What is high elven culture based of?

[ExMortis]

I find elves, night elves and high elves one of the hardest thing to write for.
What are they based of?
Greeks, romans, sumerians, babylonians, persians?
What were they like when they had a world-spanning empire?

 

[LordDz]

Well they are the Night Elves who refused to let down magic and thus became a splinter faction.
They never had a world-spanning empire due to being constantly in war with the trolls.
Urban Dictionary: high elves

For which culture they're based upon, I think you should look upon what the lord of the rings elves (the books) are based upon since a lot of inspiration comes from there.

 

[Eagle XI]

edit: oops wrong page

High elf

edit 2: as for culture, id like to point out Blizz structured Azeroth such that every race is either:
1- has been priorly an titan construct, that got transformed through curse of flesh and became over the ages what it is today(dwarves,vrykul to human,gnomes).
2- had been created by the oldgods, and is serving them(qiraji,nerubian,mantid)
3- they are alien to Azeroth, being from another world (orcs, draenai, legion daemons, etc.)

Id rather connect vrykuls(somehow) to dark elves(ancestor of nightelf), but 'dark troll evolved to dark elf' seems to be the more popular theory.