Farstrider and Highborne customisations for Elves - PLS

Community General Discussion
1

Don’t forget blizz, with all the new options coming out

  • Farstrider for Blood Elves
  • Highborne for Night Elves

I’m impressed dwarves are getting the chance to play the fantasy of the Wildhammer through the customisation options and Humans better racial representation too. Which makes me excited and curious for two elven faves of mine getting customisations, they are the Farstriders in the Blood elves, and Highborne in the Night Elves.

Now I wonder if Blood elves would get a:

Blood Elf Farstrider customisation - with

  • Tattoos - as we see on Alleria. On body and face would be cool. Not like the Night elf ones, but completely unique,
  • More wilder , posy hairstyles - the Void elf male hairstyle that had half the head shaved with the other half flowing is the type of “wild” I mean
  • Deeper tanned skin options - as they are outside a lot, on tree tops usually so in direct sunlight, o r roaming on missions for Quel’thalas.
  • Scruffier and fuller beards - perfect grooming is not always possible and long missions outdoors, and as you’re not amongst high society all the time, there isn’t as much need.
  • Scars: As we see on Lor’themar, always fighting enemies in rogue missions, tumbling through branches, doing the elite hard stuff - unlike a caster from range, you’re gonna look more worn even if you’re pretty.

Full body shots examples by Dulafen
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w73/Dulafen/High_Elf_Skin_Tone%20v1.png

In ranger attire:
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w73/Dulafen/Ranger_Armor%20v3_1.jpg

Which would do good for Farstrider types, but it’s not enough. Tattoos, rings, certain unique hairstyles and possibly locked to the hunter/rogue/warrior classes only.

Also the more adventerous darker type of blood elf.

Most famous Thalassians are farstriders, yet only Alleria seems to capture that look decently, the current BElf model seems modelled on the Magister and noble, which is fits priests and mages and DH on the fel elf, but the farstrider could be awesome.

Birds eye hairdos by Dulafen http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w73/Dulafen/Silver_Covenant_Hair_Mix_v1.png
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w73/Dulafen/Silver_Covenant%20v1.jpg

Also if Night elves would get

Night Elf Highborne customisations -

  • Don’t forget that too, would be nice to see fancier NElves for a changed
  • Some better looking and younger faces (mainly for males)
  • Neater, less bushy and stylish intricate hair styles
  • Arcane features reflecting their mastery (glowy hands, arcane tattoos, glitter-type star effects for their hair)
  • Neater more stylised designer beards fitting a Lord or high nobleman
  • Musculature variations from a more toned down version of the current model to the more ripped DH option - although the robe gear do take care of this somewhat.
  • Ornamentation - extravagant, rich, wealthy gold and star sparkling silver coronets, bands, jewels, with effectively like floating round the face. (some moon jewelry for priests)
  • Different idle pose - the one they have in robes screams servant not Lord.
  • Make sure males can have silver eyes, and females golden eyes

Excellent example of how you’d imagine a Highborne that capture the look perfectly, ornamentation, star effects, beard quality, face quality etc. screams Highborne.
https://imgur.com/VbQUtfa
https://imgur.com/a/lA7CMa9 - by Beurghes/Iseijin

Notice the current in-game Nelf male is modelled on a druid, humbler pose, bushier beards/hair , females on the sentinel with their 4 packs and crooked eyebrow - we need options that scream highborne, elegant Moon Priest - the civilization side.

Can choose to lock to mage/priest class would make it obvious (some of the options anyway) like horns/eye masks are only availl on DK even though main NELf has an eye cover option, or make it accessible to all, just a bit obvious which ones are highborne - maybe link

What you guys want?

[EDITED heavily adding some good options given later on in post, will update when can]
EDIT ADD: Here are some Additional Ideas/Options: - like all things, do note, not everyone is going to like or agree, however that is the beauty of having options, there is something for everyone

San’layn Darkfallen Customisation

  1. Red eye option on BElves
  2. Potential fanged teeth
  3. Skin tones similar to the san’layn /dark fallen elves in ICC and dark rangers

Illidari Warlocks

  1. Blood elf warlocks have the option to get the Illidari DH skins in addition to the normal BElf skins (an Illidari can easily be a warlock - one that hates demons but uses them and their power completley)

  2. Night Elf can have a warlock class option that uses only the Illidari models - the Fel Lord Demon Hunter or Warlock Demon Hunter (whatever lore name). I can easily see an Illidari Night elf as a warlock, but never a normal night elf. They would use the DH starting experience too, but as a lock.

  3. Draenei can have the Eredar customisation in a similar way for the Warlock class - especially if blizz decides not to have them as an allied race, some Eredar are Illidari, like Night elf, no normal draenei would be a lock, but a Man’ari Eredar as an Illidari would. Blizz would have to decide. THe skin option could extend to the Mage class too or more, however they should share the DH starting experience. I see no trouble with a Warlock Demon Hunter (use another name though, like Fel Lord Illidari but it’s a warlock for class purposes)

Night Elves

For ALL Night Elves, first of all:

  • eyebrows and hairstyle should be customized separately
  • Normal Nelf male body needs HD textures like the DH version
  • facial tattoos and hair color should be customized separately
  • as a rule, the males currently have darker skins than females.
    Make it so that both genders can access to both lighter and darker skin tones!
  • same goes for the eye colors: gold and silver should be available to both males and females, as well as emerald green Malfurion which should take over from gold as the go to for druids, gold remaining those of great destiny. And black reflecting the night warrior and New blackmoon order :slight_smile:
  • Low musculature skins, normal musculature, DH level ripped musculature options (males and females) it looks weird for a priestess or highborne to be have a 4 pack, but the option should be in the palyers hands, so they can be more muscular if they prefer or less.

As for additions:

  • new hair colors such as anything seen in the Azshara video
    (blond, red, black and/or darker shades of purple and blue)
  • electric skin shades like Azshara’s :woman_genie:
  • extra light skin shades in the style of the Highborne NPCs
  • darker skin shades related to Troll heritage (such as a proper purple)
  • new eye colors: green (druids, like Malfurion) and purple (magic users)
  • new tattoo colors (a ‘glowing’ white/silver and arcane purple for highborne would be awesome)
  • a few younger faces (especially the males!)
  • jewelry (tiaras, earrings - both Blood Elves and Nightborne use them!) :gem:
  • fancier haircuts (possibly based of those created for the allied races?)

Druid Customisations
While the current male night elf is modelled on the druid, with its wilder beards and bushier hair, tone of voice etc. Still more options would be good including

  • Malfurion level types of beards (males)
  • Hair effects with leaf & branches ornamention (highborne options have the star glitter and jewels) (male and female)
  • Mini antlers
  • More faces

Trolls

Here are propositions for hairstyles:

https://i.imgur.com/yYc4S0K.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/XrxFGuy.jpg

Troll guys should have set of beards to pick from, especially goaties.

Troll females should have more facial paint options, I always wanted simple stripe over the eyes - with black paint. And ofc jewelry. Not just bone one, but for example ear-rings shaped like snakes.

Regarding model The troll fans would like for texture on troll male to be revisited. Both Troll male and nelf male were likely done last and it really shows. When you campare troll male to troll female or Zandalari the quality in texture is huge.

It would be also great if their arms would be by tiny bit buffed as from the side they look reasonably muscular but from behind they look very thin for some reason.

https://i.imgur.com/cQKav0v.jpg < for example

And those are imo ideal changes:

https://i.imgur.com/68gTtZJ.jpg (borrowed from mmo-c thread)

Edit:
And I feel this hairstyle would fit more a troll female :

https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/928340.jpg

Gnomes

Worgen

  • Night elf skins options replacing humans (if they don’t become a worgen based allied race later on)

Popular Features Across the Board

  • Body size sliders (even if that’s too much - it is hugely popular)
  • Sliders for nose/mouth/eyes etc
  • Set a different default expression [frown, smile, grimace, sulky, angry, happy, peaceful, snarly, proud, mocking]
  • don’t the new models have some incredible facial expression capabilities would be awesome if each face could vary its expression.
  • Live action 3-D portrait instead of a 2-D portrait, the option to actually see your characters real time expression - catch the change in face when it’s casting, striking, being hit, dying, healing, laughing - it basically is a full time live camera of your characters face, so you can enjoy some of those details you guys worked so hard on in 6.0 but players seldom get to see because they see their character’s back.
42 Likes
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No that won’t happen - not for the original classes, plus Warrior, that Blood Elves started out with.
You can still use golden eyes on a Blood Elf Warlock, despite that making little to no-sense.

As per the Farstrider, it won’t happen.
Plus, the “Nightborne” sort of settle, the altered “Night Elf/Highborne” pose. Night Elves, as a whole, will keep what they’ve got.

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blood elves are getting the same skin color slider as humans there should be no reason why elves constantly should be getting more than other races

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Farstrider is a rank in the Blood Elves archery, it’s not a race.

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Wildhammer’s are from a different clan. Farstriders are a rangers, a military branch, entirely different thing which would not warrant a customization option.
It’s like giving human paladins their own options.

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6

Don’t you feel it would be good to have it clear that those new tattoos on the dwarf are wildhammer tattoos… so eiter only accessible to Dwarf shaman and classes Wildhammer might be OR at least if you wanna be a bronzebeard that has those tattoos, fine, just be aware that it’s the wildhammer people that carry that look.

I like things to have meanings and representations, especially if they’re in lore. I’m fine with everyone having more options, but its so much more meaningful and impactful when those options have meanings and represent specific things.

I’m sure i’m not the only one who feels so. But maybe blizzard no longer care about fostering their fantasy.

Well that does a night elf player no good. “hey Night elf highborne player, if you wanna look like a Highbonre, become a new race and switch faction”… otherwise continue to look like a druid even though you’re not.

That’s like giving the Void elf the farstrider look and telling blood elf fans, the high elf or void elf already cover that. It does no good to a night elf for the Nightborne to cover that look. Different race/faction.

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Don’t be silly.

They have their standard idle animation in the Well of Eternity dungeon and Dire Maul: Capital Gardens.

No, but they won’t have it on just one class. It’s simple.

They didn’t exclude Blood Elf Warlocks from having golden eyes.

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Makes no sense, since very other race is getting things… why you harping on Elf fans for defining their options and expressing their deisres?

If other races weren’t getting things you’d have a case.

Yes, we are aware, not all the options have to represent a sub-race, they could represent an order of a famous iconic group in a race. In the case of the Highborne, it’s representing a caste or Night elves, in the case of the Farstrider its representing the Organisation who are ranger/hunters.

Both are quite iconic to Blood elves and Night elves. Just like Wildhammers are or no-bone forsaken. Perhaps even more so than the latter in particular

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Yes, but let’s talk about something else.
Blood Elf Mages, with blood elf jewelry, purple eye color, arcane runes and make their starter robe, transmog-able.
Night Elf Druids, forest elves. Trees, branches and the sort for hair decoration, and leaf earrings.

But we all know that these things wouldn’t remain relative to just these two race/class combos. We’d see Blood Elf Warriors and Night Elf Mages running around with such.

You can’t restrict players from customization for certain regular classes (minus DK and DH), just because some people won’t follow your ideas.

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That’s what you’re effectively saying. If you’re a night elf player and are playing a highborne, switch to Nightborne if you wanna look and feel the part, since the current Night elf model doesn’t have the appropriate features .

That’s true they didn’t, but they at least explained it. so you know what it means, even if you don’t care. Fantasy and lore still matter a lot to some of us. And what it means on our character is important.

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You can feel the part by playing a Night Elf Mage.

But what you want isn’t fair on what everyone else might want.
And you can’t restrict people on what they can have, just because they won’t follow your ideals.

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as i said elves are getting the same as humans, why do you want more than other races? Now THAT doesnt make any sense

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I don’t think they should restrict the options per class, but more options are always welcomed.

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I would like to see options that represent different troll races and tribes

  1. Like Farakki trolls, Drakkari trolls, Amani trolls

  2. Orcs: Half orcs and Mok’nathal orcs.

And they should definitely tell players what those mean. It will get them more involved in the fantasy.

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Exactly. I’m all for more options, but who am I to say that as a Blood Elf Mage fan, I can use purple glowing eyes (won’t happen but bear with me), but you can’t because your a Blood Elf Hunter?
At the end of the day, my ideals for what should be blood elves with purple eyes, are irrelevant.

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You want to look the part on the model too. I think that’s the point behind this. The vain, looks obsessed Highborne kind of Night Elf, is not going to be a weathered, snarly, wrinkled dude, with bushy hair and humble, yet built demeanor.

He’s going to be handsome, with an air of nobility, Lordly, look unblemished, and with wealthy apparels, and radiating arcane power.

Likewise a Farstrider is going to have that slightly unkempt/ruffled but so cool badass look - and their are features you can add that really bring out this iconic look.

I’ll be okay with that… As long as they also explain it like they did with the BLood/Night elf new eyes/skin - so you know that appearance relates to this.

Sure it’s not restricted to paladin/priests, afterall you can be a light leaning warrior/rogue or Night warrior rogue/warrior/druid - that is possible, even for warlock. But knowing what it means is part of the fantasy.

Definitely

That is more an allied race feature. Half orcs will have a very different face and should have different body structure.

Same with Mok’nathal, as well as a being a different group and different race, even though orc based.

Yes, they could do this, for Farakki trolls and some of the others, but i’m not sure about the bigger body types the Amani and Drakkari have, that could be akin option, but it’ s more again an allied race feature… Sort of like how they combined all the orc Mag’har groups into one allied race, they can combine the other troll species like Amani and Drakkari into one.

Farakki have the same shape as Darkspears, so it’s just colour change, like a more sand based tone, but blizz should definitely say these are Farakki.

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That’s fine.

But as we say, you can’t restrict things to certain classes - just because you know that people wouldn’t follow your ideals, to the letter.

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The races aren’t equal you know, if a lot more players play elves, they will need more options.

However what made you think that asking for the Elven options to be specifically categorised meant they were getting more?

Besides its always been the case that Humans and elves have more options than most other races. Night elves are the exception , as they have fewer options, esp for males and they are the 3rd largest played race. However it warrants it for Humans and Elves .

Yes it would be nice for all races to have the same amount of options…but it’s not that necessary. I think the lore and fantasy should define or at least inform the options, and some races just have more, because they are bigger.

As long as they have more options and the options have a definition.

I’m understanding that. Still there is something special about having things uniquely defined and having lore around it, with apperances that reflect the fantasy.

this is why Farstrider options for blood elves would be so cool even if not restricted to hunter/rogue class. Having all the Farstrider NPCs also changed to this appearance and generally having only those NPCs wear it would also drive the point home.

Just like you see the Wildhammer clan only amongst NPCs have those Tattoos, it makes it clear to the player.

Similar thing for a Highborne customisation, without a doubt you could get a highborne that is a hunter or warrior or priest - but they’re almost 100% mages, so therefore all the Highborne NPC toons should sport only the customisations that are created to reflect them. - it makes it quite clear when you pick up a certain tone/hairstyle/feature - that ah… this is Farstrider, or this Highborne, or this is Night Warrior or this is Light warrior etc.

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But all of this is for NPC’s, which is fine.

But players should be given Farstrider options, even if they are a Priest. Likewise, what would be considered more “Highborne” options, would be given to other Night Elves, like Druids. (Not Nightborne stance though.)

The Wildhammer Options won’t be restrictive to just Dwarf Warriors, Hunters and Shamans. Hell, a Wildhammer Dwarf-looking character can be a Warlock, if that player chooses.
Blood Elves with blue eyes will still be available to Blood Elf Warlocks and Paladins, for example. It won’t be exclusive to just Blood Elf Mages.

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Yes, I agree with you now, I did like the fantasy definition that restriction would have created, but I do admit that you would want as many options available to players, but the NPCs can be used to reflect the fantasy well.

That could work. Even though the Nightborne is based off the Night elf, it would be prefereable for Night elf stance changes for highborne customisations to be different since they now represent different groups AND the Nightborne don’t have that many differences from the Night leves so it would be nice if they kept all their distinctions.

I’m sure void elf fans wouldn’t like blood elves getting their hairstyles for example. And more variety is good.

I noticed the night elf forces in Boralus during the Warfront uptime have a different more commanding stance. They could use that for the Highborne, and yes, have it accessible to all other nigh elves. Especially if it is tied to a “highborne” skin tone that would be available for any class.

Afterall, some of the Highborne were druids, maybe some have identified as Highborne but not switched classes to the Lorekeeper or Mage. It is a caste afterall, not just a class, it’s just predominantly focused on the mage class, but hey who’s to say Highborne don’t bring arcane expertise to druidsm, Elunism, hunting warriorism - whichever discipline they prefer to be… this is how it was in the pre-sundering era anyway.