THATS THE VIDEO I THOUGHT OF TOO AND ALMOST POSTED IT LOL
(Legit stuff of nightmares hahaha)
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Yeah. Other than a few exceptions like velves, Nightborne, and Vulpera, the AR system is really just a bad version of a sub-race system.
Remember how bad transmog was when it first came out? A bad version of something else seems to be somewhat of a theme with Blizz for whatever reason.
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stunning mockups.
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I love your mockup, but I have to agree on the gem issue you mentioned.
The limitations of the Blood Elf jewelry, both in style but especially colors, is part of why so many (myself included) don’t value it highly as impactful customization.
Had Blizzard put in as much effort into the Blood Elf jewelry as they did the Draenei hair adornments, which came with a wider variety of colors for the metal and gems, they might have been held in higher regard. Alas that’s not what Blood Elves got.
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I can do nothing but agree whole heartedly with your post. BfA was indeed the expansion of missed opportunities. It’s both amazing and disheartening that so many opportunities were missed in a single expansion. And not just any expansion, but the one that came after Legion which was Blizzard’s redemption story after WoD.
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Thanks!
The only thing I did on it is the gem colour actually. The rest is all obtainable stuff, except the skin and eyes which are just Dark Ranger NPC options.
Yeah. Getting only jewelry sucks. Getting it on only one sex sucks worse. But they could’ve at least given it as many options as the Draenei stuff got.
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Yea I’m familiar with the armor and NPC options. I had to do some recoloring myself on my own mockups for the lips to make them red instead of grey. The fact that you paid attention to such a small detail makes me incredibly happy! It bugs me when certain aesthetics aren’t just right he he.
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Spoilers
Some interesting lore tidbits. That may relate to San’layn lore. The venthyr have a nature magic user, very similar to druidism. The stonewright was a night warrior! That may help to explain how she made all the stoneborne. Elune embodies shadow, light and nature it seems so her wrath seems to be more nature/shadow/arcane.
This sort of leads to past ideas in this threads of a vampire druid. We know we wanted it for San’layn but it seems Venthyr sort of are lore plausible! It is interesting how they can still wield magic from other realms in the shadowlands. We also find out who is The Winterqueen’s sister. Lorewise that puts Elune to Eternal one level of power. Which is interesting. Since Elune and her “brother” An’she are said to be Azeroth’s eyes by Taurens. So now they have a sister in the Winter queen. The nathrezim connection to Sire Denathrius is also interesting. Since that means all the times we see Nathrezim in lore they were helping to get the Jailer’s plan’s coming along. And they seemed to corrupt alot of scarlet warriors! I find it interesting since the Lich King wanted to replicate what the Nahrezim were in the San’layn. So that would tie San’layn magic directly to Revendreth/Sire Denathrius. And the sinning and anima would have been to foster the growth of the Shadows via Anima for all realms until the jailer enacted his plan.
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Personal big yuck from me. Not a fan of the venthyr at all, so hard pass. If we get those things as druids, I’m as good as never playing again. Double practical punch to the gut with not getting the original Thalassian vampyr, the ones I actually care about, and getting druids for the things I despise when I’ve been wanting blood elf druids forever. Just not interested, myself, and am tired of them abandoning lore for this convoluted new stuff.
Also getting tired of all the cosmic nonsense, I will admit. Elune, Winter queen… I just… don’t find myself interested.
Gods I just want to return to Azeroth and be done with all this nonsense ><
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Either Blizzard was Lazy or they deed a typical kneejerk from Negative Feedback about it.
The fact that male Blood Elves never even got jewelry is just inexcusable.
My Blood Mage needs a Phoenix Necklace!
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The way I see it is if Venthyr can do it so can San’layn. Since the San’layn seem to be based of Revendreth. The shadowland zones seem to be based of different wotlk things. Ardenweald based off the Dreamweaver fight, blood wing = revendreth, construct = Maldraxxus, Vrykuls = Bastion.
This is sort of a cool tie into blood magic and the blood moon from Draenor. Maybe that was Elune’s wrath?
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That would be nice, and I’d calm my bats in that case, yeah. The problem is we haven’t quite seen the true connection yet. It’s right there, and I feel like there could just be a couple quests to clarify that. Would be nice, at least.
Also I didn’t even think of blood moon for Elune, forgot about that myself. I suppose we’ll have to see.
That in combination with…
Spoilers
“The Blood Queen” soul
Might lead to something. Never know.
Edit: Also wondering where Hi’reek is, I think we saw him at some point? I forgot, but it’d be cool to see him more.
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We saved him from the maw! So his soul will be reborn. I think it would be nice if druids started to get blessings from wild gods to use their forms, much like soulshapes in Ardenweald. If we ever get San’layn druids and picking Hi’reek to give you a blessing for saving his soul would be a nice gesture for a bat travel flying form. A bloodier version of the troll or an improved model would be nice! The bat swarm idea would be good too.
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Yeah speaking of blood trolls, and I’m not sure if I’m in a minority here, but I always figured it’d be super cool if there were a group branched off that were willing to work with the Horde, leading to playables. I was kinda sad to just leave them in Nazmir.
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I believe Blizzard said somewhere that they definitely didn’t intend blood trolls to be playable. A shame, since they’re kinda awesome.
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Yeah I remember them saying something along those lines for sure, or alluding to it but very sarcastically and correcting themselves.
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Sadly the only way to play as one is with a disguise. They do have nice assets. I wish trolls got baseline, like hairstyles, markings, spiky jewelry, black eyes, armor pieces, and bloody hairstyles!
To be attuned to the blood moon!
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I think it’s also possible that customization wasn’t originally planned to be quite as robust as it was for some races (Humans & Night Elves in particular) and because of the high praise they garnered from the initial announcement and subsequent implementation of customization in beta, they may have shifted some more focus on it but simply ran out of time to do as much as they wished due to covid related delays.
It’s also possible that since Blood Elves make up roughly 35% of the Horde population (as best as any sites that track such things can guess - they are obviously not very accurate statistics), Blizzard may have purposefully given Blood Elves less focus so as to let other races shine and hopefully inspire some race (and hopefully faction) swaps. If such a ploy worked, it would not only make Blizzard some $$$ from the race/faction swaps, but it might also get at least a few more progression minded players over to the Alliance (or Horde in the case of Oceanic servers).
Or it could simply be that workload distribution was poor and fewer people were working on the Blood Elf options at the time, or maybe there were other factors like say those artists getting sick with covid. It’s really all speculation though.
I want to say “laziness” is probably not the reason when I see the Night Elf and Human customization options, but we can’t really say for certain.
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Seeing as Blizz stated they made the Wandering Ancient mount because the art team was “ahead of schedule”, I don’t think they ran out of time.
I wouldn’t say it was “laziness”. I’d say it was Blizz not wanting to pay their art team to do any more work on customization options.
A shame, since so much was left unfinished. Especially things like the ear toggle for velves or worse the tail toggle for LFD. I say the tail thing is worse because the option was specifically intended originally for LFD, but somehow was given only to regular Draenei.
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I think they said they are still interested in customization, the bad thing was they want to tie it with expansion releases… which is a pay wall technically. And the tapered method of doing so is horrible. Feels like a slow drip. I am looking forward to the one shoulder thing coming next patch though. I may just try to enjoy the expansion besides the big customization fumble. It does seem like shadowlands can possible set up for more customization. I am sorta thinking the small time gap would progress our world enough to have a problem when we come back. Maybe have stuff like dark rangers more pronounced on our group, the kelfin being pushed to join the horde and maybe help defend orgrimmar from an attacking Turalyon. Maybe Alleria struggling to control her powers and the prophecy of her son being enacted when we come back! I feel like we are setting up for an attack of the light next expansion with Yrel coming back. And with the rumours of the scarlet crusade spreading about Anduin it may lead to an alliance sort of civil war. I feel like next expansion is a perfect set up for more race/class combes (more paladins specifically like how Shadowlands gave all races death knights), and some races getting more customization. I would like to think dark ranger and kelfin customization would be great, alliance… idk?
The fact that they are leaving further customization for further expansions greatly bothered me since we are having delays due to covid. But it has put me to think what they can do if they do it right. I did enjoy many customizations added this expansion, I just felt way more needed to be done for certain races.
I am dissapointed that dark rangers haven’t been seen this expansion, seems like Slyvannas just abandoned them, but I think it would be cool if they were still loyal to the horde and defending against the scourge now. For the new race/class comboes they can make a little new starting zone with the scourge to explain some modern new comboes for the next expansion while we were defending azeroth in the shadowlands. Maybe stuff like goblin monks, worgen shaman, tauren fire mages, undead paladins can emerge in our absence (maybe former scarlet folks or something). San’layn could maybe be freed of the Jailer’s grip if we defeat them as we see them risen against us in the prepatch. But maybe the helm of domination was doing that or helping the Jailer channel his influence in our realm.
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