Which skin tone do you find most appealing for the dark elves? (Images in Blog)

I don't see any reason to limit them to a very specific set of colors. Giving a range that provides all of the above levels of color, saturation, and light/darkness should be totally acceptable. Just look at the wide variety of human skin colors we have in real life. Also, given the magical nature of and mystical properties behind the Dark Elves change of appearance, I don't see why they can't have a greater variety to include all the images view above (except maybe the super-albino ones, cause that just looks to vampiric/undead).

Here's an image I did a quick recoloring of in PS to show a variety of looks I think should totally be possible for the race:

Can't we just have all of these options in the character customization screen? I would love to have such a beautiful array of skin tones to choose from. I personally love all of them and I don't want to single any one out. If I had to choose however I'd probably pick saturated. Please allow us to have skin tone customization in EQ Next!

Here's some of the actual poll images I adjusted as well, to show the different color favorites of the blue and purple skin tones, but in different levels of darkness. It should be noted that I adjusted the color armor so the darker skin color wouldn't get totally lost.

Also in case you're wondering, my "medium" is more like the OP's "saturated" I didn't want to use the term saturated because that is for the amount of color and not really a lightness/darkness shade descriptor. You could imagine the medium slightly lighter for a "Light", but I think if we get too light they're just going to look like Vampires or Undead or too similar to regular elves.

Hope you enjoy!





Share your own thoughts on these and be sure to quote it so the comments don't get mistaken for those about the main poll images posted by Dex/Rosie!

Light is too light for dark elves; the darker example of Dark is too dark, and blends too much with dark elven armor. Medium, Saturated, and the lighter example of Dark are all appropriate as dark elf customization options.

Another vote for E - all of the above.

The hue should definitely always be blue / purplish. But I really think you should give people a wide choice in how dark they want their DE's skin to be.

I like the saturated , but any would work honestly. I also have to wonder, given the fact they've lived in the Umbra for the past god knows how long, where the skies are dark, exactly how that might effect their tone over time. Should they be lighter now?

Falcone, Liberation

I would vote E all of the above and the reasons for that is:

1. Some dark elves will feel that they wanted to breed a darker tone for their offspring to embrace their turning and are 'purest at heart' while others secretly yearned for their former lives as high elves and went lighter breeding in hopes that their offspring would eventually be accepted back into their brethren some day.

2.This range is significant into the lore of their society, yes they are a militant order but that does not mean there aren't dissenters in the ranks and being that they are all 'tainted' still unites them.

3.Giving players the option to scale the range of their darkness with increase their ability to RP and will also help to create a more dynamic community within the dark elf race in game.

I would prefer option: E. All of the above

The more options you give players to customize their characters, the more appeal they'll have to wider ranges of people. The ones that don't want to tweak everything will be happy and just use a preset or something, but there are quite a few people who will utilize the customization tweaking everything.

Most likely I'll end up as either a dwarf or DE when I play, for a DE, I would most likely go with the DARK version. I WANT my enemies (if it's a player especially) to not be able to tell my armor from my body and be able to blend into the shadows easily. I would like to note as well though that I probably will drop whatever toon I'm playing when/if (better be when) iksar come to the scene unless they get murdered somehow in this process.

I voted C, but would love C through D on a slider. Need to have the lighter blue-dark gray/black all the colors in C and D. Why not A through C (or E) because we should use those for other Elves (Wood Elf, High Elf; the fair-skinned children). I also have to disagree with the logic that no sun would make you white. If you were white and moved underground with no sun you might on the short term be whiter, but if you had dark skin you would not become white, But Pale Dark Skin. I have to somewhat agree with Hudass. (LOVE THE PHOTO BTW) Saturated and I’ll add Dark, yet PALE in color.

One more thing of note: White should be reserved for the Koada'Dal. On a Teir'Dal it just looks vampiric or undead. Definitely not suiting their nature. The darker the better, for sure!

Proof that this one, particular outfit/armor is biasing the vote. If there were other armor options, like silver or gold or mithril I believe the very dark skin tones would look extremely nice.

It's less this one, particular outfit that's the issue, but that from what we've seen of dark elf concepts, their cultural armor in general tends towards black, or other darker colors. In human or dwarven armors black skin might work, but in their own cultural style, black-skinned dark elves are going to blend too much with their clothing. And it seems like a good rule of thumb that races should at least look right in their own cultural style.

These color palette polls drive me nuts!


I think we should be able to select from all the options because realistically individual organisms have many many many variations of the same theme. For example: A rose bush is a rose bush but not every rose is the same color and even those rose bushes who share the same flower color may have a different tones of foliage or even grown in a different shape.

I'm almost always gonna be in favor of multiple variations of the same theme.

Realistically, yeah Dark Elves would be subject to genes and heredity that allowed for lighter skin tones, and that still may be the case when the game is release. But, with all due respect, this game isn't based solely in reality - a healthy dose of fantasy is the reason behind the Dark Elves appearance to begin with. They are still as much the elves they used to be, just exposed to something (that is hinted at being more magical or fantastic in nature) that brought out long forgotten latent appearance aspects - to the point of horns. Maybe there will be some mutants and albino Dark Elves (which do look really awesome and striking) will be in the game somehow, but at this point in time I think the devs are trying to pinpoint the basic, most common skintone variation in a subsection of elves that isn't subject to the same "typical" factors that determine the skintone of High Elves or Humans.

I voted Saturated, but I particularly like the the darker one on the right. I also like the lighter one to the left of the Darks.

I think the darkest might be cool, but personally it is too dark.

The only lighter one I like is the white/lightest, but that one feels a bit too vampire-like to me.

True but being of an entirely militaristic and practical mindset shouldn't camouflaged armor be the norm for Teir'Dal. I can't think of any modern military force that doesn't use camouflage for it's combat fatigues. Given that the Teir'Dal have their home below ground and hate the sun (thus operate largely at night if they were to go on the surface). They would like having black armor even if their skin were black also. With maybe point-light magic or small silver/mythril/etherium or norite accents.

There's no reason to toss out dark black skin simply because it blends with their armor - that option almost seems preferable given the Teir'Dal's militaristic nature and overarching theme of practicality.

Definitely like your medium

I went saturated.
But some where from the "Right" darker -Saturated, to the "Left" Lighter -Dark. Anything lighter or darker then thoughts I think either losses details, or is just to pail for the Race.

I will vote for E all of the above as well, no need to just let each race just have 2 or 3 skin tone choices.
This leaves everyone looking the same.
Variety is everything.

I went with albino, but think it should be the darker albino. Since they are elves it makes sense that they would be using 'war' paints to blend into their surroundings, giving a range of colours. Hope they aren't too blue to match their lights...