BfA Q&A Tidbits - No Alliance High Elves, Strand of the Ancients to be Removed & More - World of War

SBFord

BfA Q&A Tidbits - No Alliance High Elves, Strand of the Ancients to be Removed & More - World of Warcraft - MMORPG.com

World of Warcraft News - During and just after yesterday's World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Q&A with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas, a number of interesting tidbits of information about the upcoming expansion were revealed. These include the removal of the Strand of the Ancients battleground from the PvP queue, some clarification about the global cooldown changes and the news that no Alliance High Elves are coming to the game as an Allied Race.

Read the full story here

SBFord

xNIAx1 said:

Whats with the lich king jpeg?

Good God...did you read the article? STRAND OF THE ANCIENTS battleground is removed. That image is STRAND OF THE ANCIENTS. It's even in the flipping title.

Obviously, you don't PvP.

Utinni

xNIAx1 said:

Whats with the lich king jpeg?

WoTLK server confirmed. Heard it here first on MMORPG.com

SBFord

Utinni said:

xNIAx1 said:

Whats with the lich king jpeg?

WoTLK server confirmed. Heard it here first on MMORPG.com

Smart aleck.

Signex

Sooo it's still a possibility that Vulpera race could become a allied race?

Albatroes

Aren't void elves just blood elves with different colored skin and some of the hairstyles having glowy effects? Aren't Highmountain Taurens just Taurens with moose antlers? Aren't Nightborne just Night elves that can't flip? Aren't the new draenei just light colored draenei with tatoos? Dat logic SE....dat logic....dont even get me started on Magah(sp) orcs (even though I'm making one for sure). I mean all the "stuff" you get could've basically been added into the character customization. Just sounds like a lazy excuse to me ontop of an already lazy concept.

KalebGrayson

I'm REALLY disappointed about the High Elves. They have a faction, the Silver Covenant, lead by Vareesa Windrunner, in the alliance. In my opinion, in addition to being lazy, Ion was alluding to the fact that too many would leave the Horde to go Alliance if they had a High Elf Allied Race. Also, his rationale and examples for "changes for the overall good of the game" and "we have to think 5 years out in development" were a load of crap. Guild Summoning was a nice convenience. It did not make the world feel smaller. Ugh. People aren't just going to forget about these GCD changes. He tries to down play it but it came across to me as "deal with it". I really think they are pruning the game down to get it ready for consoles. Just my opinions...

gervaise1

"So how's the development coming".
"Somewhat behind boss the SoA battleground isn't finished yet"
"Put more people on it"
"We don't have any boss, if you remember you downsized the team and gave us a tight budget".
"So you are telling me it won't be finished?"
"Afraid so boss launch will have to be delayed. We pre-sold the expansion with this in".
"No. Not how it works these days. The deadline is fixed. Cut it."
"Cut it?"
"You got a hearing problem?"

Xingbairong

I don't mind what they do with spells. I don't think that hero spells have ever been an actual issue, at least for 95% of the classes all their specs work just fine after each pruning.
What I do mind is however removing more BGs then they are adding... Ashran now SotA...instead of working to fix/improve them they do the most lazy thing they can do...

btdt

Funny, I distinctly remember a developer stating that mechanized vehicles is the one thing they got right in WotLK.  It is the one thing they totally got wrong.  And now, years later after people have boycotted the damn battleground, they finally remove it from the queue.

And people think the developers are listening to them.  Yeah if you count a 3 expansion delay of brain functioning, they are listening.

Soki123

Please wintergrasp, please.

Nepheth

Albatroes said:

Aren't void elves just blood elves with different colored skin and some of the hairstyles having glowy effects? Aren't Highmountain Taurens just Taurens with moose antlers? Aren't Nightborne just Night elves that can't flip? Aren't the new draenei just light colored draenei with tatoos? Dat logic SE....dat logic....dont even get me started on Magah(sp) orcs (even though I'm making one for sure). I mean all the "stuff" you get could've basically been added into the character customization. Just sounds like a lazy excuse to me ontop of an already lazy concept.

No they are not. Each one of them have a lore behind them that makes them different from their original versions. But it is not the case with Blood-High Elves. Blood Elves literally the High Elves we know from the lore. The only difference is their eye color and that comes from the sunwell. Which is why we will able to create blood elves with yellow eye color in BfA. Because Sunwell is no longer corrupted with fell energy.

Highmountain Taurens have their own tribe, zone and lore behind them. And there are enough of them in the Warcraft universe that make them vaible as an allied race.

Nightbornes are not Night Elves. They are releated like every single elf race in the game but after more than 10.000 years they are very different from each other. Their culture, believes and power sources are complately different.

Lightforged Draneis are Light's soldiers and they are fighting with the legion for more than a thousand years. They didn't even set foot on Azeroth till now and they are just introduced with some of the most common things about Draneis. And again there are enough of them in the game that makes them viable as an allie race. On top of that normal draneis can become Lightforged after they earned the right and complated their trial.

You are only right about Void Elves. They are the most forced and weird race lore wise in the game. And they are very small in numbers unlike other races. They look amazing I won't deny that but it is ıgh I can't explain.

High Elves are vey small in numbers and like I said they are literally Blood Elves. There are not even 2000 high elves in the game according to the lore. There is nothing between them that makes them different from each other. After the third war %90 of the high elves literally died and %90 of the survivors changed their names to blood elves in remembrance of their fallen brethren and no longer consider themselves high elven. That's all you can find about the difference between those 2 races.

Yes there are a lot of people who want High Elves as an allied race but they don't care about the lore even a bit. They just wanna play blood elves without leaving the Alliance and Void Elves are not what they want and I get that. But at the same time there are a lot of players like me who are against this idea because of the lore reasons. Blizzard knows this very well and that's why they introduced Void Elves. Even though they are weird lore wise, at least they are a new race. So Blizzard can work on them however they want without destroying the lore they created years ago.

DiscipledOne

This sounds like WoW at this point in our new expansion we will cut content! Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they try to put it back in the game at some point and call it, “new content”. Ion and his teams idea of wow is so much different than mine it’s incredible.

Viper482

I've always wished I could ban three BG's from my queue instead of two, this is the next best thing. Always hated this BG.

Tsiya

I'm rather distressed that I can't seem to stir up more than mild curiosity for the new xpac. I loved WoW so much for so long. I've opened the launcher several times, but I know all I'll do is go tame some of the new beasts for my hunter, bum around for 2-3 days, and then never log back in. I miss it but not enough to play it I guess.

jgDuffay

I'm feeling that the WoW dev team seams to know better then it's consumer what they want almost always, the quality of life shit show this game has put on has made it more of a single player game than anything, would not surprise me if they add a single player functionality soon. but I guess they are doing something right .. they still have over a million concurrent players. and for me .. its just the IP that im in love with .. so of course i have already bought the x-pack ..

red_cruiser

I'm not going to miss Strand of the Ancients. I don't think BfA will go down as a strong expansion in the history of WoW. Legion saw a lot of success with Class identity. Faction identity isn't going to hold interest in the same way. Some of the art looks good... it's still going to be WoW.

kabitoshin

Would rather see some news about classic, forums and Reddit have been going insane. I feel like the no changes people pissed off Blizzard after one blue poster talked about classes. Ion has said vanilla will be vanilla butt yet we still have people foaming out the mouth about this subject.

stego160

The real reason why the high elves aren't coming to the alliance is because the horde would be out numbered. Most players on the horde side are blood elves. bring the high elves to the alliance and you will quickly see how many change to the alliance. Horde has some pretty messed up morals and the only real reason i see anyone wanting to play there side is cause the blood elves look cooler and more anime like.

Xiaoki

Nyctelios said:

Nepheth said:

Albatroes said:

Aren't void elves just blood elves with different colored skin and some of the hairstyles having glowy effects? Aren't Highmountain Taurens just Taurens with moose antlers? Aren't Nightborne just Night elves that can't flip? Aren't the new draenei just light colored draenei with tatoos? Dat logic SE....dat logic....dont even get me started on Magah(sp) orcs (even though I'm making one for sure). I mean all the "stuff" you get could've basically been added into the character customization. Just sounds like a lazy excuse to me ontop of an already lazy concept.

No they are not. Each one of them have a lore behind them that makes them different from their original versions. But it is not the case with Blood-High Elves. Blood Elves literally the High Elves we know from the lore. The only difference is their eye color and that comes from the sunwell. Which is why we will able to create blood elves with yellow eye color in BfA. Because Sunwell is no longer corrupted with fell energy.

Highmountain Taurens have their own tribe, zone and lore behind them. And there are enough of them in the Warcraft universe that make them vaible as an allied race.

Nightbornes are not Night Elves. They are releated like every single elf race in the game but after more than 10.000 years they are very different from each other. Their culture, believes and power sources are complately different.

Lightforged Draneis are Light's soldiers and they are fighting with the legion for more than a thousand years. They didn't even set foot on Azeroth till now and they are just introduced with some of the most common things about Draneis. And again there are enough of them in the game that makes them viable as an allie race. On top of that normal draneis can become Lightforged after they earned the right and complated their trial.

You are only right about Void Elves. They are the most forced and weird race lore wise in the game. And they are very small in numbers unlike other races. They look amazing I won't deny that but it is ıgh I can't explain.

High Elves are vey small in numbers and like I said they are literally Blood Elves. There are not even 2000 high elves in the game according to the lore. There is nothing between them that makes them different from each other. After the third war %90 of the high elves literally died and %90 of the survivors changed their names to blood elves in remembrance of their fallen brethren and no longer consider themselves high elven. That's all you can find about the difference between those 2 races.

Yes there are a lot of people who want High Elves as an allied race but they don't care about the lore even a bit. They just wanna play blood elves without leaving the Alliance and Void Elves are not what they want and I get that. But at the same time there are a lot of players like me who are against this idea because of the lore reasons. Blizzard knows this very well and that's why they introduced Void Elves. Even though they are weird lore wise, at least they are a new race. So Blizzard can work on them however they want without destroying the lore they created years ago.

That's not his point... You can make up "lore" and create anything. His point is that it is somewhat lazy and hollow.

And if Blizzard did make High Elves an Allied Race people would accuse them of being lazy.

"They're just Blood Elves with different color eyes! Stupid lazy Blizzard"

No matter what Blizzard does people on forums(mostly people that dont play WoW) are going to call them "lazy".

laserit

Listening to you guys, it sounds to me like its time for that third faction.

Time for elves to stand up and be counted!

Fuck the Horde! and Fuck the Alliance!

Its time for The Elven Collective

laserit

Torval said:

laserit said:

Listening to you guys, it sounds to me like its time for that third faction.

Time for elves to stand up and be counted!

Fuck the Horde! and Fuck the Alliance!

Its time for The Elven Collective

Hehe, that's a brilliant idea. A third faction could shake stuff up. It might rock the boat too much but it's a cool concept.

I don't really care if they add high elves. My next character will probably be horde anyway. Some of the alliance leadership are such a bunch of narcissistic wankers.

Proud member of the horde since 2004. Alliance are a bunch of pansies 

Imagine how many people would have to check something like that out

TheDarkrayne

laserit said:

Torval said:

laserit said:

Listening to you guys, it sounds to me like its time for that third faction.

Time for elves to stand up and be counted!

Fuck the Horde! and Fuck the Alliance!

Its time for The Elven Collective

Hehe, that's a brilliant idea. A third faction could shake stuff up. It might rock the boat too much but it's a cool concept.

I don't really care if they add high elves. My next character will probably be horde anyway. Some of the alliance leadership are such a bunch of narcissistic wankers.

Proud member of the horde since 2004. Alliance are a bunch of pansies 

Imagine how many people would have to check something like that out

It's an actual multi-million $$$ idea for Blizzard, that is....

If any WoW devs are reading this they should definitely put it in the ideas box.

BruceYee

TheDarkrayne said:

laserit said:

Torval said:

laserit said:

Listening to you guys, it sounds to me like its time for that third faction.

Time for elves to stand up and be counted!

Fuck the Horde! and Fuck the Alliance!

Its time for The Elven Collective

Hehe, that's a brilliant idea. A third faction could shake stuff up. It might rock the boat too much but it's a cool concept.

I don't really care if they add high elves. My next character will probably be horde anyway. Some of the alliance leadership are such a bunch of narcissistic wankers.

Proud member of the horde since 2004. Alliance are a bunch of pansies 

Imagine how many people would have to check something like that out

It's an actual multi-million $$$ idea for Blizzard, that is....

If any WoW devs are reading this they should definitely put it in the ideas box.

It would also be a multi-million dollar endeavor for them too + a lot of work. For the amount of money it would cost them to create that third faction compared to the amount of people who'd sign up for 1 month to check it out may not be worth it. Remember when their reasoning for not adding personal housing was "If housing was easy we'd do it". That one line sums up their development philosophy for WoW and IMO all their games. Imagine if they'd added housing 3 expansions ago and improved on it with every expansion how great it could've been. It may have been that persistence that people want in WoW that would've kept them subbed.

Xiaoki

Nyctelios said:

Xiaoki said:

Nyctelios said:

Nepheth said:

Albatroes said:

Aren't void elves just blood elves with different colored skin and some of the hairstyles having glowy effects? Aren't Highmountain Taurens just Taurens with moose antlers? Aren't Nightborne just Night elves that can't flip? Aren't the new draenei just light colored draenei with tatoos? Dat logic SE....dat logic....dont even get me started on Magah(sp) orcs (even though I'm making one for sure). I mean all the "stuff" you get could've basically been added into the character customization. Just sounds like a lazy excuse to me ontop of an already lazy concept.

No they are not. Each one of them have a lore behind them that makes them different from their original versions. But it is not the case with Blood-High Elves. Blood Elves literally the High Elves we know from the lore. The only difference is their eye color and that comes from the sunwell. Which is why we will able to create blood elves with yellow eye color in BfA. Because Sunwell is no longer corrupted with fell energy.

Highmountain Taurens have their own tribe, zone and lore behind them. And there are enough of them in the Warcraft universe that make them vaible as an allied race.

Nightbornes are not Night Elves. They are releated like every single elf race in the game but after more than 10.000 years they are very different from each other. Their culture, believes and power sources are complately different.

Lightforged Draneis are Light's soldiers and they are fighting with the legion for more than a thousand years. They didn't even set foot on Azeroth till now and they are just introduced with some of the most common things about Draneis. And again there are enough of them in the game that makes them viable as an allie race. On top of that normal draneis can become Lightforged after they earned the right and complated their trial.

You are only right about Void Elves. They are the most forced and weird race lore wise in the game. And they are very small in numbers unlike other races. They look amazing I won't deny that but it is ıgh I can't explain.

High Elves are vey small in numbers and like I said they are literally Blood Elves. There are not even 2000 high elves in the game according to the lore. There is nothing between them that makes them different from each other. After the third war %90 of the high elves literally died and %90 of the survivors changed their names to blood elves in remembrance of their fallen brethren and no longer consider themselves high elven. That's all you can find about the difference between those 2 races.

Yes there are a lot of people who want High Elves as an allied race but they don't care about the lore even a bit. They just wanna play blood elves without leaving the Alliance and Void Elves are not what they want and I get that. But at the same time there are a lot of players like me who are against this idea because of the lore reasons. Blizzard knows this very well and that's why they introduced Void Elves. Even though they are weird lore wise, at least they are a new race. So Blizzard can work on them however they want without destroying the lore they created years ago.

That's not his point... You can make up "lore" and create anything. His point is that it is somewhat lazy and hollow.

And if Blizzard did make High Elves an Allied Race people would accuse them of being lazy.

"They're just Blood Elves with different color eyes! Stupid lazy Blizzard"

No matter what Blizzard does people on forums(mostly people that dont play WoW) are going to call them "lazy".

Because they are.

Millions and billions, numbers being tossed left and right with a nose up in the clouds, shouting proudly...

While you could find that ugly low polly ass model of Thrall sitting around in Draenor while his nice cool new model was elsewhere.

just blizz can get away with gaining that amount of money and taking years and years to update simple textures.

Want to know whats even lazier....

Armchair Quarterbacking

Everyone always thinks they know better or could do better than the people who actually do it. Its real easy to call Blizzard "lazy" but what have you done? Comes off even worse when said by people that are completely ignorant about video game developer companies.

Albatroes

Third faction for what? Horde would still be the most populated. Majority of world first clears have been horde dominated. As for people saying Blizzard is damned if they do and damned if they don't please seriously either replay or rewatch the void elf chain and tell me that wasn't lazy....