Nightborne are clearly a Highborne thing

[Mace]

Nightborne are Highborne thing, not night elf or Blood elf.

The introduction of the nightborne has obviously caused quite a buzz about the elven community... lots of talk about the blood elves getting a new addition, a handful of people feeling it's a night elven addition, a lot also thinking it's a completely new group/thing set up to be a 3rd elven main race.

Whiles we cannot deny there is a similarity to the blood elves who share a lot in common with the nightborne, and while we cannot deny that pretty much everything about the nightborne is night elven in origin very few have realized the overwhelming HIGHBORNE connection that speaks louder than every other vein. The night elf highborne.

Looking closely at the nightborne - it is without a doubt the arcane night elf group the Highborne that has been expanded. Whiles you could argue about the technicality of highborne being night elf, or being high elf since high elves came from that... the very high arcane night elven nature of the nightborne has HIGHBORNE screaming out very loudly emphatically the the nocturnal group, not the diurnal group - making it primarily night elf concerned rather than a high/blood elf thing (and that's not invalidating their is connection). Highborne never refer to themselves as night elves even though they have the night elf appearance, and nightborne is a lot closer to highborne than it is high elf/night elf - to me this all indicates that they are development of the highborne into a serious thing in the night elf category. It's own separate group.

There is a reason you've never felt the nightborne don't quite fit the night elf thing, that's because they're based on the Highborne group, the arcane night elf group you've really onlly had glimpses of in ruins with the Shen'dralar and not had a proper look till now. There is no longer any doubt in my mind, this is a highborne thing. And being highborne while a night elf thing it provides a bridge and strong connection to the high/blood elves.

Even the music of the zone/themes are shared with Azsuna strongly -could we dare to conclude, that blizzard is making in the nightborne the highborne into a race of it's own?

It seems clear to me that the nightborne are blizzard greatly expanding primarily the Highborne, and secondarily the night elf

[Mace]

I need you take of your prejudice hats for a moment, and consider the possibility that we might be seeing the long rift between arcane night elves and nature night elves i.e. Highborne and night elf healed in the nightborne storyline. This would actually be a huge boost to the night group.

If we follow on from that, the lore has taken us to an intereting place where we have the healing of the nightborne which results in the combination of nature and arcane in harmony - it seems to be a huge pointer to

Is the story of the nightborne the key ingredient in healing the two halves of the night elf group who have been long separated by distrust, fear and pride. The highborne/nightborne have been greatly humbled by the events of Legion - that Elisande would let the demons in, and that enough would go along with it rather than fight it, exiling their kin and sending them to soulforges, is very humiliating, then to add to that, degenerating to mindless husks without the magic of the nightwell bottom feeding in the state of nightfallen or the potential of it has really humbled the group, the Shen'dralar and Farondis groups having also similarly been humbled. Meanwhile distrust and fear from the night elves of the arcane group seems also to have been addressed. In the willingness of the nightborne to rally behind the rebels to overthrow Elisande and the Legion, the willingnes of the Shen'dralar to fight alongside their kin against the horde and cataclysm, and the willingness of the Court of Farondis to poor their effort into fighting the Legion - goes a lot for distrust, and for fear of magical addiction, the arcan'dor cure is an Elune send.

In this, all the ingredients and criteria to heal the rift between the arcane night group and the nature night group are there. I have to wonder, if the story of the nightborne is not a story to heal all elves, but a story to heal the rift between the arcane and nature night elves

[ravenmoon]

Nightborne are Highborne thing, not night elf or Blood elf.

I'll stop you right there. Stop trying to divorce the highborne from the night elves, there is no nightborne/highborne lore without night elf - it's another vein of the night elves, the arcane vein.. just because it's not nature doesn't mean it's not night elven. Night elves do not have to be restricted to nature only. THe highborne are their arcane side. This is what is being developed clearly. It's got nothing to do with blood elves, nor the nature group which is why Tyrande doesn't feature till 7.1, it's a highborne NIGHT ELF thing. Stop trying to divorce nightborne from night elves.

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....The night elf highborne....

the nigh elf highborne = nightborne see, it's even in the name

[Deleted]

Here we go again... /popcorn

[Trassk]

It seems clear to me that the nightborne are blizzard greatly expanding primarily the Highborne, and secondarily the night elf

dude, this entire expansion is one big ass kiss to elves. Despite it being called 'legion', only like 25% of the content in this expansion is legion related, they are if anything in the background, for the more forefronted elf fangasm. Night elves, blood elves, high elves, nightborn, night fallen, demon hunters, Maiev, the wardens, malfurion, tyrande, Azshara, and lets not forget ILLIDAN AS THE GREATEST OF THE GREATEST CHARACTERS THAT EVER DID LIVE ARRRUUUUGHH!!"

For all the bitching about WoD lore, at least there was reason for it having a more orc focused story, it was draenor, it was about the warlords of draenor, the orc clans, their home world, and even though despite that it still have some draenei lore in it. Yet in LEGION, an expansion that was meant to be focused on the LEGION, we barely have anything legion related, and it became the ELF EXPANSION.

[Mace]

I'll stop you right there. Stop trying to divorce the highborne from the night elves, there is no nightborne/highborne lore without night elf - it's another vein of the night elves, the arcane vein.. just because it's not nature doesn't mean it's not night elven. Night elves do not have to be restricted to nature only. THe highborne are their arcane side. This is what is being developed clearly. It's got nothing to do with blood elves, nor the nature group which is why Tyrande doesn't feature till 7.1, it's a highborne NIGHT ELF thing. Stop trying to divorce nightborne from night elves.


the nigh elf highborne = nightborne see, it's even in the name

Woah, hold your horses tiger, did you even read the rest of what I was saying?

I'm not saying they aren't part of the Night Elf story, I'm just recognizing that they are a separate group onto themselves, first of night elves and now nightborne.

And like I told Friendly about blood elves, I'll repeat here. i mean this in the nicest possible way, but. Night elves don't belong to you, they're blizzards to do as and how they please. If blizzard want to make nightborne or highborne into it's own unique group independent of the night elves, they can. You already have that they are a night group, based off the night elves and not the blood elves.

No amount of wishing will make them night elves because they are not, they're highborne. Night elf has clearly become a nature thing, whiles highborne is the arcane thing and thus nightborne is a highborne development - that will always be linked to night elves but will not be the same thing. Even if they join forces, the nightborne will be like a different race or a sub-race next tot hem - because the highborne night elves of Suramar have new bodies, they will always be a different group. You have two nightbased elf groups now. You can view them as a sub-race or a full race - but they are now a different race

[TriHard]

Ehh, they are night elves. They literally say so in the quest lines too, they've simply changed just because they lived off of the Nightwell, doesn't mean
they're not night elves.

[Flurryfang]

AS many have already said, it is very clear in the questline of Suramar, that the nightborne were once normal night elfs. It is even noted at in the Suramar cinematic. So while all elfs have a connection with each other, the Nightborne have the strongest tie with the night elfs. But there is also a connection to the blood elfs, since they also have a mana addiction like the nightborne has

[Deleted]

Question is, if these will become a playable race for both factions ?
We saved them from the addiction etc. So we are pretty much heroes to them.
DH can communicate cross faction in demonic.
Pandas can join both hordes and alliance.
Nightborn incoming next expansion ?

[Mace]

dude, this entire expansion is one big ass kiss to elves. Despite it being called 'legion', only like 25% of the content in this expansion is legion related, they are if anything in the background, for the more forefronted elf fangasm. Night elves, blood elves, high elves, nightborn, night fallen, demon hunters, Maiev, the wardens, malfurion, tyrande, Azshara, and lets not forget ILLIDAN AS THE GREATEST OF THE GREATEST CHARACTERS THAT EVER DID LIVE ARRRUUUUGHH!!"

For all the bitching about WoD lore, at least there was reason for it having a more orc focused story, it was draenor, it was about the warlords of draenor, the orc clans, their home world, and even though despite that it still have some draenei lore in it. Yet in LEGION, an expansion that was meant to be focused on the LEGION, we barely have anything legion related, and it became the ELF EXPANSION.

It can't help but be an elven thing, especially a night elf thing. it's the legion, and the night elves were introduced with them, the entire night elf story and legion as far as Azeroth is concerned is based from the original night elf intro... when we deal withthe legion off world, it's usually draeeni focused with the blood elves thanks to TBC, but on Azeroth, the legion are how the night elves got into this current state.

So they're going to play a large role. Some people don't think it's enough, but Blizzard wanted to show us a great version of the ancient night elven civilization.. but not only show us, but bring it into the present, and to do that they wanted to do something new, and exciting with the night elves with the bonus of not overriding the current night elves with it, so they expanded on the highborne group, the arcane cibilizaton which is what was prevalent in the WotA -

LEgion is more a throw to the WotA - rather than do another timestory, they brought it into the present, and changed the highborne a bit to fit the new scheme.

See Raven, i'm not saying they're not night elven based or related, but they're not night elven. They've made night elf now a nature thing. The arcane side of the night elves is now highborne/nightborne - it's own thing.

[Raetary]

highborne are just the night elven nobles.
nightborne are the suramar elves changed by the nightwell over time and became another elven race.

[Gratlim]

Anyway, at the end of the day every single elf is basically an evolved Troll.

Nightborne are the junky evolution of Night Elves same way blood elves are the junky evolution of High Elves (and not Highborn, those are NE).

[Mace]

The problem is that the Highborne make no sense at all.
It's just a forced plot to allow Night Elves to become mages.
Let us not forget that using arcane was punishable by death!
The only reason Quel'dorei were exiled was because so many people rebelled against that law, the Night Elves didn't want to kill that many people.

Fast-forward to Cataclysm we have the Nightborne, elves that use arcane magic.
And they have two options:
1. Join the people where arcane magic is a capital offense.
2. Join the people that embrace the use of arcane magic.
For game-mechanic reasons they decided to join group 1.
It backfired, they weren't really accepted and Maiev even started to kill a lot of them.

And now in Legion we have Night Elf Mages trying to become exalted with the Wardens fcs.
Or Night Elves farming to exalted with people that they think should receive the death penalty.

That may have been the intention of the cata highborne, but I think blizzard always wanted to bring back the arcane night elf group, it wasn't done properly in cata cos night elves weren't the focus then

[ravenmoon]

Ehh, they are night elves. They literally say so in the quest lines too, they've simply changed just because they lived off of the Nightwell, doesn't mean
they're not night elves.

indeed, they're essentially a new night elf race, an alternative night elf - or night elf in a mutated state - we don't even know if the look isn't even reversible .. in time. We're so obssesed with semantics

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Question is, if these will become a playable race for both factions ?
We saved them from the addiction etc. So we are pretty much heroes to them.
DH can communicate cross faction in demonic.
Pandas can join both hordes and alliance.
Nightborn incoming next expansion ?

imho, I doubt it. I'd be pissed if blizzard made them horde or blood elven. This is the first really nice night elf addition since the groups introduction - and yeah, when you are talking wotA, highborne, Suramar, you're talking night elves, not blood elves even though blood elves came from them.

Blood elves have been the more impressive, better built, better attended group in wow, Night elves have really looked the neglected half of the elven scale, the nightborne bring them close to parity - you think better of the night elves for the addition of the nightborne.. and night elves have really needed some freshness since WC3 - it's high time Thalyssra took centre stage over Tyrande as they've simply messed Tyrande up, she was so silent in the the wow storyline till that MoP thing, and when we see her she's emo over Malfurion (understably) and then really petty or harsh to Thalyssra who all of us commend as being quite the person we'd expect Tyrande to be. It's new life into a stale night elf group, if they take all that and make it blood elven - you're leaving the night elves even shorter.

Take the nightborne from the night elves, and they're looking even more pathetic and terrible than before, keep the nightborne night elf related and linked, and the night elves feel more like a proper group/alternative to the blood elves.

[Deleted]

The problem with Elves is that you have three different distinctions:
- Race
- Class
- Faction

Blood Elves, Vereesa, Auric Sunchaser, Darnassus Highborne, Shen'dralar who haven't joined the Night Elves, Naga and Satyr.
All of them are technically Quel'dorei.
I believe even the Nightborne would also fall in that group.
The Nightborne, Highborne, Shen'dralar and Night Elves are called Kaldorei.
That means the Highborne/Shen'dralar and Nightborne are both Kaldorei and Quel'dorei.
The High Elves (Lor'themar, Auric, Vereesa and their people) are no longer Kaldorei, they are physically a different race. But they are still Quel'dorei.

The Nightborne call themselves Shal'dorei and, much like the Quel'dorei/Sin'dorei, they mutated to a different kind of elf. That's what matters at the end, what each group calls themselves in canon.

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Nightborne are the junky evolution of Night Elves same way blood elves are the junky evolution of High Elves (and not Highborn, those are NE).

Not close the true. Both Nightborne and High Elves are arcane mutations of the noble Night Elves. The Blood Elves aren't evolution of the High Elves, they are just a political split.

[ravenmoon]

Woah, hold your horses tiger, did you even read the rest of what I was saying?

I'm not saying they aren't part of the Night Elf story, I'm just recognizing that they are a separate group onto themselves, first of night elves and now nightborne.

And like I told Friendly about blood elves, I'll repeat here. i mean this in the nicest possible way, but. Night elves don't belong to you, they're blizzards to do as and how they please. If blizzard want to make nightborne or highborne into it's own unique group independent of the night elves, they can. You already have that they are a night group, based off the night elves and not the blood elves.

No amount of wishing will make them night elves because they are not, they're highborne. Night elf has clearly become a nature thing, whiles highborne is the arcane thing and thus nightborne is a highborne development - that will always be linked to night elves but will not be the same thing. Even if they join forces, the nightborne will be like a different race or a sub-race next tot hem - because the highborne night elves of Suramar have new bodies, they will always be a different group. You have two nightbased elf groups now. You can view them as a sub-race or a full race - but they are now a different race

cheers, you know I didn't mean it like that, and I did read everything. Night elves receive a lot of bashing on this forum - and when you of all people say things like that, you're fuelling a fire the haters will all too gladly add to their arsenal - the troll, the forsaken lock and the blood elf in particular.

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The problem with Elves is that you have three different distinctions:
- Race
- Class
- Faction

Blood Elves, Vereesa, Auric Sunchaser, Darnassus Highborne, Shen'dralar who haven't joined the Night Elves, Naga and Satyr.
All of them are technically Quel'dorei.
I believe even the Nightborne would also fall in that group.
The Nightborne, Highborne, Shen'dralar and Night Elves are called Kaldorei.
That means the Highborne/Shen'dralar and Nightborne are both Kaldorei and Quel'dorei.
The High Elves (Lor'themar, Auric, Vereesa and their people) are no longer Kaldorei, they are physically a different race. But they are still Quel'dorei.

they've changed buddy. We don't play Warden, and it was Maiev that thought the highborne should still receive the death penalty long after most night elves had accepted the highborne back and changed their views on magic usage.

How wouldn't the night elves' views not change! The entire reason they went without arcane magic usage is no longer valid - the legion came back anyway, and since they came out of isolation they discovered you can mask the arcane spell usage from the Legion, the high elves did it, and so did the Shen'dralar and the Shal'dorei too. ANd the hate!? That's irrational as it was clearly shown Maiev had a problem. The surviving elven groups have all fought the legion - high elves, blood elves, highborne, nightborne even the darkfallen. Blood elves had that period where some went over to the legion and they dealt with it with our help, now their counterparts on the night group, the nightborne are experiencing similar - and they are dealing with it, again with our help. Where is the rational source for the hate? When Farondis, Thalyssra, Evenshade and their people all hate the Legion and are fighting them with all they got. And the real perpartraotrs the naga are still around

Remember of all the highborne groups around, it was only the Zin'Azshari group that summoned the legion. Only them. THis is the group the high elves come from, and that's why that hate is there, and the high elves did turn from the legion, so there is hope for reconciliation down the line even though the hurt is still there.

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Anyway, at the end of the day every single elf is basically an evolved Troll.

Nightborne are the junky evolution of Night Elves same way blood elves are the junky evolution of High Elves (and not Highborn, those are NE).

yeah.. but cured now.

No longer junkies. THe nightborne and highborne have the Arcan'dor, the Blood elves have the Sunwell

[SinAscendant]

Woah, hold your horses tiger, did you even read the rest of what I was saying?

I'm not saying they aren't part of the Night Elf story, I'm just recognizing that they are a separate group onto themselves, first of night elves and now nightborne.

And like I told Friendly about blood elves, I'll repeat here. i mean this in the nicest possible way, but. Night elves don't belong to you, they're blizzards to do as and how they please. If blizzard want to make nightborne or highborne into it's own unique group independent of the night elves, they can. You already have that they are a night group, based off the night elves and not the blood elves.

No amount of wishing will make them night elves because they are not, they're highborne. Night elf has clearly become a nature thing, whiles highborne is the arcane thing and thus nightborne is a highborne development - that will always be linked to night elves but will not be the same thing. Even if they join forces, the nightborne will be like a different race or a sub-race next tot hem - because the highborne night elves of Suramar have new bodies, they will always be a different group. You have two nightbased elf groups now. You can view them as a sub-race or a full race - but they are now a different race

You do realize that highborne has to do with caste, not race, right? They're highborne NIGHT ELVES. That's like saying "Oh, in medieval Britain you had the Caucasians, but the Baron was highborne so he was a different race". That doesn't make any sense. They are still night elves, they're just a different form of night elf. Just like high elves are a different form of night elf, and just like blood elves are a different form of night elf. Just because they've evolved some since then doesn't mean they aren't still night elves.

It would be like saying that green orcs and brown orcs are different races, they're not. It's just minor differences.

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yeah.. but cured now.

No longer junkies. THe nightborne and highborne have the Arcan'dor, the Blood elves have the Sunwell

So if I get a well of unending heroin and I use it every day, does that mean I'm not a junkie?

[Deleted]

You do realize that highborne has to do with caste, not race, right? They're highborne NIGHT ELVES. That's like saying "Oh, in medieval Britain you had the Caucasians, but the Baron was highborne so he was a different race". That doesn't make any sense. They are still night elves, they're just a different form of night elf. Just like high elves are a different form of night elf, and just like blood elves are a different form of night elf. Just because they've evolved some since then doesn't mean they aren't still night elves.

It would be like saying that green orcs and brown orcs are different races, they're not. It's just minor differences.

So, we should drop the "night elf" categorization and call them "trolls"? I 100% agree.

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No longer junkies. THe nightborne and highborne have the Arcan'dor, the Blood elves have the Sunwell

The Blood Elves are still junkies, they need the Sunwell for their fix.

[Raetary]

They are still night elves, they're just a different form of night elf.

they arent even a different form.
they are just the old nobles.

by mace's logic the human nobles in stormwind would be a different kind of human, even when they obviously arent, they are just rich.

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So if I get a well of unending heroin and I use it every day, does that mean I'm not a junkie?

the nightborne have a permanent cure tho, once you eat the fruit you are cleansed.

the blood elves still need the well tho, i give you that.

[Aucald]

I'm unsure why people feel that Legion is primarily Night Elf focused, or even Elven focused in general. The Nightborne/Suramar storyline is itself a B-plot to the Legion invasion, much the same as the the Arakkoa storyline was a B-plot in WoD. It's very interesting to much of the playerbase and I think Blizzard has keyed in on that, but it is still not the main theme nor do I feel it has eclipsed the Legion threat that is the true theme of the expansion. Also, Night Elven history is something that has been largely unexplored in-game, usually the focus on the Night Elves concerns Malfurion and Druidism in the current age (e.g. the Nightmare in Classic, the Hyjal/Firelands conflict in Cata, etc. etc.) It's good to get some in-game focus on events as important as the War of the Ancients and the ancient Highborne schism, even if it isn't necessarily everyone's favorite storyline. I'm personally not very keen on the Human/Vrykul history, as I find the Vrykul in general to be somewhat two-dimensional and needlessly hostile - but I understand why they're also getting focus in this expansion.