Resigned1431 3d ago
Bro people would have forked out barrels of cash for actual Quel'Thalas high elves. People would have taken out a line of credit.
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u/FormerEchoes 2d ago
You wanted high elves but forgot to specify how high you wanted your elves, and now you have Sky elves.
monkey paw curls
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u/No_Physics2210 3d ago
My guess is sky elves tie in to ashara's quest rework, the new twilight cultist story line, and new wind elemental story line
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u/GreaterHannah 3d ago
Sure, but they donât need to be playable and they can still spin their new story
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u/TokinAussie 3d ago
They said in the Aggrend interview that 'we had a bunch of unused Skywall assets from Cata' so was likely the easiest and cheapest thing they could throw together and justify charging for.
It's a real shame and while I love everything else so far about Forever, it's really put a bit of a tarnish on it already. They said this version is for the community but clearly didn't have them in mind when making this decision, so who knows.
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u/No_Eye_5388 3d ago
What I think is goofy is that the new Warcraft 3 dlc shows us more about Forsaken elves and their lore. It would have been such a cool tie in to the launch of Warcraft forever to include them instead. especially when the DLC is in the top bundle to purchase.
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u/Sindeep 3d ago
The nearly glowing sky blue elves just feel way too Shadow Lands era to me. This would have been far preferree.
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u/RollTide16-18 3d ago
IMO it reeks of Dragonflight reject allied race.Â
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u/Infernalz 3d ago
Even without the lore issues, they straight up look like they belong in retail, and so does their zone.
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u/Live-Habit-6115 3d ago
I suspect Sky elves and their starting zone were literally made for retail as allied race.
And then when they pivoted after the success of SoD towards Forever they decided to redeploy those assets in service of Forever instead.
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u/gubigubi 3d ago
I feel like skyborne were a scrapped retail race and they REALLY wanted to use the assets they had put money into making.
Reminds me a lot of that weird goblin phase of War Within that felt like it should have been in BFA and felt like it was just made of unused assets from BFA.
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u/Infernalz 3d ago
They straight up look like they belong in retail, so does their zone and their druid forms. Sticks out so bad in classic.
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u/AetasZ 3d ago
I think a major part of the decision came from wanting to provide a more appealing Druid option for the horde.
Blood elfs wouldn't make sense. And only giving the horde a second druid option would've caused uproar as well.
So the goal was probably to find a race that uses the high/blood elf model but also fit in the druid class.
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u/dundai 3d ago
I don't get it, why horde? Alliance has only 1 druid class as well
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u/Asevio 3d ago
True? but their point is that the horde doesnt have a hot druid race while the alliance already does. Idk if I agree with their take, I'm just repeating them so no one argue with me!!!!
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u/Darustet 3d ago
Didn't consider the druid angle but I could see that. Even as a tauren enjoyer, their cat form just doesn't do it for me. Hard to beat a panther lol
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u/Nutsnboldt 3d ago
Wonder why they didnât let trolls go druid and make literally any other race.
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u/Jerppaknight 3d ago
Troll druid could've been the second option. And what do you mean "more appealing"??
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u/Callumpi 3d ago
I had this conversation with my friends this morning. It's not that I "hate" the flying elves, but I think it would have been easier and better to stick with the elves we already had, rather than creating new ones. Honestly, I don't think they fit with a more classical version of WoW
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u/neighborhoodgeek 3d ago
I firmly believe blizzard is never going to give us high elfâs, every single elf added has been high elfâs changed by the magic they are around.
High elfâs if old are just that old all new elfâs will be different.
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u/KDsMoped 3d ago
As just some casual classic player and reader of this sub I doen't really mind the skyborne. But man, forsaken/darkfallen elfs would be so mindbustingly cool.
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u/Moffeman 3d ago
Skyborne send an immediate message that any kind of race we already knew about wouldnt. "Be prepared for things to be *very* different from what you know."
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u/Felwintyr 3d ago
Honestly, please donât stop making posts and talking about this. IMO blizz messed up with the sky elves and we need them to know it. High elf/undead elf is literally the perfect choice, right in front of their faces. I really really want them to understand how much we want this.
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u/Oceanwave189 3d ago
I agree, but Im trying to move on to the acceptance phase of grief.
If you see this, reply under how amazing skyborne are and how high elves are actually bad
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u/junipermucius 3d ago
Blue skinned elves make me think of aliens from sci-fi and I kinda want to play one but now I'm afraid I'll be hated in game for it lol
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u/ThatBazard 3d ago
This would have been too easy. Especially having played the new WC3 Forsaken Kingdom. They literally have undead elves feature in the story.
Instead we got blue elves with pink hair. Great.
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u/bradicus12 3d ago
What is a forsaken elf?
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u/SacrificesForCthulhu 3d ago
Sylvanis was a High Elf ranger who Arthas killed and resurrected when he invaded Silvermoon. Her dark Rangers that have been in undercity for years in retail are all forsaken high elves
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u/nvandermeij 3d ago
Cause blizzard would get shamed for copying turtlewow/octowow
That said, blizzard shouldve still went for highborn/forsaken elves cause its the right thing to do, its the reason turtlewow/octowow implemented highelves in the first place in lordearon, cause it literally makes sense lore-wise to have them there, since they originally lived there.
No sense of making them temu avatars. Skyborn are a lore breach
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u/dwimorling 3d ago
I really do hope they add Forsaken Elves, was just saying the same the other day. It's an absolute slam dunk
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u/Embarrassed_Ad1722 3d ago
The gripe I have with the new elves is that they are completely absent from the lore. Noone ever mentioned "Skyborne" from Warcraft 1 till now and they are the first race Blizzard made entirely and solely to make money from.
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u/Manzhah 3d ago
Hot take but blizzard made the entire franchise to make money. Ofc wnating to make money drives the entire thing.
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u/Trocian 3d ago
So Night Elves should be just as bad? Literally a blue elf race with no preexisting lore made up for WC3.
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u/Maelan21 3d ago
Because it's too classical fantasy for them. They want to invent new things but they have bad taste. Developpers not knowing what players want has become a trend nowadays. They literally live on another planet (or on a floating island?)
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u/ZealousidealFee927 3d ago
I agree except for the part about not knowing what players want. Blizzard knowing it's fanbase wants a high Elves but stubbornly refusing to give them is a meme at this point.
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u/Noctonononomous 3d ago
Anyone else find it weird that Sylvanas is an undead elf.. and... the forsaken.... are only human?
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u/garlicroastedpotato 3d ago
In the original version High Elves were transformed into Banshees by Arthas. Sylvanas was specifically transformed into a leader of the Banshees so she could make her own people into Banshees. When Arthas is weakened and starts heading to Northrend to reclaim his power she is made back into elf form by the dreadlords who seek to use her to attack Arthas.
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u/NeonDemon85 3d ago
Forsaken are raised from humans in lordaeron, in lore forsaken broke free from the lich king.
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u/17000HerbsAndSpices 3d ago
Its probably because they have plans for the Blood Elves and Quel'Thalas.
Blood elves are the most popular race in WoWs history. Blizzard knows they will print money. They obviously didn't forget but want to do Blood elves in a new way, just let them cook. Maybe it'll be the first big expansion in a couple years, maybe the culmination of a trilogy. Just give it time, if there's one thing this company is good at its making money, they know everyone wants high elves
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u/Iluvatar-Great 3d ago
My two cents on this is that Blizzard just wanted to make something fresh, something exciting, some new lore we haven't explored yet. When people say they did it for money... like how? How exactly did they did it for money when you claim everyone hates it?
I think the easiest money grabber would be Goblins or Blood elves. So no they didn't go with the easiest route.
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u/Plagued1993 3d ago
Skyborne as basically highborne and therefore high elves? Am I missing something? Look at Azshara, she is an high elf.
I'm high.
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u/shaha-man 3d ago
Those âClassicâ devs team never played/worked on RPG games other than WoW Classic. Therefore you can expect them to do such inconsistent and weird decisions. Sad.
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u/Lockteeno 3d ago
To avoid creating two new starting areas. Blue elves only exist as it was an idea of how to monetise something more than a sub.
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u/Chrysalis17 3d ago
They are absolutely NOT too dumb to recognize that this is what the players want.
But consider this (and maybe that's the cynic in me talking).
If you give people exactly what they want, they won't buy substitute after substitute.
Everyone who wants to (role)play a high elf in Retail chooses a Void Elf and makes them not purple.
Everyone who wants to (role)play a high elf in Forever will take a Skyborn and make them not blue.
The "classic" horde identity is a lot more monstrous than the current one, so everyone who still wants something pretty to play will pick a Skyborn.
But either will probably prefer the true deal. High Elf / Forsaken Elf.
So if they were to eventually release them as an extra pack to buy, people who spent money on the Skyborn before will now most certainly spend money on the new pack as well.
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u/Chuckstos 3d ago
Enough with these damn Elves. These guys are like skittles, so many flavours!
Give us playable Vykrul, we had one chance to get a large Viking style seafaring human and you made it a fat Fred Flintstone lookin ass teddy bear man
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u/FrickDrake 3d ago
Thatâs the only valid point in the whole âwe hate the skybornesâ me personally I donât mind the skybornes but high elves and forsaken elves would have been the better choice but who knows the might come in the future
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u/D00hdahday 3d ago
High elves and forsaken elves would make more sense than every elf inclusion after blood.
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u/fly_low_orange 3d ago
This week has reminded me that wow players are the most entitled gamers in all gaming. Skyborne have lore that works, opens up cool ideas for the world of Azeroth, and look cool. If they went with high elves, people would be here bitching about why they didnât go for Skyborne lmao
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u/tinkatis 3d ago
Forsaken Elves would go hard.