lets face it, blizz wasnt about to force belfs to play alliance. jaina misbehaved because there had to be a good reason once the subject was broached. likely only became a possibility to make sure the horde was awake
This is a customization/AR thread, not a debate thread. Take that to one of the four or five other active debate threads going around.
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I’m making a human hunter and the hip quiver idea, I want it even more so because he uses a crossbow!
Could be possible, I was not at the board meeting though.
Went over some ideas on what I think a full on Allied Race would need/want.
High Elf Allied Race options.
Hair/Face
- Less Anime-esque Hairstyles than Blood Elves. Planer and more militaristic.
- Some Braided Hairstyles with some Feather/Beaded/Filigree Charms.
- Some Shared Hairstyles with Humans/Night Elves/Void Elves.
- Normal/More Human-Like Eyes with White Sclera and Full Range of Ear Sizes for Half Elves.
Body Type/General Build
- Slightly Buffer/More Muscled than Void Elves/Blood Elves.
- Possibly using the Night Elf model as a base.
- More composed animations than Night/Blood/Void Elves.
Jewelry/Accessories
- Celtic Inspired. I.E. Lots of Celtic Knot and Filigree.
- Feathers in/on Hair/Ears/Neck/Ankles/Wrist.
- Gold/Copper/Bronze/Leather Materials.
Voices/Jokes/Flirts
- Posible Irish Accent.
- Some rant on how “For the Alliance” came first.
- I am terrible with flirts so… Yeah…
Racials/Mounts/Heritage
- Posible Selectable option for a Racial based off of Different Groups of High Elves. (Personal Hearth?)
- Additional Food/Herbs/Skins gathered.
- Meditation based Health/Mana Recovery.
- Unicorn Mounts. (Quel’dorei Steed 2.0)
- Celtic based Garb. Shifts from Ranger to Warrior depending on items selected.
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Big assumption that the if a High elf allied race comes, they’d be alliance. If earthen are anything to go by, if it does occur they’ll be neutral, especially with Midnight reuniting the elves.
I really don’t see another Thalassian derivative being added. It just doesn’t seem realistic. At most I could see Blizzard add a system for changing our racial name display (not limited to elves so we could do Wildhammer Dwarves or Farraki Trolls for example). I just don’t see any benefit to making third Thalassian derivative when it’s cheaper and more practical to make High Elves accessible in the way they have already been doing; via customization options.
High Elves as their own allied race would just dilute the customization options between three playable Thalassians rather than two. I’m more inclined to believe Blizzard would homogenize Void Elves and Blood Elves even more by sharing most, if not all hairstyles between them (sans tentacle toggle for Blood Elves). If they did that and added a racial tag display option, that basically gives a race called High Elf to both Horde and Alliance, without having to actually add another derivative.
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I agree, and I think this is already the path they’re trying to take by adding Void elf customizations to normal High elves, so that both classes can identify with them, instead of just adding a whole 'nother derivative when all the ingredients are currently present to deliver them alternatively.
That being said I don’t think they’re going to be sharing the hairstyles between Void elves and High elves, as that seems to be the real last distinction between the two groups, and seems to be used to help differentiate between who has, and hasn’t undergone the transformation. But who knows.
I think adding racial toggles is probably the best logical step, I just worry it’s one of those things that Blizzard is going to brush under the rug as an RP element and thus not imperative to development. Unless another scandal hits them and they come scouring for fan service ideas.
With the earthen it’s anyone’s guess.
(And this is partially me trying to get the thread back on subject.)
This is what I personally want most since it covers all the bases. And they already switch racial names when transformed so the code is there.
And they have been doing similar work with pronouns. So having an NPC refer to you by the racial name is on the table.
They could even do a “Racial Quest” exploring the different Subraces to reward you with the options and maybe some transmogs/mounts.
Not necessarily depending on how they add it. There are plenty of options they could take to make them unique, and they could even share some of those options with the other group(s)/vice versa.
Pluss we may start to see lots of these concepts used for Arathi in the future since they are an Elf derived group.
Heck, I could have changed the High Elf name to Arathi and all the options would have worked.
This is something I’m more or less against.
I’m fine with sharing most Hair Styles, but not at the expense of new and/or unique styles for each group.
Like, you aren’t going to get big jeweled anime hair on Void Elves and your aren’t getting tentacled/abstract styles for Blood Elves.
Plus any it would reduce the likelihood of Tentacles/Possible Starcursed Hair getting add or any new Blood Elf head Jewelry/Braid Toggles.
Like I said, I’m not against sharing any hairstyles across races as long as it’s done right and not at the expense of new/fitting stuff.
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I mean, I personally would prefer new hairstyles for Void Elves myself, I just try to consider things from the dev point of view. Sharing the hairstyles between Blood Elves and Void Elves gives both races more hairstyles without Blizzard having to do much actual work. It’s basically giving them a 2-fer by giving them the ability to say “see? we gave Blood Elves and Void Elves a bunch of “new” hairstyles they didn’t have before!” without having to do any real work. I hope Blizzard invest more effort than that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did some sharing in addition to some new styles.
With the earthen it’s anyone’s guess.
I think the earthen are pretty distinct from the Dwarves we currently have. I’m not sure how they’d work as simple customizations. Also, if they were customizations for Dwarves/Dark Iron, then Horde wouldn’t have access to them, so as a neutral allied race they make sense to me. But in the case of High Elves, Alliance and Horde already have a Thalassian race so making a neutral allied race isn’t necessary when they can just give similar customization options to both for the same end result.
This is what I personally want most since it covers all the bases. And they already switch racial names when transformed so the code is there.
And they have been doing similar work with pronouns. So having an NPC refer to you by the racial name is on the table.
They could even do a “Racial Quest” exploring the different Subraces to reward you with the options and maybe some transmogs/mounts.
I would prefer this as well.
This is something I’m more or less against.
I’m fine with sharing most Hair Styles, but not at the expense of new and/or unique styles for each group.
Like, you aren’t going to get big jeweled anime hair on Void Elves and your aren’t getting tentacled/abstract styles for Blood Elves.
Plus any it would reduce the likelihood of Tentacles/Possible Starcursed Hair getting add or any new Blood Elf head Jewelry/Braid Toggles.
Like I said, I’m not against sharing any hairstyles across races as long as it’s done right and not at the expense of new/fitting stuff.
I understand, and I too would prefer new unique styles, but as I mentioned above, I am just trying to look at it from the dev perspective, especially on the subject of getting a lot of return out of very little work.
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I could see them adding new hairstyles that may be shared, but I do not see them sharing the remaining existing hairs. I feel that some differentiating options are useful from a gameplay and story-telling perspective. It’s used in the rift to differentiate who has been transformed, and who hasn’t, it differentiates who’s a blood elf and who’s a void elf. If we erase that it’s gonna be hard for them to express those plot points without expressively naming every NPC “Void elf” or “Blood elf” in their name.
I feel like if that threshold is ever crossed, and there’s virtualy no distinction between a Void elf and a Blood elf that there really isn’t even a purpose for them to be separate playable races anymore.
As much as I want this to be true, Blizzard track-record for ignoring stuff like this despite its ease of implication has me skeptical.
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When High Elves are made an AR they are either going to be Alliance only or Neutral, and I see a very real possibility in which Alliance gets High Elves and Horde gets Amani Trolls in Midnight.
Blizzard has said they already know what Allied Races they want to add in the Worldsoul Saga and realistically there’s not really any other races native to Azeroth in Quel’thalas they can add except Quel’dorei and Amani lol. So unless Alliance is getting Trolls too I don’t see them both being neutral but who knows considering Horde just got Dwarves.
And both Horde and Alliance are probably getting the Harronir as a neutral race which look like a mix of Night Elves and Trolls so 
Blizz might make High Elves have a different idle stance/posture, but either way they’ll have their own racials, racial mount, and heritage armor, and probably unique tattoos/hairstyles, which is unique enough considerin the precendet of past Allied Races like Void Elves, Lightforged, the different flavors of Dwarf, etc.
People saying Blizz won’t add another flavor of Thalassian but Blizz knows they can add in High Elves for minimal work and maximum player satisfaction lol. It’s way more likely to be added then something that is going to require a lot of modeling and animation work, the vast majority of current ARs are just reskins of older races or re-use their skeletons/base model.
That or they will add in official sub-race options in character customization
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Void Elf and High Elf NPCs already share hairstyles, this sharing should also be available to players.
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I don’t see high elves being added as an AR, but if they are they would most certainly be neutral, considering the elven reunification is the whole purpose of Midnight. You can hope for alliance-only, but from what we’ve seen so far it’s not likely.
I mean, Horde just got dwarves, a pretty much hardcore alliance race so I don’t think that matters. Additionally the Harronir look like a mix between Trolls and night elves, which could end up being the equivalent of the nightborne for the alliance, since they’re both forest-dwelling nature elves with a lot in common.
I just don’t see it happening, I think they’re going to just give in-game High elves a mixture of Void elf and Blood elf aesthetics to make both groups identifiable with them, and keep it at that. Making a whole other elf race with no real reason or justification to look different makes no sense, and sounds like wishful thinking.
This is the only real, rational option I believe we can expect. It would take practically no work, and would satisfy more than just elf players, but every race with subrace customizations.
At the very least, we can expect a bunch of new elven customization options. And hopefully, above all else, some new face-models. We went from cute, kitten-like faces to horse-faced in the update.
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When the main differentiator for npcs is what hair style they have, i would say the line between the races has already gone tbh.
Its just keeping arbitrary differences for the sake of having a difference.
I completely understand the desire to have the two races stand out visually, but that ship sailed a long time ago.
Really what they need to do is reinforce the racial fantasy that seperates the races.
Although i have a feeling come midnight the thalassian elves are going to be one big happy family, all mixed in together. So that might not even happen either.
Hey, at least void elves glow purple sometimes…
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I am always a fan for more customization options for players.
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Also pandaren, evokers, and soon earthen don’t look different if they are horde or alliance, aside from mogs of course. If blizz treats thalassian as no different than any of the other neutral races, I don’t see the problem.
Also even if horde and alliance thalassians share customization options, it would still be nowhere near close to what dracthyr and earthen have. Without going off topic too much, it would be nice to get more customizations for all races to that level.
Tattoos for the face and body, scars for the body and face, more racial specific accessories like things for hair, jewelry and such, more hair styles, eye colors, make up options, facial hair just to name a few.
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I agree, but it’s clear that it’s often used to differentiate Blood elves and Void elves, especially in areas where they may be mingling together and required to recognized as separate groups. Like in the Rift with all the Blood elf NPCs, they all utilize Blood elven hairstyles to emphasize those who had undergone the change, and those who have not.
If that last barrier is removed, and there’s utterly no distinquishing the two groups apart, it’ll making story-telling a bit diffficult. And we can see the importance of these hairstyles in their implementation on the High elves, and how important it is for players to see them being used.
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Eah… They are a bit too similar IMO.
They have a fractured in 3 ways society that must come together like our Dwarves had. They still ride Gryphons despite being a totally separate Culture from another part of the globe. And they still drink beer despite not being Organic.
They could have done more.
There are a few ways they could have done it.
Just the Skins. Skins and Hair. Separately Customizable Stone Form like Worgen have with the option to stay in it.
They could have even tied the gemstone “growths” as something to do with Magni.
They could have made a separate clan just for the Horde, but they would have needed to give Alliance an equivalent.
So they could have made the Harronir more Troll-like or just had Shadow Trolls.
I agree, but I would like them to be very selective. And still add new stuff lol
They are adding lots of options to NPC races like Nerubians who are straight up not an option for playability. It’s not too much to ask for 3-5 new Haircuts, of only to spice up the Void Elf NPCs for this Xpac and Blood Elves for the next.
Yeah I don’t see Amani being an Alliance option, but the Horde Dwarves means it’s not totally unlikely.
They have quite a few options if we look at the Northrend based Xpac after Midnight.
They could go HE for Alliance/Amani for Horde or since it’s in Quel’Thalas they also have Felblood and San’layn and they are definitely not going Alliance.
Felblood could be a customization option for Blood Elves like Eredar for Draenei, unless they go into customizable Wings/Horns putting them on par with Earthen.
They could make San’layn a customization as well. Just giving them custom Fangs/Ears/Claws like the Elf-Like Arathi are getting Short Ears. Or they could make them a full Allied Race for either Midnight or The Last Titan.
They could make full new models for High Elves in Midnight than tweak them for San’layn in The Last Titan as well.
It’s all fairly up in the air.
Honestly that would solve a LOT of issues and prezent options for unique quest/rewards/customizations around each group.
Ideally…
Blood Elves
- Big Fancy and GLORIOUS Hair/Beards for Blood Elves with Jewelry/Bead options.
- More Jewelry options/colors for Blood Elves. Also letting the MALES use them!
- The Runic Tattoos from the BURNING CRUSADE BOX ART! It’s been 17 years!
Void Elves
- Tamed to Outrageous Styles for Void Elves with Tentacle Toggles for all the haircuts.
- Alleria like Void Markings and various corruptions.
I mean, they should let us change it like the Draenei Racial does IMO.
Same for Stone Form.
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I couldn’t be more happier than before seeing the Sons of Lothar together as one.
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