Virtually Immortal and actually Immortal

[Mace]

Hey, lore question: Do Forsaken keep rotting once they're reanimated?
They're in a state of 'preserved decay,' depending on condition when raised. Could live forever if body kept in-tact! (DaveKosak)

thanks, this is the case now, wasn't that a retcon at first? because in warcraft 3, they were having very limited lives and were supposed to die off permanently right?


So the foraken are now immortal ( i don't think they were at the start of WoW - cos that change hadn't been told to us yet), draenei too or sort off, not really confirmed - but i think - I always use to think that the reason the night elves lost their immortality is because blizzard didn't want them so powerful in WoW as they were in WC3...i think initially they tried to make all the races at the same lvel, and immortality and other advantages would deem the night elves too powerful, they cut them down, which is hwy i think they've been pretty piss poor in wow compared to Wc3.

but with the change to forsaken and the draenei, and the blood elves using the sunwell - I can't help but wonder now, so why can't the night elves get both their magic, Well of power and immortailty back? I half suspect the reason we have the nightwell is to give the night elves a new power source more on the level of the sunwell rather than the Cenarion circle guarded and controlled Well of Eternity which is hands off for everyone and is kinda gone anyway. Ofc the nightwell would have to be fixed, and i look forward to the nightborne playing a major role in night elven affairs just as the druids do and the priests do. But we shall see.

They are virtually immortal, whatever that means, i am assuming very long lived , like Draenei, as OP points out, it makes sense to interpret that way, but the crosss over to full immortality would be good and no longer a reason not to, afterall blizzard stoppped trying to balance the races in lore like they balance the classes for gameplay.

[Hellspawn]

thanks, this is the case now, wasn't that a retcon at first? because in warcraft 3, they were having very limited lives and were supposed to die off permanently right?


So the foraken are now immortal ( i don't think they were at the start of WoW - cos that change hadn't been told to us yet), draenei too or sort off, not really confirmed - but i think - I always use to think that the reason the night elves lost their immortality is because blizzard didn't want them so powerful in WoW as they were in WC3...i think initially they tried to make all the races at the same lvel, and immortality and other advantages would deem the night elves too powerful, they cut them down, which is hwy i think they've been pretty piss poor in wow compared to Wc3.

but with the change to forsaken and the draenei, and the blood elves using the sunwell - I can't help but wonder now, so why can't the night elves get both their magic, Well of power and immortailty back? I half suspect the reason we have the nightwell is to give the night elves a new power source more on the level of the sunwell rather than the Cenarion circle guarded and controlled Well of Eternity which is hands off for everyone and is kinda gone anyway. Ofc the nightwell would have to be fixed, and i look forward to the nightborne playing a major role in night elven affairs just as the druids do and the priests do. But we shall see.

They are virtually immortal, whatever that means, i am assuming very long lived , like Draenei, as OP points out, it makes sense to interpret that way, but the crosss over to full immortality would be good and no longer a reason not to, afterall blizzard stoppped trying to balance the races in lore like they balance the classes for gameplay.

Getting back immortality for night elves was a minor plot in MoP.
The last stance I got was that one of the night elf leaders (Malfurion) doesn't even want immortality back.

Nightwell would transform night elves into night born, not sure if that is fixable... Sunwell does not give you immortality.

Handling mortality is a major theme for night elves in wow since vanilla. But some closure and a new topic (reunification of all the elven tribes.. at least sort oft, handling mages in the elven society) would be very welcome.

[Mace]

Getting back immortality for night elves was a minor plot in MoP.
The last stance I got was that one of the night elf leaders (Malfurion) doesn't even want immortality back.

Nightwell would transform night elves into night born, not sure if that is fixable... Sunwell does not give you immortality.

Handling mortality is a major theme for night elves in wow since vanilla. But some closure and a new topic (reunification of all the elven tribes.. at least sort oft, handling mages in the elven society) would be very welcome.

agreed, there is so much significance for the night elves with Suramar, Illidan and the Legion all returning, the Legion ofc is terrible news for the night elves and they definitley are suffering b/c of it in the broken isles, but Suramar and Illidan could be very very positive news. Afterall they would have family long since lost, thought dead, they would have a city in tact from the past they thought would never be, - remember most of the night elves grief at the sundering was the home and family they lost - yes the entire empire too, but what makes it hurt is when your own city and people are lost - they blame themselves and magic right -- but get this, they find out that they didn't die, they survived, and it was magic (which they blamed for 10k yearS) that saved them, and not only that, their group used it well. They would have great arcane users in the nightborne who never once used their magic irresponsibly or recklessly unlike the shen'drelar who summoned Immol'thar - this should go a long way to trusting their own kind with the use of the arcane even though i still don't think that many kalimdor night elves would pick up the arcane .. although cata gave the impression they were very keen on it, so who knows, it is their legacy.

Furthremore, the nightborne prove themselves by sorting out their issues, Thalyssra very night elven like, in a way that is reminiscent of the likes of Tyrande or the Stormarages, really orchestrates our invasion of the nighthold with others like Lunastre, Oculeth, Valtois, Thaedris - they really sort out the mess Elisande's decision leads the nightborne into, and to cap it up, Elisande herself in the end turns against the Legion too - this bodes very well for night elf nightborne relations - which makes me look forward to the good bits once the all the horror bits are concluded.

There will still be the matter of the nightwell to fix, i'm hoping to see Elune involved, and Illidan, Illidan should bring a surge of confidence to the night elves for both prevailing agianst the demons and also handling magic, arcane is not going to be an issue when you can succeed in managing FEl without your soul getting corrupt. This is significant because they got his motives and heart wrong, and they will have to realize this soon if they haven't already, and all the remaining vestiges of arcane phobia that stemmed from illidan's actions which they thought were legion instructed at the time but are soon to find out never were.. this ontop of discovering when they came out of isolation that magic could be used without alerting the demons (i..e masking it's signature) and 2) not using magic was never going to stop the legion - should remove every remaining prejudice that we saw leaving when the highborne came back.

Finally, I really don't want the nightborne to revert back to normal night elves with he healing of the nightwell, I hope the way it would work would simply be that they no longer suffer the fate of nightfallen withered.

1. I like the look, - with the arcane clothes and the darker tones, i still felt they put too many light tone options for normal nelves.
2. I like that that magic using caste looks different and is its own sub race. This means that when we think arcane night elves or night elf highborne - nightborne first comes to mind - it makes the distinction easy and clear. Just like you have the Cenaraians as the nature ones - in fact i hope those half night-elf/half stag would also become like the proper nature sub-race of the night elves - maybe a bi-pedal version or the ability to shapeshift to bi-pedal
3. It would help preserve the diversity of the night elf group - they are characterised by their very distinct and segregated roles. Previously it was men and women that had segregated clearly defined roles, but we also see that druids and sentinels/priestesses are very segregated, they don't mix - druids are often doing world stuff - nature and the world soul, priestesses and sentineles the affairs of the people - mages are the 3rd element now a thing too, but a separate society too, they have their own focus and whether highborne, nightborne or moonguard they've been doing magic intensely for 10k years, again separate from the other 2, dealing with magical matters and the stars etc, This is more easily maintained when you have a distinct looking race of night elves as arcane users and another distinct looking race (Cenarians) as nature users, then the normal night elves plug into any of the 3, priests/sentinesl, nature druids or arcane mages.

In the end, handling immortality has pretty much been covered for the last 14 years - remember the night elf male /flirt from vanilla ".. I'm not immortal anymore", and that got explored in Wolfheart more thoroughly. So I think they're ready for the next stage now. we've been waiting a long time , like 14 years for any real progress, and watched many others get new advancements, so it's well due now

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Not true. Being invincible means you can't be defeated, it has little to nothing to do with immortality. Maybe you were looking for invulnerable?

Anyway, there are different type of immortality. True / absolute immortality means both unaging AND invulnerable (or at least night-invulnerable). Unaging (can't die of old age) is just partial / incomplete immortality.

In the Warcraft lore, Immortality refers to immunity to aging and disease. Aka, what the Nelves had from the War of the Ancients, to the 3rd war.

It's not about the dictionary definition of the word "immortal", it's about what it means in the context of the warcraft universe. "True immortality" (invulnerability) is not a thing in WC.