The jewelry itself was too big too. Some of the pieces are too gaudy. The body chains looked good and should have been for men and women. Not sure what happened with that, but they just disappeared.
8 Likes
In addition to these, none of the jewelry the women can wear is culturally identifying. It all looks like jewelry anyone could go into Silvermoon and pick up whenever they want. This is for 2 reasons:
- The jewelry the women got is extremely impractical, and looks like something only a civilian would wear. Particularly the necklaces, and the reason this is a problem is because of their sharp points at the center of the women’s neck. This results in a look that is outright counter productive to the combat of WoW.
- An entire third of those jewelry options would never even be seen at all without outright hiding armor on the character.
An example of jewelry done right is the Nightborne’s current update coming in which is culturally specific to them and done in such a manner that is seen (provided the NB doesn’t wear a helmet, which is a common slot to hide or be creative with). The NB jewelry is something no other race would wear because of how unbelievably iconic it is to them. It is simple, practicle, and looks well done.
Blood elf jewelry possesses none of these qualities, and is only on females, completely shafting the males within the community.
13 Likes
Agreed. It might have been easier to overlook had the rest of the Blood Elf customization pass been robust, but all they really got outside of the female only jewelry was 3 hairstyles (for each sex), 3 hair colors, ear sizes, a few facial hairs, and a bunch of skin/eye colors. At least that’s all that jumps to mind for me at the moment. They really needed better treatment. Kinda like what Humans and Night Elves got IMO.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am using two of the new male hairstyles and one of the new female hairstyles on some of my Blood Elf characters, but that was essentially the highlight of what they got for me and it felt really lackluster overall.
9 Likes
Someone asked me the other day ‘what would you give up, more blood elf customization or fixing all of Quel’danas, Quel’Thalas and the Ghost Lands’
I didn’t have an answer. As much as I like the giant hole in the city and the giant scar, I feel like with Arthas dead, and the Sunwell fixed, maybe it’s time to renovate. Now there’s obviously technical reasons why that never happened on blizzard’s side, but it’d be nice.
This has nothing to do with blood elf customization but it made me realize how much I think the Blood Elves are owed a bone. Something.
4 Likes
I don’t think we should have to choose one or the other. I think Blood Elves can and should have more robust customization, and have Silvermoon/Eversong/Ghostlands updated and flyable.
The artists who do character customization and those that do level design (environments) are not necessarily the same people.
9 Likes
Honestly I think we would because of the technical hurdles and the insane amount of art assets. They’d probably have the entire art team working on it like hamsters on wheels.
It’s probably why blizzard has thrown up their hands and ignored Exodar and SMC for so long, but I mean if we’re going to be having ‘Divorce-level gift bribing’ might as well ask while the getting is good.
I don’t think there are any real technical hurdles to making Silvermoon and the surrounding Blood Elf zones flyable. They have been making flyable environments for years. And if private servers can enable flight in the Blood Elf starting zones, then why can’t Blizzard?
They don’t even have to make much in the way of new assets. They just have to replace the 2D smoke and mirror sections with 3D Blood Elf assets that already exist. Cover the gaps with textures and walkmeshes and bam Silvermoon looks fine from the air. The only other thing they’d have to do is clean up the terrain around Zul Aman so the mountains surrounding it look less like a square and more of a natural landscape.
Silvermoon City can retain the exact same layout it currently has, it just has to be able to look nice from the air. It would, of course, be better if Blizzard also updated the interior of the city and added new stuff, but… baby steps. Get the city in a state fit to be flyable first. Then renovate as time permits.
Here’s a shot of Silvermoon from above via my Shaman’s Far Sight:
There’s plenty of 3D assets from all the Blood Elf themed content in TBC already that could be used to fill the gaps. Would be nice to see the fel crystals replaced with something more arcane themed (or light) and all those invisible walls in the ocean removed eventually. The non-instanced version of Zul’Aman could become explorable like non-instanced Zul’Gurub became. I’m not saying it wouldn’t require an investment of time and and effort, but it wouldn’t require new assets or much in the way of code to make this happen.
14 Likes
I kind of wonder which would be faster, finding all the spots that need to be patched, or basically copying everything that’s small enough that it’s already good to go and just remaking the stuff with gaps?
4 Likes
For them to redo Silvermoon and add flying, they’d probably have to redo it. It’s still stuck to the Outlands. I don’t see them doing it unless it’s a major expac feature.
Outland and northrend could use a HD do over…
2 Likes
They could definitely.
2 Likes
I liked some of the new aesthetics when they re-did zones in Cata, but some zones that had been favorites previously I barely go to since Cata. I’d love an upgraded quel’thalas, but I would worry a lot about them ruining it.
Same with the draenei area. I don’t like the idea of the quests changing too much either.
But man with the current art style they would be gorgeous.
2 Likes
I’d really like for them to bring the Blood Elf and Draenei starting zones into the actual continents and not leave them as part of the Outland instance. But like I said before, if private servers can manage to make flying possible in those zones as they are, why couldn’t Blizzard?
7 Likes
If they go into a revamp of the world their goal needs to be on ensureing that at the end of any quests or zone stories that the issues of that zone or story are settled. Cities and towns rebuilt.
Give us a world that we can feel ok about leaving behind as we wander the cosmos.
4 Likes
I’ll admit, I love flying, I get it asap, but idk how I would feel about flying in the belf and draenei start areas. I wouldn’t quit over it if it were added, but I think I’d be sad.
Because there are more behind the scenes complications at Blizzard than private servers. It isn’t something they can up and do. It has to get approval money wise and time wise for them to do it.
I’d really like to fly in my home city. Otherwise the Dragonhawks just don’t have much other than on the flight path itself.
5 Likes
Really? It’s always bugged me that you can’t fly in either of them because I really like both like the most of all the capital cities, I just can’t fly so it’s easier to go elsewhere where I can fly around. 
3 Likes
Well yea, there’s no denying that much. 
That would make sense for sure, I just don’t trust blizzard. They are in my top 5 favorite zones I’d say.
I haven’t forgiven them for Stonetalon.