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

Yes they should. Options good, darker skin thematically nice for Sun themed Elves, Night Elves ancestors have a wide range, have I already said “options good” ? And I don’t see how it would impact RP. It’s a skin color, not a brand new culture to jigsaw in somehow.

4 Likes

Sunfire… Sunfury… I see it now…

2 Likes

Sure it is not as big as your darkspear becoming a sandfury one merry day, but who knows some people really dislike to retcon their char, even for trivial details.

Dark-skinned High/Blood Elves are already, if not vaguely, established in lore.

“Why do you think she wishes to do so?” Devi tilted her head, analyzing. “Honestly, sir, I cannot think why. He seems completely cowed, and the woman says it is very important. I do not think they are planning to harm you in any way, but I cannot even hazard any other guess. It is puzzling.”A frown marred the beauty of her dark-skinned face.Devi did not like puzzles.

  • Twilight of the Aspects

The High Elf is called Devi and is Krasus’ High Elf apprentice. She is described to be a “a dark-skinned elf with raven-black hair”.

So I say: big YES.

10 Likes

No

2 Likes

Sure, why not.

As long as we don’t see RPers headcanon some extra headcanon culture of the sands to these elves. They should be, by all accounts just simple Sin’dorei, unless Blizzard deems to give them extra lore.

15 Likes

You see Siavash jumping for joy in the distance.

5 Likes

Big agree. Similarly, dark-skinned humans have no cultural separation from any other humans – and there’s no implication of bias due to skin pigmentation in the setting.

7 Likes

I’ll scrounge together 200 Windfarer She*els for a tanned skin option with awesome Middle-Eastern tattoos and a matching eye colour

Asian elves like in the Warcraft Movie would be cool too tbf.

https://i.imgur.com/V5m5yAq.jpg

12 Likes

The big brain movement.

Why RP in WoW if you’re not going to RP within the setting :crazy_face:

4 Likes

Dunno. At some point I have to wonder if that’s a slope to visually retcon every vaguely humanoid race to fit with a real world political correctness, and if companies can even afford to ask “if” instead of “when” on such matters anymore.

I digress - that’s probably an entirely different discussion in itself.

Yeah, sure, blood elves could probably do with some darker skin options. I know at least some players on AD would have a field day with it, so that’s a plus.

1 Like

“Dark-skinned” seems very vague though. We have nothing else to go on. For all we know it’s a regular Blood Elf with one of the more tanned skintones, and it also wouldn’t be the first time a writer accidentally adds something that makes no sense due to a misconception, like Genn’s tail in BtS.

Blood Elves to me are all fair-skinned, just with different complexions. I don’t think diversity is really needed on them, given how they have always been portrayed?

5 Likes

Humans regardless of their skin colours are still HUMANS in the Warcraft universe. That is also one of the biggest reasons why I think having racism between human and human is stupid in the same universe, since there are literal other species in the world they live in.

I remember reading a Tweet that someone back in 2019 Blizzcon had asked a Blizzard designer about darker skinned Sin’dorei and they had received a reply of basically “Yes they are on the worktable”. We’ll see!

If Blizzard decides to add darker skintones to Sin’dorei, does that fundamentally change anything about the race? No. Not at all. Those characters are still Sin’dorei. Their skin colour itself does not matter, as long as you can look at the character and go “Oh that is clearly a -Insert race here-”. Psst. This is why we don’t have Orcs with human-styled skin.

2 Likes

I don’t think it’s particularly fair to label dark-skin customisation options as “political”. I doubt it’s what you meant, but for many it’s a cheap method to oppose progressive representation in games.

Even if the companies/developers behind it are taking advantage of the movement to increase those profit margins, I’ll still view it as ultimately a good thing.

It doesn’t have to be “needed” to be a good addition to the options we have presently.

5 Likes

At the end of the day. What does darker skinned Sin’dorei being put to the game “Take away” from people?

Nothing else about them is going to change, aside from having a option for having a darker variety of pigmentation.

7 Likes

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t care if they do add darker skin tones. Would look more odd on Blood Elves than on Humans but if they found a way to change the faces simultaneously like they did with the latter it could work I suppose.

If it makes people happy, why not?

I do feel that threads like these will become more common during Shadowlands. While discussion about these things by itself is not at all anything bad or something that should not be allowed, I have a feeling that it’s also going to bring to light the actual IRL racism that some people on the realm harbour towards some groups. That bleeding into conversations about “Should this fantasy race have a darker complexion?” would get really nasty rather quickly.

But here’s to hoping people will remember to seperate what is real and what is not!

1 Like

Wish I could dislike the idea of darker skin blood elves without being lumped in with the racism groups tbh.

TBH there’s some really neat RPG worlds out there that kinda adopt different cultures, creeds and races and plant them into fantasy. Pillars of Eternity with it’s colonial-era feel and the sequel with it’s clear influence from Maori cultures are pretty sick.