That’s actually a great find - thnaks for reporting back. I’ve been wondering how practical it is to expect for custom animations beyond a stance, and while obviously a full animation set is way too high a bar to ask for, it’s good to know that Blizzard are willing to throw in a few bespoke emotes here and there to help spice up the race and give it more distinction - particularly in the case of the female Zandalari.
Also worth noting:
https://i.imgur.com/qxzOxP3.jpg
Isn’t it interesting how clearly different two character models can look with just a simple retexture?
And that’s without even putting on the Zandalari tattoos and everything.
The reasoning behind it is, in a nutshell, ‘why not?’
Basically the tl;dr is that Humans in Warcraft are diverse, despite having a pretty limited gene pool and, up until recently, all players came from Stormwind. Basically Blizzard made Humans diverse because they wanted diverse representation in the game, because that’s a good thing.
So the same can happen to Elves. There’s no real reason as to why High Elves and Blood Elves couldn’t have darker skintones - it’s not like they’re trying remotely to be a faithful recreation of European forelore-based Elves or anything. so I say make it happen.
Hell, I think most of the races could do with more diverse skintones tbh.
i agree and disagree. all 13 high elf alliance NPCs DO NOT share our quelthalas heritage. they are traitors who forsake their thalassian roots. they chose to live in human cities(stormwind/dalaran) and adopt human culture
thankfully blizzard agrees with me in protecting the sanctity of quelthalas and the blood elves by not giving prominence to a small handful of alliance NPC elves
I will have to disagree. High Elves share the same Quel’dorei heritage as us. What they do not share with us, would be our Sin’dorei history. That is ours, and our alone, and it is that history that makes us different from High Elves.
The magic of the Sunwell differs from that of the well of Eternity. Once Our Ancestors started to absorb it they became the Quel’dorei. When we the Sin’dorei rebuilt our kingdom using fel, and started absorbing it, and the mana of living creatures into ourselves we truly became the Sin’dorei. We are different from Quel’dorei now on a metaphysical level.
They never forsook their Quel’dorian roots, they simply chose a different way in which to honor them. As for adopting human cultures, two Elves falling in love with humans, does not mean the race as a whole has adopted human culture. It is possible for the High Elves to live among humans and still possess their own culture, ideals, and beliefs. Since the loss of Undercity the Forsaken have been mainly living in Orgrimmer, are they no longer the Forsaken because they now live among other horde races.
Commited treason against the crown of Silvermoon (twice)
Abandoned their homeland in its darkest hour
Abandoned their families and kin
Hid in Dalaran and human towns and tapped mana objects
Purged Dalaran of their Blood Elf counterparts because humans got mad
Dilute their very namesake as “children of noble birth” by mingling with humans
Checklist for Horde Blood Elf:
Getting cleansed of their fel curse forced upon them by Kael and his magisters
Don’t ‘tap’ anything anymore as we’re empowered by the Sunwell again
Never joined the Alliance because they didn’t respond when we reached out to them (this is prior to joining the Horde)
Don’t huff or snort anything because again, we don’t have mana highs or lows anymore
Hey I can play this game where I list only the positives of my side and the negatives of the other, too.
The fact the list of stuff you used for Blood Elves doesn’t even apply anymore is the cherry picking I’ve come to rely on this thread for.
Imagine having to cite lore from 10 years ago that doesn’t apply at all to the current day just to make your “Blood Elf bad! High Elf good!” opinion piece.
In any other thread, this would be trolling. I love how you guys insist everyone not troll your thread, and then upvote obviously erroneous garbage like this post.
living in a human city is completely different then living in quelthalas. there are mixed race elves being born that have never even set foot in quelthalas and will only ever know human culture.
its like saying if you want to experience the culture of japan talk to an american-japanese person who grew up in the US instead of going to japan
the alliance elves have no culture they are identity-less
There’s the problem right there. Most of these high elves weren’t even living in Silvermoon or considered Silvermoon their home anymore.
How are they traitors to a home they don’t consider their home? Families they don’t consider their families?
They didn’t “hide” in Dalaran, Stormwind, Hinterlands, etc, those WERE their homes!
And they purged the Sunreavers and Blood elves from Dalaran due to committing a war crime on neutral territory. I openly admit, it could’ve been handled better, but the orders came from Jaina Proudmoore, the leader of the Kirin Tor, and they were following orders.
Your beliefs and ideals don’t come merely from where you live. It is something passed down from fafter to son, mother to daughter. Your heritage isn’t defined solely by were you live. It is defined by many things. Also just Incase you don’t actually read the lore, High Elves have been making sojourns to the Sunwell since it was restored one of their own is actually there as a representative. So to say no High Elf has been back to Quel’Thalas is kind of false statement.
Strange last time I checked they had a Quel’dorei culture and identity.
First off, Hello Lydon it is nice to see you again, second I apologize if what I wrote upset you, I wouldn’t change my Blood Elf heritage and what I have done to become who I am for anything. With that said.
We were never fel cursed, we were fel contaminated by over exposure to the fel crystals that were used in the rebuilding of both Quel’Thalas and Silvermoon. Do to the fact that most of us still retain our fel green eyes I would say that not all of us have been cleansed of our fel contamination.
No we do not, we no longer even posses the ability, but we did, and the relighting of the Sunwell doesn’t change that.
they were distrustful of us after we abandoned them after the second war. Garithos just made matters much worse.
you don’t need Mana highs and lows to enjoy the benefits of blood thistle and arcwine.
I find funny how you consider assisting the Alliance as treason while sitting in Silvermoon doing nothing at the same time enemies run rampant around their borders was doing a favor to the Quel’thalas
Plus those High Elves didn’t consider Quel’thalas their home, not anymore.
Like how Quel’thalas refused to assist Lordaeron during the plaguing? Maybe, just maybe if they actually helped them earlier, the Scourge would be defeated before it got too strong and ran out of control. It’s a bit hypocritical.
They’re not, either they are still physically changed by Fel or they switched the Fel corruption for Light Corruption.
But you are also doing cherry picking.
Don’t relly on attacking the thread or the people here.
[Citation Needed].
There is little to no lore backup to source the headcanon notion that these tons and tons of High Elves were either living abroad the whole time or didn’t consider Silvermoon their home.
Even if we go with this ridiculous notion, considering Lordaeron, Dalaran, and Theramore were all completely decimated, it only makes them look like worse traitors to not aid their homeland.
“We weren’t traitors because we already considered Quel’thalas not our home.”
Is that really the flimsy answer you want to go with? That’s as silly as Northwatch Hold residents not answering to defense of Stormwind just because they don’t live there.
Assisting the Alliance against your king’s/prince’s orders is actually the literal definition of treason, regardless of how great you think the reasoning was.
I also adore terms like “Light Corruption”, an obviously negative spin on being empowered by the light that I only find in this thread and only referring to Blood Elves, despite Lightforged being literally infused directly by such forces.
Your spins and hot takes can win you hearts in this thread, but you’re not fooling anyone.
It is exacly the Lightforged and Lightbound actions that created a negative image on the Light, it have similar distorted views over the Universe that the Void has, but in a different context. If you think i’m biased to anything towards the Alliance this is where you are wrong, i don’t see any of the things listed to Blood Elves as negative, they did that to survive and it added a unique flavor to them, but that don’t exclude the fact that this changed them permanently.
I don’t agree. We’ve seen the Blood Elves remain almost completely true to their high elven heritage and traditions, aside from throwing down their monarchy, despite going from arcane to siphoning to light empowered.
Channeling different magics hasn’t had any drastic physical transformations or effects on us whatsoever. We remain nigh indistinguishable from our lost High Elven kin. Eye color differences are far cry from any permenant change.
I dunno, there’s the whole thing about Forest trolls developing a symbiotic relationship with plants/algae/whatever on their skin, which is why they’re green
From https://wow.gamepedia.com/Dalaran_(kingdom)
" Dalaran established a friendship with Silvermoon, which while tested, would stand for over two thousand years to come. Although predominantly a human city, some elves, including their own crown prince Kael’thas Sunstrider, would study, live, and even rule in Dalaran at one point or another. According to Jaina Proudmoore, some of these elves were among those who had taught humans magic to begin with. Some gnomes, dwarves, and even goblins would also come to reside in Dalaran."
Jaina Proudmoore herself says about the Sunreavers during the quest “The Fate of Dalaran” https://wow.gamepedia.com/The_Fate_of_Dalaran
" True, they are advocates of the Horde. But they have been allies and productive members of the Kirin Tor for over 2000 years. This city is their home. Would you expel them?"
Neither the Alliance Quel’dorei or Sin’dorei stayed true to their traditions.
Living in Alliance lands and cooperating with their races implied changes in their lifestyles and ways.
Passing through hard times implied significant changes in their social and military structure, especially to attend to the Horde demands, they were also mutated twice by primordial forces.
What I mean is that you have no citation for each bloody High elf. They didn’t ALL live in Dalaran, or lodges, or theramore, or hinterlands. They’re all over the place.
Outside of a few directly stated, you don’t have any idea where they were before, or whether they previously lived in Quel’thalas or not, or were exiled. This kind of feeds into my greater point, and one of the main problems, is that High Elves are horrendously undefined and disjointed even amongst themselves.
![:thinking:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/thinking.png?v=6" ":thinking:")
![:unamused:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/unamused.png?v=6" ":unamused:")