why are we fighting about war paint now? That is pretty silly.
And Iâm not disagreeing, and I apologize if it comes off as me reading you that way, so used to having to defend myself in these discussions from folk calling me a delusional loon or something
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Nothing wrong with being a delusional loon. They have the most fun.
(this entire post is meant as a joke and I do not think you are a delusional loon.)
No wuckas, I know a lot of people on the forums tend to take disagreement very personally and assume bad faith a lot of the time so we all have our defences a bit higher than they probably should be. Iâm definitely guilty of that, but I legitimately just enjoy discussing the subject.
So thanks for being cool about it.
I think the main problem (in my opinion) was that BC-era Blood elves were introduced as dark, edgy, âwhatever it takes to surviveâ elves. They were literal mana vampires who resorted to extreme measures to sate their magic addiction after the destruction of the Sunwell. They had paladins because they kidnapped and tortured a naaru and bent the light to their will- just another cosmic force to be used to ensure their survival as a people.
Blizzard then solved their problem at the end of the same expansion they were made playable by having the Sunwell restored and changed to a mixture of holy and arcane. Frankly if they were bent on âredeemingâ the blood elves it shouldâve come later. They were far more interesting back then.
Honestly the whole irritation on muddled themes and âstolenâ models couldâve been avoided by simply putting Nightborne on the Alliance as the Night elf variant allied race and Void elves as Horde as the Blood elf variant allied race. (If the Sunwell had never been reignited with the last spark of a dead naaru, there wouldnât have been the issue of void threatening the Sunwell to begin with)
That simple change wouldâve kept the models/silhouettes distinct. If blood elves had kept their original darker, edgier themes accepting a group of void-infused members of their own race wouldâve made sense and wouldâve fit their old âanything to surviveâ mentality.
Then in BFA when Sylvanas invited the Sanâlayn to join the Horde (which we didnât get to see Horde-side, only the Alliance side of the campaign got to see this) Forsaken couldâve gotten Sanâlayn as their variant allied race (and dark ranger customization couldâve been baked in either to them or as blood elf customization optionsâŚagainâŚfel, void, undeadâŚit wouldâve kept the darker, edgier motif unique to Horde elves).
And obviously the argument there would be âwell in that scenario Horde would get three flavors of elf and Alliance would only have twoâ. Well then do what other people had suggested back during the initial high elf pro/anti forum wars: give Alliance high elves but have them be the Dalaran population (Dalaran had high elves living there long before the Scourge invaded Quelâthalas and the Silver Covenant are Dalaran high elves). That wouldâve killed the argument 'why is this band of blood elves no one heard about until now magically loyal to the Alliance?"
The Silver Covenant was already part of the Alliance since Wrath and it wouldâve actually given Vereesa a chance to be interesting. Void elves would already have been Horde and in this scenario give the Alliance high elves a different model (modified from night elf or human) so the standard blood/void/thalassian model would remain unique to the Horde (and could reflect interbreeding between the Dalaran high elves and humans). Shorter ear options could also reflect said interbreeding. That wouldâve been three elves for the Horde, three elves for the Alliance and we couldâve been done with elves period. Heck, if void elves had been given to the Horde that couldâve been interesting for story reasons tooâŚI doubt Turalyon would be welcomed into Silvermoon, so would Alleria have chosen her home and people or her husband? If she chose Quelâthalas would that have put her against Vereesa?
ButâŚBlizzard did what they did and we have to deal with the cards weâve been dealt.
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You might wanna find cover. Eventually, you will get a course on Why Blood Elves Were Never Tainted By Fel and how HE are in no way tied to the Alliance ever in any way.
I dont think VE would have happened if NB had just been an alliance race though. Iâm pretty sure it would have only been NB for Alliance and HMT for Horde, and that would have been it for Legion.
Also, I think Alleria probably wouldnt leave the Alliance even for the VE, but thatâs my opinion.
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So this inspired me to go back to the character creation and to Suramar. I hadnât really looked at Nightborne after I unlocked them or been to Suramar much since Legion ended. A few thoughts:
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Off topic, but I do miss Legion.
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The model seems mostly okay. I donât think copy/paste of the Night Elf model would be a good solution. Not because of any visual distinction between factions or anything. I just think it would be weird in comparison to the NPCs we see there.
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Holy crap! I forgot Just how few options Nightborne have. 3 skin tones? WTF? Like 6 hair colors? Sheeez! Like I said before, I havenât messed with them since unlocking them. I made a couple and was like âNope!â. I think a good start would be to give NB the hair colors and styles that NE have. That would be very fair based on what Void Elves have gotten.
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I feel like this implies a tone to posters that just isnât there to be honest 
See how civil this was handled, I just think applying the idea because people have valid reasons to point out the status of the SC, etc that others need to âfind coverâ as if these are attacks, no one is being aggressive because they have something to say.
Hopefully we can stop playing into this idea people having something to say = aggressive, which I feel like youâre implying more or less? If my impression is wrong of course correct me, always nice to converse in a chill manner.
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Not tainted by fel, but they were using the fel crystals as power sources and the âmagic radiationâ essentially is what caused their eyes to turn green. Kaelâs followers obviously took it much further when he sold out to the Legion (which is another can of writing worms entirelyâŚbut hey itâs Blizzard >_> ) . I always thought the fel blood elves looked neat.
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My post was purely âin my opinion/what ifâ scenario anyway. Blizzard went with NB=Horde, VE=Alliance so here we are. Nightborne really need work though. Mine is forever sitting on the character selection screen, eagerly awaiting the day she can actually look like a member of her race.
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We really didnât need another void elf thread
looks at most frequent posters in OP
Oh, figures.
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People spam void elf threads.
âGod damn those people who disagree with the people who make them!â
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Making assumptions about me again I see.
This thread is literally contributing to void elf thread spam, and I donât care if you disagree or not.
My point here was purely to show that application of tone before even anyone had anything to say adds to problem that just above we see two posters handle so civilly.
Something to say doesnât = aggressive.
As for your actual post I disagree slightly some but I wasnât going to elaborate but since you brought it up I will offer my thoughts,
My issue is a little two fold one being the NB story obviously makes better sense paired as friends with the Blood Elves (this is rather basic and to the extent of it really).
Two the idea that the Elf swap not being done would solve the problem but still result in a win for HE fans. The Elf swap was very much a win for HE fans, it gave the model in a unique way that Blizzard was never going to give the full copy to. Itâs this idea that âhad that not been doneâ then it would have freed up HEs for Alliance and thatâs just perfect because Horde could now get Sanâlayn / Dark Rangers, and the difference is Dark Rangers are Horde thereâs no fans out there cherry picking narratives to wishful think them into Horde they are Horde, Sanâlayn are arguably a better fit for Horde given BFA as extra emphasis if there was any doubt where that request belongs, but in both situations neither exists on Alliance that would damage the visual distinction of a pre existing Alliance race.
I respect your idea I would say lets say the first issue I have wasnât there like NB fitting more Alliance despite an obvious BE clone story, and everything is basically the same per your idea, the model change that you want in an AR I think would be better served in a full fledged Half Elf AR.
Trying to tack the SC (neutral btw) onto the concept is a no go for me, I donât want HE fans to feel validated in this âantiâ BE story the SC seems to bring out in them, I definitely feel like I could see people getting carried away with their RP (in this situation now backed up by actually being a SC based HE) and demanding things like Quelâthalas, and Silvermoon, that is not beneficial to BE fans in any way shape or form. Iâve seen so many HE fans try to spin this as a positive for why the race should have been done like thereâs âsoâ much backstory there, but if your entire story is contingent on piggy backing off Blood Elves that doesnât make for a very good addition on itâs own merit what so ever at all.
I definitely think regardless of how though we both agree that a model change having been the way to go (maybe even if they had done a model change for VEs instead of using the same model the Void could have made them look a little different idk?).
Curious but what would your ideal Half Elf look like Brae?
Itâs literally this meme:
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/Bike-Fall
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On an individual level sure. Children are the products of their parents and there are no two people that look the same.
On a basic âeveryone of the race looks more or less like thisâ I donât see it. On an in game representation level, youâd get a human with long ears or an elf with short ears.
Also
Has nothing to do with biology, Fighting stances come from training. Sure every race would likely have their own way of training on how to fight and use certain weapons, but those forms are things they came up with, not something based on their biology.
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blood elves should get red eyes, but locked behind death knight. forsaken elves and sanlayn make no sense to be baked into blood elves though
All Death Knights should get a red eyed option. Green too. There are DK trainers in Acherus who have these colours.