Highborne customizations for the Night Elves (NOT High Elves)

[FossilFree]

This should be a thing! The Shen'dralar are Alliance allies since Cataclysm, just like the Wildhammer dwarves that are being implemented through customization.

[Vampyr78]

It's not outside the realm of possibility. New skin colors are pretty much expected, new hairstyles also. All you ask on top of that are just jewelery customization option, again not outside the realm of possibility. Ability to change eye color between silver and gold is a must at this point. With npcs we already seen males with silver and females with golden eyes. If dwarves are getting wildhammer tattoos, trolls skin colors for different tribes then Night Evles should get highborne.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

YES, EXACTLY! You said it - this is precisely what I meant, yet expressed with much better words I could ever use. THANK YOU! Very glad you liked (and perfectly understood) the idea. Can I quote you in case I need to explain the concept to someone?

Really hope more people can voice for this.

Oh and by the way, I attempted to create a thread on the official WOW EU forum, if anyone cares. Although I am not allowed to embed images there, and I fear that without the image, the post won't be getting much attention from the crowds.

Link here: https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...lves/106631/46

Sure thing!

highborne don't really look all that different from normal night elves though.

And there weren't black dwarves until the revamp... I think you are missing the whole point of the customization revamp and its possibilities

[/QUOTE]blonde hair, maybe azshara's shade of blue skin. but the only really noteworthy difference between highborne and night elves is the fact that highborne are taller than a normal night elf. something that should have been reflected in nightborne. but their model is so poor overall, it's not a wonder.

they didn't have light skin before arriving in the eastern kingdoms, either. light skin was a specifically mentioned new trait that happened during their evolution to high elves.[/QUOTE]

I think you are conflating different skin tones with human like skin tones; "Highborn" could be given paler tones like lavander or ivory etc; they could have gone their own differentiation for those 10k years just as Thalassian Elves and Nightborne went through. The idea that Highborne had paler skin tones and hair colors doesn't come out of nowhere; most Highborne NPC's have white hair and the fairer and peachiest NE skin tones.

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I found this edit by Mystmantle on Deviant art
I loooooove this, this is totally how a female Highborne, or even Priestess of the moon would style her hair.

Oh heck yeah, Highborne woould have indeed fancier Hairstyles, these look so good!

I think what NE need amd can expect in terms of added customization, are the more fancy Highborne look, and a more wild war3 one (more braids and leaves? yes please!)

[Kallisto]

As above, not sure, TBH however I always assumed the High Elves would have to be called such after completely changing shape and establishing the Sunwell. But I am sure there are people who are stronger on these details than I am and would rather let them discuss such stuff. Or Blizzard could clarify on it if they cared to go this way. I honestly would not mind either way, though, as I feel there are already some pretty nice fair colored pink skins in game for the Night Elves females at least.

High Elves never changed what they called themselves either. Highborne self named Quel'dorei and the name stuck after the transformation. Highborne/High Elf is more how common differentiates the two different races (well class of one race and how the Thalassian elves called themselves until all but a handful changed their names to Sin'dorei)

[Lothaeryn]

I am for this, only in the idea that:

1. Gives more customization options that Night Elves desperately needed that Wrath did not provide in good quantity.

2. Gives more societal nuance to Kaldorei that they have desperately needed to signify their cultural heritage and purity in vision. They endured the Long Vigil to one day restore their people, not just to hide in trees for all eternity. The Shen'Dralar returning to them gives them a chance at bringing back more Arcane elements that their society now needs more than ever.

[Shakana]

I found this edit by Mystmantle on Deviant art
I loooooove this, this is totally how a female Highborne, or even Priestess of the moon would style her hair.

Wow!! That looks so amazing! The skins color are more like it, and the glowing eyes, i think their skins as they are, are perfect tbh.

Should just change the hairs and some features. Having a necklace or wtv i always said this should be a feature to add.

I think females don't just like to use earrings, i would much prefer having a necklace that represents my faction/race/class/spec.

And a proper headband that is not mog. And not so much on the forehead but instead, at your head.

[Hallowseve17]

I actually like the idea of Highborne customization options for Night Elves. The more options the merrier I always say!

[Astranea]

The skins color are more like it, and the glowing eyes, i think their skins as they are, are perfect tbh.

If you (and/or any other) want these or can list other 'more appropriate colors' I would be glad to re-do the mock up graphics in a few hours when I can get back to my home PC.

These links may help you help me, if you can point the specific color:

• Pink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shades_of_pink
• Purple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shades_of_purple
• Blue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shades_of_blue

Oh, and same goes for hair color of course.

[Mirishka]

The Shen’dralar were Highborne Night Elves who did not live in Zin-Azshari, and remained isolated and secluded to the point that they were never exiled from Kalimdor and never became High/Blood Elves.

*snip*

Hard pass, I'm sorry.

[Astranea]

Hard pass, I'm sorry.

Care to elaborate?

Is it because you do not think the Shen’dralar Highborne should be explored/characterized/recognizable in any ways despite of them being long severed from the Night Elves before rejoining them in Cataclysm?

Is it because you do not like my customizations mockup? (will most likely redo it during the weekend anyway)

Is it because you do not think the Night Elves should/could get brand new customizations of any kind, despite of the undead getting fleshed out options and the dwarves and trolls getting several skin tones and features they never had before?

Blizzard seem to be more than willing to expand the customization options, adding many choices that weren’t in game other than elaborating on different tribes/clans that were scattered around... and the Shen’dralar matter IS canon, and the very specific reason why we can have Night Elves mages nowadays.

I understand that I cannot please everybody, but it would be nice to hear what are the counter arguments, to see if the concept can be expanded in better ways. Else, your post is of very little help, and I will be forced to dismiss it as simple personal taste or trolling rather than take it into consideration as a challenge to improvement.

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This should be a thing! The Shen'dralar are Alliance allies since Cataclysm, just like the Wildhammer dwarves that are being implemented through customization.

Thanks, it’s always very nice when someone shows to understand and appreciate what you mean rather than dismiss it without even caring to give an explanation. <3

[Hellspawn]

The Shen’dralar were Highborne Night Elves who did not live in Zin-Azshari, and remained isolated and secluded to the point that they were never exiled from Kalimdor and never became High/Blood Elves.
...

I would love the extra skin colors... buuut I don't want them to add another kind of elf so...
... no new ears, highborne just have the same ears as night elfs there is no indication that they were different
... no blond hair... beside it looking strange, highborne never had that expect Dath'Remar I think
... don't retroactive change the Shen'dralar lore, they look how they are presented
... fancy jewelry is something that would also fit with night elf but it will be obviously mostly moon crest and nature based and silver
... amber eyes were not common on highborn, so this is more something for people that want to play a Azshara look a like, which is fine by me

Obviously most new customization should be used for normal night elfs but a blue skin color like Azshara has ... maybe with less muscles would be something I could imagine. I would also love arcane Tattos like the night born have but that would require some lore why they have it.

For me the appeal of the Shen'dralar is that they are the only highborn group that preserved how they looked 10000Years ago and at that time they looked mostly like night elfs expect for slightly different skin and hair variations.

[Astranea]

I would love the extra skin colors...

Thanks.

no new ears, highborne just have the same ears as night elfs there is no indication that they were different

Hmmm… not quite sure about that… please look at this:



How would you explain the elven statues in Dire Maul having different ears, then?

What I mean is, I believe that the people being represented must be Highborne? They cannot possibly be High Elves as in the followers of Dath'Remar Sunstrider, because at the time the city of Eldre'Thalas was founded they were not yet exiled and did not undergo any trasformations yet!?

And there are many places in Azeroth, mostly by ancient Highborne city ruins, where the statues also sport such a feature.

Do not know about you, but it makes me think that maybe, just maybe, such feature should be added to the Night Elves because it is either a specific trait that the Highborne sported due to dabbling with magic or being inbred.

And as a matter of facts, even if there were no statues around, the Night Elves could still be given a choice between slightly different shapes of ear types simply because Blizzard has already done that for all other races with huge ears.

But honestly, the Highborne statues scattered around Azeroth seem to be a pretty clear hint to me.

no blond hair... beside it looking strange, highborne never had that expect Dath'Remar I think

The Nightborne have both platinum blond and pink, so unless they are hair dyes (in which case the Night Elves could also use hair dyes) one may speculate it may be in the Night Elves genes after all, or that it may have been the result of inbreeding.

Also, most of the Highborne NPCs around the game sport the whiter hair. So it would add some variation. But sure, it does not need to be blonde. Can be light pink, light blue, light purple, light green... as long as it is variation in the light shades of color.

don't retroactive change the Shen'dralar lore, they look how they are presented

Possibly. However, there also is the option that they don’t, and yet they were never updated after Classic because it was not cost effective: no matter how you want to look at it, at the very least there is the issue of the statues mentioned above demanding some explanations, and next to that there is the issue of the Shen’dralar living off DRAINING A DEMON for centuries without even showing Fel taint, which could also be considered a symptom of Blizzard not bothering to give them special graphics because at the time Dire Maul was released it would have been more complicated than worthwhile with the limited resources available, and then afterwards it was too old content to care for it.

So now many races are getting updated options that were not anywhere in the game, pretending that they have always been there, the Shen’dralar / Highborne / Night Elves as a whole can also very get some new features, either simply pretending that they always were there in the first place, or adding something that should have been there in the first place.

What I mean is, if Blizzard wanted to only improve the quality of the options that were already given as canon in the game itself, we would have not seen the new human faces and the non-rotting Undead options among the customizations they presented at Blizzcon.

And seriously. Those statues everywhere!

fancy jewelry is something that would also fit with night elf but it will be obviously mostly moon crest and nature based and silver

Luckily the two options are not mutually exclusive.

amber eyes were not common on highborn, so this is more something for people that want to play a Azshara look a like, which is fine by me

As far as I recall, in the pre-Sundering era gold-colored eyes were considered a sign of underlying greatness or power, so I was referring to Azshara and assuming the characteristic could have been inbred in a Highborne community. A Night Elf can either be born with them (rarely) or get them through practicing druidism. Queen Azshara and Illidan Stormrage, both extremely powerful sorcerers, had golden eyes.

Source: https://wow.gamepedia.com/Night_elf#Golden_eyes

I would also love arcane Tattos like the night born have but that would require some lore why they have it.

This is where I am confused, as to me this sounds much more complicated than assuming that the Shen’dralar Highborne might have turned out slightly different from the regular Night Elves in all this time, and Blizzard simply neglected to implement the details because they were not cost-effective.

For me the appeal of the Shen'dralar is that they are the only highborn group that preserved how they looked 10000 Years ago and at that time they looked mostly like night elfs expect for slightly different skin and hair variations.

As you said yourself… mostly. But still not quite the same. :P

[Aeula]

Sounds good to me.

[Hellspawn]

How would you explain the elven statues in Dire Maul having different ears, then?

Visually they are the same, look at the most current dispiction of them in Naz'jatar, they just look like night elfs. The Shen'dralar inside dire maul look like night elfs. At least one of the statues they show in Eldre'thalas is a Alleria statue from stormwind, so its just cheap model reuse. Same for all the other cataclysm/classic zones. Look at statues in Suramar, Azsuna and Naz'jatar, the elves depicted there just look like night elfs. Or look at the cinematic where nightborn were introduced, before they turned into night born... suprise... they just looked like night elfs!
Highborn from that time just look like night elfs.

This is where I am confused, as to me this sounds

Illidan is not even a high born. Azshara also did not geht them because she is a high born... both are just special. If you find a source for inbreeding for golden eyes, I would be pleased to see it.

and next to that there is the issue of the Shen’dralar living off DRAINING A DEMON for centuries without even showing Fel taint

It is how it is, they found a way to clean of the Fel taint, they are some of the most advanced mages on Azeroth. I rather keep the current lore instead of changing this.

Also quoted from https://wow.gamepedia.com/Highborne
"According to Brann Bronzebeard, there is little physical difference between the Highborne and the rest of the kaldorei (save perhaps the Highborne being slightly pastier), but they consider themselves different enough."


So my conclusion stands as before... just add a proper blue skin tone and maybe some lighter toned hair variations of the existing ones, then we got Shen'dralar covered.
Much more interesting would be more story development of the Shen'dralar inside the night elf society but thats another topic...

[Astranea]

Visually they are the same

Please help me here, because I am really confused. Where does the screenshot I posted NOT show elves with ears tilted upwards?
Can you please tell me what kind of elves are they, if they are not Highborne, and why their ears are different, or why they would have been sculpted in a Highborne city?

They are also to be found in Vashj'ir and Azshara, by the way:



Are you telling me that all these old statues that are in game are wrong, just 'Alleria and cheap High/Blood Elf reuse' even in the areas created in Classic before the Blood Elves model was ever developed?

Because I find that silly... and would rather ask you to consider this alternative option: maybe both the statues AND the current character models and cinematics are to be considered accurate, and the Night Elves could always sport such a variation in their ears as a recessive gene, even if we did not see it in game yet (just like the new Humans faces and the non-rotten Undead skins...)

After all, EVEN IF we did not have such in-game evidence, one might argue that Blizzard could add a choice of different ears for the Night Elves simply because the customization of the ears is a default feature on all the other races with big ears.

Except that in this specific case we do have some depictions of at least some of the Highborne sporting said ears, despite of them not being shared by the characters... which is a nice bonus, and gives this option more reasons to exist than the new Human faces or Undead skins they are adding without caring for any further explanations or in-game reference.

Illidan is not even a high born. Azshara also did not get them because she is a high born... both are just special.

Hmmm, perhaps I was not clear about the point concerning the Night Elves developing golden eyes out of practicing sorcery?

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe we can list all these facts:

• NE can be born with golden eyes, which pre-Sundering was considered a sign of underlying power (although it is druidic potential)
• Alternatively, golden eyes can be developed through use of druidic powers, or sorcery (Azshara?)
• Many of the Highborne were powerful sorcerers
• The Highborne mostly mated amongst themselves

To me all of these together sum up as a good/high chance of a Highborne to sport them.
Not all, maybe, but certainly more often than the average number among the pleb, at the very least for practicing advanced magic if they were not born with them.

The only other places where one could encounter such numbers would be (obviously) druidic circles.

So not necessarily a Highborne-only feature, yet a feature that still makes perfect sense for them in my opinion.

"According to Brann Bronzebeard, there is little physical difference between the Highborne and the rest of the kaldorei (save perhaps the Highborne being slightly pastier), but they consider themselves different enough."

You quoted it... new pale skins and light hair colors at the very least.

But if it can make it any better for you, I could still try and argue that different ears as shown in many in-game depictions might be dismissed as a least-common-yet-still-possible-variation (recessive gene) among the Night Elven people in general, without it being an exclusive Highborne trait while still being (or having been in the past, as seen from the statues) a bit more common than average among some Highborne families.

Just like the eyes.

But I rest my case. We can obviously just agree to disagree at this point, I guess.

[Hellspawn]

Please help me here, because I am really confused. Where does the screenshot I posted NOT show elves with ears tilted upwards?
Can you please tell me what kind of elves are they, if they are not Highborne, and why their ears are different, or why they would have been sculpted in a Highborne city?

They are also to be found in Vashj'ir and Azshara, by the way:

As I said, don't trust anything from cataclysm, that stuff is just reuse of models that should not be reused in this case.
Just look at Zin'Azshari

And Azshara herself...

And thats how highborn ghosts look in the zone...


I also brough up lore source text on the topic... and all you got are some statues from cataclysm which were clearly intended for highelfs
The statues you presented are poor reuse, there is no lore that support that night elf back then ever looked like that, nor are statues anywhere else in later expansion looked like the ones you posted but rather like the ones in Zin'Azshari

[*] Alternatively, golden eyes can be developed through use of druidic powers, or sorcery (Azshara?)

Wrong, only through druidic power. Azshara was born with golden eyes.

[Astranea]

As I said, don't trust anything from cataclysm, that stuff is just reuse of models that should not be reused in this case.

Hmmm... what about Dire Maul and other Classic references, then? Are they not Classic material, created before the Blood Elf models ever came to light? I do not recall the statues in Feralas having been added in Cataclysm. Or should I go check in Vanilla to make sure?

And how about the chance Blizzard could add a choice of different ears for the Night Elves simply because the customization of the ears is a default feature on all the other races with big ears? :P

Wrong, only through druidic power. Azshara was born with golden eyes.

Ok, I checked, and stand corrected. * blush *

Not sure why I assumed/understood that the potential could also be developed though sorcery of different kinds, but if this is not the case, then obviously the golden eyes could be an option but would not at all be a 'typical' feature, as you said.

So I corrected that in the first post.

[Lothaeryn]

So just to be clear on the highbourne ear thing...

In vanilla, Blizzard did not canonize the association of high elves as a mutation of Kaldorei and instead they were an entire subspecies that ruled over them using the arcane. This was due to them not being certain what the link High/Blood elves had to Night Elves aside from them being descendants of the Highborne. This is why you see tons of old vanilla model high elf statues everywhere, it was to showcase the grandeur of Highborne society before the sundering because they did not have any Night Elf association until Burning Crusade.

It wasnt until Burning Crusade that the lore got expanded and canonized that Thalassian High Elves and Blood Elves were progressive mutations from being exposed to the sunwell, effectively retconning the vanilla background of them being a separate subspecies of elf.

However, they never corrected the statues due to being outdated content. If they were corrected for the modern lore background, all of them would have Kaldorei ear design.

One could argue that Shal'Dorei negates this, but keep in mind that they are also a large mutation away from natural Kaldorei, which could also explain why their ears changed as well.

That said, it would be nice for more customization, not advocating against it, just clarifying why its unlikely.

[Hellspawn]

Hmmm... what about Dire Maul and other Classic references, then? Are they not Classic material, created before the Blood Elf models ever came to light? I do not recall the statues in Feralas having been added in Cataclysm. Or should I go check in Vanilla to make sure?

And how about the chance Blizzard could add a choice of different ears for the Night Elves simply because the customization of the ears is a default feature on all the other races with big ears? :P

They shouldn't and they will not. Nightelfs and Highborn like Shen'dralar have both the same kind of ears, thats how its stated in the lore and ingame.

Ok, I checked, and stand corrected. * blush *

Not sure why I assumed/understood that the potential could also be developed though sorcery of different kinds, but if this is not the case, then obviously the golden eyes could be an option but would not at all be a 'typical' feature, as you said.

So I corrected that in the first post.

Check again:
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Night_elf#Golden_eyes
They thought it shows potential for arcane, but that was wrong.

One could argue that Shal'Dorei negates this, but keep in mind that they are also a large mutation away from natural Kaldorei, which could also explain why their ears changed as well.

The Nightborn also changed over time, they changed due to extrem exposure of magic of the nightwells magic

[George Costanza]

Just give them black hair and some new hairstyles.