Theorycrafting: Blood elves joining Horde.

[Whalemilk]

If I was smart enough to make my own private server, I would remove forsaken altogether and have ogres in the horde.

It would be awesome to have all the forsaken land as leveling zones. Also, a undercity raid would be nice.

[Shroudedsoul]

I'm glad that the Elves aren't joining the Horde. It was always a mistake to let them on retail. It was only done to help the massively struggling Horde playerbase - lore be ignored.

Worse is on retail the High Elves are a major Alliance ally in pretty much every expansion yet are still not playable. Those Void Elves that the Alliance got weren't even High Elves that fought on Argus or for the Silver Covenant. They were like maybe a couple dozen rejected Blood Elves.

Ugh. Just thinking about Blizzard being so petty like that angers me.

Anyway.

I'm glad the High Elves are Alliance on turtle wow. Shows that the team here cares for the lore.

[Geojak]

High elves opening their doors to wayward breatheren? If you were a renegade blood elf would you join Horde, or your cousins working with Alliance, whose human elements have nothing to do with Garithos since he was a Lordaeronian noble and not a Stormwindian like the ingame humans are.

In the original games stormwind was called the kingdom of azeroth. south of thandor bridge is also called azeroth the continent and north is lordeaeon the continent. Blizzard retcont this as Eastern kingdoms and the planet was renamed to azeroth.

But still the humans are azerothian

[Enceebe]

Blood Elves should just be a renegage cult to Kael'thas who sold out to the Burning Legion and high off fel

I liked Kael'thas. A young prince on a mission to save his people. The mana-wraith in the elven starting zone in TBC pretty much showed how urgent they needed a new Mana Source or the would go extinct. They were betrayed by a racist human that even the dwarves disliked that fought under his command. And followed the only one that showed them a solution. They even cooperated with the nightelves when they first met them. The solution they made in WoW Legion and the nightborn was what they should have done with the blood elves. The night elves should have showed them a solution to their mana hunger.

[Enceebe]

High elves opening their doors to wayward breatheren? If you were a renegade blood elf would you join Horde, or your cousins working with Alliance, whose human elements have nothing to do with Garithos since he was a Lordaeronian noble and not a Stormwindian like the ingame humans are.

In the original games stormwind was called the kingdom of azeroth. south of thandor bridge is also called azeroth the continent and north is lordeaeon the continent. Blizzard retcont this as Eastern kingdoms and the planet was renamed to azeroth.

But still the humans are azerothian

Isnt more like the Eastern Kingdoms refers to the Kingdoms on the 3 Sub Continents Azeroth, Khaz Modan and Lorderon(Kalimdor was the original and only continent) or is this also a retcon. The 7 Human Nations(Kul Tiras, Alterac, Dalaran, Lorderon, Stormgarde, Gilneas, Stormwind), the kingdom of the dwarf, gnomes and High Elfes and the 2 major Troll Tribes, the amani and gurubashi.
The Ingame map is a bit wrong. The Zone east and west of burning stepps should not exist. Lorderon is the northern continent, in the middle is Khaz Modan. And south of the Blackrock starts the continent Azeroth.

[Kazgrim]

Blood elves are cooler than high elves.
/thread

[Ishilu]

Pretty elves in the horde? Who could possibly want that? What next? Pandas? Zombies?

Nah, seriously, I like that the horde more or less gets to keep their wc3 vibe here(except for zombies...). What's so important about blood elves when there are already high elves in the game?

[Lightbloom]

As far as Blood Elves joining the Horde go, I can't speak for the Turtle WoW devs or anything, but from a lore perspective while anything may be possible, that doesn't necessarily mean its plausible.

Blizzard's decision to add Blood Elves to the Horde in BC was a prudent one as far as gameplay is concerned. It opened up Paladins to the Horde and added a conventionally, 'attractive,' race to the Horde at the same time to bolster its player population. That would help Horde guilds find enough players to engage in more end-game raiding content.

From a Lore perspective, however, it didn't exactly make much sense. I think the biggest question left unanswered (or poorly answered) would be, What did the Horde have to offer the Blood Elves?

In truth, not much. The Horde was holding on by a thread itself at the time. Meanwhile the Blood Elves were constantly seeking new sources of magic to sate their addiction. The Horde had virtually nothing on that front, and thus very little of value to offer. Conversely, the Alliance as of Vanilla still counted Dalaran as one of it's members, thus meaning it was plausible for them to provide magical artifacts for the Sin'dorei (as they did with the Quel'dorei whom live in Dalaran). Another source of magic for the Sin'dorei (although this one is far less friendly with as-of-then established lore), would have been the Moonwells of the Night Elves.

In the end, while Blizzard added Blood Elves to the Horde in Burning Crusade, the justification was never exactly all that great from a lore standpoint. The Blood Elf starting area's were not the best written, meant to leave the player with enough personal justification to kill every human, dwarf, and night elf on sight as the game's PvP system demands. Meanwhile it expects players to ignore the numerous atrocities and depredations committed against the people of Quel'Thalas over the millennia by trolls, orcs, and undead, and one of that group actually succeeded at destroying the kingdom and nearly scouring the race from the face of Azeroth. We're also not to question why or how the Night Elves sent an army across the ocean to Quel'Thalas to, "investigate reckless arcane magic use," after ignoring it for 10,000 years in their own backyard (Dire Maul), and while their own sacred forests are overrun with corrupt furbolg, demons, naga, and orcs.

Where lore and story-telling go, Blood Elves joining the Horde made absolutely no sense.

In an ideal world, Burning Crusade would have opened with a new faction, rather than new races for the Horde and Alliance. We should've seen the Illidari introduced with the Blood Elves, Naga, Broken Draenei, and Ethereals as playable races. That set-up would certainly have made more sense for the Blood Elves, with most of those races having something to offer them as far as magical resources for their addiction goes. That would have been a lot of work as far as the development side of the game goes, but from a story perspective, it would have done the intellectual property justice.

Or at least that's my two coppers.

I agree. This is very well written and explained. There is not much I can add to this. Thanks for putting this on the forum !

[Greese]

Blizzard wanted to give Horde a "pretty" race and Alliance a "monster" race and everything else was mangled to make those square pegs fit in round holes. Same with shaman and paladins really. Thematically they made little sense on either side. You could kinda make sense of Forsaken Paladins and Dwarven Wildhammer shaman. Blood Elves milking a Naruu for Holy power and Space Goats being Shaman didn't really feel right to me to be honest.

[Shroudedsoul]

Blood elves are cooler than high elves.
/thread

High Elves are cooler.

Blood Elves are villains and neither faction should have accepted them at all. Glad TurtleWoW fixed that failure from Retail.

Blizzard wanted to give Horde a "pretty" race and Alliance a "monster" race and everything else was mangled to make those square pegs fit in round holes. Same with shaman and paladins really. Thematically they made little sense on either side. You could kinda make sense of Forsaken Paladins and Dwarven Wildhammer shaman. Blood Elves milking a Naruu for Holy power and Space Goats being Shaman didn't really feel right to me to be honest.

Blizzard is at it again on Lore butchering on retail. Check out the new races randomly getting Warlock with 0 Lore justification.

[Darbo]

Please no elves in the horde. They ruin our style.

[Dracarusggotham]

I will apport here.
Even Blizzard admited in TBC release that they made a mistake adding Draeneis to the Alliance.
What this have to do with the Blood Elves?
The thing is they made another mistake adding the Blood Elves to the Horde due to various topics.
First: Trolls, the Blood Elves always where in war with the Trolls, and I don't think they can want or desire to have an alliance with the race who centuries ago made them to have their first alliance with the humans of Arathor.
Second: Orcs, they recently where in war with the orcs in the Second War, the lore tells the fact about the blood elves being so suspicious about their alliance with Lordaeron, I can't think how they can feel about making the orcs their allies and allowing them to enter in their forests and city.
3. Undead, their race was clearly slaughtered by the undead, the Forsaken where undead under the Lich King control, I can imagine some of them participated in the destruction of Quel'thalas, I can't think how they trusted in Sylvanas or in the Forsaken, or how them let that race enter in Silvermoon or in Quel'thalas.
4. Garithos, he was only a racist human who become the auto-proclamated leader of the Alliance Remnants, they have more reasons to hate Undead, Trolls and Orcs instead the humans and the entire Alliance only for a human.

With this points the Blood Elves have enough reasons to avoid the Horde, Trolls, Orcs and Undead are a bad idea, only the Tauren have no problems with the Elves.
Now, at lore level have more problems too.
First: Garithos again, why them never looked for allies in the other kingdoms?
-Aerie Peak
-Stromgarde
-Even Dalaran have remnants of their mages and they have reasons for help the Blood Elves, due to their alliance with the Kirin Tor, Kael'thas was part of the Council of the Six.

Alliance: The betrayal of the Alliance have no sense.
Why the Night Elves or the entire Alliance wanted to spy or destroy the Quel'dorei before they become part of the Horde? This doesn't make sense, the Alliance lost their magic kingdom 5 years ago and the Blood Elves can be strong allies, or Stormwind was stupid or Blizzard never had a good reason the make the Blood Elves a Horde race.

And the last point: Their "hate" to the humans or the Alliance race, if they hate the humans only for Garithos, for obvius reasons the can hate a lot the Orcs, Trolls and Undead, they Literally made a genocide with the Blood Elves in the past. Why them don't looked for the Dwarfs in Aerie Peak? They literally have allies in the Quel'danil Lodge, the High Elves there have good relations with the Dwarves.

What kind of negotiations have the Blood Elves with the Alliance before joining the Horde? Why the Alliance sent a Dwarf Emisary instead of the King or maybe Jaina?

This is all my entire reasons for avoid and hate the idea of the Blood Elves being in the Horde.
They broke the lore a lot, more than the Draeneis.

[Galindae]

dont know when blizzard changed byt there is well of eternity.
it changed trolls into elfs
and because of it, demons invaded wow world kalimdor/azeroth it was 1 big continent. high queen azshara betrayed elfs , and followers of eluna divorced from high born elfs.
satyrs and nagas are also elfs , changed by fel
to topic , there was xenophob human Othmar Garithos (because of him blood elfs joined horde), byt its somehow very weird change because in war 1/2 elfs and humans fight vs invasion of orcs. (played game warcraft1/2 rts) maby because of arthas , elfs joined horde. who knows sylvanas women heart lol
horde is not evil under trall, they are like orc renegades who fight vs demon invasion. trall changed ways of orcs trough shamanism and his fights.(in wow evil is demons invasions not horde)
i have no idea why taurens joined faction where is undead and orcs with trolls (y i know orcs helped taurens against those centaurs) byt if u ask me night elfs and taurens they share almost same ''religion'' both are like greenpeace. taurens are anyway american natives (lacota place in barrens)
well maby adding to horde satyrs is best? just add male model and create like dark paladins (what is basicly same as paladins just use shadow magic) if humans and dwarfs use holly magic than satyr paladins use shadow magic and arcane healing (not holly healing) call tham darkmongers. ;-)

[Manletow]

Theres a quest in Felwood for Horde players to kill Blood Elves and "scare them back to where they came from".... but lets just forget about that. ;)

The Horde are the 'survivor' faction and Blood Elves are most certainly 'survivors'. Fits at least somewhat.
Plus they are rather edgy considering their addiction to (sometimes radical) magical energies.

Just make a 'Blood Elf' green eyed/skin version of High Elves that Horde players can choose to play as.
(Just like how Pandaren can be Horde or Alliance.)

Also Male Goblin models need to be updated/upgraded to be less hideously ugly.

This 67/33% faction imbalance needs to be addressed somehow.

[Tutayanova]

Pls, no blood elfs. It's open the way to Tauren paladin and other retail moments.

[Visionmoon]

Scarlet Lordaeron
If Sin'dorei doesn't join the tribe,The Undercity will turn into ruins.
Forgotten will be soul drawn，This is a futile.useless attempt.
Forgotten are scarce and desolate.
The alliance will accommodate the last one the scarcest Forgotten.

[Mac]

Blood elves, chud elves. Illidari playable faction when?

[Delsin]

The Blood Elves joining the Horde would make more sense in Turtle WoW than in retail TBC. The High Elves are more fleshed out, have quests and npc leadership, and most importantly, playable. Dialogue with High Elf npcs, partly through their questlines, indicate the extreme divide between them and their Sin'dorei cousins. This opens up a lot of story and roleplaying opportunities.

How do the Blood Elves feel about having to survive on arcane crystal scraps and fel magics, which according to lore, elves feel disgusted or uneasy or even physically sickened by fel magic, while their cousins have a pure source of magic of the lesser Sunwell-esque crystal of Alah'Thalas? The average Sin'dorei commoner's feelings would probably be one of shock, sadness, despair, and anger, as even if they begged their cousins for just enough of this essential magical energy to sustain them, they might be turned away due to their perceived taint. The leadership on both sides could use this as an opportunity to strengthen their control over their race and pursue their own goals. This could potentially lead to a 'Kin War' and the game development of a High Elf vs Blood Elf battleground, dungeons, raids, or even a whole zone. With the quality of the twow writers on display in Gilneas, I for one would be excited to see what they could do with this development.

Alliance does need Draenei though. If only for the goat memes. And so the Horde aren't the only faction that can be accused of being furries.

[Adunai]

How do the Blood Elves feel about having to survive on arcane crystal scraps and fel magics, which according to lore, elves feel disgusted or uneasy or even physically sickened by fel magic, while their cousins have a pure source of magic of the lesser Sunwell-esque crystal of Alah'Thalas?

So many people forget that the original difference between the Blood and High Elves is purely political, not cultural or magical. Maybe it was changed with the WotLK lore? But as of TFT, all were Blood Elves. Vanilla added High Elves to the places which were not threatened by Arthas - Stormwind, the Kirin Tor. TBC revealed that there remained neutral elves in Quel'halas which went to Kael'thas after Rommath reclaimed Silvermoon.

In short, there is no difference between HE and BE either if they are equally starving for magic (feeding on scraps, or coping with their weakest dying off) OR sated with magic (proper sources of magic, be it fel crystals or indeed Turtle's Alah'Thalas). Hence the largest obstacle would be Kael'thas' position, along with the state of Quel'Thalas on Turtle.

[Paw]

We could turn blood elves back into high elf. Problem solved. Those who still cling to hatred may remain to be called blood elf and form a strong community but in a dozen time less number of individuals.

[Harkus]

Why would the blood elves join the faction that almost exterminated them in the Second War (orcs and trolls) and almost exterminated them in the Third War (Forsaken)? Yes, the Forsaken were mindcontrolled but would you join the country that genocided yours even if they were mindcontrolled? I do not think so.

Plus, lorewise Kael allied the blood elves to Illidan and they went to Outland. They have no reason to join the Horde. Those elves that did not joined the Alliance as high elves in Turtle. There are only a handful of blood elves on Azeroth.

Honestly, shoehorning all races into two factions was a dumb mistake in WoW lore, the night elves and Forsaken should have been their own factions. But they were combined for gameplay reasons. I also think the elves do not fit the Horde thematically.

[Galendor]

How do the Blood Elves feel about having to survive on arcane crystal scraps and fel magics, which according to lore, elves feel disgusted or uneasy or even physically sickened by fel magic, while their cousins have a pure source of magic of the lesser Sunwell-esque crystal of Alah'Thalas? The average Sin'dorei commoner's feelings would probably be one of shock, sadness, despair, and anger, as even if they begged their cousins for just enough of this essential magical energy to sustain them, they might be turned away due to their perceived taint.

First of all, I believe there's no such thing as "sin'dorei commoners" now on Azeroth. Most of blood elves are in Outland with their prince, and those on Azeroth are back by prince's decree as agent (like Kariel Winthalus) or gone all out (like blood elves in Shadow Council). Both of these groups are skilled magi or warlocks, so they couldn't be consider as commoners.

Secondly, crystal of Alah'Thalas isn't a source of magic for high elves - it barely can support work of city's structures. Ironically, it works just like water of a moonwell - yes it has some magic but kaldorei don't use it for themselves. Are blood elves angry because kaldorei have moonwells? Maybe, but they didn't join the Horde because of it.

[Corno]

Why would the blood elves join the faction that almost exterminated them in the Second War (orcs and trolls) and almost exterminated them in the Third War (Forsaken)? Yes, the Forsaken were mindcontrolled but would you join the country that genocided yours even if they were mindcontrolled? I do not think so.

Plus, lorewise Kael allied the blood elves to Illidan and they went to Outland. They have no reason to join the Horde. Those elves that did not joined the Alliance as high elves in Turtle. There are only a handful of blood elves on Azeroth.

Honestly, shoehorning all races into two factions was a dumb mistake in WoW lore, the night elves and Forsaken should have been their own factions. But they were combined for gameplay reasons. I also think the elves do not fit the Horde thematically.

Interestring, i might see the night elves having their own faction alongside fuborgs and other primitive and animalistic races but what about the forsaken? Just diferent types of undeads? Skeletons,banshees,dark rangers?

[Hyrag]

tbc is a trash expansion tbh wow should get first a northrend+DK expansion(without going lvl70) because naxx is the last raid in vanilla.
Plus worgen makes more sense to be a factionless "race" attached to the druids(lore) NE or Tauren. than pandaren.

[Ziban]

On Turtle, the High Elves appear to have joined the Alliance because the Night Elves have said 'Elves are Elves' and sent a boatload of troops to support their cousins.

Note that it is *just* Night Elves who have gone to help the refugees - there are no gnomes, dwarves or humans helping protect the refugees as they try and go through cold turkey, the way there are at, say, Nethergarde Keep in Blasted Lands.

This is a risky decision for the Night Elves - if a bunch of magic-addicted elves decide draining Moonwells is a better option than rehab, then things could go badly for Darnassus.

Note, on Turtle, High Elves start at *neutral* to Darnassus, so the distrust and tension is there, as it should be.

I'm not sure how much either Stormwind or Ironforge got consulted about any of this, by the way. There doesn't appear to be anything in the quest chains indicating that they got asked.

That faction of High Elves called "Blood Elves" appear to be thinking that the relying on the security of a poorly-protected refugee camp right near Stratholme is not a wise decision, and appear to have decamped for Azhara. Or further.

Relying on the Alliance for protection does not seem a wise plan for anyone who has consulted with the Mayor of Lakeshire, or been to Westfall. Or, for that matter, Gnomeregan.

Perhaps Thrall would be able to make a better offer ? It'll be transactional, but if anyone can keep the Tauren and a rebel faction of Scourge in the same alliance - and fighting shoulder to shoulder at Hyjal - then it's not beyond reason to consider a deal could work well enough.

[Galendor]

On Turtle, the High Elves appear to have joined the Alliance because the Night Elves have said 'Elves are Elves' and sent a boatload of troops to support their cousins.

Note that it is *just* Night Elves who have gone to help the refugees - there are no gnomes, dwarves or humans helping protect the refugees as they try and go through cold turkey, the way there are at, say, Nethergarde Keep in Blasted Lands.

I disagree.
Alah'Thalas is supposed by combined troops of the Alliance. There are human soldiers, dwarven warriors and kaldorei sentinels who guard borders of Thalassian Highlands, fighting against undead. The same is with resources: there are no indications in game that only night elves sent their resources to Alah'Thalas.
Additionally, there is a group of druids from Darnassus who are trying to help high elves with their sufferings, but there is a private initiative, not an official mission. And Fandral wasn't happy about the results of their researches (Ancient of Arcane).
Thereby, there is no reason to say that high elves joined the Alliance because of Night elves or that the rest of the Alliance do not support quel'dorei. Especially if we recall who supported elven refugees in their travel from Quel'Thalas to the Alliance lands.

That faction of High Elves called "Blood Elves" appear to be thinking that the relying on the security of a poorly-protected refugee camp right near Stratholme is not a wise decision, and appear to have decamped for Azhara. Or further.

Blood elves from Thalassian Highlands are a part of Kael's army that didn't sail to Northrend during campaign in TFT. Blood elves in Kalimdor are not connected with this group and were possibly sent to Azeroth by Kael later.

[Zulnam]

I love readying lore discussions because there are so many interesting point of views. I don't think anyone is particularly wrong or right as any scenario you could imagine, history has already experienced it.

Yes, you could explain the Blood Elves joining the Horde. If they were pushed with their back against the wall and saw Alliance and the Scourge expansion as a threat, and if the Alliance refused to accept them within their ranks due to what they saw as betrayal during WC3 TFT as well as perhaps the Kaldorei refusing them to join.

And the Horde could see to let them join their ranks, as Thrall proved to be a diplomat over keeping to old grudges, and the trolls of the New Horde were Jungle Trolls, not Forest Trolls, so they would have no reason to block the Blood Elves from joining.

And yes, it makes sense to have them as Neutral and put the High Elves in the Alliance. The lore has already been paved for that and it would require very little setup to do it. Even with the dwindling high elf numbers.

But I think the Blood Elves were, in the end, a good choice for what TBC was. Like Karrados said:

Horde was dying, they needed a popular race.

This is not even speculation, Blizzard themselves said at the time that they wanted to add a "prettier" race to the Horde and a more monstrous one to the Alliance, for more player options (remember this game had real factions splits). And there was a very big boon in Horde players and it was actually quite balanced on most servers for a while.

But i thing the best thing Blood Elves did for Horde in TBC was Silvermoon City. It became an RP hub for the Horde just as Stormwind was for the Alliance. Even better since there were little non-RPers in Silvermoon and roleplayers were free to walk around the entire city without. And it might not exactly be on-point for a bunch of savages to stick around a fancy, comfy city, but it was great to have a place between guild events where you knew that you would find roleplaying almost always.

But yeah, lore-wise i agree it is much nicer to have High Elves in Alliance and Blood Elves as a separate neutral faction.

The design issues that Blood Elves addressed though (pop balance, RP hub) are still left unsolved, however.

[Dracarusggotham]

I love readying lore discussions because there are so many interesting point of views. I don't think anyone is particularly wrong or right as any scenario you could imagine, history has already experienced it.

Yes, you could explain the Blood Elves joining the Horde. If they were pushed with their back against the wall and saw Alliance and the Scourge expansion as a threat, and if the Alliance refused to accept them within their ranks due to what they saw as betrayal during WC3 TFT as well as perhaps the Kaldorei refusing them to join.

And the Horde could see to let them join their ranks, as Thrall proved to be a diplomat over keeping to old grudges, and the trolls of the New Horde were Jungle Trolls, not Forest Trolls, so they would have no reason to block the Blood Elves from joining.

And yes, it makes sense to have them as Neutral and put the High Elves in the Alliance. The lore has already been paved for that and it would require very little setup to do it. Even with the dwindling high elf numbers.

But I think the Blood Elves were, in the end, a good choice for what TBC was. Like Karrados said:

Horde was dying, they needed a popular race.

This is not even speculation, Blizzard themselves said at the time that they wanted to add a "prettier" race to the Horde and a more monstrous one to the Alliance, for more player options (remember this game had real factions splits). And there was a very big boon in Horde players and it was actually quite balanced on most servers for a while.

But i thing the best thing Blood Elves did for Horde in TBC was Silvermoon City. It became an RP hub for the Horde just as Stormwind was for the Alliance. Even better since there were little non-RPers in Silvermoon and roleplayers were free to walk around the entire city without. And it might not exactly be on-point for a bunch of savages to stick around a fancy, comfy city, but it was great to have a place between guild events where you knew that you would find roleplaying almost always.

But yeah, lore-wise i agree it is much nicer to have High Elves in Alliance and Blood Elves as a separate neutral faction.

The design issues that Blood Elves addressed though (pop balance, RP hub) are still left unsolved, however.

There are a lot of new races that could join the Horde in the future that could be a nice addition, since we already have all the classic races in their respective faction without breaking the lore, they could create some new ones.

Some kind of dark elf on an unexplored island with a Horde-like aesthetic, wild and brutal (I know Night Elves have something like that but at this point even they don't look as wild as the Horde).

Hell, only The Elder Scrolls has like 4 or 5 types of Elves, why not WoW?

The Alliance could also now deviate and join a new race other than the ones they gave us in retail.

They've already satisfied the High Elf Alliance's need, I think they could now focus on giving the Horde something they want and need, they could even finally give the Ogres as a first step and give the Alliance something less popular, like the Pandaren, as far as I know there are models with the TBC graphic style in the game without using them.

[Captain4k]

Blood Elves should just be a renegade cult to Kael'thas who sold out to the Burning Legion and high off fel

Literally. That's all the Blood Elves should have been. A renegade cult faction of High Elven, lead by Kael'thas that deviated from the group and distinctly engage in taboo fel magic practices. Blood Elves joining the Horde was a futile attempt at faction balance for WoW.

Prior to TBC, the Alliance had the dominant population numbers between the two factions. This was likely due to the Alliance thematically having the more conventionally attractive humanoid races. Alliance also being more appealing to the majority PVE players that value the heroic fantasy element of the game. Where adversely, the Horde having a more villainous aesthetic with more visually intimidating races is more likely to appeal to the smaller minority of PVP oriented players. This is evidenced by the fact that despite the Alliance having superior numbers, the Horde always tends to dominate in PVP on a majority of servers, retail or private.

My theory is that Blizzard initially intended to give the Eredar to the Horde and High Elves to the Alliance in TBC. Further preserving the exclusivity of the Shaman and Paladin classes to their respective factions. But reasonably predicted that the High Elves would be a fairly popular race, consequently increasing the faction imbalance in favour of the Alliance. And in an attempt to support the Horde population, Blizzard made the poor decision to rebrand the Eredar as Draenei, the High Elves as Blood Elves and swap their intended factions.

As a result, Blizzard achieved the opposite by making Horde the dominant faction in TBC and almost every expansion that came after. Although I understand the intentionality of the idea, it was a terrible decision for the game and a grave injustice to the overall direction of the lore.

[Dracarusggotham]

Blood Elves should just be a renegade cult to Kael'thas who sold out to the Burning Legion and high off fel

Literally. That's all the Blood Elves should have been. A renegade cult faction of High Elven, lead by Kel'thas that deviated from the group and distinctly engage in taboo fel magic practices. Blood Elves joining the Horde was a futile attempt at faction balance for WoW.

Prior to TBC, the Alliance had the dominant population numbers between the two factions. This was likely due to the Alliance thematically having the more conventionally attractive humanoid races. Alliance also being more appealing to the majority PVE players that value the heroic fantasy element of the game. Where adversely, the Horde having a more villainous aesthetic with more visually intimidating races is more likely to appeal to the smaller minority of PVP oriented players. This is evidenced by the fact that despite the Alliance having superior numbers, the Horde always tends to dominate in PVP on a majority of servers, retail or private.

My theory is that Blizzard initially intended to give the Eredar to the Horde and High Elves to the Alliance in TBC. Further preserving the exclusivity of the Shaman and Paladin classes to their respective factions. But reasonably predicted that the High Elves would be a fairly popular race, consequently increasing the faction imbalance in favour of the Alliance. And in an attempt to support the Horde population, Blizzard made the poor decision to rebrand the Eredar as Draenei, the High Elves as Blood Elves and swap their intended factions.

As a result, Blizzard achieved the opposite by making Horde the dominant faction in TBC and almost every expansion that came after. Although I understand the intentionality of the idea, it was a terrible decision for the game and a grave injustice to the overall direction of the lore.

There's an spanish youtuber called "El Diario de Karlana" who has the theory that the original races where:
High Elves/Blood Elves for the Alliance
Pandaren for the Horde

Cause if you look, in the early development of TBC the Pandaren was a planed race for one of the factions, and the logical faction for them is the Horde, but at some point they changed it to the Alliance, and then they replaced them with the Draenei.

As you see, Blizzard was going to retcon a lot of things in TBC

[Raggni]

Hell, only The Elder Scrolls has like 4 or 5 types of Elves, why not WoW?

Because elves already have more variety (including their availability as separate, individual playable races) than any other race does, and we don't need WoW to be even more elf-heavy than it already is.

For Turtle specifically, I'd say Horde doesn't need an elf option, just like Alliance doesn't need an orc option. There are plenty of options for another Horde race that would introduce something fresh and new to the playable races/species instead of pushing the game further along the path toward the Elf Singularity.

[Shapeshifter]

I'm going to bump this thread because a certain thing has been bothering me, why would the Blood elves differentiate between different troll tribes but not different human kingdoms?

All of a sudden they think that the darkspear trolls are cool and not like the other girls I mean trolls, but the humans in stormwind and everywhere else? No, they're the exact same as (the most based man to ever exist in warcraft's badly written story) Garithos.
Makes sense to me.

[Reploidrocsa]

Afaik, blood elves are planned to be a hostile faction in the eversong wastes and in the silvermoon city raid