Should Blood Elves get the new diversed human skin tones in SL?

Blizzard are normally, uh, not great on RL race relations (they told the story of the Native American genocide, twice, without properly considering the implication) - a quick check over at the goblins and how they’re coded will tell you that - so anything they do to alleviate that while also giving more options for customisation is an A+ in my book.

6 Likes

Didn’t know it was actually stated somewhere canon, thought it was a silly joke going around… :smile:

For Elves, skin color has very specific meaning: the purple ones are the Night Elves, the weird blue ones are the Void Elves, and the pale ones are the High/Blood Elves. So no, they shouldn’t just get human skin colors.

Dwarves I’m not bothered by, since they don’t seem to have any specific color coding, apart from Dark Irons. So there’s no real reason they couldn’t have varied skin tones; same for Gnomes, I suppose.

Depends on how they do it, before Shadowlands I would have said no because before Shadowlands you are specifically a Quel’Thalas elf
However as I think some youtubers have pointed out the new starting zone would relieve such restrictions, you could basically start saying that your elf is from any elven stronghold/town/whatever.

I don’t mind them expanding i.e. blood elf customisation options to include all canonically existing blood elf subcultures like how Dwarves are getting Wildhammer tattoo’s enabling them to be wildhammer dwarves,
For the sake of my immersion, I personally hope that they stay within the boundaries of the lore, or give a valid lore explanation if they choose to go outside of it

I doubt they are going to create new subcultures just for the sake of customuzation options. If they’re adding more skintones, the elves would still be High/Blood Elves from Quel’thalas.

2 Likes

That and short of pulling something out of their bum there’s no real blood elf sub culture.

2 Likes

For the love of everything holy, don’t give Blizzard ideas.

As for the subject? Yeah, sure. It wouldn’t make sense for night elves or nightborne, but blood elves have near-human skin tones, so why not.

Playable black elves? As in Svartálfar? Isn’t that night elves or nightborne? Or that those should have a pure black like the drow?

1 Like

No drow, please. It’s one of the worst fantasy races ever designed.

1 Like

By Lolth, what is it you’re saying? How can you hate the drow?

1 Like

Super easily. They’re a race so poorly conceived that the designers have admitted their entire society only survives by literal divine intervention. That and they’re basically just “hey what if we made our elves BDSM dominatrixes except stupid - like, really really stupid. Incredibly stupid. The biggest idiots we have.”

5 Likes

In addition to what Elenthas said: D&D in general has a problem with too many humanoid races made intentionally repulsive because they’re designed purely as antagonists, but at least goblins are funny and orcs are just kind of… inoffensively bland. Drow read like a 14-year-old’s idea of https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilIsCool.

Then, of course, there’s Drizzt. I haven’t read any of the Salvatore books, so I don’t really have a peeve with the character himself, but I do mind the overabundance of Drizzt clones among player characters — something that wouldn’t have existed if not for the whole concept of a race that is utterly (and unsustainably) evil except inexplicably for this one guy.

1 Like

Blood Elves being pale skinned does not = human skin. Them being pale is no more human than Night Elves being purple as far as I see it.

Every Elven race has developed their unique racial visuals due to magic mostly. Blood Elves, coming from exiled Highborne that were described as paler compared to their low born counterparts (probably in part due to their arcane usage), were influenced by living in a “Land of Eternal Spring” with the Sunwell’s magic to sustain them. It’s already quoted with - “They became known as high elves. During this time, they created the Sunwell, and switched to a diurnal waking cycle. Their purple skin eventually faded to a pale peach color, like that of some humans and dwarves as well as shrinking in stature (and posture).”

Note that it says “like”, that doesn’t mean their appearance has come about the same way that human and dwarf skin colour came about, only that it’s similar in appearance. It also clearly states that their skin specifically changed to a pale peach colour, and effectively pins the reason being down to the sunwell and the fact they were no longer nocturnal.

If dark skin toned Blood Elves are introduced, it wouldn’t really make sense for them to suddenly evolve to have dark skin in the span of… what, a few months? Overnight?

Pale skin is a defining Blood Elf feature, in the same way as purple-ish skin is a defining Night Elf feature. Also, in regards to people saying that them living in a sunny land should mean they have darker skin, I can understand having tanned skin (please note, there already are two tanned variants of skin colour for Blood Elves) but living in eternal springtime doesn’t really warrant them developing dark skin to protect against the sun in my opinion. Quel’thalas is hardly akin to the heat of countries on or near Earth’s equator.

That being said, I’m certainly for extra customisation options, but not for customisation for the sake of customisation. One thing I’d like to see is the option having some nude or subtle coloured arcane/magic tattoos just like the Blood Elf on the Burning Crusade box art!

1 Like

Do you feel the same with the Githyanki?

groan
Sorry, I can’t help but groan whenever someone talks about “Representation”, as it gives off the impression that the only way people can enjoy or relate to something, is if they see themselves on the screen… Which is probably not the kind of message you want to send out.

Especially when you count in the fact that in the western market Blizzard is so pro-everything, even retconning characters in Overwatch, only to shy away from that when it comes to the yellow stars in a red background.

In response to the OP: I don’t care, if it has a reasonable backing to it in the Warcraft setting. If it doesn’t, then I’ll be honest and say “I’d rather not”.

2 Likes

tbh the books werent that bad but I read them when I was 15 so I doubt Id enjoy them today.

The best Fantasy races are in Malazan. And i will fight anyone about it.

1 Like

we’ll all be playing Bannerlord anyway so it doesn’t matter :slight_smile:

2 Likes

It is important for historically denigrated minority groups to have representation in popular media, as it normalises them in society. From a marketing standpoint, people will always and have always been able to engage with a game more deeply if there are characters that they can find commonality with.

I can see why people who aren’t a member of a minority group (and I don’t necessarily direct this at you personally) wouldn’t see the need for representation; they have never been in a position where they don’t feel represented, so the importance doesn’t always compute to them.

https://i.redd.it/8umij18tr5w31.jpg - this doesn’t strictly relate to the topic of this thread, but it does touch on the some themes of minority representation.

Blizzard’s hypocrisy is annoying, absolutely, but I will appreciate when they do a good thing. Shilling to the CPC is bad, but Overwatch’s diverse cast is absolutely ace.

5 Likes

This won’t stop some people asking for kawaii elves for their anime fantasies. Perhaps dwarves and gnomes should now range from scandinavian pale to subsaharan dark, and give them squinted eyes too for good measure.

Who cares if wow dwarves are a fantasy play on a nordic stereotype (nobody cares about the viking heritage armour), no, they should look like indonesians because that will somehow solve the racism issues around the world.

And no, none of those races are humans just because they have a human-like skin colour. That is just you trying to force every fantasy race to be “diverse”, but only “human diverse”, don’t let them be diverse by their own fantasy rules, no, they must represent real life humans.