Why are you still a fan of the night elves?

[Beloren]

Because I like them.

After all that? Or is it the female model?

[Aeula]

I liked them because I thought things would get better. Legion and especially BfA has proven otherwise. Tyrande, Malfurion and the Alliance are the reasons Night Elves are the way they are now and Blizzard is unwilling to get rid of ANY of those things.

[Syegfryed]

Night elves...

• Nocturnal

• Seven Foot Tall

• Amazonian Warriors, Huntresses, Priestesses and Animal-like Druids

• Fangs and Claws

the night elves are not despite like since war 3 anyway, you paint the first with purple and voila you have wow night elves, boring

[RangerDaz]

My first wow character was a night elf druid. I still play it today, even with a lot of alts.
My second night elf became my second demon hunter, as my first DH is blood elf.
With BfA i decided to have the 12 classes on both sides, so i started my DH night elf a few months ago.
I only play male characters because of RP, and the male night elf model has been somewhat "meh" compared to other alliance races.
Other race male models look better really, so aesthetically the wow model never did much justice to the male night elf.

In WoW the only thing i liked about the night elves was their starting zones, aka Teldrassil, Darkshore and Ashenvale. A bit of stonetalon mountains as well. They were truly memorable when i started playing wow in 2005.

However they were partially destroyed in Cataclysm, and now in BfA they destroy the rest, as Kalimdor becomes Horde territory now (what about the Draenei isles?).
The night elf lore in Val'sharah was somewhat pathetic. It was more interesting in Azuna, and Suramar storyline was actually interesting, as a new subgroup of highborne night elves that became addicted to the arcane energies of a nightwell.

I really miss the warcraft 3 concepts of the night elves. The nature elves that lived within nature and interacted with it. I remember when their homes came alive and walked miles with them. I remember the feeling that they really felt like the wild guardians of nature and of Azeroth and that Elune was actually interesting and mysterious.

Wow just turned the night elves into part of the ranks of the stormwind army. Their identity is lost, and many people today just play them for shadowmeld racial and the female night elf looks, and for alliance demon hunters, because... their isn't any other choice for alliance really. Now that they destroyed the most interesting Vanilla zone, maybe they could use this opportunity to redeem their treatment on night elves to bring them more to the warcraft 3 flavor. I haven't played BfA Beta, so i have no idea what is the night elf story besides the destruction of Teldrassil. Hopefully after 8.1 some justice is made to them.

PS: My alliance druid will always be a night elf. My first character in wow is sacred, and no pretty / badass druid forms are going to make me race change. My horde druid will be Zandalari for now, though. Different druid forms from my alliance druid make it appealing.

[Beloren]

Night elves...

• Nocturnal

• Seven Foot Tall

• Amazonian Warriors, Huntresses, Priestesses and Animal-like Druids

• Fangs and Claws

I imagine that is what night elves would have been packaged as if they were originally meant to go horde after WC3 - who did that fan art? It looks thoroughly animalistic. Eeew

[RangerDaz]

What concern is it of yours what other people you have never met, nor likely ever will meet, are fans of?

If you're not a fan that's your right and your business. But creating topics that borderline demand people who are explain themselves to you is 31 flavors of stupid.

Meh... was that really necessary?

This is a forum. People are here to share their ideas with others. The OP wants to know what people feel about night elves these days.
I think it is a valid and interesting discussion.

[Techno-Druid]

I imagine that is what night elves would have been packaged as if they were originally meant to go horde after WC3 - who did that fan art? It looks thoroughly animalistic. Eeew

Fan art? That's the comic cover by Samwise Didier...the guy who made most of the art for Warcraft 3 and Early WoW...
Full Cover

[DemonHunter18]

the night elves are not despite like since war 3 anyway, you paint the first with purple and voila you have wow night elves, boring

you forgot to add beard, glowing eyes.

if anything, elves from LotR are humans with pointy ears.

[mysticx]

Well, i wouldn't say i'm a fan of what the Night elves soon will become (Pumpkin farming hobos in SW), but my first character was a Night elf warrior, and while i briefly considered faction changing her to a Nightborne (You know, join the plot-armoured team :3 ), i kind of got attached to her being the way she is over the past years, despite being from a maligned race in a cruddy faction and all, i don't like the idea of changing her, it's not like the Horde is much better, prattling about "Strength and honour", and in a straight fight lacking both :P

So i'm just going to focus on her story in the expansion, the quests, and the masses of baddies she'll be giving her patented "Axe in the face"-treatment to, and leave the whole faction thing to the faction cheerleaders on forums like this one, looks like both sides will have a pretty crappy run in BfA anyway...

[Axaion]

[SIZE=5][B]hey didn’t even attempt to make the player models as attractive as the blood elves when in both WC3 and classic they were identical.

This one has always kinda annoyed me
Blizzard puts out art and trailers, and the night elves looks nothing like it in-game.

[RangerDaz]

This one has always kinda annoyed me
Blizzard puts out art and trailers, and the night elves looks nothing like it in-game.

yes. As i told above, the male night elf model isn't very interesting compared to other male models from alliance races.
The faces, hair, haircuts, hair colors, beards look average, in some cases even worse than average.

The female night elves look better though. night elves and draenei are clearly the cases where artistically the female model concept is superior to the male model.

[eridil]

Immortality gone - This actually makes them more interesting, immortal beings are cool, but being mortal brings perspective.

Well of Power unused – This is a big thing about who they are which is ok because it separates them from other elves.

Goddess - Elune does more than nothing motivating the night elf people is not nothing.

Origin - This part sucks, but they wanted to do something different.

Fierce Amazonian - They are around just haven’t not been used in wow, not every sub faction can be used in a game as large as WoW and that’s actually part of what makes mmo rpg great (How large the world and its factions are)

Unique gender orientated society – The Night elves in Wow are more fleshed out and more interesting. They could use a does of savage, but its hard to keep so many storylines going.

Highborne arcane masters returned - It was one clan of highborn that returned, and they have not been featured much. (see my notes above)

Star culture - Its still there visit an RP server.

Tyrande – Some development on her story would be nice, but it has to come at the right time.

Demon Hunters – They are what they are.

Illidan – Not a great hero he should have stayed dead.

Fandral Staghelm – not every corrupted character can be saved Loss helps make a world feel real and dynamic.

Malfurion Stormrage - It always had a way of the druids are mysterious vibe and mystery in a story is good.

Maiev - she has always been a raving lunatic who left her people to hunt down Ilidian and should have died in TBC after being corrupted by fel (She has always had a lot of hatred and fel latches on to hatred).

[kraid]

After all that? Or is it the female model?

Nope.
/10char

[matrix123mko]

To be honest, I disregard pretty much all of the WoW 'lore' in my own RPing.

There are few writers that write elves well -Blizzard are not among them. For me including the Night Elves in the alliance was the thin end of the wedge and things went down hill very quickly from there. Outside of the Humans vs Orcs, I think Blizzard really struggle writing lore and they certainly fail with writing strong female characters.

Night elves should be Horde. That's it. Also, Alliance shouldn't exist.

[DemonHunter18]

Illidan – Not a great hero he should have stayed dead.

he said anti-hero.

a douche who would kill an entire race to do good, basically.

Maiev - she has always been a raving lunatic who left her people to hunt down Ilidian and should have died in TBC after being corrupted by fel (She has always had a lot of hatred and fel latches on to hatred).

she wasn't always like that though, especially back during WotA.

spending more than 10,000 years keeping the most dangerous criminal bounds to take a toll on her.

[Justpassing]

Why do you care?

[Beloren]

Night elves should be Horde. That's it. Also, Alliance shouldn't exist.

I kinda like that, especially the second bit

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Why do you care?

i don’t really, but there has been an unusual amount of night elf raving across all boards recently, so I shared my feelings and observations about them and was curious why fans remained so loyal , especially after such consistent A-grade disappointment from their devs

[DemonHunter18]

or being neutral.

even better.

[ravenmoon]

I didn't like them because they had the well, Elune, immortality in the first place. I like them because for example Malfurion's attitude toward the well and immortality. He protected it not because he felt the sense of ownership but it was his duty to the world. When it came time to let it go then he did not hesitate to destroy the well if it was to save the world. That was heroic.

The most significant disappointment I have with night elf in WoW is Fandral though. I think he had a lot of potential to turn into a very interesting character. I do not support his view but I think he could become a good character. He could become a character who clashes with Tyrande and Malfurion politically without actually becoming evil spicing up the night elf narrative overall.

While I do like things like immortality, Elune, Well of Power and a magical advanced civilisation, cos those are awesome things to have, I found Metzen's story quite compelling too, and Malfurion was written to be so wise in the midst of such greatness the nightnelves had lost sight of what was truly important while they lavished in the abundance of their hands and minds. This was a thoroughly believable setting to have things like immortality and, great power and ability, usually wonderful things actually become bad.

And it really makes you eager to see them restored,, nothing gets you into a tale more than great misfortune, tragedy or injustice, gets you really hoping and excited to see the happy ending, not just the big baddie gone.

So I liked the story even after such loss, that showed the people could be wise and actually rally together and do the right thing too, especially giving up magic to prevent another invasion.

But for the night elves, the big daddy went but the restoration and happy ending never came. 16 years waiting for it, I kinda gave up seeing as how BAD separated the nightborne from them then destroyed their home and civilization again. Looks like hopes of Suramar type night elven cities returning and Val'sharah type forests are just a fantasy blizzard don't feel compelled to deliver.

But anyway, I also liked that the high elves were a group that proved actually, you can learn from the mistakes without repressing or leaving unused your great legacy that you are naturally gifted with. They dont substitute the need for nightnelves to be restored, but in fact serve as a good example to look forward to in the Nelves. At the time, Malfurion was right and the state we find the nightnelves in at the start of WC3 was good enough, but only for that season, not for all time, you wanted to see them arise back to great heights especially after their enemies are finally beaten, not remain in perpetual beaten down mode.

The high elves learnt. I also liked that there were other groups like the Naga who hadn't learnt and still pursued recklessly, without control and without regret the destruction they brought. While they were very evil, the blood elves were a more relatable version of elves that didn't care about their consequences and thus had a role, despite them softening them up considerably.

I also liked that subsequent groups like the highborne and nightborne as night elven groups that heartened to the original night elf age of wonder but with a high elven sense of nobility, the individual stories of the shen'dralar, the Farondis and the nightborne all gave each group depth, variety and showed different refractionsnof the elven legacy... I liked this a lot, no one else has such variety and depth on elves.

Imo, high elves would not be so desired by alliance fans if nightnelves and blood elves were developed better . Night elves didn't have to be purple high elves, the highborne group should have been developed earlier and better to serve that role, allowing the rest of the kaldorei to be much closer to their original wc3 selves, while providing a compelling narrative and function for the highborne... This didn't need to erase high elves, but if it was more prominent, people would have accepted it. After all part of the signature of the night elves was a more potent, purer elven race while the high elf is the humanized version, how much fun they could have had displaying the differences. Making normal Kaldorei fill that role imstead just diminished the potency of both the druidic side and the priestess amazonian female warrior side and accelerated calls and desires for high elves.

I'm not saying this would have quietness all requests, that's not the aim, but high elves would have felt more a part of the blood elf story set to contrast them, while the night elven highborne filledntheir role for the player and offered it's own unique alternative variation that could have been likeable as it would have allowed the druids, sentinels and priests to be purer or truer to their wc3 core, aloof, above humanity, primal, distinctive without whitewashing, or humanizing so blatantly.

Well we all agree they have been under utilised

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I liked them because I thought things would get better. Legion and especially BfA has proven otherwise. Tyrande, Malfurion and the Alliance are the reasons Night Elves are the way they are now and Blizzard is unwilling to get rid of ANY of those things.

I think you sum how I feel quite well. Except for Malfurion and Tyrande. I liked those characters in their Wot a and WC3 forms, they, like the night elves are bad because they have been written without much care, not because there is anything particularly wrong with having them or the night elves. Getting rid of them wont fix anuthing, they were absent for a lot of wow and still the nightnelves were shit

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My first wow character was a night elf druid. I still play it today, even with a lot of alts.
My second night elf became my second demon hunter, as my first DH is blood elf.
With BfA i decided to have the 12 classes on both sides, so i started my DH night elf a few months ago.
I only play male characters because of RP, and the male night elf model has been somewhat "meh" compared to other alliance races.
Other race male models look better really, so aesthetically the wow model never did much justice to the male night elf.

In WoW the only thing i liked about the night elves was their starting zones, aka Teldrassil, Darkshore and Ashenvale. A bit of stonetalon mountains as well. They were truly memorable when i started playing wow in 2005.

However they were partially destroyed in Cataclysm, and now in BfA they destroy the rest, as Kalimdor becomes Horde territory now (what about the Draenei isles?).
The night elf lore in Val'sharah was somewhat pathetic. It was more interesting in Azuna, and Suramar storyline was actually interesting, as a new subgroup of highborne night elves that became addicted to the arcane energies of a nightwell.

I really miss the warcraft 3 concepts of the night elves. The nature elves that lived within nature and interacted with it. I remember when their homes came alive and walked miles with them. I remember the feeling that they really felt like the wild guardians of nature and of Azeroth and that Elune was actually interesting and mysterious.

Wow just turned the night elves into part of the ranks of the stormwind army. Their identity is lost, and many people today just play them for shadowmeld racial and the female night elf looks, and for alliance demon hunters, because... their isn't any other choice for alliance really. Now that they destroyed the most interesting Vanilla zone, maybe they could use this opportunity to redeem their treatment on night elves to bring them more to the warcraft 3 flavor. I haven't played BfA Beta, so i have no idea what is the night elf story besides the destruction of Teldrassil. Hopefully after 8.1 some justice is made to them.

PS: My alliance druid will always be a night elf. My first character in wow is sacred, and no pretty / badass druid forms are going to make me race change. My horde druid will be Zandalari for now, though. Different druid forms from my alliance druid make it appealing.

Wow, i cant find fault with anything you've said. Although it is not the nature elf from wc3 that is missing, because wow nightnelves have been portrayed as nature elves almost entirely till legion showed us they had diversity. It was the dangerous, threatening edgy side they all hard contrasting clearly against this calm, serene, wise benevolent nature. Problem is wow showed only the peaceful side and no examples of them being badass, dangerous or threatening. The way they wrote them losing they always came off as pathetic in-game, especially the cata quests, add to the fact that they always lost when a race like that according to the wc3 bio should always win or be near impossible to beat.

It's little to do with nature or thenarcane, or their magic or lore, it's just that they've showed them with no fire, too human - reduced to stormwund lackeys

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This one has always kinda annoyed me
Blizzard puts out art and trailers, and the night elves looks nothing like it in-game.

I know right. Stunning in the old trailers and art, then a chance to do It in game for 6.0 with a 1 level up blood elves got , and nope - nust another in a long line of disappointments that wouldn't end there, oh no. Made me feel they want them to look worse

[Techno-Druid]

remove all four elf races from the playable factions and that alone will make the lore 10x better.

So far, every single elf race added to the game has ruined the lore in a huge way, which was the worst? That's for you to decide.

I disagree, kaldorei were a great addition to lore in the beginning, floating between the savage line of the Horde and civilized one of the Alliance while remaining their own identity.