100% this in my case. Boggles my mind how me wanting dark themes for blood elves = I like high elves when I’ve said about a thousand times over in the threads I’ve been in there with them that I find ‘light’ themes, the alliance, and alliance thalassian elves to be very boring (AGAIN this is my personal opinion and I’'m not putting down those who like them.)
I don’t like how the darker nature of blood elves seems to be forum-headcanon’d to being… much more bland (in my opinion) than they used to be.
One of the things I liked a lot about blood elves when they were added to the Horde back in TBC was their survival at all costs kinda dark viewpoint.
They had just survived more or less the eradication of almost everyone they knew and loved. That it changed them and they “Took” the Light instead of serving it was wonderful.
Going so far as to exile those few who stood against their regime doing what it needed to keep the city running? Also good. Their people were on the brink and they had to make hard choices and they were going to make them to survive.
This was a new and amazing way for elves to be.
I was a little sad when they flipped a lot on this at the end of TBC. But there has still been little bits sprinkled here and there for us. I want to see those things brought a bit more forefront. (honestly though I don’t think the Light has overtaken them as much as some do.)
I didn’t find the body chains insulting. And wanted to put some on my Priest. The big gaudy jewelry is what I hate though. Could knock myself out cold with one of the pieces if I move too much.
Also small vent on behalf of the blood elves. This expansion was advertised as a huge shift in customization and blood elves got a few more eye colors, a few more hair colors that look alike, some skin tones (which was nice) and some wonky jewelry. We don’t have facial options, eyebrow options, jewelry toggles, extra jewelry colors, or more like some other races. Feels bad man
it seems to me that the opportunity to have a more nuanced story arc existed in tbc, with part of the playerbase liking the dangerously beautiful but bad imagery, and the rest preferring to return to traditional elven lore/themes.
Well, in that case, they have high elf options on the alliance now. And on the Horde, too. It’s just so annoying to no longer see the entire reason I fell in love with the ‘dangerously beautiful’ concept being embraced at all.
(though many other blood elf fans stand with me on those concepts.)
Yes! I don’t want Belves to completely lose their edge and just end up Tolkien rip offs. Because I feel like Blizz was trying to avoid that initially. Optimally there should be customization options in both directions. Since elves can and do disagree with each other on our paths.
Yes, I agree with this entirely. Personally, I really would love to see felblood options, San’layn, and dark ranger, but I know it’s suuuuuuch a longshot and fans of those I mentioned can’t figure out what we want on that end either (AR? Customization? Forsaken toggle?). But, blood elves alone, I’m hoping to see the darker magics (or, well, fire, which also can be dark! Flames do consume, after all, and the phoenix can be pretty dangerous) and decisions represented on the blood elves.
Edit: IRONICALLY it seems like void elves have nabbed that theme right out from under blood elves, except instead of fel (which should have been an ALL IN thing with blood elves, in my opinion) they used void.
historically, beautiful bad elves was a mainstay of drow, but blizz devs rolled drows into nelf culture and tempered it with wood elf lore. if you know your DnD, nelfs are like drizzt kin
classic+ ideas included the option to play in a third faction, et.al, the legion. set in timeline before arthas invades quel’thalas. so manari eredar, undead, scarlet crusade (unwitting dupes), fel orcs. since no belfs yet because arthas not lich king till later, high elves in silvermoon and no undead in lordaeron, means the horde dont have forsaken yet and so the only undead are in legion faction. what if that concept could be advanced to wotlk+, where the third playable faction is scourge. looking at the scourge components, san’layn is listed, as are vrykul, val’kyr, and surprisingly, worgen, etc.
Eh true but then we’d be shoved into the ‘evil’ box, where all of us would be expected to be evil, and I hate playing ‘evil’ characters. Mine will fight for azeroth and alongside others on Azeroth, but use darker methods to do so. Antihero sort of thing. So unfortunately in that manner I wouldn’t like it at all either, because I definitely wouldn’t be able to play my character the way I want since, again, everyone would say “nope you’re only evil”
