New blood elf customizations are outrageous

[Sharby]

I would just have preferred that they'd published it with the accompanying lore rather than just making the fanbase fill in their gaps. Just make up a reason. We understand that you're giving people who just want to be the pretty race the option to be black, fine. Just give me some official justification.

And what official justification would you be satisfied with? If Blizzard said that they always existed and they just hadn't implemented them until now, would you be satisfied? Probably not.


Some of the suggestions I've seen are extremely insensitive. They're not going to say they came from swamps and desserts nor will the say the skin color is a result of fel corruption lmao.

[Nnyco]

I mean, aside from the fact that I haven't seen a black elf ever in any game/movie/book/etc. (now I won't act like ive seen,read, played everything so I could be wrong)...its just implemented so...wrong.

You can't just slap black on a white man and be like "there ya go, representation of race!" No black hairstyles? No black facial features? No black facial hair? Black people aren't just white people with dark skin. It looks extremely bad, and is a bit insulting rather than representative.

They are elves tho, not humans.

We got all kind of skin colored elves, but because they are black now aswell its suddenly outrageous.

[Maljinwo]

And what official justification would you be satisfied with? If Blizzard said that they always existed and they just hadn't implemented them until now, would you be satisfied? Probably not.

That literally worked with the Zandalari though

[CalamityHeart]

I think the darker skin tones for blood elves look nice.

Personally, I wouldn't make an elf with the deep dark tone, but the medium-darker tone is pretty much perfect. My blood elf demon hunter has a similar sort of dark skin with red hair, and she's probably my favorite character of mine, visually.

It's understandable that people would think they might look a bit odd, and while I like them, I can see how they'd be jarring to others. I just wish there could be legitimate discussion on the topic without making a hard left into racial issues every single fucking time. I've seen four threads like this that jump headfirst into that shit. It's really sad.

[MikeBogina]

There already was a dark-skinned human option available and an asian face as well, both were just implemented terribly and these new features are them properly putting them into the game.

Yup, and I didn't say there wasn't.

Furthermore, having real life inspiration does not mean that it has to adhere to real life rules. They could easily make black vikings based on nordic culture and give them all black features and hair, because its fiction.

But they didn't. But also the white people in the game actually do "adhere" to real life rules, they originate from lands more nordic/european. And are restricted to have only European cultures. I mean correct me if I'm wrong, if there is a non white culture that is being used by the humans in game.

But that said, i wouldn't have a problem if there was a group of dark skinned Vrykul who led to dark skin humans, hell they could even in lore say a group of Vrykul went south before the curse of flesh, lived in a really hot area and their children become black over time due to the heat/sunlight and we're being introduced to them now. Would make sense for them to have african features but still have the same cultural background.

There is nothing in lore that states humans are all white and even if there was Blizzard can always undo it considering they created this lore. You get called racist because you conflate non-white people being added with being 'controversial' or 'pc pandering'.

It's kind of simple logic.
Yeah shitting on the established lore is something they're good at doing.
Ahh but I never did, I said it was for inclusion, which it clearly is and I having nothing against it, just wish they added lore to why.

[gurutikka]

I mean, aside from the fact that I haven't seen a black elf ever in any game/movie/book/etc. (now I won't act like ive seen,read, played everything so I could be wrong)...its just implemented so...wrong.

You can't just slap black on a white man and be like "there ya go, representation of race!" No black hairstyles? No black facial features? No black facial hair? Black people aren't just white people with dark skin. It looks extremely bad, and is a bit insulting rather than representative.

problem with your metaphor is that elves aren't humans so the whole black and white thing doesn't apply here.

[Aqua]

I mean, aside from the fact that I haven't seen a black elf ever in any game/movie/book/etc. (now I won't act like ive seen,read, played everything so I could be wrong)...its just implemented so...wrong.

You can't just slap black on a white man and be like "there ya go, representation of race!" No black hairstyles? No black facial features? No black facial hair? Black people aren't just white people with dark skin. It looks extremely bad, and is a bit insulting rather than representative.

You need to play more games then.

This is fantasy. Anything goes, this might fly for the human race models, but they're fuckin' elves.

[Monster Hunter]

Gotta admit when I saw them it did look a little janky. Yea I know drow are a thing in dnd but warcraft isn't dnd, so I think my feeling mostly come from that I haven't Personaly ever seen them in game befor or seen any reference to blood/high elves in warcraft having anything other than pale skin.

But ultimately I don't care. All elves are equally abominations no matter what skin or eye colour they have.

[ThiagoTorres]

What about classes that blood elf can be and void elf dont?

[Fetus Rex]

It's a clear case of agenda and pandering. Nothing else to see here. Blizzard went full tumblr-twitter.

[Sharby]

-snip-

Did you have this issue with black Kul Tirans? I may have missed it but I didn't see anyone say anything about the addition, which is why this strikes me as odd.


And it isn't really shitting on the lore, Blizzard hasn't ever stated that white European features are core to the identity of humans. So this fixation on skin-color as being pertinent to their story really rubs me the wrong way.

Would it be jarring to see these new humans in the story? Sure I'll give you that only because they didn't exist before. But no more than that, because they exist now.



It really is not significant lore-wise or otherwise.

[Teriz]

Dark Brown Blood Elf Paladins are going to look sick. Haters gonna hate, but I might actually roll a Blood Elf now.

[Gaidax]

It's a clear case of agenda and pandering. Nothing else to see here. Blizzard went full tumblr-twitter.

Whoa careful there mate, you might get branded as the enemy of the humankind.

[apustus]

Dark elves are only good for sex slaves, everyone knows this.

[FelPlague]

Yea, but blue people aren't real so they can have tentacle hairstyles, black people (which blizz is clearly trying to make a slapstick representation for) are and already have certain features besides dark skin pasted over a white race. They are making the effort for introducing them for the sake of representation, they should introduce it right instead of saying "here's your black skin yay".

Wtf you got against blue people you fucking racist?
"Blue people aren't real and don't deserve proper representation"

[Aresk]

I mean, aside from the fact that I haven't seen a black elf ever in any game/movie/book/etc. (now I won't act like ive seen,read, played everything so I could be wrong)...its just implemented so...wrong.

The recent Shannara Chronicles television series had elves played by actors of African descent. If you're looking for that type of content, I recommend giving it a try. While I've only really watched two MTV series (The Shannara Chronicles and Teen Wolf), they do really good on representation.

If you really need to see skin or gender to connect to a character, then... well, that's just sad

There are other forms of representation than just skin color or gender. I don't see what's sad in wanting media you consume to acknowledge people like you exist, particularly if you're in a marginalized group.

[FelPlague]

I'd just like to point out that elves don't look like white people either. Elves don't look human period. If you saw an elf walking down the street, you'd either run in terror or shoot it dead because you thought it was some sort of alien.

This dont look human to you!?
you mean to say humans dont have glowing orb eyes, giant eyebrows, and even bigger ears, with jaws so small they cant even eat an apple?

[Geckoo]

I am surprised and happy that they finally understood that more customization options is good and fun for everyone and that when it comes to this kind of stuff they should not restrict their own creativity by some invented lore or even the need to justify everything they do with lore. If at some point they need to explain something in-game, they can invent more lore to fit whatever they need, but is not even something needed, when the patch drops i'll just assume that all that variety was always around.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It's kind of simple logic.
Yeah shitting on the established lore is something they're good at doing.
Ahh but I never did, I said it was for inclusion, which it clearly is and I having nothing against it, just wish they added lore to why.

It’s not shitting on any established lore to have black or Asian humans as they have been a round since classic but just looked horrible. Both were then shown in comics with black humans being in the varian comics and Asian being in the dark rider comics. As far as wow humans go there was never any separation based on race so there is absolutely no reason to think that they would have different cultures or lore behind them.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

And what official justification would you be satisfied with? If Blizzard said that they always existed and they just hadn't implemented them until now, would you be satisfied? Probably not.


Some of the suggestions I've seen are extremely insensitive. They're not going to say they came from swamps and desserts nor will the say the skin color is a result of fel corruption lmao.

Off the top of my head, some weak hand wavy excuses include:
There are already canonically some darker elves in the starter zone as a result of fel corruption, confirm that they're a more purified version of those.
The reignition of the Sunwell could have caused them to adapt darker skin to deal with its energy. They live next to the sun, have it give them a tan.
Some sort of arcane anomaly brought them in from an alternate universe where all elves are dark skinned.


They literally did use the "they always existed" excuse and no, I'm not satisfied because it's a lie and we all know it. I'm probably not going to be able to come up with a good reason here because I'm not a professional fantasy writer like Blizzard's team are. It shouldn't be our job as players to fill in their blanks.