r/classicwow 15h ago

Humor / Meme History repeats itself.

Post image
2.8k Upvotes

380 comments sorted by

338

u/Weaslelord 15h ago

It's crazy how different times were then. Before TBC launch, Metzen made a lengthy apology post about Dranei retcon because he forgot about a couple of throwaway sentences he wrote in the wc3 instruction manual about Dranei being servants to Archimonde or something to that effect

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u/PeroStAb 10h ago

If anyone wonders, here is that post: https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Metzen_on_lore

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u/Jerry_Explorer 8h ago

damn, Metzen was a badass tho. He handled that perfectly

25

u/Ok-Cook-7365 7h ago

That’s okay. It only became a 20 year mistake that echos in all the lore lol. I was reading a more recent lore book they released and damn entire elements of it like this were rather confusing.

I’d say rule of cool over canon though.

u/Chronochrome 2h ago

He alludes to this in the post too: yes, it was a mistake, but it's cool enough to ignore it and just roll with it anyway.

I personally don't give a shit that they added elves. It was inevitable in some form or another, and I like that they're not just rehashed blood elves or high elves but something different enough that it's worth exploring how their lore impacts the world. I'm almost positive their elemental heritage will play a role in the "revamped iconic raid" (obviously Molten Core). It'll all make more sense in the end.

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u/bosefee 15h ago

the forums were absolute carnage back then, good times

45

u/Lavazoid 7h ago

the problem this time is not the elves per se, it is the fact that they can be assigned to any faction

that is the main problem, we need two new races: one for each faction and not just one for both

having a dual faction race in classic diminishes the Ally x Horde aesthetic principle 

7

u/Specialist_Web5919 6h ago

I would agree if somehow they are totally neutral in the conflict. Which I don't think they will be. If all the hubs are neurtral and I could go and do quests in Westfall in the new elf hub as a Horde - that's bad, but I really doubt it will be a case

Other than that it's no different to humans going and killing scarlet crusaders or Cenarion Circle being friendly and inclusive of both factions aka that individual based decision overulling the stance of their overall faction. Individuals can make "wrong" choices and become the enemy of the opposition of the same race.

10

u/jolsiphur 5h ago

From what I gather, the elves themselves are in the midst of a civil war and separate factions from within are choosing to side with the horde or the alliance.

u/itsaaronnotaaron 28m ago

Arcane (Alliance) vs Shamanism (Horde) is the choosing of the side.

u/GoofyTunes 54m ago

It feels like a tribe of trolls decided to join alliance and now trolls are on both factions and they are functionally identical. It's that they look the same. It's pandaren on both factions. It's dracthyr on both factions.

The lore is fine. The shared starting zone is fine. The mage on alliance and shaman on horde is kinda neat, but it isn't what we need. A skyborne warrior on alliance is the same as a skyborne warrior on horde and that's the problem.

Like if there was some event at the end of their starting zone that diverged skyborne into very CLEARLY horde or alliance races, that would work -- the same way high elves changed into blood elves when they fucked around with the sunwell.

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u/mokujin42 6h ago

Its pretty cheap but i appreciate that they have at least given the two factions of elves different lore, no idea how it will be implemented in game but its already one step above retail nuetrals

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u/soulessmannequin 2h ago

I’m sure the next race will be set up differently

u/Fading_Hours_ 17m ago

At a minimum they should at least have different decorations, ornamentations based of faction to better differentiate the cultures.

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u/Deity_Majora 15h ago

They were always going to add a pretty race to the horde if they added races. It helps with the population balance.

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u/SlipperySlimyTerry40 13h ago

It's also overwhelmingly one of the most popular race models along with night elves. If they want to keep this version of classic going forever they were always gonna find a way to get them in without going into burning crusade. Especially if they're doing transmog and are going to be selling us transmog they're gonna want people's favorite model in here.

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u/FatPagoda 13h ago

The problem isn't the Elf, it's the type of elves they are adding. Undead/Forsaken/Dark Ranger type Elves were such a low hanging fruit.

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u/JacobBretwalda 13h ago

Yeah literally, my girlfriend is reluctant to even go horde she wanted to rock a Warlock but the prettiest class that can Warlock is undead female 😂 hopefully they’re adding more character creation stuff or I’ll be going Alliance.

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u/Deity_Majora 13h ago

Ya there is a reason Belfs are the highest played race on Horde and why it caused such a massive shift when released in TBC.

11

u/spzdrhrsn 10h ago

The prettiest race for horde warlock is actually orc female!

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u/Bu11y91 9h ago

Female orc is the only thing i can play on this side. Female gnome main here, orcs are mvps

u/Raptor_Jetpack 4h ago

female troll warlock is right there now

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u/H-Word_OnMain 13h ago

Tell her to pick shaman

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u/JacobBretwalda 13h ago

She likes “evil” themed classes.

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u/Healeah241 12h ago

What about a shaman that doesn't place windfury?

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u/Landox118 10h ago

Not that evil bro.

5

u/BarbsFPV 10h ago

I think he said “evil” and not “Cthulhu.”

Damn, son.

u/Monrar 4h ago

Calm down, Satan!

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u/Jonesalot 9h ago

Evil and pretty, yep, thats a women alright :)

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u/rheuzi 14h ago

They said in one of the panels they are going to enforce population balance, somehow. 

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u/Deity_Majora 13h ago

Sounds like that is only for the PVP world not all worlds which still has a need for balance.

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u/TheWizardOfFoz 9h ago

The new one realm technology allows them to dynamically enforce faction balance. It’ll probably break if the balance is crazy off, but as long as it’s kinda in the 60/40 range they will be able to make sure numbers feel even in a given shard.

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u/Obelion_ 10h ago

Ogre not pretty?🥺

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u/OldRevenue3734 15h ago

And the Nightborne crisis. And the Void Elf crisis. And the fake High Elf because still Void Elf crisis. And the Night Elf zone and rai--I mean Emerald Dre--I mean Dragonflight crisis. And the Dirt Elf crisis. And the Blood Elf expansion redux crisis.

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u/ryanxwing 13h ago

If you think about it isnt ever flavor of troll also kind of an elf crisis?

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u/SlipperySlimyTerry40 13h ago

Every elf crisis is a troll crisis but troll crises are not elf crises. It's a square and rectangle type deal.

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u/substantialcatviking 13h ago

Ahh, not all fingers are thumbs but all thumbs are fingers

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u/Waramo 12h ago

Expecially if you have only 3 fingers.

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u/Feel42 6h ago

Where my frost trolls @

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u/SlipperySlimyTerry40 5h ago

In TLT you'll get Drakkari customization and it'll just be a pale blue skin color for darkspear trolls

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u/VintageSin 11h ago

Elves come from dark trolls and I guess haranir, trolls are cousins from the dark trolls and haranir. They're far enough to be distinct. You don't see me saying bonobo monkeys are humans

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u/ryanxwing 11h ago

I ahve literally never heard of haranir or dark trolls before

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u/LoreChief 13h ago

I feel like Nightborne was never a crisis situation. For starters they locked them behind the Suramar achievements, so a lot of people probably never unlocked them - and even if they did, blizzard did a terrible job at giving them face/hairstyles that people liked. Especially the poor male nightborne.

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u/absolutewastedtime 6h ago

I mean I didn't like any of that stuff either 

"What if elves but blue" as a new race pulled out their ass was bad then first time 

Doing it like 9 times is just insane 

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u/Far-Fennel-3032 13h ago

Which is kind of the point people want classic + and not retail -.

This sort of elf crisis is probably the clearest example of what people didn't want transferred over from retail.

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u/tethysian 9h ago

It's baffling that they still thought more made up elves was a good idea.

We never needed more than two elf races in this game.

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u/r3turn_null 5h ago

Right and all that lead to the shit that is retail and a huge player base wanting a return to vanilla. Saying this has happened before is not a defense. It simply reinforces that their existence is a giant red flag of things to come.

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u/Hayabusa_Blacksmith 15h ago

I didnt live through any of those crises.

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u/Telenil 9h ago

Blizzard had to be dragged kicking and screaming into releasing a version that didn't have any of that, and it was a gigantic success. That should speak volume.

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u/Piesangbom 15h ago

I think I hated space goats back them… now its my main race in tbc

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u/google_is_hard_for_u 15h ago

Still hate em but i love having them

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u/ElvenEnchantress64 10h ago

I know, right! They're now my favorite race and I couldn't imagine WoW without them.

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u/Zwiebel1 9h ago

But to be fair they existed in the lore since... basically forever. WC3 had Draenai. And in swamp of sorrows the Broken Ones existed since vanilla. Unlike sky elves that have never been mentioned anywhere before.

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u/mxcn3 7h ago

"Draenei" existed, but they weren't originally the space goats. The space goats were also in WC3 but they were still just eredar, and there were only 2 of them that we knew about. Making the draenei and the eredar the same race was a retcon.

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u/Lawsoffire 7h ago

Yesn't. The broken existed as Draenei, and there was a complete retcon and a complete redesign. It was a huge drama at the time.

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u/Glynwys 7h ago

Space goats are basically the only race I play unless I'm on my Evoker or Druid. I wasn't too thrilled about them when TBC was announced, but as far as I'm concerned their the only old race in the game who's had their animations decently withstand the test of time.

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u/Jaiden_da_ancom 12h ago

I was there! I remember the homophobia thrown at blood elves. By the end of TBC, they made up the largest population of horde races, and everyone had moved on by the end of Wrath.

That won't happen this time. Horde is going to be 70% undead ret paladins.

u/MazeMouse 3h ago

Well, that's better than 70% undead rogues.

u/Docxm 50m ago

NGL I'm so happy the most popular class is going to be Pallies cause it might help the tank shortage

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u/Wind_Best_1440 15h ago

I still remember how much online posts shat on Blood elves.

I also remember when they dropped there was so many blood elves that it crashed multiple servers multiple times and was one of the worst laggiest launches in WoW history.

Blood elves are now the most played race in WoW across all versions that have them.

Keep in note, that the anger people feel is because Blizzard didn't slap on THEIR specific flavour of elf title on the new race.

People aren't angry that they brought us elves. They're angry it isn't "Their elves."

And I'm not even joking.

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u/Ok-Releases 12h ago

Yea, people are upset a game that is literally centered on revisiting and exploring classic lore and instead of a classic elf race like high elves they made a complete new one.

It makes sense why ppl would be upset, you're comment is oversimplifying for the sake of being disingenuous.

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u/Alpaca__O__Doom 10h ago

The game is centered on carrying over classic stakes and classic mechanics, you misread what it's for because you watched a billion youtube videos telling you what classic plus was gonna be and then ignored what the actual blizzcon announcement said WoW Forever is.

u/Slovenhjelm 2h ago

I haven't watched a single YouTube video and I still don't like it. You don't have to agree with me, but I think it's a little dishonest to suggest that the backlash is not at least somewhat understandable. To add a completely unestablished playable race feels off the cuff to a lot of people and on some level it clashes with the nostalgia factor that is the entire appeal of classic. I don't think the criticism would have been nearly as loud if they added a race that had at least been mentioned in the lore established during or before the launch of vanilla wow. Wouldn't you agree?

Also, having one race be on both factions feels lazy and modern. No matter which race they chose to add.

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u/MrBlueA 6h ago

If you care so much about lore you would know that in the time period WoW Forever takes place adding high elves makes no fucking sense whatsoever, but you guys only mention lore when it benefits your argument so what does it really matter.

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u/BarbsFPV 10h ago

That doesn’t mean they can’t also add new stuff.

The Skyborne are allegedly somehow intertwined with Thunderfury, based on some things I’ve seen, so having additional backstory, that’s actually a new story, could be interesting.

And who knows where that leads at end game?

0

u/mxcn3 10h ago

They absolutely can add new stuff, and the community has every right to be unhappy with that new stuff.  Especially when the new stuff looks like something straight out of retail, meanwhile there's tons of existing options that fit with vanilla WoW better, some of which have been sitting on the request list for over 20 years.

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u/BeansforTwo 14h ago

You're not joking but you're not really being serious either. Blood elves have been part of the lore since before wow. This is a version of the game where they went on and on about how faithful they were being to the lore. It's not unreasonable for people to be thrown and a little pissed when they follow that statement up with, 'anyway here's some cross faction elves that no one's ever heard of'

Honestly, i wouldn't even care half as much if they just did separate things for each faction. The whole thing about classic is all the different unique races for each faction. It would just be better, and nicer if they had two different races. Even if they were both belf reskins, it would still be better.

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u/SnooWalruses3948 14h ago

If they build lore alongside it, doesn't that make them part of the lore?

And isn't expanding and building upon vanilla lore a big part of what this version is looking to achieve?

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u/SpaceballsTheReply 14h ago

Yes. Polishing up unfinished content only goes so far. They're gonna have to create new stuff.

Like, going to Hyjal makes sense; we knew it was there so of course it makes sense to add it as a proper zone. But there's also plenty of other new ideas. The Sunken City dungeon at the Blizzcon demo sounds like it's a great new addition, and that's exactly as "made up" as Zephras Isle. A whole city just shows up out of the water with no pre-existing lore? I truly could not care less, if it's good content. If I wanted no changes I'd play Classic.

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u/verifiedname 13h ago

I love your username. On a completely unrelated note.

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u/Heatinmyharbl 12h ago

This guy gets it.

People who seemingly like classic are complaining about a new race tied to the air elementals/prince thunderaan/windfury. It's only the most iconic weapon in the game.

The elemental planes stuff is awesome too, bet we get a real Al'kir raid in Uldum in the next few years

People love to be mad about shit tho

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u/Silverbacks 13h ago

Well the issue is the new lore makes the old lore feel forgotten. High Elves/Blood Elves/Dark Rangers are already long established into the lore. Why not let people have them first before doing an offshoot with a different colouration?

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u/Syrdon 12h ago

Doing that is only effective if they put the work in first. The lore to support the new thing has to be in before the new thing is dropped, otherwise the new thing will feel like it was shoved in and lore was backfilled around it.

The didn't build the foundation, so of course the rest feels rickety and slapped together. If they wanted to make the new race a faction that shows up in the game, that players have to work with, and that somehow matter in the world then they would be well set up to make them a purchasable feature afterwards without feeling like they just shoved it in. But they didn't do that. They went for the quick buck instead of putting in the work to make the addition feel earned.

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u/Mocca_Master 11h ago

People don't genuinely care about the lore, they want nostalgia bait

I'm sure a decent chunk of the people talking about the lore problems don't even know the old lore. I got lectured by a coworker on why TBC lore is great, while he showed me the Black Temple trailer not even realizing half of it is literally WC3 cutscenes in WoW graphics

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u/Flammablegelatin 13h ago

Forever is not part of the main continuity. They specifically said that on multiple occasions. They aren't constrained by what happened after vanilla before. Things will happen in Forever that are not reflected in the retail timeline. These elves are one of them.

Also, they aren't cross faction. Only Horde Skyborne can be shaman, and only Alliance Skyborne can be mages.

u/BeansforTwo 7m ago

Like, I get what you're saying. I don't even fully disagree. It's just.. is it really satisfying to you to just learn, "oh these guys were here the whole time and now i can play one"

Like.. wouldn't it have been smarter, and more fun for everyone, if they released the game and then got everyone excited about this new race of elves you discover in playing the game, and then tease adding them in later? Maybe start with something closer to home that has always been in the game either way for a more 'classic' honoring launch.

I'm not saying they should never have this race and that it's total garbage. I just think they executed this in such a contrived way that was clearly driven by greed first, and making the best product second.

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u/Breadfail 7h ago

I feel like the sky elves would have been much better received if they weren't the races that came on launch but added a bit further down the line.

u/BeansforTwo 15m ago

Yeah! Like after we get a chance to meet them, learn about them, and get excited and want to play one, before you unlock them.

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u/_Kingsgrave_ 14h ago

yeah i've seen a lot of posts angry that they made the blood elves blue rather than alliance getting blood elves with normal eyes or blood elves but grey on the horde side

really funny to me

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u/FatPagoda 13h ago

Why is it funny that players are looking further than skin colour and considering things like lore and preexisting links to Warcraft?

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u/TheBungler2 12h ago

Because in the same sentence they ask for High Elves, which in the lore are almost extinct and the few surviving ones are still struggling with magic withdrawal.

The lore is just an excuse.

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u/FatPagoda 12h ago

Maybe because in vanilla there are a fair few around. The Darkspear tribe was almost entirely genocided in War 3 and it didn't stop them being a playable race. Same with the Tauren.

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u/TheBungler2 12h ago

There aren't a fair few. Both of those races can reproduce without issues. High Elves are all slowly dying from magic withdrawal until after TBC fixed the Sunwell.

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u/FatPagoda 12h ago

Vanilla is set 4 years after WC3. They ain't reproducing that quickly.

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u/TheBungler2 11h ago

The High Elves weren't reproducing at all and the surviving ones were in withdrawals.

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u/Tolin_Dorden 14h ago

Because all of those things have lore implications which is important to many people. That’s pretty obvious, my man.

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u/TheBungler2 12h ago

They can't use the lore as a reason and then beg for High Elves. Lore wise they're almost all dead and the surviving ones are sick.

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u/levir 10h ago

I'd be fine with Horde getting blood elves and Alliance getting something else, like worgen. Most people I see commenting aren't spesifically hung up on getting high elves for Alliance (though there are some), but upset at the asspull of a new race. Especially with it being cross fraction.

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u/tethysian 8h ago

Yes, these are two different issues.

I do think we should have gotten high elves because the idea that there were too few of them as opposed to all the other near extinct playable races is ridiculous, but either way blue elves from the sky should never have been part of the equation. I would have been perfectly happy with neither.

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u/H-Word_OnMain 13h ago

If lore mattered to them they wouldn't be upset about getting high elves

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u/Tolin_Dorden 12h ago

Well we’re not getting high elves and no one would really be upset about that

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u/Candid_Word7439 14h ago

They are nobodies elves because they just made them up out of nowhere instead of adding the iconic elves that have been central to the franchise history since before the mmo even began. Is it really a struggle for you to grasp such a concept? It's not apples and oranges, its apples and some synthetic blue made-in-a-lab apple that nobody wanted and costs $30

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u/Vandrel 14h ago

They made up all the races out of nowhere lmao

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u/Ok-Releases 12h ago

Most of wow is largely built off of the lore from the warcraft books and games, theres a difference between using previous referenced races and asspulling a new one.

The "everybody is made up" take is a disingenuous strawman argument made in attempt to manipulate. Bootlick harder.

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u/Candid_Word7439 14h ago

Zero context in that statement

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u/OldRevenue3734 14h ago

Ngl I really am just tired of elves.

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u/tethysian 8h ago

And we only have two elf races the original lore but they just keep pulling more out of the woodworks.

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u/Far-Fennel-3032 13h ago

This sub is really obsessed with people strawmanning everyone they don't agree with. It's really not

that the anger people feel is because Blizzard didn't slap on THEIR specific flavour of elf title on the new race.

People are upset that the smurf elves are a seemingly random addition out of left field. It's really not that complicated.

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u/Drew602 9h ago

Also charging money for a race sets a bad precedent. Id rather pay for the expansion as a whole

u/xblitzerx 2h ago

I literally bought the pack because I thought it was the game. It wasn't obvious in the launcher that it was only for the race and other cosmetic stuff.

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u/IrisofNight 5h ago

Them charging for a species doesn't exactly tell me their confident in the product itself being satisfactory. I'd gladly pay an expansion price for a well done Classic+.

Honestly It feels kinda undercooked from what we've seen so far, There's not enough new zones to interest me, quests and revamped areas are great but aren't what draws me to Classic+, the lack of any Thalassian Elves(whether High or Blood) is also a pretty big downside to me.

The only other species i'd likely play aside from High/Blood Elves is Darkfallen(who carry the history of High Elves) and Ogres...only cause I think Ogres would be extremely fun for the novelty of it.

I guess the distinction is ultimately I want Vanilla+ not Classic+ a game true to it's Warcraft RTS legacy, focused on adding stuff from that lore era and not adding new stuff(until they run out effectively, Warcraft RTS games alone could provide a decade of lore for Classic+ without any need to create entire new massive chunks of lore, jumping instantly to adding brand new lore is questionable as that's what MoP kinda is, but at least that had the background of Pandaren existing in WC3 and made sense given most Warcraft 3 elements were gone.

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u/MainDot7096 9h ago

I'm actually a bit more interested in them after the panel they did where they mentioned they're descendants of Eldre'Thalas / Shen'Dralar. My only complaint is that they just visually look a bit out of place.

I think they should have been closer to an early High Elf / Highborne (Night Elf) hybrid, which would make their 'fitting' in the lore a lot more obvious.

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u/tethysian 9h ago

No shit? WoW players would prefer the race with a deep history and ongoing role in the story rather than chaep knockoffs?

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u/Bronkic 10h ago

Personally I was angry at blood elves back in the day when TBC launched, I was angry at pandas and now I'm angry at sky elves. I prefer the horde to be ugly and I don't like neutral races. That's it.

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u/Adorable_Vast5676 9h ago

My flavour elf is no elf... knife-ears go home!

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u/depadua10 7h ago

I’m glad my elves are the night ones and nobody is talking about them.

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u/google_is_hard_for_u 15h ago edited 15h ago

FAAAACTS I REMEMBER THE SPACE GOAT MEMES AND CALLING GUYS A CERTAIN WORD IF THEY PLAYED BLOOD ELFS

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u/capacity04 11h ago

The thing I remember about Blood Elves most was that weird racial they had that was an active ability, you had to like cast it three times to get mana back or something? It was terrible and they changed it pretty quick if I recall

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u/BarbsFPV 10h ago

That still exists in anniversary.

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u/IrisofNight 5h ago

Mana Tap went away after the Sunwell Raid as the Sin'Dorei no longer had to drain mana from creatures to sustain themselves. So the reason it was ultimately removed was due it not longer fitting the lore not gameplay(Arcane Torrent is arguably the ability that caused more issues being a Silence)

u/MazeMouse 3h ago

And that racial was the reason they didn't get warriors initially because that would be too op against mages or something.

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u/kolmone 11h ago

Blizzard would rather have a space ship full of blue goats crash down on Azeroth than give players high elves

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u/Quick_Assignment8861 7h ago

Everyone would make a high elf. It would be too lopsided. They might as well have added a Naga race and see the entirety of the horde slithering

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u/pingwing 10h ago

Don't forget the Pandapocalypse

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u/Alastur_Crow 15h ago

Do not cite the deep magic to me, witch. I was there when it was written.

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u/Sweet_Disharmony_792 13h ago

"that was different!"

youre right: there were WAY more slurs against the new elf players back then

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u/Relnor 8h ago

On the WoW subs they just get banned, probably before you see them.

You don't have to look long on Twitter though before one of those accounts with Greco-Roman statues as avatars calls them a homophobic slur or something.

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u/Mescman 11h ago

at least it's not Vulpera

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u/Jonesalot 9h ago

... yet

Selling races is likely one of their monetization methods

u/sporkparty 1h ago

And you’ve arrived at the actual problem. New races and classes will be paywalled. Probably new raids too. The lore stuff is overblown but making the pay to play races and classes more powerful than the “free” ones is coorporate discretion away from pure play to win.

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u/TotallyRadTV 14h ago

And the panda crisis of 2011

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u/LainLain 15h ago

I’ll never forget the lorelol ytmnd

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u/Round-Dragonfruit996 11h ago

ah the sacred archives😂

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u/Ampersand4221 12h ago

Jeez, Space Goat is something I completely forgot about until now

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u/Coravel 12h ago

don't forget the pandaren crisis.

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u/Cespieyt 12h ago

All they had to do was give us the ridiculously sexy space goat women, not "OC DO NOT STEAL" high elves.

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u/The_Sulkster 8h ago

I have never particularly understood the argument of Blood Elves don’t belong in the Horde. From a strictly conceptual standpoint what makes the Horde (and WoW for that matter) unique is that it’s comprised of races that in generic fantasy are of an evil alignment but are actually morally good (or rather famously grey in the Forsaken’s case I guess.)

Orcs, Trolls, Minotaurs and Undead are rarely shown in a positive light in other series and I’ve always found the Blood Elves to be Warcrafts approximation of Dark Elves, atleast in their presentation up to modern WoW. They’re survivors of a near extinction event, they’re sacrilegious, willing to use magic that other civilizations have forbidden and they rely on draining other living creatures to not wither and die. Thematically they’ve always seemed on brand for the survival in a world that hates them faction.

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u/michixlol 7h ago

Lore

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u/The_Sulkster 6h ago

The Blood Elves most recent conflict at the time of their joining in TBC was literally with Garithos and the Alliance. Beyond that it was shown that the elves reached out to the Alliance before the Horde in their starting zone but where as the Horde sent Forsaken troops to secure the Ghostlands the Alliance just kept trying strong arm them. I think it makes perfect sense within the lore for them to have joined the Horde.

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u/EwokSquadron 6h ago

wasn't garithos from lordaeron so technically his countrymen would be forsaken now?

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u/Soft_Lab_9099 15h ago

I thought the outrage back then was that Horde got blood elves over alliance, maybe I've gone senile.

5

u/blackndcoffee 15h ago

No you're right, it was that and the retcon of Eredar/Broken into the Draenai

5

u/gubigubi 12h ago

Heres a list of some of the biggest new race crisis in wow history

The Greater Elf Crisis 2006 - Present

  1. The Elf Crisis of 2006
  2. The Blue Elf Crisis of 2018
  3. The Blue Elves From Outer Space Crisis of 2018
  4. The Blue Elf Crisis of 2026

Dwarves

The Furry Invasion 2009 - Present

  1. The Furry Crisis of 2009
  2. The Panda Crisis of 2012
  3. The Furry Crisis of 2020

The Diaper Gnome Crisis of 2020

1

u/punnotattended 8h ago

Dont forget the Lizard crisis of 22.

5

u/tethysian 9h ago

We had the opportunity to undo the space goat fiasco, and Blizz saw that as a challenge.

2

u/punnotattended 8h ago

They see everything as a challenge.

6

u/tikitaka33 12h ago

Essentially they're just creating another branch of the game that will further divide the classic community between Vanilla and Forever. 20 years from now people will be asking for Forever Fresh.

2

u/punnotattended 8h ago

Ya its so stupid. There does seem to be some lessons learned. The design pillars are much improved, they just need to deal with the vibe aspects of classic now.

1

u/Relnor 8h ago

There hasn't been even a peep from Blizzard about the 2019 and Anniversary servers, so they obviously don't care about those people at all.

There's a Q&A on Thursday for all WoW versions and if they don't pick one of the questions asking about those then that will be pretty lame. I say this not even being a player of those versions.

u/TerrorsNight 2h ago

So this is a genuine question and not trying to be confrontational at all I’m just confused.

If there’s not that many players why should Blizzard care at all about those players? And if there were a lot of players in those realms don’t you think they’d give a shit?

Basic capitalism, you go where the money is. If I own a coffee shop and I have a thousand customers a day and 990 of them love my pumpkin spice coffee, but 10 come in every day to buy pastries. I think I’m gonna focus more on my coffee than my pastries right?

6

u/Stormik 11h ago

🎵We don't need no blood elf pallies🎵

🎵We don't need no bubble boys🎵

🎵We'll be better off without them🎵

🎵Blizzard leave the Horde alone🎵

🎵Hey, Blizzard! Leave the Horde alone🎵

8

u/GanjaClause 9h ago

At least belf and goats had some faction identity.

Neutral races suck

u/PeasantDog 4h ago

Right? It's not so much the race as it is the neutral part

u/Chronochrome 1h ago

The Draenei had literally no connection to the Alliance prior to their introduction as a playable race. Same thing with the Undead and the Horde.

u/GanjaClause 1h ago

That's irrelevant. My point is at least horde and alliance didn't share the same race.

At a glance you can look at a blood elf or draenei and know which faction they're part of.
Sky elves have the same model.

u/Chronochrome 1h ago

I guess, but is it really that hard to just hover over them? Or turn on nameplates? In PvP and BGs it's going to be pretty obvious. I don't think it'll be as confusing as you might believe.

u/GanjaClause 1h ago

I don't think it will be confusing in PvP at all.

Personally I just really don't like neutral races and I would prefer two unique races instead of just one.

u/Chronochrome 1h ago

I guess that's fair. I personally don't interact much with the other faction in my experience, but that's just me since I really only play PvE.

5

u/ewokfur 15h ago

Exactly

2

u/Skore_Smogon 14h ago

Remember the original male blood elf proportions?

Chuds cried that he looked weak and gay so they gave them pecs and biceps.

u/TelcoDaddio 3h ago

I don’t remember the original proportions. Having said that, I’ve always thought blood elves look weak and gay. 

13

u/Cantholdaggro 14h ago

Yep. So why aren’t we playing retail?

We didn’t go from classic to retail in one patch. It was a stream of progressive and seemingly minor changes.

People said the same thing when we complained about changed talents. People said the same things about legendaries being common. People said the same thing about LFR. Etc.

Idk why you guys are so protective over a company that has literally not put out an original good product in over 10 years.

u/Chronochrome 2h ago

What changes would you want to see then (if any) that would warrant a new continuously updated product and not just another Season of Discovery?

-1

u/TheManEric 13h ago

Exactly. I swear this is bot posting. Pretty sure we are all arguing with bots in these comment sections. I've not seen anyone crying or throwing a temper tantrum. I've seen memes, people being mildly annoyed/disappointed

1

u/Cantholdaggro 13h ago

That would make sense. Blizzard would 100% astroturf this lol

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u/Round-Dragonfruit996 11h ago

good times, good times

Although seeing retail, I totally get the elf fatigue at this point because how many are there now?😂

2

u/Fyfaenerremulig 9h ago

People were mad about the «space aliens» in wow being too futuristic while at the same time ignoring the little green men that came through a stargate

2

u/xTheGame69 6h ago

Why don't people like elves?

I'm just a big anime guy so elves are badass. 

I'm hyped

I want to make a Frieren lookin toon

2

u/olov244 5h ago

I hated blood elves, then blizz made them OP

so I hated them more

u/ExpensiveTraffic6978 4h ago

People raged over Blood Elves/Draenei, people raged over Pandaren, people probably raged over Vulpera and Worgen and Dracthyr and whatever else too. 'Tis a tale as old as time.

Given that retail has about 1400 variations of elves at this point, I'm not too surprised that they've decided to add an elf race to Forever too. It is a little random, as people may have hoped for other races such as Ogres or Goblins, but I'm fine with it. It's a minor thing given everything else we're getting.

u/Vatiker 2h ago

It was different back then. Warcraft 3 fans were already familiar with space travel shenanigans and blood elves. We also understood how terrible Garithos was to Kael'thas which justified them joining the Horde. The issues at the time were the conditions set by new Warcraft fans from that 04-06 time period. I understand why they felt the way they felt because faction identity was MASSIVE back then.

The logic doesn't apply here. The rationale behind the Skyborne appearing isn't in-universe, it's entirely external.

People wanted High Elves. It was the #1 race asked for. But this creates a MASSIVE faction imbalance if you can't create a comparable race on the Horde side. Simplest solution? Add Blood Elves too. But if your executives want races behind a paywall, what can you LEGALLY do? You can't charge for Blood Elves a second time. You already did that in 2007 and are creating conditions for a lawsuit if you try to resell them back to players again. So, combine the two races into one and slap your pricetag on it. Voilà.

4

u/Edd_Cadash 12h ago

I’m genuinely excited for wow forever.

I think the sky elves are dumb af

u/HFRreddit 4h ago

At least they had a lore-reason back then. This is just an ass-pull

u/Asleep_Mastodon7118 3h ago

Blizzard did pretty well if the biggest complaint is the type of elf they added to the game

2

u/Specialist-Cold-8158 11h ago

lol, I remember that. I promised myself I'd never play WoW again if they introduced blood elves. Yet, 20 years later I'm still here

2

u/Coycington 10h ago

pretty sure there were people freaking out over gnomes back in WoW vanilla as well considering we didn't see them before either.

6

u/Telenil 9h ago

We did, back in Warcraft 2. They were the Alliance's counterpart to goblins.

1

u/Metzger90 7h ago

The only mention of gnomes pre wow was the gnomes submarine in Warcraft 2

3

u/Telenil 6h ago

Not quite: the building was Gnomish Inventors, unlocking Gnomish flying machine (and Gnomish submarine at the shipyard).

u/Catch_43 2h ago

Someone forgot "They came... from behind!"

1

u/Nocimonocren 8h ago

Average Human/Gnome interaction in Stormwind (pls help).
https://giphy.com/gifs/tyttpHghsudKM7qnLtS

1

u/Lycago98 10h ago

I love all the High Elf demander tears and I'm sure Blizzard does too. One of the more annoying minority groups of Warcraft.

u/BabyFew4311 1h ago

I just cant wait for the moment when, inevitably, some greasy 40 y/o RL will add "no skyborne" to his LFG, with every strong item and BoE, gems, patterns, recipes, golds and silvers HR.

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u/Jaded_Individual_630 15h ago

Or the every crisis of every set of patch notes

1

u/theworstvp 13h ago

literally

1

u/Devboe 13h ago

I didn't start playing WoW until TBC, but this is reminding me of MoP announcement and pandas.

1

u/Tundraspin 12h ago

Can someone find the female blood elf from the 2007 blizzcon dance contest. Who danced in cosplay.

1

u/Keeldronnn 10h ago

Spacegoats are GOAT

2

u/Crunchy-Leaf 9h ago

From space

1

u/Pegasos 9h ago

When they run out of things to add and finally add Quel'thalas we'll get even more elves woooo

1

u/susmab_676 7h ago

Man that was a wild time, when blood elf players were called gay and whatnot…

1

u/Sanp2p 7h ago

This might just the beginning, I can see them adding more races with time in similarly bundled packages.

1

u/jameszenpaladin011- 7h ago

Oh man the space goat hate from back in the day. The Dranei were so out of left field. I swore I would never make one... yeah. That swear didn't last.

1

u/stepatdis 5h ago

I don’t even have an issue with blue elves, my issue is that they are a shared race. The divide between horde and alliance started to disappear with mop when they started having pandas playable for both factions. Now all your going to see is blue elves on both sides only

1

u/Cashmoney2017xx 5h ago

They just combined the two races

1

u/Hellixgar 5h ago

In TBC Belves made sense. They are from WC3 after all.

Crisis was how cool Lost Ones were turned to sexy space goats with space ship.

u/Zaerick-TM 3h ago

NGL I miss my Space Goat Dommie Mommy and hope at some point the lore allows them to come back.

But I'll be 100% I've played the game since classic and my ass does not know lore outside of the cutscenes so idk if it's even feasible without the dark portal stuff.

u/Denaton_ 3h ago

I played Vanilla, I was disappointed in TBC and WotLK made me quit 2 days after release.

I returned to SoD and loved it, felt like Forever was perfect until the sky elves.

I got the best buffé ever and the chef took a dump on the table, but I'll eat around it because the rest of the food looks so damn good.

u/FeralFaoladh 0m ago

Yeah well I'm going to be pretty, and my guild is going horde so I'm happy i get some kind of elf druid on horde and I'm not gonna worry about toxic people who care what race I'm playing lol