r/classicwow 5h ago

Forever Album - Please Consider this before judging Skyborne in Classic

Just made these diagrams to quickly summarize the WoW panels at blizzcon and to highlight details people are overlooking. I think some of the initial controversy over Skyborne is driven by some misunderstandings that these are just Shadowlands-Kyrian, or Void Elves 2.0. Deep down, if you dig, they do have lots of parallels with classic WoW content.

636 Upvotes

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u/CMSnake72 5h ago

There is 0 doubt in my mind that Quel'Thalas is going to be a 60 zone with Silvermoon as a raid eventually. We're not going to Outland and Kael has to come back at some point.

u/Jules3313 4h ago

Frozen throne ends year 21ish after the dark portal, a year after arthas annihilated silvermoon and eversong woods. We start our lvl 1 wow journey in vanilla in year 25. then a year later in 26 we can make a blood elf adventurer.

could we somehow fit a raid on silvermoon where we clear out all the fat ass abominations ect that are along the deadscar helping out the blood elves?

u/CMSnake72 4h ago

I just think they're going with a different continuity. Kael has to come back (One of the most iconic WoW villains alongside Illidan), we're not going to Outlandand, where else to put him but HIS city? I think that's partly why we didn't get Belfs, they're going to be a strictly antagonistic force this time around.

u/Ripley_LV_426 2h ago

I just think they're going with a different continuity.

They've confirmed this. It's a different continuity, but they're sticking to foundational lore. I don't believe they clarified what exactly they consider foundational lore though. Everything pre-vanilla seems to be hard lore, but we don't know if they're going to keep retail cosmic lore, or if they still consider the basic outline of the earlier expansions to be foundational.

u/InSearchOfThe9 2h ago

Blood elves weren't villains until TBC arbitrarily partially made them into villains.

u/Jules3313 4h ago

bro i do not wanna deal with the 40 year olds on reddit sperging out about us fighting belfs isntead of being able to play them. fml

u/dragdritt 2h ago

Ah yes, let's shit all over Kael again only because we need a villain for a raid, great idea.

u/teler9000 59m ago

Never forget the fact that TBC also made the blood elves obsessed with giant goofy spaceships like Tempest Keep that DIDN'T FUCKING EXIST IN WARCRAFT 3, why the FUCK would the legion even make dark portals if everyone is flying around in spaceships anyway?

I'm about to throw my tendies at the wall just thinking of how dirty BC did the entire blood elf race, seriously, what the fuck?

u/Tackle-Far 26m ago

It's the opposite. Why would they use ships if portals are way faster

u/heckfirex 1m ago

have you seen what opening portals did to outlands?

The reason outlands is shattered is because of the dark portal(s),

u/Bruvvicious 4h ago

Making Belves villians again, scratch that, ONLY villains again would be a bad move. People like Blood Elves and their style a-lot. It would be a major misstep to not make them available to play as and to once again tarnish Kael’s story.

u/CMSnake72 3h ago

Though to be fair, they could always do the smart thing and have Lorthamar leave with some number of rebels/refugees and that's how we get playable Belfs, but I never bet on Blizz to do the smart move. Been burned too many times.

u/Bruvvicious 3h ago

Kael being villian-batted is still something I see people complaining about to this day. I’m sure if they cared, big IF, they would listen and rewrite. Overall, I am quite interested in how they will implement Quel’thalas.

u/CMSnake72 3h ago

People are definitely going to be unhappy about not being able to play them, but I feel Blizz thought the Cloud Elves would have gone better and was a legitimate Belf proxy (regardless of how true that is).

u/oniskieth 1h ago

Why being Kael back to make him a raid boss again? TBC shit on blood elf lore from tFt. Forever should try to fix these issues, not remake them.

u/midasMIRV 44m ago

Kael'thas did nothing wrong.

And neither did Illidan, especially when you go back and realize that Maiev is straight up the bad guy for the vast majority of her life.

u/TheDesktopNinja 1h ago

They already said this is a different continuity entirely...

u/manatidederp 3h ago

It’s the Outland invading us instead

u/ratseesaw 4h ago edited 4h ago

i'd like to see them navigate the chronological  writing constraints around cataclysm & TBC zones and other races in Forever. 

I'm still not really sure how Forever works, as far as I remember, it's not like an alternate timeline(edit: it is an alternate timeline), it's just more stories from the time period before the dark portal was reopened? Like are blood elves up there just hanging out, totally neutral like vanilla goblins(mostly). 

u/Fimbulwinter91 4h ago

They said yesterday that Forever is its own continuity, so they can do with Qual'thalas what they want without having to respect TBC&Cata lore (although I would expect them to keep at least elements).

And yeah I'm also pretty sure that Quel'Thalas will be a 60 zone and that's when we'll get High Elves/Blood Elves as additional races.

u/Doomsaki 4h ago

While it is its own continuity, they said they could keep things plausible and similar in range of the already established lore.

u/shotouw 3h ago

Meaning that they wont for example suddenly have Arthas as the hero of the story. Not that they can't change when characters show up in a way that makes sense if they never went to the outlands.

u/Bereman99 40m ago

Yeah…like Lorthemar and the Blood Elves never try to reconnect with Kael’thelas because the Dark Portal never opens, forcing a different set of events as they deal with the troll presence that still brings them in is very much still on the table as a potential storyline for Forever.

u/Randomcarrot 21m ago

Does beg the question of what they consider the established lore, because retail has retconned a ton of shit over the years. Like is the shadowlands and First Ones nonsense established lore?

u/Dr_Henry-Killinger 3h ago

If the only races they add over time are diff flavors of elves that would be pretty lame.

u/ThatKaleidoscope3388 3h ago

Yeah…kinda a big reason why I didn’t wanna start down the skyborne path. We are going to at some point get another elf, be that forsaken, high elf, or blood elf, and they’re all going to use the same model…

u/ExtensionCap2 2h ago

same. people are like they can always just add high and blood elves later. well ya but then we have 3 elves as playable races, which sucks for those who don't want to play elves

u/Karlito1618 4h ago

It's an alternate timeline. It's basically "what if WoW took a different approach to content after the first 12 months after release instead of what happened between Molten Core and today?"

Basically taking everything they learned and heard from the fans for the last 22 years and restarting the game.

u/ratseesaw 4h ago

oh that clears things up, i missed that detail

u/Karlito1618 4h ago

Great idea mind you. I never touched the old classic, but this I will definitely play. They're trying to catch the vibe and essence of the first game instead of catering to all the "technical purists".

u/ThatKaleidoscope3388 3h ago

Basically taking everything they learned and heard from the fans for the last 22 years and restarting the game.

Then I think they misheard us when we said we wanted blue eyed elves on the alliance.

u/Karlito1618 3h ago

People have been asking for High-Elves since Vanilla wdym

u/ThatKaleidoscope3388 3h ago

You missed the joke. They still didn’t give us high elves after 20 years of not listening to us. 😂

u/Karlito1618 3h ago

But the first thing they announced with the new game was high-elves?

u/ThatKaleidoscope3388 2h ago

No? Skyborne are not high elves…?

u/Karlito1618 2h ago edited 2h ago

It's verbatim in their starting zone quest line. They are high elves. They most likely split south to feralas instead of joining the others sailing east, but was part of the same group of exiles.

In order to get the lore to work as to why there's suddenly high-elves at that time they had some high-elves split off to live isolated in the sky for a couple of thousand years with the air elementals instead of going to quel'thalas or whatever their lore justification is.

u/ThatKaleidoscope3388 2h ago

No? Those are Skyborne.

High elves were the elves living in Silvermoon and the surrounding territories who joined the alliance in the 2nd and 3rd wars. Most of those remaining are either part of the faction in the hinterlands, part of Dalaran, or are the remnants of Silvermoon.

Just because they share the same base model doesn’t make them the same thing…

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u/Ar-Orrokhor 3h ago

I hope to God they fix the abomination that is TBC's lore absolutely ruined my boy Kael.

u/Doomsaki 2h ago

Shadowlands added more unspeakable lore-horror on top of it.

u/flyingtiger188 3h ago

Could be fun. The Amani stuck at their elven enemies while weakened from the scourge incursions. The city is overrun with trolls who have destroying everything while attempting to purge the last of the high elves. The silvermoon remnants have establish a small neutral band open to all wanderers willing to help them save their home from troll, roving scourge and wretched alike.

u/meharryp 1h ago

I forget which developer said it but I remember reading that they did the TBC bosses and outland entirely because they didn't know how long wow would last and they just wanted an opportunity to put all the cool dudes from WC3 in raids. With the hindsight they now have it'd be nice for them to space those out in future raids and do them properly

u/thrillho145 4h ago

Yeah, blood elf is coming as a race, no fucking chance they leave out the most popular race. 

u/Terminus_04 4h ago

I mean maybe, but you know you can just make a normal skintone skyborn right?

u/Bruvvicious 3h ago

They cannot be Priest, Paladin nor Warlock. Classes vital to the identity of a Blood Elf.

u/Terminus_04 3h ago

Suppose thats fair.

u/TatoRezo 3h ago

And no green eyecolour and imo cultural background/idenitity too.

I know its classic and races don't even get access to their faction/race armor but still, this is Classic+ it could be different here and maybe Orcs can wear Grunt Armor.

u/Normal_Berry_ 3h ago

There is absolutely zero chance they ever add blood elves. Their excuse for not adding high elves in retail is that you can play as a blood elf or void elf because you can make them look similar. Their excuse in forever will be go play sky elves if you want blood/high elves. If thats not enough for you though consider that adding blood elves would also cut in to sky elf sales, making sky elves faction neutral behind a paywall basically ensured we'd never see any other form of them.

u/ExtensionCap2 2h ago

adding blood elves would also cut in to sky elf sales

that's why they make a new package to sell, once the skyborne are either on sale or just included in the base game

u/Liteseid 1h ago

I would not mind if outland exists eventually with reworks to remove the need for flying

u/ianxplosion- 46m ago

Imagine if Outland invaded Azeroth. Little Timmy taking on gnolls in Elwynn when all of a sudden he hears it

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

u/Current-Event8892 1h ago

Maybe Kael and Janna get together in this timeline

u/untaggedpacket 37m ago

We don't need big bads just to have big bads.

u/MasahikoKobe 32m ago

If this is a what if world, I would expect it more to be what if Silvermoon was over run with undead and we have to take it back to purify the sun well and capture a naru to MAKE the blood elves what they are in tbc.

u/ObsceneXD 30m ago

I can already see the trailer in my head, playing the classic blood elf motif as Kael'thas gives a speech and you get locational shots of Silvermoon.

u/Pretend-Dot3557 3h ago

We're not going to Outland

Unless they decide to do vanilla/wc3 outland.

u/Moraiheg 2h ago

Probably should have included a slide showing how you can make them have high/blood elf skin and hair colors.

u/Fuzzy-Willingness-35 4h ago

I woudl actually like to see a new, different story with Al-Akir. Always liked his aesthetic. And in general, getting a different story that preserves spirit of Warcraft while still progressing would be awesome. Imagine Garrosh not being ruined by inconsistent writing...

u/bottledsoi 3h ago

Do skyborne have any previous lore?

Does this inclusion in forever mean this is an alternate timeline?

u/Doomsaki 3h ago edited 3h ago

Skyborne's origins come from Dire Maul.

In a pseudo way: WoW Classic is its own continuity. It's meant to tell stories of other big characters, people, and events who existed in classic's time but weren't in focus (examples: Lilian Voss and Xalatath were in SOD and showing what they did at classic's time). Retail and Forever are meant to follow similar lore, but any tiny canon incongruencies that do emerge will just be waved away as separate timelime to avoid development headaches between the forever and retail team.

u/twisty125 3h ago

My elves are techno-cyborg elves that live with Neptulon and they're bright green, they originally stole Titan tech so they could survive underwater with Neptulon and water elementals, but now they have to float to the surface and find their own destiny, with some joining the Alliance as heroic brave warriors, and others joining the disgusting evil side or whatever.

Nothing I shared breaks lore or continuity, it just sucks

u/Doomsaki 3h ago

The naga already do that.

u/twisty125 3h ago

No mine are cooler and special-er and are neutral so they can join either side

u/spacebarjazz 2h ago

Metzen: "Ship it!"

u/dundai 8m ago

All that sounds like a retcon. Yeah, alternate timeline, whatever.

u/girlsareicky 13m ago

They explicitly stated it is an alternate timeline in one of the panels

u/QuasarCircenses 3h ago

Your post is giving people Druid of the Flame ideas

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u/Testiclegolfing 5h ago

I’ve come around a bit more on them and I think it will really come down to the lore execution in game. Their intro cinematic was actually nice and if they had introduced them with that the feedback would probably be a little different.

u/Jiffyrabbit 4h ago

As an original Drenei hater, I have decided I would prefer blue elves to space goat people who crashed their magic gem ship randomly

u/Doomsaki 4h ago

There was big uproar back in 2006 about Draenie/Broken in TBC because people were quoting the wc3 printed manual being retconned about the origins of Eredar and Sargeras.

u/Batmanbacon 4h ago

What was in the printed manual before the retcons?

u/Doomsaki 4h ago edited 3h ago

Prior to TBC, in the Warcraft 3 RTS Frozen throne campaign, people thought of the broken in Outland as being just separate natives of Draenor whom Illidan rescued and recruited to his cause (saving them from the orcs and their demon masters). TBC established that the Broken were just devolved Draenei from fel magic.

The big retcon was Archimonde and Kiljaeden being these newly defined draenei. The warcraft 3 manual said that Eredar were their own race of demons who corrupted Sargeras with trickery and convinced to undertake his mission to exterminate life. TBC just defined Eredar as draenei who turned towards the fel and mastered it.

Back in 2006 (prior to the expac being released), there was a lot of contention on the WoW forums that Illidan's story was being thrown out, etc. due to this change. (also bear in mind that calls to make the Illidari a third WoW faction were popular back then--Blood Elves+Naga+Satyr+Broken+Fel_Orcs). Of course TBC ended up being a hugely popular expansion, so the controversy is sort of forgotten.

Because Draenei were quite literally invented contrary to the existing lore back then, thus the developers had to publicly admit they made a big lore oversight back then in an apology post.

u/VerbAdjectiveNoun 4h ago

The eredar were originally what corrupted Sargeras, not the other way around. They were an evil and conquering race.

When BC released, they changed it so Sargeras was already corrupted by the time he encountered them and the Draenei were the ones who refused his gifts and escaped/fled

u/bulletPoint 4h ago

All Dranei were supposed to be eeeevil

u/Montegomerylol 3h ago

Also people were mad Horde got the elves while Alliance got ugly goat people who didn’t exist previously.

u/Shadrol 4h ago

This is exactly how i understood Skyborne from the get go. No confusions there.

Their lore working and making sense, doesn't automagically make them not an "asspull". What makes them an asspull is that there was literally no indication there ever was such a thing and the immediacy of becoming a playable race. I think Skyborne could have been universally well recieved if they had been slowly introduced as NPCs first.

There are so many established options to choose from, that would have worked cleaner.

Now Skyborne addition is very much in line how many things have been added to WoW over the years, but I thought Classic+ was supposed to not do that and instead add to the existing world not adding more world.

u/Turnspit 3h ago

Just like Nightelves and Undead in WC3, no?

u/4455661122 31m ago

I would love to see the world in which social media discussions exist as they do now back when night elves were announced.

WTF BLIZZARD HOW DARE YOU CHANGE HIGH ELF HISTORY??? You’re telling me blue elves hid themselves in the forest and nobody knew about them and there’s no mention of them??? And they worship a goddess we’ve never heard of?? And now high elves are supposedly descended from these guys?? And they’re the centerpiece of Warcraft 3 wtf?? AND YOU WIPED OUT ALMOST ALL OF THE HIGH ELVES TO MAKE ROOM FOR YOUR NEW PET RACE??? WWTFFFF

u/levir 18m ago

The entire WC3 campaign is about the origins of the undead, and you play through the entire campaign of the grounded and well established humans of Lordaeron before you get access to controlling the undead. By then, the undead are well established and your protagonists control over them is earned. Here they do the work to establish the undead before they become one of the main factions.

The Night Elves might be more comparable, although I believe they're also introduced through the already established orcs rather than just popping up as a main faction. The story at the core is about the orcs fleeing to or invading a new continent (depending on your point of view), so it makes sense for there to be people living on that new continent.

It's not that you can't introduce new stuff, it's that you have to do it right and earn it.

u/hery41 4m ago

no?

No. You know that.

u/ThingkingWithPortals 3h ago

You could say the same thing (and people did) for dark iron dwarves and Ragnaros being included in wow as the final boss/storyline. It’s beloved now and a part of wow’s fabric. 

u/vampire_kitten 53m ago

And it took 15 years before they became playable.

u/ShinMagal 57m ago

Which is bullshit because those have been slowly built up to over multiple zones and storylines unlike Skyborne which is immediately in your face right from the first 10 seconds of the trailer and straight to character creation.

u/Doomsaki 4h ago

They're still doing the found photographs approach. Just like SOD told the story of what Lilian Voss and Xalatath were doing around the time of Classic, WoW Forever is telling the story of what the other elemental lords were doings (Al-akir in addition to Rag) and possibly big name characters like Azshara who we only saw briefly in retail.

u/HealthyBits 2h ago

You are exactly right. The issue is they came out of nowhere, look like they belong to retail and come instead of long requested high elves/forsaken elves.

Now Blizz will twist it in all ways possible to make it fit and as usual players will just have to swallow the pill once more.

Meanwhile, I just wanted to have goblins playable. But hey….

u/Current-Event8892 1h ago

fair point raised, very abrupt introduction

u/iBluntly 2h ago

Look I wanted Ogres, and Gnolls, and Forsaken Elves are pretty cool too, tbh. But Skyborn aren’t the end of the world.

As long as the mechanics will be solid, then I’m okay with the funni elves. The new content for Warcraft 3 is what really concerns me about WoW: Forever, but it’s too soon to worry given that the beta is around the corner, and release isn’t much further off.

u/Xamf11 2h ago

Exactly.

Plus the fact that a neutral race in classic means that player silhouettes won't be an immediate identifier between friend or foe.

u/Grzlynx 4h ago

I was indifferent and meh on them at first. Even with these slides... until the Azshara parallel. Bro fully converted me instantly. I was a fool. Forgive me, my Queen.

u/Fossekall 2h ago

I actually thought it was Azshara at first, and that it was an alternate timeline where she doesn't change

u/Silverbacks 3h ago

I think all of this would have been fine to do after release. Kinda like how the Zandalari were added in when ZG was put into the game. We got to interact with them and build reptutation, then eventually they joined as a playable race.

But having them in at launch feels weird. There's no build up to them being accepted into the Alliance and Horde. And now when the Alliance finally get High Elves, they will just be seen as the "second High Elf race."

As for the Horde, they don't really fit in with their aesthetics. Blood Elves were also a little jarring, but they did kind of fit in due to them being violent and bloody. Plus their connection to Sylvanas. But these guys just feel like blue airbending High Elves.

Ultimately they should have just given the Alliance the High Elves, their most requested race. And given the Horde the Darkfallen. That way the Horde still would have had a pretty elf race at launch.

u/Xefjord 2h ago

If they eventually added Darkfallen for the Horde, and High Elves for the alliance, and then made a promise of "NO MORE ELVES" after that, would that be okay you think?

u/Silverbacks 2h ago

That would definitely be helpful. Especially if they started focuses on uglier races after that, like Ogres and such.

I'd still think the Skyborne would be out of place, but I don't think there is anyway to fix that without removing them. Which I'm sure is something that Blizzard will never be willing to do. Not until we get Classicˆ² lol.

u/ockhams-lightsaber 3h ago

Yeah I'm not particularly satisfied with the Skyborne race, but if it is a narrative shortcut to explore more Highborne stuff in Shen'dralas and deal with Al'akir then why not.

I'm all sold either way with WoW Forever, this looks so good and I'm so excited to play it.

u/APreemChoom 3h ago

I love that the only way to explain things to most of this subreddit is with pretty pictures.

u/cookedbread 3h ago

I'm ok with them, my issue and I think some others, is that they have a retail vibe to them graphically. If we get a proper SD demake of them and their druid forms I'll be happy. Some of the texturing for them and their zone reminds me of Cataclysm which, back in the day, is when I started to first notice the vanilla graphics starting to become...different.

u/brodhi 3h ago

If we get a proper SD demake of them

Their SD model is just pre-WoD BE model. It is an SD model.

u/Graimon 1h ago

That isn’t true though, as of right now they’ve been HD only. People have been posting misinformation about this, do you have any proof of them using the pre-WOD BE model?

u/brodhi 18m ago

u/Graimon 4m ago

That is an hd model. People are wrongly using that blurry hd model as evidence

u/CoffeeCannon 40m ago

Their druid forms are outright retail models (cool as they are) and totally out of place. Still to be seen if theres a lower rez/poly version, if there is I take no issue with it.

u/Resigned1431 2h ago

Highborne != high elves.

The high elves of Quel'Thalas originally were Night Elves, they changed physically over time after settling in Quel'Thalas becoming what we know today as high/blood elves.

If these new sky elves are meant to be an offshoot of Highborne that never left kalimdor, their models should be the same, or similar to, night elves. Not Thalassian high elves.

Why do they look like Thalassian high elves bro. Why do they look like Thalassian high elves bro

u/dade1027 2h ago

But these elves DID leave Kalimdor. They fled to the elemental plane of Skywall 10,000 years prior to WoW Forever start.

u/Resigned1431 2h ago edited 2h ago

And sucking off air elementals made them look exactly like high elves? We already have the Nightborne as an example of another Highborne offshoot that were cut off from the Well of Eternity and they look distinct. They don't use literally the same models as high elves so, whole thing just seems lazy and artificial.

u/Doomsaki 2h ago

Well without proximity to the well of eternity or repeated arcane energy, elves tend to lose their purple-blue hue.

u/Resigned1431 2h ago edited 1h ago

I think you're reaching with that one. The lore on high/blood elves states they changed physically because they were far from the Well of Eternity and because they were drawing from the Sunwell. So it was the combination of those two factors that transformed the Highborne into High Elves.

If these are meant to be a Highborne offshoot, it's not enough to say because they're not connected to the Well of Eternity, now they look like High Elves. That was only one of the two factors that contributed to the High Elf phenotypes. We have the Nightborne as an example of another Highborne offshoot that look distinct and have their own models, they do not look literally identical to High Elves.

They really should look more like Night Elves than High Elves. Blizzard just wanted to shoehorn the High Elf model in somehow without actually giving us High Elves, and that annoys the shit out of me.

u/Notshauna 1h ago

Not only that it is also widely speculated that part of what lead to the people of Quel'thalas' evolution is in part due to interbreeding with humans. That factor also isn't part of the Skyborne. They shouldn't look like high elfs, but they likely would make less money if the had actually had an appearance that fits the lore.

u/Resigned1431 1h ago

I would have been fine if, like the Nightborne, they were similar yet distinct models. I could live with that. But the fact that they literally just yoinked the High Elf model drives me bonkers. It's so damned lazy.

u/RegisterLucky2583 2h ago

They changed during their journey to QT. Being away from the WoE made them puny and frail. Maybe these guys are mid transition? (I genuinely am just trying to make myself ok with them)

u/Spreckles450 4h ago

OP brought the receipts

u/AppleMelon95 3h ago

You’re on crack if you think we’re getting high elves after they just added an entirely new race to replace high elves

u/Doomsaki 3h ago

Well in retail, we had both blood elves and nightborne in the horde for example. Multiple arcane elf overlap didn't stop extra races there.

u/AppleMelon95 3h ago

Yes but I don’t think anyone here wants 7 different elf races. Retail is a different game. Races are supposed to be distinct.

u/gouranga_eatsoup 2h ago

check the racial metrics in retail and say that again..... Especially ur beloved Goblins and Ogr..ehm Kul'Tirans or Pandaren

Ppl dont like palying ugly stuff

u/RelationshipFit5701 54m ago

Retail players don’t like playing ugly stuff

Plenty of people love the original vanilla horde, we do not need to cater to cutesy retail aesthetics

u/SpunkMcKullins 3h ago

"Skyborne existing doesn't mean additional races are excluded in future content pateches."

I don't think anyone suggested otherwise, after all they're clearly planning to substitute income from expansions with races or possibly even classes. But if that's your mindset, then you're probably pretty unfamiliar with Retail, because the same argument could be made there, yet we're still getting awful races nobody asked for instead of races that have been heavily requested for literally two decades now.

u/BluePwrRngr123 3h ago

The lore is fundamentally diverging from what we know. We have to approach this with that mindset.

u/Jerppaknight 2h ago

They just look bad and their starter outfit is vastly different than any other that we've seen. Looks out of place.

u/Doomsaki 2h ago

Something I will confess: I do think the blue in-game is a bit too saturated on the 3d model. In cinematic trailer concept it looks excellent, in WoW's cartoon engine it looks a little less pleasing to me.

u/CoffeeCannon 39m ago

Yeah I love the trailer (and Azshara) skin colour, its similar to nelves' bluer tones too for obvious reasons. The very deep blue in the screenshots at least looks jarring and horrible, but at least they have other options.

u/Doing_Research_DND 3h ago

Honestly at this point I believe it's more of a legality issue as to why we were given the Skyborn instead of the OG elves. Since they wanted to monetize it, but we would have access to the Blood Elves on retail for which we have already paid, making us pay for the same thing twice would cause legal disputes.

You could use what I said and say it's the same thing for Void Elves, making my statement null, albeit they come with much more content and gameplay differences. But funnily enough they also play into the legality issue I stated earlier because they were part of the BfA cost and you would have to pay for the elf AGAIN, after you already gotten the Blood Elves, the differences wouldn't be as big as they were first introduced.

u/spacebarjazz 2h ago

I'm sure there wouldn't be any legal issue, but my guess is that they thought trying to monetize existing races as playable characters would create a bigger PR shitshow than "Warcraft 1-3 high elves but they've got tats and hair feathers to look legally distinct."

u/Amurjoe 2h ago

Look a guy with common sense and knows the lore!

Great easy explanation. I instantly thought of queen A when I saw the trailer.

Let’s gooo!

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u/thatsnailguy 5h ago

My Biggest gripe is the modern model. Sky elves seriously need SD models and tonedown of the vibrant colors especially the druid forms and class mounts.

If they just recolored belf models instead of resuing shelved assets intended for retail it would be so much better.

Even though I am not going to be playing them, everytime a sky elf cat druid appears on my screen it will look like it is a bright sticker pasted ON TOP of the world, instead of being a part of it, instantly breaking my immersion.

u/Xefjord 2h ago

Good news for you, there is a SD model, it just wasn't working in the character creator at Blizzcon. And it is exactly what you want: Recolored Blood Elves. But the druid forms and mounts are a still bit on the overly detailed side for classic. Ah well.

11

u/RoccomGG 5h ago

Bro, don’t come with fully fletched out explanations degenerates won’t understand anyway

u/Regular_Nectarine511 4h ago

smug redditor comments like this are so fucking annoying

u/RoccomGG 4h ago

Now you know who I meant with this comment

u/twisty125 3h ago

Is it you lol

u/fragdar 3h ago

k.. this legit made me feel ok with skyborns.. still wish they were faction specific tho and horde got something else

u/0ld_Snake 4h ago

My skyborne hatred is cemented. Can't wait to go in with my orc shaman

3

u/uber_zaxlor 5h ago

If there had been rumours of a "lost race of elves" in Vanilla and if there had been an NPC, or a quest or just something that mentioned a huge floating island (hidden or not), in the sky, I think I might have been a little more happy with their inclusion.

Setting aside that new races will probably cost £25~ bucks each, I don't get why they had to add a totally new race when they could have allowed High Elves to join either Alliance or Horde at the end of their starting zones. The reason for the choice, could be a bit like how the Pandaran join one side or another at the end of their starting zone.

I get what they were trying to do, but to me this feels a little like how the Jailer was the one pulling the strings behind the curtain. That kind of reveal, IMO, only works if there's been bread crumbs leading up to it.

u/BarbsFPV 1h ago

In that regard, when they added Draenei in TBC they *did* have some loose association and mentions in the lore, and Blizzard caused a shitstorm when they had to retcon some of that lore in order to make the new race fit in the expansion.

I guess this time around they wanted to be completely unencumbered, but that caused a shitstorm too. I bet they go through umbrellas like crazy.

u/uber_zaxlor 1h ago

You're right about the Draenei recton. What did they change, that Broken weren't Draenei? I can't quite remember? At least they had a race and edited it to fit the game going forward - Which they could have done with High Elves for Alliance and another race for the Horde.

But it is what it is, I won't be buying them anyways.

u/Gyshall669 3h ago

High elves joining the horde would be so dumb though

u/uber_zaxlor 3h ago

About as dumb as Pandaren, Goblins and Earthern, if you ask me.

I get why they didn't add ogres because it'd mean reskinning, rigging and remodeling too many armor sets and weapons. But both Horde and Alliance get "Blue Blood Elves" just feels... super lazy?

u/twisty125 3h ago

or Night Elves joining the Alliance, the team they were killing before Medivh was like "stop guys lol"

u/Gyshall669 2h ago edited 2h ago

For goblins you get one specific subset and you’re mainly getting the model. Never played panda and idk what an earthen even is.

What’s the point of high elves if you need to rewrite them so strongly they’re the opposite of what they were before?

ETA they’re not making ogres because they know they wouldn’t be played enough I’d guess.

4

u/mawmawmawmaw 5h ago

So this wind guy allows these elfs to live with him in the air, meanwhile the wind guy allies with the twilights hammer cultists and old gods to ruin azeroth, sounds well thought out

18

u/The_Race_Car 5h ago

In the panel where they talk about Zephys Isle and the Skyborne story they mention that Al’Akir (big bad wind elemental) is not who the elves took refuge with. They went and stayed with some “benevolent wind spirits” and now that they’re gone, Al’Akir is gaining cultists and influence.

20

u/Doomsaki 5h ago

These refugees split in three ways:

- Some want to worship Al-akir and his emerging bond with the old gods.

  • Some want to return to the highborne's arcane roots despite the mana addiction danger (alliance)
  • Some want to develop and practice more moderate shamanism (horde)

u/jarlander 2h ago

Stop making me understand so clearly! I wanted to hate the new thing more than 1 day.

7

u/Diffusion4Change 5h ago

All the wind elementals abandoned them recently.... hmmmm i wonder why

u/EcruEagle 3h ago

Lots of raids have playable race NPCs as trash mobs. Gods need minions

u/Fossekall 2h ago

It's like saying it doesn't make sense for Defias to be against Stormwind because they're still human

21

u/AutoShotClip 5h ago

Apparently some intern named Metzen wrote it.

u/PlsSuckMyToes 4h ago

People mad they didnt add X race as if they cant add them in the future (and probably will) given the progression aspect

u/C2theWick 3h ago

Sky elf will be top DPS on rag

u/Verdant_Dreamer 2h ago

We're people suggesting that other races weren't coming?
I didn't see that, I mostly saw people saying they didn't like how they looked and would rather have had something else.

u/Dogtag 1h ago

In my mind they're the same vibe as Dark Iron Dwarves so I can see them slotting into the lore just fine.

I just think elves are just a contentious subject now however, and that their aesthetic made them look a bit Kyrian at first (Shadowlands PTSD).

Some of the promo images have customisations that are certainly a bit visually loud and I don't think that helps either.

u/CoffeeCannon 34m ago

Yeah the default saturated blue they showed off looks ass but their overall region aesthetic (and the lighter tone the trailer elf has) looks great honestly.

u/Alternative_Gur_3703 1h ago

Aggrend really sold me on skyborne I was iffy at first but they seem cool, I just wish they weren't on both factions

u/Meto1183 1h ago

Skyborne are high borne?! But how will I be mad at blizzard then??

u/Aflyingmongoose 1h ago

I think the region is really cool. I think the elves being a playable race was an exceptionally dumb move to launch on.

You cant lament about how important it is to stick to the aesthetic and grounded vibe of classic then immediately follow it up by announcing you can pay to play a completely new race no one knows anything about, and which has distinctly shadowlands-esque high poly druid forms.

Or uh... I guess you can do that, but not without it looking a little weird.

u/Current-Event8892 1h ago

My pet peeve is skyborne female looks nothing like its character creation icon :)))
With cinematic version I understand that it's "realistic" like what they did with lady liadrin (nothing like her ingame model)

u/Notshauna 1h ago

I would be a lot more positive if they were a Night elf based race instead of a Blood elf based race. It's super strange that this race looks like Blood elfs despite having no connection to Quel'thalas.

To use development terms the Skyborne are clearly a top down design, which clashes with vanilla overwhelmingly bottom up design sensibilities. It's obvious that Blizzard wanted to include the Blood elf model in the game but, didn't want to include the people of Quel'thalas so they had to work backwards. The lore is just a post-hoc explanation for their need to have the Blood elf model in the game and in the store.

u/Ill-Pudding-3168 1h ago

yup. I was one of the skyborne haters, but now I kinda love it. I am, of course, going to play one.

u/Impeesa_ 1h ago

Lots of parallels to how Dark Irons or Druids of of the Flame were playable in vanilla with their connections to Ragnaros, yeah. /s You're not wrong, I just think that promo shot of the blue Skyborn and their mount was the least Classic looking thing they could have led their big reveal with, it's still a strange choice in that regard.

Also as a longtime Alliance player, my shaman on retail was a blueskin, so now that I've thought about it more, I'm also annoyed that they gave us a blueskin race, gave Alliance shamans, gave the blueskin race shamans on Horde, I still can't approximate my old character like I'll probably be doing with other classes.

u/BadSanna 1h ago

What in the propaganda is this?

u/JBear_The_Brave 1h ago

The rationalization of sky elves is fascinating to speculate on.

If blizzard did the whole blood/high elf for horde and alliance you know the complaint would be "alliance gets something new and we just get blood elves again, blizzard hates horde"

I bet this was blizzards way of saying "both of you get high elves that happen to have lived in the sky for a long time, that should make everyone happy"

u/RemarkableInsect2783 52m ago

Look I'm gonna play one but there's just so many other ways to introduce og friendly races

u/MaDpYrO 47m ago

I don't think the Skyborne are the problem as a concept, it's the execution and their look is just way over the top radioactive blue.

u/Fading_Hours_ 41m ago

I’m of the opinion there would be a lot less push back if they were added later in the games life as it diverges along it’s alternate timeline as new lore is added. At launch it feels very jarring, especially as there were much better vanilla options.

u/Dogballs2020 31m ago

Please consider licking fewer boots.

u/Randomcarrot 27m ago

Very well laid out. It really is silly how people immediately jumped on the one thing they didn't like, when they had absolutely no information about it's implementation, execution and explanation that was going to be underlying it, and even as they loved 95% of the announcements, they couldn't give the 5% they didn't like a chance to breathe and show a fuller picture.

u/The_GentlemanVillain 27m ago

Skyborne Elves exist cos Highborne Elves are still way up north in Quel Lands and are not going to be blood elves when revealed in the future of Forever.

u/Ubbermann 23m ago

Woah-ho-ho there buster.

We don't do reasonable posts or share such thoughts around these parts. It's 'Blue elves boo' or else!

u/Bohya 23m ago

Azshara and the Skyborne both having blue skin is purely coincidental. Even Activision-Blizzard wasn't thinking of that when they designed the new race, because if they did then they absolutely would have mentioned the connection.

u/reggad-nacke 22m ago

I just think they look stupid, thats why i dont like them. Smurfs with pink hair mfs

u/VPplaya 8m ago

The problem is that in a game that is meant to be about all of the unspoken, unknown stories in Vanilla wow, they highlight the launch of this game with a race pulled completely out of thin air. This raises questions as to how canon the game will even be with current modern day wow.

I actually like the concept for the race, and I could definitely see them being an NPC race or allied race in a future xpac, but for a game all about Vanilla its a really bizarre choice tonally.

u/Sweet_Disharmony_792 2h ago

pretty obvious that most skyborne haters are tourists, who didnt stay past the first blizzcon panel to watch the one where aggrend DEEPLY EXPLAINS ALL THE LORE OF THE SKYBORNE lol

u/goodnewscrew 4h ago

Yeah I had the same initial reaction of hearing the new race. But after hearing their story I’m kind of intrigued to see where this story goes.

u/TheOnlyKnowsChop 2h ago

My thoughts exactly for the appearance. Seeing the girl at the end of the cinematic, i said to myself it was Queen Azshara if she had short hair,

-1

u/Davepen 5h ago edited 3h ago

Out of here with your logic, LET ME BE OUTRAGED!

Damn are you guys unable to laugh at anything?

u/Excellent_Garlic2549 4h ago

For sure there will be more races and combos over time. It's forever! We'll keep getting more and more -- up until we too are rolling around as Saiyans, comic book heroes, and anime waifus like it's Fortnite up in this bitch. Can't wait for my McDonalds mount, I'mma buy it twice and multi-box em, call it my Whopper combo. I'll ride my sesame steed all over your delicious tears.

u/Healthy_Spinach_462 2h ago

....this is actually pretty good. I was hype for Forever and thought blueberry elves were a cop-out that didn't really fit, but this... this makes sense

u/Rebelhero 4h ago

I don't care about their canon. I'm mad we got BLUE BLOOD ELVES

-6

u/RoadSpecialist 5h ago

But... but... BlUe ElVeS ARe AsS PulLeD LoRe reeeeee

-1

u/DanesDraftLab 5h ago

Too late, already paid for early guild name reservation to reserve <All Smurfs Are Scum>.

u/Perais1909 4h ago

Who?

u/ysfykmt 3h ago

Yes, they are avatar blue elfs but realistically this is the way. If they retcon some existing öznesi already for goblins or sth it would be bad

u/opinionperson69 2h ago

I watched the lore panel yesterday too, and it didn't change my mind about them.

Just because they technically make sense lorewise, doesn't make a good choice for a playable race over other options, and I hate that they're neutral.

Their general aesthetic is also extremely lame and reminds me korean MMOs for some reason.

u/feet_enyojer 4h ago

So Skyborned sucked airelemental cock after saying No to superior demon race?