Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Vaedan]

I don't think we should focus on what we think this or that race shouldn't get, but rather focus on what we think this or that race should get. I believe this is far more likely to see results. If we spend our time saying "no! don't give them that" instead of saying "please! give us this!" then whatever the devs do decide to give us is going to be a roll of the dice instead of targeting what we want because we wasted time giving useless feedback (asking for a race not to get something), instead of giving useful feedback (asking for a race to get something).

Totally agree on this. The whole High Elf topic proves that devs are listening rather to the claims that say "give us" then to those of "don't give them". I also think it is pretty likely that blood elves will get san'layn options too, it is long standing request and many players would love to have this option, not to mention that it lines up with SL thematics pretty well. What I meant is that I could easily live without dark and tanned skin tones on void elves, but you are right that we can't stop them going live. Those tones are not vital for high elf fantasy and it also don't really contribute to the void fantasy either, on the other hand, you can see it as a way of "sun elf" aestetics, which can make blood elf fans feel unique. As for me, I can easily ignore those skin tones once they are available in the barber shop since they does not really align with my image of elves in warcraft, but I guess it's good to have these options for people who cares and likes that.

Truth is that blood elves are quite short on new customizations, compared to other races. Maybe they will not get much more at the launch, but devs clearly said they will continue to add new customizations during course of expansion, so I'm confident blood elves will get more stuff in later patches. It is also likely that when void elves get new customizations, blood elves will inherit those as well, since their models are identical and it likely take little effort to recolour new assets and transfer them to blood elf.

[Frenchvince]

It's far too late to change what skins Void Elves are getting at this point. I mentioned it before, but I think what Blood Elves need is a different kind of diversity. They'll have a plethora of skin tones to choose from in Shadowlands, but they are still stuck with just the sunwell/light-centric theme as their only option really. The Dark Ranger/San'layn skin and eyes open up an entirely different theme to them, and one players have been asking for for some time. Scars and tattoos are also a popular request and I do believe they should be given as well.

I don't think we should focus on what we think this or that race shouldn't get, but rather focus on what we think this or that race should get. I believe this is far more likely to see results. If we spend our time saying "no! don't give them that" instead of saying "please! give us this!" then whatever the devs do decide to give us is going to be a roll of the dice instead of targeting what we want because we wasted time giving useless feedback (asking for a race not to get something), instead of giving useful feedback (asking for a race to get something).

Frankly if Blizzard gives blood elves the dark ranger / san'layn option, that will mean they can make an undead elf paladin.
As you so aptly put it, the blood elves have the sunwell / light centric theme, it's quite the opposite of what an undead elves is.
I am not for and I am not against but if Blizzard does it, the door will be wide open for all requests of any kind, I give you an example, "void elf paladin",
so that's fine with me !

[Varodoc]

Blood elves don't need anything and are not entitled to anything. Void elves were entitled to fair-skin tones, since their leader had fair skin tone. That doesn't mean blood elves deserve anything in return. Void elves didn't steal anything, they simply received what they always deserved.

[FlubberPuddy]

Truth is that blood elves are quite short on new customizations, compared to other races. Maybe they will not get much more at the launch, but devs clearly said they will continue to add new customizations during course of expansion, so I'm confident blood elves will get more stuff in later patches. It is also likely that when void elves get new customizations, blood elves will inherit those as well, since their models are identical and it likely take little effort to recolour new assets and transfer them to blood elf.

Literally was thinking the very last bit as I was reading your post and then blam you note it down as well.

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Frankly if Blizzard gives blood elves the dark ranger / san'layn option, that will mean they can make an undead elf paladin.
As you so aptly put it, the blood elves have the sunwell / light centric theme, it's quite the opposite of what an undead elves is.
I am not for and I am not against but if Blizzard does it, the door will be wide open for all requests of any kind, I give you an example, "void elf paladin",
so that's fine with me !

They could still make San'layn an AR too, since they said they weren't done with ARs and would add them when the story/context was appropriate.

[Rhlor]

No, dude, it’s because Blood Elves aren’t getting anything comparable in return. All this talk of all these new customization options and the only thing BE’s are exclusively getting are jewelry, the rights to their original hair styles/colors, and ear modifications. That isn’t NEARLY enough. We don’t even get an exclusive skin color.

jewelry that nobody asked for! what we wanted were tattoos and scars and only on women. men's customization is terrible, we have practically nothing, just 3 hairstyles and three beards! Another thing is that if all our skins are shared with the void elves at least I would like to have void elf beards in my blood elf.

I would like to have more light elements also if they are have themes related to void the blood elves have to have more themes related to light

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They could still make San'layn an AR too, since they said they weren't done with ARs and would add them when the story/context was appropriate.

or ventyr!!!

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Blood elves don't need anything and are not entitled to anything. Void elves were entitled to fair-skin tones, since their leader had fair skin tone. That doesn't mean blood elves deserve anything in return. Void elves didn't steal anything, they simply received what they always deserved.

what? Are you saying that void elves deserve blood elves skins but blood elves shouldn't have void elves things like hairstyles or beards? I think it is fair that elements of both races are shared and not only share things to one race and the other has nothing

[Grythletubs]

Been trying the PTR and stuff.

Just wanted to mention that I find it odd that void elves don't have a black hair option...like what.

[Beloren]

Truth be told, blood elves are in pretty delicate spot. Addition of other elf AR drew heavily into thematics which were somewhat exclusive to them only. Before that, we had the opposition of night elves, mostly sneaky and primal elves oriented to druidism, Elune worship and deadly sentinels, and blood elves on the other hand, fullfiling fantasy of Imperial elves with strong affinity to magic, reckless use of power And strong will to survive, which lead to pragmatic decisions.

Nightborne now share the archetype of gifted elven spellcasters with Imperial past and void elves turned to be pragmatic group which does not hesitate to explore dangerous sources of power in order to protect their people. The only thing that that remain unique for blood elves is their orientation to the light and sun.

I don't think this is really true, becuase it operates on the basis and assumption that the blood elven themes were meant to be exclusive to blood elves alone, and they never were.

When the night elves were desigend they had all the themes in the high elves plus more, because they were the original elfgroup, from which all elves in cluding blood elves come from, so every aspect would be there.

While they gave the Darnassian that emphasised forest elf vibe, they never eliminated the nightborne vibe either, so it's not like it was meant to be unique.

In fact the blood elves as high elves are not unique as blood elves in anything, thier magic philsophy is notuniqiue, and is quite similarto the humans, in fact the two a part of the smae gclass of magic, as the high elves were part of the alliance units anyway, and the story goes that the humans get their magic form them. the high elves get their magic from the night elves , and this is painted in a more unique light.

However the magic casting cadre was never a uniuq e feature of the blood elf, neither was the archer /ranger forested elf a unique feature of the night elf - I've come to agree that the way blizard doest hese things is different from other games/fantasies.

You have to follow thier own pattern to make sense. In thieir world, the night elf is origin elf and all other current lf groups emphasise a portion of that original, including the Darnassians who are a faction of the night elves (not the whole of them -) something certain night elf fans I shall not name don't seem to realise when they try to turn the Darnassians into the full night elf palette - I'll just say that in wow, blizzard intended the Darnassian to be only a part of the original night elf, the highborne/Nightborne (same class) and the Illidari are other parts, while the Thalassians, naga, Satyr and worgen are just variations of those aspects present as their own races to allow them to do other things.

Originally the Thalassian was a part of the human alliance group just like the troll was part of the horde, and didn't exist independent of it - unlike the night elf and the undead who were designed from scratch to be their own faction and full races. But in wow, both Thalassian elf and troll become full races independent of the horde even though they effectively join them.

They however spawn variations that become playable, - those variations don't eat into the unique identity of the blood elves because they already have their own foundation. The void elf is the Thalassian elf that has extended his race's original nature into the void - it's not eating into the bloood elves as it is a side trajectory of the high/blood elf entirely based on them. The Nightborne has already long since been defined by the original kaldorei civilization anyway, this was there in the night elf story from the start, and is just visualised in the Nightborne, it was there before the blood elf story was hooked to its night elf parent. In other words, they planned it out that way.

So the way the elven races are distinguished is not necessarily purely based on function (or types of magic) it's more a combination of things, like history, political alignements, ideology, current affairs, magic and they all have a visual theme and variation to help that distinction, but they do share a strong core when they're of the same race. It's exactly the same with all the dwarf sub-races, or Tauren ones or orc ones. I'm seeing that t's just how blizzard do their races.

THe elves are highlighted because they're so popular and have a lot more attention, as a consequence players tend to want them all to be a little bit more unique, but realistically there is a limit you can stretch that before becoming a different race, and face it, if their variations aren't unique enough for you, you need to find another race - blizzard has loadsa other races that are unique enough for elves.


It's like those who want savage elves - I mean there is only so far a night elf can be savage before it loses the meaning or classification of elf, yet their are savage races enough - there's worgen, there's troll, there's orc.

Elves are defined by magic, beauty, high skill and intelligence - it's a common theme along with their lithe bodies and longer ears, beautified architecture which would have variations - but also similairities - Kaldorei/Shal'dorei, Thalassian (Quel/Sin/Ren), Naga, Satyr - they all have a similar type feel to them, despite their different colour and material themes - because they're all elven. They pull at different aspects of the elven realm, but to the very extreme ends they will fall in the elven bracket and not spill over to troll or human or other races. Within themselves they will intersect, but elf won't intersect with human although it's sphere is quite close to it, nor would it intersect with troll or worgen though it is close to them, however night elf, high elf, naga and satyr would all intersect within the the elf bracket though each would have their own corner none of the others share, even within same groups (same group is like the Thalassian - i.e. blood elf, void elf, high elf, san'layn, fel elf or Night group which would include priestess, druid, highborne, nightborne, illidari etc.

Nightborne now share the archetype of gifted elven spellcasters with Imperial past and void elves turned to be pragmatic group which does not hesitate to explore dangerous sources of power in order to protect their people. The only thing that that remain unique for blood elves is their orientation to the light and sun.

Given this, I believe dark and tanned skin tones should be blood elf exclusive. Hairstyles are not that important feature for me, since many haircuts are shared between races anyway, same goes to hair colors. There are much more features blood elves could get, like arcane/runic tattoos.

I agree with the conlcusion drawn based on the point you make here - i.e. to give blood elves a focused on direction feature they could double down on.

Now while arcane mastery isn't unique for Thalassians, never has been, how it is presented could be unique - for example the gold colour themes, the fire magic theme etc, but magic isn't the only variation (void/blood share the void/light frost/fire theme, while night elf/night borne share the nature/element star/moon magic spectrum theme).. there are other areas blood elves can double down on for unique feature that speak to their group more greatly emphasised in them than in say void elves (incl high elves). Farstrider rangers is one such area they could carve out a niche, the san'layn /dark fallen is another one that could come in the guise of an actual physical appearance shift/change - and these can be ALL blood elf - where as void elves and night elf/nightborne have other areas to them, void elves understandbly would share some things with blood elves, but would have a smaller niche scope to draw from.

What do I mean? Well void elves only draw from the void theme, the magic theme and the high elf theme of the blood elves in relation to the void, the blood elves have a magic theme, a high elf theme, but they also have more including a farstrider theme, a fel elf theme, a san'layn theme, etc etc. This makes sense because the void elf is the allied race, it's not meant to be as big, so it will have certain things of the blood elf in a unique light and double down on that but the blood elf would have more.

It's exactly the same with the Nightborne/Night elf, the Night elf would have the wider range , which is why it has highborne for example, but the Nightborne doubles down on the that Highborne aspect a lot more than the night elf, and doesn't have as wide a range as the night elf who also has the illidari , worgen/druidic elf aspects to it the Nightborne wouldn't have or would have a smaller variation of it like for example the nightborne may get druidism, but mainly balance druid caster druidism with some resto and a very weaker near non-existent feral/guardian section, because it only has part of the larger whole but a niche part. Same if the Order of Elune was the Nightborne priesthood, it would be more city centred and magic focused, emphasising the magical/arcane side of the order more visibily, while the night elf would have that + the martial sides like the sentinels and wardens, which the Nightborne wouldn't have, or would have far less prominent versions of. The Nightborne however we would see a far more detailed version of the caster side of the Order of Elune that we won't see be shown in the Night elves, even though we would know they'd be capable of it and can (like we see Tyrande) but the visualisation is more present on the Nightborne because this is what it emphasises.


In this way you have basically the groups feeling distinct, despite their great interconnectedness and similairities, you have visula definites and fantasies to feed off as core themes but having more niche ones available for those who love that side even though it's not heavily emphasised visually - this is all gameplay based to just stretch the illusion of distinctiveness so the main fantasies feel powerful even though the way they read in lore is far more realistic and blurred lines - which is absolutely how it should be. You want the game races to feel visually distinct enough to be easily identifiable, yet when you understand the lore the world in a more realistic sense, i's not as black and white at all as character creation and intro lore makes it sound/feel but far more gray.

[Kyphael]

Been trying the PTR and stuff.

Just wanted to mention that I find it odd that void elves don't have a black hair option...like what.

I don't think the Void Elf race can handle that much edge.

[Varodoc]

jewelry that nobody asked for! what we wanted were tattoos and scars and only on women. men's customization is terrible, we have practically nothing, just 3 hairstyles and three beards! Another thing is that if all our skins are shared with the void elves at least I would like to have void elf beards in my blood elf.

I would like to have more light elements also if they are have themes related to void the blood elves have to have more themes related to light

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or ventyr!!!

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what? Are you saying that void elves deserve blood elves skins but blood elves shouldn't have void elves things like hairstyles or beards? I think it is fair that elements of both races are shared and not only share things to one race and the other has nothing

Yes, I am saying void elves deserved FAIR-SKIN TONES (I'm not sure why you are acting like only blood elves have those, ignoring humans, dwarves, gnomes...) since Alleria was a void elf who retained her fair skin tone.

Why should blood elves have anything from void elves? Why should they have tentacle hair (literally the only thing void elves have that blood elves don't)?

[Beloren]

It's far too late to change what skins Void Elves are getting at this point. I mentioned it before, but I think what Blood Elves need is a different kind of diversity. They'll have a plethora of skin tones to choose from in Shadowlands, but they are still stuck with just the sunwell/light-centric theme as their only option really. The Dark Ranger/San'layn skin and eyes open up an entirely different theme to them, and one players have been asking for for some time. Scars and tattoos are also a popular request and I do believe they should be given as well.

I don't think we should focus on what we think this or that race shouldn't get, but rather focus on what we think this or that race should get. I believe this is far more likely to see results. If we spend our time saying "no! don't give them that" instead of saying "please! give us this!" then whatever the devs do decide to give us is going to be a roll of the dice instead of targeting what we want because we wasted time giving useless feedback (asking for a race not to get something), instead of giving useful feedback (asking for a race to get something).

Agreed here 100%, this is a an area the blood elves can expand into it, however there is also the Farstrider ranger theme that could be also expanded on to give a unique high elven flavour of the forest ranger - one in which the voided high elf actually won't have as much anymore - the image of Alleria while a ranger archer is a void ranger archer and no longer necessary a farstrider, even Vaneesa Windrunner's ranger/archer no longer feels the same as the classic elf archer vibe the Farstrider gives off in the blood elf levelling zone.

This leaves it as an avenue to be homed in for the blood elves just like the san'layn and one that wouldn't need to be replicated on the void elves - whether your void elf is a high elf or blood elf, because the void archer theme present is uniquely different and has been from the get go in Alleria herself.

[Kyriani]

Been trying the PTR and stuff.

Just wanted to mention that I find it odd that void elves don't have a black hair option...like what.

That Void Elves did not begin with White and Black hair options from the get go is truly baffling to me.

[Rhlor]

Yes, I am saying void elves deserved FAIR-SKIN TONES (I'm not sure why you are acting like only blood elves have those, ignoring humans, dwarves, gnomes...) since Alleria was a void elf who retained her fair skin tone.

Why should blood elves have anything from void elves? Why should they have tentacle hair (literally the only thing void elves have that blood elves don't)?

the void elves have hairstyles without tentacles

[Varodoc]

the void elves have hairstyles without tentacles

Then void elves will also get ALL blood elves hairstyles and colors in return.

[FlubberPuddy]

That Void Elves did not begin with White and Black hair options from the get go is truly baffling to me.

Especially since in the Island Expedition team a male VE has black hair.

[Rhlor]

Then void elves will also get ALL blood elves hairstyles and colors in return.

for me it's fine. I even think void elves should also have green eyes after all the silvermoon scholar in telogrus have green eyes.golden eyes must be something unique for blood elf
What I do believe is that we should have unique skins related to light! how void elves have unique void related skins

[Kyriani]

Then void elves will also get ALL blood elves hairstyles and colors in return.

While I have no issue with Blood and Void Elves sharing hairstyles, I have a feeling that's not in the cards when the allied race customization pass happens. I hope I'm wrong though. Like I mentioned before I'd really like this style for Blood Elves:

[FlubberPuddy]

No, dude, it’s because Blood Elves aren’t getting anything comparable in return. All this talk of all these new customization options and the only thing BE’s are exclusively getting are jewelry, the rights to their original hair styles/colors, and ear modifications. That isn’t NEARLY enough. We don’t even get an exclusive skin color.

It's not about 'getting anything comparable in return'.

Blizzard already admitted that the more popular races will get more options over the less popular races. So not every race is expected to have the same amount of customization options.

And if it isn't enough then I hope you were one of the scant few that were actually posting about what they'd like to see for Blood Elves. Not simply what to keep away from other races.

Most Blood Elf players I saw were too concentrated on keeping out High Elf customization from Alliance that all they pretty much asked for were "Blue Eyes for Blood Elves" - a very popular phrase that got thrown around.

And guess what? Blizzard added exactly that to Blood Elves + those jewelry/hair options/hair colors/ear lengths etc.

If people are upset about not many new customizations they sure as heck weren't letting Blizzard know. Hence why it's like I and others say: focus on talking about what you wanna see for your particular race and not what you don't want to see on other races you don't like/care about in the first place.

[Rhlor]

It's not about 'getting anything comparable in return'.

Blizzard already admitted that the more popular races will get more options over the less popular races. So not every race is expected to have the same amount of customization options.

And if it isn't enough then I hope you were one of the scant few that were actually posting about what they'd like to see for Blood Elves. Not simply what to keep away from other races.

Most Blood Elf players I saw were too concentrated on keeping out High Elf customization from Alliance that all they pretty much asked for were "Blue Eyes for Blood Elves" - a very popular phrase that got thrown around.

And guess what? Blizzard added exactly that to Blood Elves + those jewelry/hair options/hair colors/ear lengths etc.

If people are upset about not many new customizations they sure as heck weren't letting Blizzard know. Hence why it's like I and others say: focus on talking about what you wanna see for your particular race and not what you don't want to see on other races you don't like/care about in the first place.

tattoos and scars are things asked for years! Personally, I also want light skin

[Eric Arthur Blair]

or ventyr!!!

If they did those dudes, I would hope they get a gargoyle form as a temporary dps buff active racial. Could be like a racial metamorphosis.