Well they are twice over traitors according to their own lore so I can’t say I would blame you.
2 Likes
I feel that Blizzard had put themselves in an uncomfortable position as far as Allied Races go. Expanded customization really makes a lot of Allied Races stop making sense. Gnomes and Mechagnomes would be a prime example of this.
I’d rather we’d have had Allied Races out of Wildhammers, High Elves, Sand Trolls, Dark Trolls, Forest Trolls, etc… but Blizzard has made it clear they’re moving away from the same races as we already have with different skins.
And to be fair? That was a complaint they frequently got in BfA, that Allied Races were lazy reskins of existing races.
This is a murky area to delve into, to be honest. The problem is there have been Alliance High Elves since vanilla. A reputation had even been planned for them. Then Blizzard continuously, throughout the expansions, kept putting High Elves in Alliance content.
Void Elves were more of a case of putting a Horde race on the Alliance, because they were actually Blood Elves. It’s something that continues to boggle my mind to this day.
High Elves though? The Silver Covenant was never Horde. The elves at the lodge in the Hinterlands have been continuously attacked by the Horde, the elves at Theramore lost their home due to the Horde, etc… All Blood Elves (except for Void Elves now) are a Horde race. All High Elves are not.
9 Likes
…wait, why should animalistic races get shafted? You’re literally asking for unfairness because??? 
I threw together some examples of Onyx skin tones for LFD Draenei.
https://twitter.com/JuspionJuspions/status/1433467576584052743
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E-SzKMiVQAAUY1m?format=jpg&name=large
I just wish they had more diversity in options like the core Draenei races. Core Draenei I can be a boat load of different shades of blue, purple and even one white skin tone and a neat pink-ish one. While LFD it’s like three different shades of white that have very subtle differences you can barely really notice.
Plus the contrast with the gold and onyx would look so good??
7 Likes
I wanna see a Tauren with an Afro now.
2 Likes
While you’re working on Highmountain, can all Tauren get actual hair colors (mane and tail), too?
It’s a little too on the nose that the races who are based on Native American cultures are depicted so one-dimensionally. It’s okay to treat them like real people, really! alllooksamechiefwahoo 
Homeslice, this is what I am talking about. Have you seen the afro on a bison?
3 Likes
Then please listen to the Blood elf player feedback, and requests that we’ve been making for some time now, and please don’t just add jewelry, and give us some new, fresh hairstyles and physical options?
Like Farstrider Tattoos, and feathered/braided hair so that our Blood elf Rangers can actually look like Farstriders. Or Arcane/runic glyph tattoos to better represent the Magisters. If you’re going to make Void elves look almost visually identical to Blood elves, you can at least put in the effort to help distinguish the groups designs from each other. This would help satisfy both sides.
Blood elf players just want customization that actually reflects the race’s history, and lore, and in that way we can at least set some visual design distinctions between the two groups.
13 Likes
This is what needs to happen. It’s pretty effed up that void elves end up with a way to stay distinct and individual with their void features but blood elves that are a core race and have a way larger player base have no distinction anymore. Whoever decided that was a fine idea is an ahole.
5 Likes
All true to some extent.
While I think Mechagnomes and regular Gnomes are enough of a divergence I get why many don’t.
I think the big issue with the AR vs customization is Blizzard should have stuck with the one they started with. Forever after there will be a debate because of it. Either they’re worthy of being an AR or they’re not. Blizzard is right now effectively straddling the line without much of a “why” to which races got to be selected for AR status while others didn’t.
Like Dark Iron Dwarves and Wildhammer. Both clans are entirely separate from Bronzebeard. Both have distinctly different cultures that necessitate different racials. Both have been very important to the story. Yet one gets to stand alone and another is reduced to tattoos.
Its maddening for me.
Honestly I can understand this take.
I also get the blood elf players view of it. For them its less important that high elves have been tossed around in the Alliance but more important that they see high elves as a minor footnote in the story of Thalassians. They just see themselves losing out on customizations while their race is copied. All the more that its an AR thats supposed to have a unique theme getting those copies.
I get both sides views. I just wish more folk could empathize I guess on both sides.
All that said though a lot of this, at least for high elf pro folk, could have been avoided if Void Elves original stock was… high elves. Even me being really happy with the Void Elves as they were when they arrived am kinda like… “why were we not from high elves blizz?”
5 Likes
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/guide/images/20410.jpg?maxWidth=400
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/guide/images/20411.jpg?maxWidth=400
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/guide/images/20409.jpg?maxWidth=400
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/guide/images/20414.jpg?maxWidth=400
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/guide/images/20413.jpg?maxWidth=400
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/guide/images/20412.jpg?maxWidth=400
You cannot make a Void Elf that looks like any of these Blood Elves. Ask for more customization for Blood Elves as much as y’all would like, but stop hyperbolizing that Blood Elves have “no distinction anymore”.
5 Likes
I empathize to a degree. I just disagree on the solution. The, ‘High/Blood Elf aesthetic,’ has existed on both factions, and Blizzard is the one that decided that and continued to push it for years and years.
That Blood Elves want to be unique from High Elves when they have players constantly saying, “hey, Blood Elves are High Elves,” is a confusing mixed message. The easier solution is to give Blood Elves ample customization options to explore additional thematics, such as Dark Rangers/San’layn, Felbloods, etc… I won’t agree with, “No one but us should have High Elf customizations.”
It just… boggles the mind. Would it have been truly so hard for Alleria to take the Silver Covenant out to look for missing rangers from the Allerian Stronghold and have had the whole lot transformed when falling into an Ethereal’s trap?
I think this is one of those cases where it feels that Void Elves weren’t added as a goodwill compromise or even with the intention of being a new and interesting race. It feels like they were added out of spite. “You guys want to play Blood Elves so bad? Fine, here’s your Blood Elves.”
10 Likes
The point is you can get close enough that the “difference” is really non-impactful. You can recreate all those examples in the upcoming patch with void elves, simply with different hairstyles and eye colors - There’s no example of any other two races from different factions being able to do this. Not even the Nightborne resemble the Night elves that closely.
And that’s the point of contention, the visual distinction in terms of race are non-existent. Hairstyles, and eye color are not compelling distinctions.
6 Likes
Please try to recreate those pics on a VE come 9.1.5. The only thing shared from those BEs to VEs will be blue eyes and skin color (maybe one of the facial hair). And as the pics show, it takes much more than just eye color and skin tone to make up a look.
Like I say above, please try, you’re going to have a really hard time trying to emulate those BEs there on VEs, and those are only a handful of samples…
Trying to argue that ‘visual distinction in terms of race are non-existent’ is also silly since multiple same races (Dwarf to Dark Iron, Mag’har to Orgrimmar Orc, LFD to Draenei) are not distinct by race but by the options available to them.
It’s clear that you can make a truly unique looking Blood Elf that a Void Elf cannot replicate. That’s my entire point.
Very true. I mean thats why folk want them so bad after all. lol
I think at this point whatever message has been sent in the past, we’re beyond that.
The skins and hair is here so we just have to move on regardless of where one stands.
Blood Elves need customizations that represent what the players playing them want and I hope blizzard is listening to them as they listened to high elf folk.
I know Blood Elf folk tend to disagree on where Dark Rangers and San’layn and Felblood, even Light options fall, but almost all of them agree on Farstrider options and war scars.
Blizzards should see that there are plenty of ways to give Blood Elves meaningful customization long requested. I hope they get it.
Right? And thats just one possibility. lol
You could fundamentally have exactly the same story, just with the SC or even the Highvale kicking out a group who started researching the Void. Its not like any of those groups like the void any better than blood elves.
I don’t think it was spite.
I think someone really did love the story they made for Alleria. The idea of an elf steeped in void magic.
Clearly though internal arguments on elves and seemingly some distinction at the time held them back. We see that when Ion says that they had a lot of internal reviewing on things with the blue eyes debacle.
4 Likes
Beards for Zandalari! (And Darkspear)
Like I get the impression that they will be revisiting AR’s in release order, so Zandalari and Kul TIrans will probably the last AR’s to get to. But yeah, would be awesome if beards were made for them, and added to Darkspear as well.
3 Likes
The HUGE difference in immersion and implementation between Alleria’s Void Journey and Void Elves as a race being introduced will always be a disappointment.
6 Likes
A DS Troll that can look like Rafiki would be my Jam!
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/heroes-and-villians/images/4/4a/Rafiki-0.png/revision/latest?cb=20200120063128
1 Like
And now also all the hair colors. So that’s 99% of their model and theme, and you’re emphasizing on the difference of eye color as your argument that they look distinctive? I’m really confused as to how this is compelling?
A different hairstyle does not “make up the look” it’s actually a very small part of it. You can’t copy 99% of a model, and leave out the hairstyle and say there’s still a large visual distinction there, when that’s literally the only remaining difference.
I won’t have to try you can literally recreate those avatars with simply different hairstyles, which means they look like the same people with contacts, or a different hairstylist - Not two members from entirely different races.
And again, no other two races in the game are faced with this scenario because their distinction within the game is valued ~ even the Nightborne were given more consideration for “visual distinction” than the Void elves.
Dwarf and Dark Iron, LFD and Draenei, Mag’har and Green Orcs are all on the same faction as one another, they are not sharing their visual themes with races from the opposing faction. There’s a large discrepancy here.
Except a void elf can look 99% similar to a Blood elf if they choose, but a Blood elf has no real way to look distinct from a Void besides choosing a different hair and eye color. If you think those are compelling, or unique visual options that set them apart from Void elves than you’re trying far too hard at being ignorant. Especially considering the emphasis, and value you put into “hair colors” yourself.
5 Likes
How can you? They were Blood Elves last week. Who know what they’ll be in a month’s time.
Just last week I had to cross the street because I saw a Void Elf approaching me.
1 Like
I won’t disagree.
My earliest take on Void Elves was that someone at Blizzard misread the room. A lot of Alliance players were ecstatic to see Alleria and Turalyon back. They’d been missing for ages, and their return was hyped. I won’t speak for anyone else, but for me, Alleria being back and being faithful to her prior characterization was more exciting and interesting to me than her void wielding. Her becoming a master of Void Magic felt… odd. But I was happy to overlook it under the idea that, “Eh, she’s a hero character, she’s an exception.”
If you’d told me back in 7.3 that they were going to add an entire race of elves based on Alleria’s study of the void, I’d have not been excited. I’d have been confused. Especially when we had the Krokuul, right there on Argus, studying the Void already, not to mention ethereals studying it as well. Why drag elves into that when, prior to Alleria, they’d never shown any real interest as a race in void magic?
The Void Elves’ story was mishandled badly, and there was no thought to the continuity of the race going forward either. Given their small numbers and the dangers of the void, how could they ever procreate? At the same time, the circumstances of their transformation were so unique, how could they be replicated? Then we’re told Alleria is a Void Elf too, and her path to acquiring that power was safer and more responsible (lining up with Umbric’s philosophy about studying and wielding the void). It just created the question of, “Well, wouldn’t future elves identifying as Ren’dorei learn like Alleria did, and if they do that, won’t they look like her, and not like Umbric and his fellows?”
The Void Elf story was poorly thought out, poorly implemented, and not elaborated on nearly enough over the course of BFA. Players deserve better.
6 Likes