Official High Elf Discussion Megathread

[Kyriani]

Imho pure red is way too iconic for blood elves. Velves will get maybe bright copper.

I'm not married to the red, tbh I'm hoping if there's any sort of red at all its darker, more of a brick red. Less bright.

[elbleuet]

Silver haired high elf > *

[Varodoc]

I still can't believe Blizzard did not give Void elves a white hair colour option when they got released.

Like, literally why, their leader and sole iconic figure literally has white hair in her Void form:



Better late than never I suppose...

[ravenmoon]

undead blood elf? I can accept that the san'layn cannibal monsters before serving the lich king and now the jailer were blood elves. but the dark rangers were high elves.
the undead have their own faction is the forsaken faction. the blood elves have their own faction the kingdom of quelthalas.

there are also high elves warlocks and there are even high elves as part of the cult of the damned or serving the old gods. the important thing about being a blood elf is to be a patriot and fight to protect quelthalas and the sunwell, are there warlocks between blood elves? yes, as there are human warlocks.
do you know a warlock blood elf organization? None because they are a small minority who were never important in the Quelthalas society and they do not have a leader because I repeat they are not important and there are very few.

Those high elves are one offs, the high elves don't do warlock, it's very against them.. they are probably classed as high elf because they were were in Scholomance in their weird cult while everything was happening and just haven't changed identity.

it's like human warlocks before wow, it wasn't part of the culture.

[Tanaria]

Those high elves are one offs, the high elves don't do warlock, it's very against them.. they are probably classed as high elf because they were were in Scholomance in their weird cult while everything was happening and just haven't changed identity.

it's like human warlocks before wow, it wasn't part of the culture.

Except we've seen High Elf Warlocks who are part of Burning Legion groups, such as those in Darkshore working for Athrikus Narassin and Cult of the Dark Strand. Also High Elves in the Blasted Lands who were Warlocks.
Plus, we've got the Silver Covenant High Elf Warlock.

But all of this is to say, that "Warlock" isn't a big thing in Silvermoon society either. It's on the same level as the Stormwind/Human Warlocks.

If anything, I've mainly seen Void Elf Warlock NPCs in Telgorus Rift - I suppose they make the most sense in terms of being Affliction Warlocks and summoning in Voidwalkers and Voidlords.

Again, I think people dwell too much on the Sunfury of TBC and possibly thinking that Blood Elf Warlocks look really cool. Now, yes they do, but as far as Silvermoon and the Horde goes, Blood Elf Warlocks of Silvermoon just have never played any meaningful role in Horde endeavors. It's always been Blood Knights, Mages and Hunters.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

If they do give void elves a blonde (I mean I'd be surprised if they didn't) I hope it's the lighter one you have in the top row and not the more yellow one in the bottom row. The top one seems more muted "every day joe" blonde and less of a "bright and sunny" blonde.

Assuming the hair colors end up just being ports from blood elves, and not brand new or from other races, These are the ones I'd like to see:



That would cover the basic range of human hair colors.

Good picks! I would be happy if we got those TBH.

Personally -as in we have 5 slots! what are your faves?!- I wouldn't go for the brighter shade of blonde either, but if we do get BE colors, I do think it's likely we will get it, for how much it resembles Alleria's hair color. And the brown shade we get will likely be the more default one that we have also seen on HE NPC's like Kris Goldenlight rather than the newer one.

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I'm not married to the red, tbh I'm hoping if there's any sort of red at all its darker, more of a brick red. Less bright.

My choice for red depends a lot of whether we get BE hair colors, or from other race, cause if we don't get BE hair colors, I really think the kultiran wine red would be perfect; being less saturated, it would combine very well with the more bluer skins. Here's the full edit I made a while back showcasing the KT hair colors on VE.



Funnily, even though I'd like most of these, the white one should be lighter to be perfect haha.

[Kyriani]

Good picks! I would be happy if we got those TBH.

Personally -as in we have 5 slots! what are your faves?!- I wouldn't go for the brighter shade of blonde either, but if we do get BE colors, I do think it's likely we will get it, for how much it resembles Alleria's hair color. And the brown shade we get will likely be the more default one that we have also seen on HE NPC's like Kris Goldenlight rather than the newer one.

Funnily, even though I'd like most of these, the white one should be lighter to be perfect haha.

Yea if we do get a "white" hair color I want it to be actually white and not grey. In the edit I made of your mockup, I actually tried to brighten the white so it looked less grey.



And yea I like that kul tiran red more than the red from the blood elf pic I posted, but I'll be happy if we get something at least close to the above colors.

[Zaelsino]

"...and became the Legions pawn" very interesting how you cut out the phrase by half, as if to obfuscate its complete meaning.

Those are the two crimes the book levels against Kael'thas, I just cited the half pertinent to this discussion. Because draining fel magic is explicitly not characteristic of blood elves in general.

Proximity to fel radiation altered their eyes, as it altered the orcs' skin, but even Kael's most fel-addled sycophants weren't spontaneously sprouting horns, wings, scales, tails, and fangs until the Legion let them gorge for days on raw demon blood. It's a unique requisite with obscene connotations. I'd also argue it saps too much from the demon hunter aesthetic, which embodies the fantasy you're after in a way that actually jives with the story.

Sure we even had a Warlock character on WoD speaking of how she was in route of helping Liadrin's forces in Aunchindoun before joining our garrison. As if blood elves hold no prejudices or segregation solely based on class. Man, this whole narrative that the fel was a secret just doesn't add up.

This isn't the gotcha you think it is; the militaries of both factions employ warlocks. Aeda soldiering for Liadrin is as telling as Christine Silver soldiering for Varian. Which is to say, not very.

Okay but the bit about "you could take Blood Elf warlocks out of the story and wouldn't change anything" did make me laugh. I mean sure, lets just take away the neon sign that literally said "beware of elves now, they are rude now." Like, the whole level of missing the point to not understand the function of BE Warlocks as the bare bone-est signifier that Blood Elves are the edgy version of High Elves and that they will do anything to survive.

Fel obviously played a role in the blood elves' story, you're just grossly exaggerating it. Their narrative in BC would have played out in the same way, with the same repercussions and resolution, even if "warlock" was removed from their class pool. Rommath (a mage) and his magisters (his mages) shoved fel in crystals to keep the city afloat, kept schtum about it, then got rid of them. I'm pretty sure the one and only mention of fel magic in the entire blood elf questing experience is here, and the tone of this quest is rather more in line with my take on this topic than yours.

Like for real, I just do not get the notion that a race HAS to have one single narrative direction/motivation. It's entirely unrealistic to believe that. Silvermoon was rebuilt on fel, and thankfully, unlike fans like you, Lor'themar is not going to oust its users as long as they are law abiding citizens.

I'd like to think Silvermoon's strict stance on the void indicates tighter regulations on dangerous magic in general. "Law-abiding citizens" presumably aren't emulating the behaviour of an elf-demon-zombie whose glutting of fel nearly doomed their race.

In the meantime, I will keep hoping for more Fel, undead and farstrider options for Blood Elves, and you can clutch your pearls if you want to.

San'layn and felblood elves are both such staggering departures from the core "blood elf" fantasy I'm not sure how realistic either subrace is as baseline customisation. A difference of clan or skin colour is easier to handwave than the fundamental question of your PC's mortality and biology. I can see the clown fiesta now: lizard elf paladins with demonic horns and bat wings, one eye aglow with crimson fire, the other brimming with holy light. The TRP writes itself.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Yea if we do get a "white" hair color I want it to be actually white and not grey. In the edit I made of your mockup, I actually tried to brighten the white so it looked less grey.

And yea I like that kul tiran red more than the red from the blood elf pic I posted, but I'll be happy if we get something at least close to the above colors.

Like if I could chose, I would go for the KT hair colors over the BE ones, I just like how overall they are more muted, and I think that serves both the HE and VE fantasies -the white just needs to be lighter-

But yeah, I think it's more likely we will just get BE hair colors. Really just one of those things where what you'd like it's not the same than what's more likely.

Like I would have really loved High Elves as an AR, buuut since VE's were introduced, it was far more likely that any HE options would be introduced through them

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I'm pretty sure I did these with the KT textures, so yeah! The KT grey one just lightened up a bit more would be great.

[Rhlor]

Those high elves are one offs, the high elves don't do warlock, it's very against them.. they are probably classed as high elf because they were were in Scholomance in their weird cult while everything was happening and just haven't changed identity.

it's like human warlocks before wow, it wasn't part of the culture.

SC warlock

[Kyriani]

Like if I could chose, I would go for the KT hair colors over the BE ones, I just like how overall they are more muted, and I think that serves both the HE and VE fantasies -the white just needs to be lighter-

But yeah, I think it's more likely we will just get BE hair colors. Really just one of those things where what you'd like it's not the same than what's more likely.

Like I would have really loved High Elves as an AR, buuut since VE's were introduced, it was far more likely that any HE options would be introduced through them

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I'm pretty sure I did these with the KT textures, so yeah! The KT grey one just lightened up a bit more would be great.

Yea, I'm not expecting Blizzard to do more than the minimum amount of work that they have to to give void elves natural hair colors, but who knows? They may surprise us. I mean they absolutely can't just copy/paste blood elf hair textures into the void elf folder because it would look bugged on any hairstyle with tentacles. So some amount of work will have to be done to the textures. That being the case, I'd imagine they could simply copy the relevant sections of any hair texture that exists and paste them into a void elf hair texture file so the tentacles are accounted for. It might look something like this as an example:



In any case that means some amount of work MUST be done, so they might actually take the time to not half ass it? Hopefully?

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Yea, I'm not expecting Blizzard to do more than the minimum amount of work that they have to to give void elves natural hair colors, but who knows? They may surprise us. I mean they absolutely can't just copy/paste blood elf hair textures into the void elf folder because it would look bugged on any hairstyle with tentacles. So some amount of work will have to be done to the textures. That being the case, I'd imagine they could simply copy the relevant sections of any hair texture that exists and paste them into a void elf hair texture file so the tentacles are accounted for. It might look something like this as an example:



In any case that means some amount of work MUST be done, so they might actually take the time to not half ass it? Hopefully?

Okay actually I was just thinking, what if they go about it the other way around?

So instead of editing the texture, they edit the hairstyles themselves so the tendrils and bangle load the VE texture, and and the hair itself ate made to load BE textures. Like how they made the VE model load the BE skins so they separated the jewelry, Imagine if they just separated what part of the hairstyle read what texture lol.

Usually I would just believe they would create new texture, but the fact that they have already just repathed the skin tones and the eye colors, makes me believe they kinda just do that bhahaha.

[Kyriani]

I guess we'll just have to wait and see! I hope that the 9.1.5 PTR happens soon though so we can see what we're actually getting.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Okay so like this; first is a VE texture, and 2 and 3 BE hair textures. The only difference is that I am telling the tendril geometry to still load that first VE Hair texture.

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I guess we'll just have to wait and see! I hope that the 9.1.5 PTR happens soon though so we can see what we're actually getting.

I'm hoping the next 2 weeks? but who knows how much before they droop a build with VE hair colors heh

[Kyriani]

Okay so like this; first is a VE texture, and 2 and 3 BE hair textures. The only difference is that I am telling the tendril geometry to still load that first VE Hair texture.

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I'm hoping the next 2 weeks? but who knows how much before they droop a build with VE hair colors heh

Neat! I didn't realize that could be done! Thanks for sharing that!

I do hope that we'll see the new hair colors right when the 9.1.5 ptr opens but I suppose anything can happen. I know it's unlikely, but I'd be so stoked if they slipped in a tentacle toggle too!

[Luck4]

This is why I always come back to this thread.

I was wondering recently, how much time until you would bring a mockup for us to see the possible outcomes... and there is!

Thank you very much! <3

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Neat! I didn't realize that could be done! Thanks for sharing that!

I do hope that we'll see the new hair colors right when the 9.1.5 ptr opens but I suppose anything can happen. I know it's unlikely, but I'd be so stoked if they slipped in a tentacle toggle too!

Ohhh right? that would be the neatest thing we could get for now tbh.

So yeah, if they reuse the BE textures, I think they could go about it like this. "If" being imperative, who knows if they legit go and make VE specific hair colors. But honestly, knowing that it's on the horizon, it's fun to speculate

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This is why I always come back to this thread.

I was wondering recently, how much time until you would bring a mockup for us to see the possible outcomes... and there is!

Thank you very much! <3

Ayy! No problem

[Yarathir]

As I predicted, the official forums are starting to see comments such as:

"They’ve caved to wishes for reasons, but they still haven’t changed the name of the race or anything."

"You still can't be paladins"

"No matter what you RP your race still says void elf"

High Elf Paladins are hardly as iconic as some people try to make them out to be. Mages and Hunters fit High Elf more.

Blood Elves also still say Blood Elf.

Blood Elf player coping has reared its head as I figured.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

So yeah, if they separated the material the hair meshes use, that would also make the tentacle toggle easier

[Yarathir]

So yeah, if they separated the material the hair meshes use, that would also make the tentacle toggle easier

They've done a toggle for some stuff like night elf leafs, so they prolly should do the same here.

That or they turn the tentacles into braids for certain hair colors.