I just literally stated that they should change the visuals on the racial, and suddenly this topic got overwhelmed by some trolls talking about high elves and stuff…
But if you really want my opinion about that, this void elf stuff was just another mistake by blizzard. I mean, alliance already had a shetload of blue skinned races and lorewise high elves simply could have more meaning overall. Much more.
But hey, who cares. It took them like 15 years to realise that some customization options can be handy in an MMORPG. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Imagine if all the Horde players who follow these posts spent their time productively instead of just saying “no, you’re dumb for wanting cool things”. Imagine the things they could achieve. I bet one of these people could become the next Elon Musk.
But nah. Let’s spend our days complaining about a subset of players who enjoy High Elves.
It’s because offering increasingly more customization that diminishes the Void aspect of Void Elves ultimately erodes the identity of the race.
It’s fair enough to request more customization where one desires it. But with Void Elves in particular there seems to be a push (amongst some) to use customization requests as a gateway to get High Elves.
And obviously there’s some pushback from the players who like Void Elves because of the Void aspect of their identity, because all the customization their race is getting is entirely detached from what the race was intended to be.
Imagine of you played an Orc and parts of the community decided to hijack the Orc race and turn it into a Hozen instead and started spamming Blizzard for customization options that allowed Orcs to look more like Hozen.
If you were an Orc player who liked the appearance and identity of Orcs, then you might feel a bit annoyed that you were now getting a bunch of customization options that allowed you to look more like a Hozen, because you were getting that at the expense of more Orc customization, and you weren’t playing an Orc because you wanted to look like a Hozen.
That’s the internal war between people who play Void Elves because they want to be Void Elves, and people who play Void Elves because they want to force Blizzard to turn the race into High Elves.
And I think the community opinion is starting to steer toward the notion that the High Elf crowd have been pissing in the soup for long enough now.
Nonsense. For most people, I would argue, the truest depiction of a Void Elf comes in the form of Alleria Windrunner.
1000% Alliance.
A High Elf with a void infusion.
Blond hair, cool tattoos, and in general looks like a badass elven ranger.
Transforms into her Void form.
It’s the same thing as with Worgen. Most probably don’t want to look like Worgen all the time. Things get interesting when you look like a Human which turns into a Worgen in combat.
With Void Elves, the void aspect of it all would shine all the more clearly if it was a combat-only thing.
The Void Elves have a story background (you play through the quest yourself when you unlock the race!) that clearly depicts who they are (exiled Blood Elves) and why they look like they do (affected by The Void).
That is not the story background for Alleria Windrunner. Her appearance reflects her story background, which is rather unique.
It is. With the customization now available, it is now possible to only have the Void appearance shine through during combat (the racial).
Change it in a way that would remove the last void visual part of the race and make it a long time high elf demand, so yeah it’s pretty obvious it’s a way to smuggle in so more high elf stuff, which I and it seems many peope are personally sick off. Void elves already have the most options of any AR and even more than some core races. But at the same time none of what they got was void related.
Void Elves as a race are made up of High Elves. Both in the form of Blood Elves who left Silvermoon to turn into Void Elves, and in the form of High Elves who travelled to Telogrus Rift to join them.
There is no evidence to suggest that the Void Elf you create is exclusively of Sin’dorei or Quel’dorei origin, as far as I’m aware.
Second, the racial leader sets the tone. Night Elves look up to Illidan, Malfurion, Tyrande and Shandris, and try to emulate these with their customization choices. Orcs look up to Thrall, Garrosh, Grommash, Gul’dan, and various warlords. Humans look up to Turalyon, Anduin, Khadgar, Jaina, etc. This isn’t always true, but it often is.
Hardly anyone knows or cares about Umbric. He’s just some second-in-command to most people, there to offer a presence for Void Elf leadership. The person everyone looks up to is Alleria.
Lastly, why should it “suffice”? What’s wrong with people’s Void Elf characters looking either entirely void-y, or entirely High Elf-y?
I will accept that the race is technically Ren’dorei, and we can’t escape its void aspects entirely. Beyond that, I’d say go nuts and give people what they want.
And that goes back to what Brigante said, I think.
It becomes a slippery slope and the High Elf crowd keep moving the goal post. It’s never quite enough.
And all the while the Void Elf crowd are sitting on the sideline getting nothing, watching their race get hijacked by some who ultimately want it changed into something else.
The increasing backlash toward the High Elf crowd is not difficult to understand, I think.
And all the while the Void Elf crowd are sitting on the sideline getting nothing, watching their race get hijacked by some who ultimately want it changed into something else.
Friend, that’s what the experience has been like for High Elf fans for nearly two decades. I loved playing Alliance in Warcraft 2 back in the 90s. The Elven Rangers were some of the coolest and most iconic units of the entire game.
Then Blizzard essentially gave them to the Horde just to tweak player balance.
Then they gave us Void Elves, which doesn’t fulfil the High Elf fantasy in their original iteration.
Finally they’ve given us the compromise we’re willing to deal with. It’s not perfect for anyone, but it goes a long way.
Besides, Void Elves will probably get their own big overhaul in a future patch, just like Nightborne, LF Draenei and HM Tauren. I’m willing to bet that they’ll go in the other direction for that.
Anyway, I guess my final point is that we should all just let people be happy. You can still create a cool Void Elf with tentacles, and High Elf players are able to tweak it to fit their desires. Even if Blizzard does add more options for High Elves, it doesn’t take anything away from you. It just lets more people be happy with the character they are able to make.
it was alleria that brought them into the Alliance
it was Alleria that led them into the Battle of Lordaeron
It was Alleria that helped them control the whispers
It was Alleria that introduced the race in the starting zone and explained it
it was 90% always Alleria being the active one. Umbric is just a secondary leader to many
Alleria has a long long lore too. She has two satues ingame. and one Stronghold named after her. do you see any statues of Umbric? ehm ehm i didnt think so
I should clarify by saying that I’m just relaying the opinions of both sides as I’ve read them. It’s not necessarily something I’m wholly invested in myself.
That being said, then it does take something away. If Blizzard adds a bunch of High Elf customization, then that inevitably comes at the expense of something else they could have made instead - like Void Elf customization.
And all the High Elf additions do also erode the initial appearance and identity of the Void Elf race as it was introduced, effectively splitting it in two. That may or may not be to everyone’s liking.
Like I said earlier, then you could imagine playing an Orc and thinking Orcs are cool, and suddenly a lot of players think Orcs should be more like the Hozen, and then Orcs start getting a bunch of customization options that allow them to look like Hozen.
As an Orc player who loves the appearance and identity of Orcs it might not be to your liking that your race is now mixed with Hozen.
The same applies to Void Elves. It’s not necessarily everyone who enjoys having the identity of the race be eroded to make room for High Elves. Hence the backlash.
I’m not personally invested enough to care but I can’t fathom how people can’t understand why some Velf fans are pissed off.
Aside from a few hair colours, every single new option they have received (so if we count every skin colour, hair colour, eye colour, toggles, so about 30 options or so) has only serves to divorce them from their racial premise.
So like, 10% of their options granted further the premise, 90% estrange it. Hopefully people can see why they’d be pissed off?
Imagine you join a sports club for badminton. Right, from the word go there’s some people who are pissed off because they wanted tennis instead.
So there you are playing badminton and then the club announces they’re going to develop the club. Awesome you think! The development is: they add a couple of tennis courts.
Okay, fine, it’s a badminton club still so you play, but now people play tennis there too.
The club announces they’re going to buy new equipment. Awesome,. Would love some new shuttlecocks and rackets. The equipment comes in: it’s new tennis rackets and balls and a ball shooter.
After a while you’d be within rights to question whether the place is a badminton club after all “that allows tennis games” or whether the tennis players have co-opted the club.
Let this sink in for people: at current in terms of skin tone Velf have more options that look non voidy than they do Voidy, and with the new hairstyles and colours they’ll have more hair options that aren’t otherworldly than are. For a race called Void elves.
Now we can humour the argument that “nothing in void elves presupposes they’re otherworldly, I mean look at Alleria” but we need to remember Alleria was one Velf compared to numerous others who looked different, and the original premise of the race was never one where they “looked normal”.
It’s clear to anyone with eyes that blizzard have shifted their own definition of what a void elf is, in order to satisfy the helf fans, by stretching it to include pretty much “regular helf whom use void “ despite this not being the case from the word go. And in doing so they are totally neglecting the original unique premise of the race.
Given I’m a badminton player, you’re damn right I’m pissed the club seems to be telling me “oh we were never an exclusively badminton club anyway, we were always about tennis…” it’s a bait and switch. It’s not about people playing tennis, it’s about the club focusing all its energy on the tennis players despite calling itself a badminton club.
At this point they may as well just rename them helf. I mean Christ to call them Velf on basis that what will soon be a third or less of their options looking voidy, we may as well call them high elves “with added frills”.
I think you’re misunderstanding Blizzard’s commitment to Void Elves. They haven’t officially given them any big overhaul yet, akin to what LF Draenei, Nightborne and HM Tauren are getting in 9.1.5. What they’ve done is toss High Elf fans a few bones here and there, since it’s a very vocal community that was initially dissatisfied with their version of High Elves.
It’s not like Blizzard went “right, we’re turning Void Elves into High Elves. No more tentacles for you!”
That stuff is still coming. Whether it’s in 9.1.5, 9.2, or beyond, Void Elves will get the typical Allied Race overhaul and receive a bunch of new options.
In the meantime, just be happy that a large section of the playerbase is getting what they want after having waited for so long. It’s just good for everyone. It benefits the community overall. A lot of players are suddenly excited to play again, and the faction imbalance might even shift a little.
As for your Orc example, I think I’ve already answered it. Imagine being a High Elf fan for 25 years and getting nothing but “you think you do, but you don’t” from Blizzard. Giving Blood Elves to the Horde, the Alliance’s sworn enemy, was incredibly offensive to a lot of people. So I really do think High Elf players, most of all, know what it feels like to see your race be eroded or whatever.
It’s Blizzard fault for introducing a race nobody asked for up until then. While there was a perfectly fitting race people HAVE been asking for for years.
Void elves were just ‘poofed’ into being. Almost no lore supports their sudden existence.
But like I said, that’s not the worst part of it. The fact that an actual ‘old school lore supported’ RTS original race that people have been asking for for many years was declined in favor of a race that nobody ever asked for; THAT is the big problem. It was a bad decision by Blizzard.
And they’ve been working to somewhat rectify that decision ever since.
Ps; I myself am also not invested. But these things I describe are factual (except for the ‘bad decision’ - Void elves have gained a following I suppose, so that part is subjective).
No, I think I perfectly understand Blizzard’s commitment.
They want to please all. And they settle for the compromise, as they always do, rather than picking one or the other.
Flying or no flying? Eh, let’s have some flying in some places after a while.
Compromise.
Void Elves or High Elves? Eh, let’s make Void Elves and then add some High Elf customization afterward.
Compromise.
Blizzard always tries to please everyone, which is fine, but it’s not without consequence.
It creates fractions within the respective communities where players war against each other and lobby for their own side - at the expense of the other side.
agree with this statement.