Not sure if we have confirmation that Blood Elves were going to be Alliance, but that was the general thought of the community back then. While Blood Elves’ joining the Horde was handled well it did kind of come out of left field
It would be a bigger reach for me to believe Blood Elves would side with the Alliance, their personality doesn’t fit the themes of the Alliance, and they are pragmatic which is another Horde theme.
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Not sure about Blood Elves specifically, but before they decided to make Blood Elves playable there were going to be Alliance High Elves.
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Silvermoon_Remnant
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Huh, neat info
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Regular skin tones are still shared between the two, Bro.
That’s not accurate. Blood Elves didn’t “lose” that which was unique to them. The Horde lost the uniqueness of a regular skinned Thalassian Elf. In compensation, the Alliance lost the uniqueness of a blue-eyed bearded Thalassian Elf.
Void Elves can pretend to be High Elves, not Blood Elves. Void Elves don’t have golden or green eyes that are exclusive to Blood Elves, nor do they have their hairstyles either.
I think you feel that way simply because for some reason you don’t seem to value the uniqueness that Void Elves lost with blue eyes and beards.
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Yes, and them being shared is why it is a loss of uniqueness and exclusivity.
If you can look the exact same as the race on a different faction, then there is clearly an issue at hand with uniqueness being lost.
That is accurate, your first statement and second statement are the same.
Blood elves lost their entire look to void elves in having to share it.
Void elves did not.
I can play a void elf and look exactly like a blood elf.
I can’t play a blood elf and look exactly like a void elf.
Clearly, void elves offer you much more aesthetically while blood elves dont.
Yes they can, because they look the exact same as high elves/blood elves now.
Hairstyle and eye color really doesn’t mean much, if anything at all.
Simply because blood elves have access to blue as well, so a void elf can still look exactly like a blood elf.
Probably because blue eyes and beards are not unique to anyone, but the blood elf model and their skin tone was unique to them which void elves have both of.
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I quite literally said that I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, I simply doubt it. That’s not the same as saying “No, it’s not going to happen.” merely that I feel it’s unlikely.
Yes, but to what extent they’re willing to bend aspects of the game they’ve gone lengths to express the importance of, is what is what I remain skeptical about. I believe that with the loss of skin color, the remaining themes like hairstyles and colors have only become that much more important to their visual identity within the game, and I have a feeling that blizzard would prefer not to infringe so heavily on the Blood elves so as there is virtually no difference between the two races.
These customizations merely allude that high elves have become Void elves, not that their hair color would persist through the transformation. It could be that blizzard wants to keep at least some visual distinctions between such similar looking races.
And compared to the partial void-corrupted skin fanart that was commonly used as a fair example of a visual compromise before this blue post, I think keeping the void theme contained to merely the hair is an upgrade, and a pretty reasonable compromise.
(lol) so a few high elves are alliance. so what?
void elves didnt lose a single thing. a blood elf with blue eyes is simply reflective of the cleansing effect of an arcane/holy sunwell and could not be mistaken for a void elf. minus hair colors that is no longer the case. but a blood elf should be displaying blue/gold depending on affinity. this aesthetic never belonged to you because you have a few NPCs standing around doing nothing. they are the same race and have been playable on the horde for well over a decade
thanks for the laugh of a faction owning an eye color and beard options
just dont forget youre a void elf now. remember this when you bleed blue blood when taking damage and entropic embrace pops. ciao
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I don’t agree with this. It simply isn’t the case. The Thalassian elf “theme” is not a “light” theme.
Even if you want to drop lore out of it, you still end up with
“plain” vs “void OR plain”
Two flavors better than one.
This I have no argument with. I have no objection to Blood Elves getting additional options for more visually distinct themes and they can certainly benefit from them.
I’d love for them to get an actual “light” theme to build around the golden eyes. Hairstyles with radiant yellow tips or strands. Radiant golden tattoos. A racial glyph that turns Arcane Torrent into Light of the Sunwell (cosmetic change to arcane torrent’s visual, icon and name, still does the same thing as now).
I also have no objection to a Darkfallen theme for Blood Elves so players can RP them as San’layn or Dark Rangers. Certain Void Elf hairstyles (sans tentacles) shared with Blood Elves would work well with this theme along with a few skin tone options and the red eyes. Maybe a racial glyph for this theme too: Blood Torrent (cosmetic change to arcane torrent’s visual, icon and name, still does the same thing as now)
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Except he conveniently forgets that we too already have blue eyed thalassian elf npcs on the Horde. That ship sailed some time ago.
Okay, but then it is a valid compensation. Your argument was that it couldn’t be considered a compensation if it was shared.
They didn’t lose their entire look. They lost the uniqueness of regular skins. Blood Elves still have golden and green eyes, distinct hairstyles, and this is usually ignored but most importantly they can wear Horde-exclusive clothes that Void Elves cannot, and viceversa as well (which contribute to their “look”).
You can’t, actually. Hairstyles are different.
You can play a Blood Elf and look like a regular-skinned Void Elf. You can’t of course look like a voidy Void Elf because Blood Elves are Light Elves. What is the lore explanation behind voidy Blood Elves that for some reason are not Void Elves and yet are allowed in Silvermoon?
Again, they can resemble to High/Blood Elves, Void Elves still don’t look exactly the same as them for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
That’s your subjective opinion, it’s not a fact. Hairstyles and eye color are most definitely important distinctive features. In fact, we’ve been differentiating High Elves from Blood Elves for over 15 years almost exclusively based on their eye color.
Blood Elves have access to blue only because Void Elves received their regular skin tones. If Void Elves were not to receive them, Blood Elves wouldn’t have blue eyes. That was Blizzard’s stance until very recently.
I’m going to stop you right there and remind you that you have reiteratively told Sara that her argument that “other races also have regular skin tones” wasn’t valid. So please make up your mind.
Playable blue-eyed Thalassian elves were exclusive to the Alliance. That is no longer true. This is a fact.
Playable bearded Thalassian elves were exclusive to the Alliance. That is no longer true. This is a fact.
Void Elves can look like a blue-eyed Blood Elf, but they cannot look like a golden-eyed Blood Elf.
Blood Elves can look like a regular-skinned Void Elf, but they cannot look like a voidy-skinned Void Elf.
There’s the compensation. Whether you overvalue skin tone over eye color, that’s really on you. 
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Shouldn’t we just request the things we still want to see for both and get excited?
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We should and I’ve tried to steer things in that direction from time to time but it still inevitably comes back to people with sour grapes seeking compensation from us for a decision we didn’t make.
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After playing with the dressing room with a few races I am so excited to change my looks up. I look forward to see what else is in store for us as well, they are doing a pretty excellent job.
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I agree. There’s a lot to look forward to for all the races and hopefully more to come. I’m still hopeful that Void Elves won’t be the only allied race getting some love for Shadowlands pre-patch too.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that that Lightforged and Highmountain inherit the Draenei and Tauren options and I really hope that Nightborne get some of the much needed love they require so they can look more like their NPC’s and have more options in general.
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Yes I would love for more options for nightborne and for them to get the amazing arrogance the npcs have!
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I cannot agree to this because compensation suggests an addition, not the status quo. If you’re saying eye color is an effective difference, then the void elves could have stayed with their skin and eye color without need for taking the same look as blood elves.
Green eyes and golden eyes only have meaning when taken in conjunction with the whole package.
Clothing doesn’t matter since everyone gets it.
When you boot up the game and look at each race, that is what matters most.
If I can make my void elf look completely indistinguishable from a blood elf, then that is a problem. As it stands, that is what is happening here.
You can rock a high elf theme OR a void elf theme as a void elf.
You can’t rock any other theme but high elf as a blood elf.
If I cut my hair so I look like a scene kid, do I change ethnicity? Hair styles are fluid.
What is the lore explanation for void elves having regular skins suddenly when the lore said otherwise? When the devs said otherwise?
This is a bit of a double standard to say “well blood elves dont look like this for a reason, but void elves can look like blood elves even though there were reasons against it.”.
They look exactly the same.
If I have a twin, and the only difference is a hairstyle choice, that no longer stops me from having a twin.
Its a well supported opinion considering hair and beards are not exclusive aspects.
Void elves, however, have things that no other race have in common with blood elves.
The model, and this, combined with the skin colors means that the blood elves are the only “shared” race with no unique theme to themselves anymore.
It doesnt matter if you have green or golden eyes as an option.
That void elf can still look just like a blood elf with pale skin.
How do you know? Blue eyes were shown on blood elves long before the void elf skin change. Let’s not theorize on the why side of design.
My argument is consistent because we cannot say “well its unique because of hair or eye color” but completely ignore the entirety of what is present.
Void elves have something no other race in the game possesses.
Which is the blood elf model.
It is not something you can ignore and pick out other aspects and say “well this makes them unique” when it doesnt.
It is disingenuous to suggest that beards, hairsyles, and eye colors are themes unto themselves when they clearly are not.
Do void elves have the model of blood elves? Yes.
As a result, the moment they got the skin colors they became indistinguishable from blood elves because they have that model.
Trying to argue eye and hair color as creating themes simply does not work because it is choosing to take separate aspects to create themes, when it is the whole of the matter that matters most.
If I have a twin, and he chooses to get laser surgery to turn his eyes blue, and he changes his hair style, but in every single aspect he is the same as me, he is still my twin.
It is that basic aspect that you seemingly are undervaluing while overvaluing other aspects.
Void elves can look like blood elves or void elves.
Blood elves only look like themselves.
And you’re not doing a good job of demonstrating otherwise by stating "different hairstyles! Beards! eye colors!
When those theme inequalities are still there.
So we either give blood elves a theme that rivals void elves, or we have to acknowledge that there is an inequality, and, helfers just don’t care.
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What looks do you want for belves?
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The mock up from earlier would be a nice start.
Glowing gold tattoos or glowing tentacle hair.
If we want to share the “plain” theme thats fine, but then we should enhance the “void” and create a “light” theme as well. It wouldn’t even be that hard either.
You could literally copypaste hair styles from void elves, then change the color fo the tentacles.
They use the exact same model, so swapping assets is EASY.
Literally takes a few minutes.
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And Dark Ranger customization!
That is inherently Horde and popular among a lot of BE fans, and could serve to also create San’layn customization hopefully with needed lore story.
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