The high elves

It's not easy creating an entire faction or era. Post your work and collaborate in this forum.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Post Reply
Lindir The Green
Posts: 45
Joined: March 21st, 2005, 3:21 pm
Location: St. Paul, Minnesota

Post by Lindir The Green »

Jetryl wrote:A couple examples of evil deeds by elves in Tolkien's work include the acts of Eol, the "dark elf", and the incident where Feanor's people killed a bunch of the Teleri(?) when they refused to help Féanor recover the Silmarils.

Féanor needed ships to cross the ocean, and they refused to give them to him. It was rash and evil, though, because it's not like taking a few years, or even decades, off to learn how to build the things himself would really have hurt Féanor, being immortal and all.
NERD!!!
:P :P
Actually, I read the silmarillion too.
At least that part.
It was too confusing to read farther than the middle.
But now I am leaving the computer to go read the rest of it.
*wandering around house looking for copy of silmarillion, wondering whether to start at the beginning or in the middle*
"The men of Wu and the men of Yueh are enemies; yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to each other's assistance. Hence it is not enough to put one's trust in the tethering of horses� -Sun Tzu
User avatar
turin
Lord of the East
Posts: 11662
Joined: January 11th, 2004, 7:17 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Post by turin »

xtifr wrote:Personally, to me, it comes down to: which side are you gonna be on when the chips are down? When Sauron's minions come pouring out of the Black Gate for the battle to end the second age of Middle Earth, who will you be fighting? When the final winter comes, Lord Surt lifts his flaming sword, the Fenris Wolf breaks his chains, and the end of the Nine Worlds is at hand, will you be standing with the Æsir or the Giants? By that measure (and I can think of no better), I would classify the elves, dwarves and humans as good, and the orcs and undead as evil (and I have no idea about the drakes).
if you look at it this way, I would classify them thus:

A large majority of the elves would come down on the side of good. However, some would not.

A smaller majority of the dwarves would. At least 1/3rd would not, though.

Humans would probably be 50/50.

Not sure about drakes, but probably like dwarves, leaning towards bad. 1/3rd good, 2/3rds bad.

Orcs would be overwhelmingly bad, but a small minority would be good.

The undead would not take sides, but the necromancers would. They would be predominantly bad, but I'm not sure if all bad.
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
Dave
Founding Developer
Posts: 7071
Joined: August 17th, 2003, 5:07 am
Location: Seattle
Contact:

Post by Dave »

My classification was very rough. It's not meant to be a statement that, for instance, "all elves are good and can never ever be evil". Rather an approximation of which side units generally fall on. It was a reaction to an assertion that there are many more 'good' units than 'evil' units.

I think that as a rough generalization, it's accurate. It's certainly accurate as far as which side units fall in HttT. (except Drakes don't appear at all in HttT).

David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
Shade
Posts: 1111
Joined: April 18th, 2004, 11:17 pm

I have an idea about that :)

Post by Shade »

Dave wrote: (except Drakes don't appear at all in HttT).

David
I have an idea about that :)
Note to forum users: You are in a maze of twisty little passages
dtw
Posts: 478
Joined: September 27th, 2004, 1:32 pm

Post by dtw »

the elves in TroW are a bit naughty....
Neoriceisgood
Art Developer
Posts: 2221
Joined: April 2nd, 2004, 10:19 pm
Contact:

Post by Neoriceisgood »

Drakes (as in the clans) don't value any form of money the other races bring with them, Their main goal is simply to protect the lands they live in; The "good/bad" classification is more based on the manner and situation in which they try to protect their land; Some Drakes would invade a caravan of wimen and children for trespassing their lands, Other Drakes wouldn't care unless it is fairly obvious that the ones invading their lands are planning to steal it/ wage war against the drakes.

Drakes tend to join in large scale wars even less than dwarves, They are very egocentric and wouldn't really care about any other race, Unless the fall of one would possibly mean the fall of the drakes aswell; There are certain drakes that hold strong to "honour" though pretty much any drake finds it that "If you save my life, And I save yours in return; There is nothing left to say."

One thing to say is that eventhough Drakes do not value most humane posessions; Drakes whom pillage villages or cities have been known, Though this mostly is the result of drakes following a non-drake leader, OR simply that the village is placed in their terretory.

This is mostly the reason Drakes often ally with saurians, Saurians feel for swamps and provide some forces the Drakes don't hold themselve, And vica verca for saurians lacking alot of tank-like warriors and not really caring for caves.

In other words, Drakes are pretty neutral, Though in the "final battle" they would -probably- side with good as evil would destroy their homes more likely (Besides they have a big grudge against undead and there are drake clans known for making a sport out of trying to shoot the most heads off of undead.)
yeah.
romnajin
Posts: 1067
Joined: February 26th, 2005, 7:26 pm
Contact:

Post by romnajin »

I think that the loyalists are bad(not humans, they are definetly mixed) because IIRC aren't the loyalists the humans loyal to the dark queen in HttT, or they just called that? Rebels are good because they are rebeling against the queen. Knalgans are good because they join the rebels. Drakes are not in that campaign. Undead and Northerners are bad.
Sorry for the meaningless post
User avatar
turin
Lord of the East
Posts: 11662
Joined: January 11th, 2004, 7:17 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Post by turin »

romnajin wrote:I think that the loyalists are bad(not humans, they are definetly mixed) because IIRC aren't the loyalists the humans loyal to the dark queen in HttT, or they just called that? Rebels are good because they are rebeling against the queen. Knalgans are good because they join the rebels. Drakes are not in that campaign. Undead and Northerners are bad.
The factions are named after how they were arranged in HTTT, but that was just one point in history. IMHO, some of the factions (especially rebels) should be renamed.
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
romnajin
Posts: 1067
Joined: February 26th, 2005, 7:26 pm
Contact:

Post by romnajin »

I think that the current default era should be renamed the "HttT era" or something of the sort, and the default should be redone with generic racial names(or something of the sort). Before I played the beginning of HttT(I've only beat Bay of Pearls, haven't had time for IotD) I had no idea what the faction names meant.
Sorry for the meaningless post
User avatar
Elvish_Pillager
Posts: 8137
Joined: May 28th, 2004, 10:21 am
Location: Everywhere you think, nowhere you can possibly imagine.
Contact:

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

romnajin wrote:I think that the current default era should be renamed the "HttT era" or something of the sort, and the default should be redone with generic racial names(or something of the sort). Before I played the beginning of HttT(I've only beat Bay of Pearls, haven't had time for IotD) I had no idea what the faction names meant.
Default is not like HttT. Use another era instead
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
Disto
Posts: 2039
Joined: November 1st, 2004, 7:40 pm
Location: Cambridge, UK

Post by Disto »

Jetryl wrote:
Disto wrote:What about my Cavalry 'thing' :D .
I don't like lv. 1 horseman but i likes its upgrades, and the archer looks like a recolouring of the wood elf. I thought these guys were going to get lots of diverse cavalry, it looks to me like 2 linear lines of it.
2 linear lines is as much as the humans have, minus the lancer.

What I may well do is give them a scout branch of their horse archer; I may also use snippets of your horse archer - the shield you gave it was kinda cool.

2 lines is enough for a beginning, and more than qualifies as "lots of diverse cavalry". Keep in mind that high elven troops are very versatile - the level one horsemen will basically be like a combination of the human horseman AND cavalry. But it will be more expensive, and harder to level.
Sorry for bringing up old topic/argument.

But the loyalists have a choice of 8 different units, compared to 6 here and humans are just meant to be neutral, and these cavalry inclined.
Creator of A Seed of Evil
Creator of the Marauders
Food or Wesnoth? I'll have Wesnoth
User avatar
turin
Lord of the East
Posts: 11662
Joined: January 11th, 2004, 7:17 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Post by turin »

The idea is not diversity in general (just 4 first level units is all the elves have), athough it is sometimes useful.

THe idea is the High Elves are good horse riders, and thus should have many horse lines.

However, we should note, the humans have MUCH MORE than two linear horse lines. I see no possible way you could say the horseman line is linear; it has a branch with every advancement! That's a total of 5 units in that line alone. So, if you want the high elves to be as diverse as the humans in mounted units, you'll need to probably have both of these trees branch, maybe even multiple times.
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
Kamahawk
Posts: 583
Joined: November 9th, 2003, 11:26 pm
Location: Foggy California

Post by Kamahawk »

The Sylph needs to loose the wings, she never should have had them in the first place. Also a name change might be in order for her. Otherwise the faction seems prety cool.
My contributions to the Wesnoth Project over time are inversly proportional to the number of registered forum users!
Piet Hein wrote:Knowing what thou knowest not is in a sence Omniscience
Disto
Posts: 2039
Joined: November 1st, 2004, 7:40 pm
Location: Cambridge, UK

Post by Disto »

turin wrote:The idea is not diversity in general (just 4 first level units is all the elves have), athough it is sometimes useful.

THe idea is the High Elves are good horse riders, and thus should have many horse lines.

However, we should note, the humans have MUCH MORE than two linear horse lines. I see no possible way you could say the horseman line is linear; it has a branch with every advancement! That's a total of 5 units in that line alone. So, if you want the high elves to be as diverse as the humans in mounted units, you'll need to probably have both of these trees branch, maybe even multiple times.
Hey Jetryl said it.
Creator of A Seed of Evil
Creator of the Marauders
Food or Wesnoth? I'll have Wesnoth
varradami
Posts: 43
Joined: April 12th, 2005, 6:41 pm

Post by varradami »

Lindir The Green wrote:NERD!!!
:P :P
Actually, I read the silmarillion too.
At least that part.
It was too confusing to read farther than the middle.
But now I am leaving the computer to go read the rest of it.
*wandering around house looking for copy of silmarillion, wondering whether to start at the beginning or in the middle*
Apologies in advance for the off-topicness of this post...

Reading the Silmarillion can be quite difficult, and I'm not surprised you failed to get through it your first time. If you really enjoy LotR and want to learn more, you should definitely read it all the way through. Start again from the beginning. This time, however, take it slowly. Every time you come to a name you're not familiar with, or you're struggling to understand the relationships between elves, or you're not sure of the geographic relationships between different places, or whatever - look it up! Always reference things you don't know from the materials in the back of the book. Don't be afraid to reference the same thing multiple times, if you can't remember it. This may be a bit tedious, but it will really help you understand the story better. Don't worry, it's much easier the second time through. :P It really is a great story though.

To bring this back on topic a bit, the artwork for the High Elves of Wesnoth looks pretty cool. I look forward to seeing them appear in the game.

As for good and evil... well, that's tough to say. If we go by Tolkien elves would generally be good, orcs/undead would generally be evil, and humans/dwarves would come down on whatever side they felt like - but this game doesn't really seem to follow Tolkien.

I don't think lawful/chaotic necessarily corresponds to good and evil (at least, it hasn't seemed to so far). This seems to be a campaign specific thing, and doesn't really matter to multiplayer. I don't think it would be good for the game to become too elf heavy. Perhaps if the outlaws were broken away from the dwarves and eventually turned into their own faction (or we develop a new faction of chaotic humans) it could provide a nice balance.

EDIT: Shadow's mercenaries (http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 4176#74176 ) might provide a nice balance to the additional elves. Plus they look cool and I want them in the game. 8)
Post Reply