Highborne customizations for the Night Elves (NOT High Elves)

[Beloren]

I'm English, we do lists and like organising things in the proper fashion. . Hah! I get it.



I wouldn't go that far hordie. I'm watching you !

/jk

And some of us are Irish, you know how we feel

[Mace]

Okay, you want to consider that farondis is still the same night elf before his death is fine, there are those who consider that the forsaken are still the same as when they were alive and others are not.

ghosts are undead!

No, I don't mean it quite like that. They are night elves in the same way an Illidari is a night elf, or a NElf DK is a night elf - that is the sense I mean. A night elf spirit, is Night elven too. It's in that sense. One is night elf and alive, the other is night elf and unliving, the other night elf and demon, the other night elf and undead. Undead , unliving and alive are states - they are not genetically different, and even if they were a little, they're still under the NElf bracket. That's what I mean.

[Mace]

Very interesting female hairstyle in. The number of bits seem to be improving. I actually like it, though I'm not usually a fan of short hairstyles. They made it interesting.

I don't think I've seen this on any other race either.



It's nice so far, something I haven't come to expect from NElves in wow since the disappointment of the 6.0 models, especially for males and the neck and face let downs.

If this is any indication, we're also going to be getting the race options incrementally, rather than one massive download. I think this is also better, gives people more time to chew on new options

[matrix123mko]

I think there is your problem, you are saying night elven cultures aren't night elf culture.

The race has many cultures, when you play a night elf, you are playing druidic culture , priest culture, Illidari culture, Highborne culture - the race has all of these in it, and you are playing an aspect of it as you choose.

I wouldn't divide culture by different professions. I treat it more like national culture, let's say French culture. You do not divide French culture into specific priest culture, teacher culture and baker culture. There is overall French culture with their different takes on religion, teaching and cuisine. However, I wouldn't call shinto who live in France a part of French culture. Their culture would be better called ex-catholic or atheist.

And not. I am not a French nationalist and I don't mean to hurt any shinto.

The druid culture is also different from the priest culture.

Yes, they are not the same, they are two different cultures, Priests aren't dwelling in forests, revering and fixing nature. They're in Temples or patrolling they have their distinct customs.

They are connected. They share common goddess - Elune, mother of Cenarius, and share sacred glades. Both groups have high reverence of ancients. They are connected as by their guidance, night elf society thrived for 10000 years.

Sorry, but it seems you have decided Night elven culture is anything but stuff that deals with the arcane, and that's just laughable.

I don't see fel as a part of night elf culture neither. Illidan is hated by night elves.

That is your opinion. Saying its the most important is opinion. Please have the honesty to recgonise it as such and not make it what it isn't.

It is an opinion when I say most important. However, it is a fact that it is more important than arcane.

1. It was not the only idnentity or aspect of the Night elves, their empire was global, that is the bigger one

The rest of the empire doesn't count. They have separate cultures.

Their current one is taking a new shape that is already vastly different from the all exclusive nature one.

If the game starts showing you one thing, but then has novels that tell another, then every successive iteration they show you more of the night elf cultures, and go to great lengths.

WC3 may have only been trees and buildings, but that was just the stage of the story.. the novels and development tell you directly that wasn't all.

Later wow, then 4.0, then 7.0 show you more.

In fact.. if you take your reference point from any of it, then you should from 7.0 (as opposed to WC3), they spent the most time on it and it is the biggest show of night elves in the game, eclipsing the WC3 effort and classic. For showing the Night elf peoples and their cultures. It is far more comprehensive of the whole picture, and shows things in the lore from day one.

Notice the plural, cultures. And notice I don't say one is the most important. to druids, nature is the most important, and that culture. To priests its Elune and the temples, to Highborne/Moonguard it's the arcane and cities. To Illidari its fel and demons. They are all important, and they are ALL Night elven.

Just because one stands out to you the most, don't try to make it as if its the only important one. They are all important.

What you do is putting separate entities into one. I think I should start considering Burning Legion a part of Draenei culture.

No, it's not your territory, it is not exclusive property of you or the horde, the very blood elves and Nightborne are alliance races ported over,

They are not. Nightborne never kneeled before a human. High elves joined Alliance only for a moment to leave anyway, as pointed by Warcraft 2 era lore.

They are not there to rob the night elves or transfer half of their identity to the other faction.

Are you sure about it? Blood elves are robbed of identity.

Disgusting.

They are merely another people group for you to play a different looking type of night elf and experience some of what the Kaldorei have on the horde.

Do I prevent you?

It wouldn't matter to me one bit if the Nightborne added druidism and Elunism, it is in their racial heritage, why would I have a problem. Why should you have a problem with something that is a part of the night elves from day one still being a part of the night elves and actually getting decent development.

I would mind normal druidism in Suramar. Their story shows us that druidism has greater potential if empowered by arcane. Also, they don't really know normal druidism, as they didn't learn it from Malfurion.

What makes you think night elf fans ONLY ever want druid and nature upgrades, and don't care or desire about their arcane side or their civilization and cities that are part of the lore? Such drew and attracted many to the night elves including myself. I'm not a forest person, they're pretty or can be, but that's what they. For me, peoples, cultures, civilizations now this is what interests me the most.

I guess you started in Vanilla and picked the night elves out of lack of better options. If you rolled a blood elf in BC, you wouldn't regret it. I understand you, as I play orcs because of Old Horde, which is nonexistent at time of WoW.

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the same goes for you, when blizzard see Nightborne, they are seeing Night elves, this is why people expecting nightborne to get everything totally different to night elves are going to be very disappointed, they saw it as people wanting these night elves on the horde because they matched the blood elf mindset and presentation (but in the night elf way). They designed a Night elf civilisation, from Night elf lore. And basically everything bout them is the Highborne mode, they just have a different model, because blizzard does this all the time for races...

So they are like blood elves. A race that evolved from night elves and created advanced culture. Their different appearance showcases how they changed over time. Their biology is strictly tied to arcane.

[kingarthas]

What do you guys think about highborne custamizations for NIGHTBORNES? it is more sensible to me. Since nb lacks of custamizations options?

[Hellspawn]

What do you guys think about highborne custamizations for NIGHTBORNES? Is it more sensible to me. Since nb lacks of custamizations options?

Please open a separate thread this is obviously ot

[Beloren]

So they are like blood elves. A race that evolved from night elves and created advanced culture. Their different appearance showcases how they changed over time. Their biology is strictly tied to arcane.

Their different appearance does showcase their change, but really it's even less extreme than Amani troll v Gurubashi or Zandalari. Sometimes even blood elves don't feel like a different race, but we have a lot more going for us that is different.

But yes, I agree, although Nightborne advanced culture is Night elf advanced culture, it's the one the Kaldorei were living in that got destroyed, theirs is a piece that is kept intact (both city and culture). Someone was saying the only difference between them and Shen'dralar is that Shen'dralar's started going to ruins a little while back so we don't see.

The only thing that advanced with the Night elves in Suramar was their magic, and the biggest change, their physical appearance, the city is unchanged. Their arcane magic progress was slow, the quests seem to indicate it took centuries for anything to change, and longer to be updated. They had stagnated a lot. Whiles the lore describes the Shen'dralar as constantly researching he arcane. The Nightborne once they solved the food and clothing crisis, was basically paradise in a timeless bubble, no external factors to drive progress, nothing really to watch out and certain unchangeable limitations like land and city space, they'd have become slack. The only area they would make any substantial progress over say the Moonguard outside or the Shen'dralar in Eldre'thalas is chronomancy. This is their "void" magic. I noticed this is also the unique magic identity blizzard gives them as they show up often with Warpcasters.

People keep touting these guys as great, but they're not, Night elves really sucked for 10k years, all of them did hardly anything, it's the same across board, they all isolated, whether in a forest, mountain or city, same story. The nightborne only look different because their city is pristine, while the others are either complete ruins (all the ruins) or very run down (Eldre'thalas and to a lesser extent Nar'thalas). You look at advanced city and you think great, but once these people get into trouble, they bend knee to the legion, and the resistors are hopelessly untrained. They also cowered in their shield for ages. To me they are a story of a once great people that have to start from scratch in a new world, finding themselves completely out of touch and not up to scratch despite having magic more advanced than anyone else.

It's the same with the Shen'dralar, all that advanced magic and knowledge and they were easily booted out of Dire Maul, 3/4 of their city completely overrun, and they are so into their books. we don't kill them, but we kill their Prince. In contrast, the likes of Blood elves have had wars to fight with armies, whether demons, trolls, orcs etc. The only night elf groups that come close are Moonguard, Demon hunters and Sentinels/Wardens - who are groups specifically focused on fighting. Duskguard ould be the nightborne equivalent, but it's not like they had real challenges. And those are all small, the Blood elves had ARMIES ! Magecraft was doing as much innovation for magical research as well as fighting. Farstriders are an entire enclave elite force. There was no hiding from the world here.

[matrix123mko]

I wonder if... we could maybe... try to focus on what little details we could hopefully... possibly... all agree upon? :-)

Beautiful vision. I will try to make it real.

I believe nobody is denying that the Shen'dralar exist and belong with the Night Elves, as this has already happened, and it is canon.

They exist for sure. They are Darnassus aligned aswell. They are canon.

Fact is, that while it is undeniable that the Arcane has been at the core of the Kaldorei civilization in the past, as this lead to a series of major Lore events, it is also undeniable that following these events, the elven population split in relation to a ban SPECIFICALLY relating to the choice of continuing the experiments with magic.

Amen.

Now, the Night Elves have VERY RECENTLY allowed some groups of isolated Highborne mages to return to train some young in the Arcane. But yes, they are a minority, and yes, they were 'welcomed' with suspicion and are exceptional cases, so it is perfectly understandable for people to feel afraid that giving too much special attention to them may alter the overall Night Elves flavor bringing it dangerously too close to what has been explicitly set by Blizzard at the core of the Blood Elves and Nightborne civilizations and identity.

It happened. Night elves have a new lesser flavour that approaches core identity of blood elves.

But honestly, the matter of customization is much simpler, and a few skin and face options can be easily added without any need for Blizzard to rework the Night Elves identity. In fact, Blizzard does not even need to call them 'Highborne'... we would do so, in case, when they are compatible.

Of course. They even said that these options are outside of playable races. When you have Wildhammer tattoos, your dwarf is a Wildhammer, not Bronzebeard. Trolls got playable Amani(although less muscular than original Amani), Farraki and dark trolls. I don't think making Shen'dralar a race on these terms hurts anyone.

I am here only to assure that blood elves will get some new options too. They have similar culture so they can get some highborne earrings.

1. Could Blizzard just add jewelry, prettier faces and fancy hairstyles to the Night Elves without breaking their Lore?

I think that would be easy, as the priesthood has always used jewels and we are discussing simple aesthetics. Haircuts in particular can be copied from other cultures by just going to their barbers. ;-)

Sure. I am all in for more options for priestesses of the moon and players. However, I hope we won't see a druid NPC in a highborne jewelry. NPCs should stay true to their roles.

I find it unreasonable to fear that players rolling a 'too pretty' Night Elf with a 'too elegant' hairstyle could damage the Lore as long as the story is being told us in whichever way Blizzard finds most appropriate.

It is fine as long as Blizzard gives lore reason for that. There is a lore reason to give that to players. However, they better not give these options to druid and hunter NPCs without explanation.

For the skins, to me it is a yes: there are already pink and light purple options for the Night Elves females, and a few more lighter and darker shades within the same palette will hardly hurt anybody (and are already being added for most races anyway).

Sure. We already have seen new colours coming to some races.

As for an alternate model, more work for the art team so much less likely to happen, but we have seen Blizzard implement posture changes for different races, and even give bones/no bones options for the Undead, so it would not be unheard of.

I think this is something Blizzard should capitalise on. We need less muscular humans and Draenei.

In fact, Night Elves Highborne or not, I feel that most of us could agree that many races would benefit from the addition of a choice between a bulkier and slimmer build, as we often have very silly male casters in huge muscular bodies and elegant female warriors which seem a bit too frail for the job. :-)

Sure. A mage or a priest should not be as muscular as warrior or druid. Give us that.

I find this highly unlikely since it would be a lot of work for a minority, but it still would not need to change the overall racial flavor. In fact, Blizzard could always unlock them through a tale explaining how rare Night Elves mages are and what a hard life they have due to the prejudice and distrust they might have to face from some druids. Not going to happen... but a person can dream, right? ;-)

That story would be nice. It would add depth to that race.

When Shadowlands give us the new Exile's Reach starting experience the character's story won't conflict. This is exactly like the Blood or Dark Troll customization being added despite of the old Darkspear starting area, and the Wildhammer Dwarf customization being added despite of the old Ironforge starting area: a simple aesthetic choice, so that the players can roleplay their characters as they prefer.

There is no blood trolls. That was Farraki. Blood trolls are white with red decoration. They are not playable yet. To quote Ion: "They are black, we gotta kill them."

Just one detail. The rest is right. We have Wildhammers and dark trolls. This means that we should be able to play Shen'dralar or Dragonmaw orc.

So while which customization to add for each race is obviously totally up to Blizzard... adding some 'Highborne' customization would not break the Lore, nor would in any way require a rework of their racial identity.

Sure. We can just treat them as a separate race, like Wildhammer.

Besides, for as long as the figures of Malfurion and Tyrande remain as leaders of the Night Elves it feels rather unlikely that the Arcane will be reinstated as a prominent trait, regardless of undoubtedly belonging to the Night Elven identity in its unique way since a very distant past.

Yes. Malfurion prevents that. Just like Thrall assures us that orcs won't return to Fel.

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What do you guys think about highborne custamizations for NIGHTBORNES? Is it more sensible to me. Since nb lacks of custamizations options?

It makes a lot of sense to add that.

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Please open a separate thread this is obviously ot

Sure. This will give more spotlight on that need.

[Beloren]

I am 100% certain that as far as it comes to combat, in magic or otherwise, the Night elven groups, may have more knowledge and experience, but they've gone out of practice. I know NElf fans want their race beating everyone, but let's look at it practically, Despite their advanced techniques - let's face it, its canon, their levels of magic surpasses everyone else, but for combat, they're greatly out of practice, it would take a while before they can start challenging anyone for top spot, and they're screwed because they've shared most of their knowledge, whether druidism or arcane, those at the cutting edge in the various races have caught up (at least as far as combat is concerned). So even if they get all practised up, they're basically just gonna be on par with every other experienced adventurer or fighter of any race. This is their reality.

It doesn't take away any of their achievements, or their knowledge or how advanced their cities and forests CAN be, they'll keep all that, but when it comes to fighting, don't expect NElves or Nightborne to run over everyone because their magic is the most advanced or they know the most and have had the longest time at it. Everyone else has caught up - at least at the top levels, cos in warcraft, the knowledge often gets shared.

[Yarathir]

If we can have some good non-druidic NIGHT ELF options and Highborne ones besides those, I'll be happy. If I have to pick (since these things are finite, they always are), I'll have to go with some more warrior-like Night Elf options over Highborne options specifically, considering we have at least 2 types of spellcasting elves, arguably 3 out of 3 in the game already and Nightborne are essentially evolved/devolved/altered Highborne.

[Moonrage]

Very interesting female hairstyle in. The number of bits seem to be improving. I actually like it, though I'm not usually a fan of short hairstyles. They made it interesting.

I don't think I've seen this on any other race either.



It's nice so far, something I haven't come to expect from NElves in wow since the disappointment of the 6.0 models, especially for males and the neck and face let downs.

If this is any indication, we're also going to be getting the race options incrementally, rather than one massive download. I think this is also better, gives people more time to chew on new options

I'm not a fan. Night Elves (both the females and the males) have never been depicted with short hair in official artwork. Please just give us some more long hairstyles.

[Ardenaso]

Karen'dris wants to speak with Anduin's manager

I tried.

[Beloren]

I'm not a fan. Night Elves (both the females and the males) have never been depicted with short hair in official artwork. Please just give us some more long hairstyles.

It looks like more of the Female warrioor vibe if you ask me. I don't necessariy see Highborne sporting hair like that. But NElf female warrior/hunter - that's right up her street.

[matrix123mko]

Their different appearance does showcase their change, but really it's even less extreme than Amani troll v Gurubashi or Zandalari. Sometimes even blood elves don't feel like a different race, but we have a lot more going for us that is different.

It is still clearly visible that they are a different race.

The only thing that advanced with the Night elves in Suramar was their magic, and the biggest change, their physical appearance, the city is unchanged. Their arcane magic progress was slow, the quests seem to indicate it took centuries for anything to change, and longer to be updated. They had stagnated a lot. Whiles the lore describes the Shen'dralar as constantly researching he arcane. The Nightborne once they solved the food and clothing crisis, was basically paradise in a timeless bubble, no external factors to drive progress, nothing really to watch out and certain unchangeable limitations like land and city space, they'd have become slack. The only area they would make any substantial progress over say the Moonguard outside or the Shen'dralar in Eldre'thalas is chronomancy. This is their "void" magic. I noticed this is also the unique magic identity blizzard gives them as they show up often with Warpcasters.

Yes. Chronomancy is pretty unique for them. They also add some shadow to their arcane magic, as shown by their Island Expedition NPCs.

People keep touting these guys as great, but they're not, Night elves really sucked for 10k years, all of them did hardly anything, it's the same across board, they all isolated, whether in a forest, mountain or city, same story. The nightborne only look different because their city is pristine, while the others are either complete ruins (all the ruins) or very run down (Eldre'thalas and to a lesser extent Nar'thalas). You look at advanced city and you think great, but once these people get into trouble, they bend knee to the legion, and the resistors are hopelessly untrained. They also cowered in their shield for ages. To me they are a story of a once great people that have to start from scratch in a new world, finding themselves completely out of touch and not up to scratch despite having magic more advanced than anyone else.

I wouldn't call them completely unarmed. Their civilians were able to use arcane. That makes them more dangerous than other races.

It's the same with the Shen'dralar, all that advanced magic and knowledge and they were easily booted out of Dire Maul, 3/4 of their city completely overrun, and they are so into their books. we don't kill them, but we kill their Prince. In contrast, the likes of Blood elves have had wars to fight with armies, whether demons, trolls, orcs etc. The only night elf groups that come close are Moonguard, Demon hunters and Sentinels/Wardens - who are groups specifically focused on fighting. Duskguard ould be the nightborne equivalent, but it's not like they had real challenges. And those are all small, the Blood elves had ARMIES ! Magecraft was doing as much innovation for magical research as well as fighting. Farstriders are an entire enclave elite force. There was no hiding from the world here.

That for sure. Blood elves have more experience fighting. However, even they had huge problems with the Scourge.

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I'm not a fan. Night Elves (both the females and the males) have never been depicted with short hair in official artwork. Please just give us some more long hairstyles.

But extra long ears are cool.

[Beloren]

It is still clearly visible that they are a different race.

Yes, I was agreeing with you. The whole point of sub-races was for them to look distinctive enough. They would always remind me of night elves, , it's the group they're based on, just like void elves would always remind me of blood elves, but they're their own people.

Yes. Chronomancy is pretty unique for them. They also add some shadow to their arcane magic, as shown by their Island Expedition NPCs.

Yep, this is what Nightborne have mastered that no other race has, neither Night elves highborne or otherwise or blood/high/void etc elves have. If they want a Nightborne only signature, they've already got it, and IE's show they already know it.

I wouldn't call them completely unarmed. Their civilians were able to use arcane. That makes them more dangerous than other races.

You know what I mean, the point is they're not as great as people think, even if you take the lore literally. Advanced civilization, great army etc, but that was 10k years ago, even if your magic is still ahead of anyone, that doens't mean your fighting capabilities are. The shen'dralar are scholars and nobles, the Nightborne stuffy nobles, they've not had real challenges until recently.

Now I'm sure they're a lot better since we first meet them, lots of fighting and tough ones too happened since.

That for sure. Blood elves have more experience fighting. However, even they had huge problems with the Scourge.

Only because they were betrayed. There one vulnerability was their cloe knit society, almost every elf knows the key secrets, it took one to be turned, and the scourge could counter their power. And remember th scourge had legions of undead humans Arthas had raised in his murder spree march to Quel'thalas.

[Hellspawn]

I'm not a fan. Night Elves (both the females and the males) have never been depicted with short hair in official artwork. Please just give us some more long hairstyles.

What Moonrage said, we already got short hair styles. Hopefully we see some hair styles with longer hair.

[Moonrage]

It looks like more of the Female warrioor vibe if you ask me. I don't necessariy see Highborne sporting hair like that. But NElf female warrior/hunter - that's right up her street.

Even the sentinels (aka the warriors) were never shown with short hair. It just doens't fit the elven vibe.

[matrix123mko]

Yes, I was agreeing with you. The whole point of sub-races was for them to look distinctive enough. They would always remind me of night elves, , it's the group they're based on, just like void elves would always remind me of blood elves, but they're their own people.

I understand that. Dark Irons are inevitably tied to dwarves.

Yep, this is what Nightborne have mastered that no other race has, neither Night elves highborne or otherwise or blood/high/void etc elves have. If they want a Nightborne only signature, they've already got it, and IE's show they already know it.

Their other signatures are illusions, telemancy and leyweaving. I would say they are more of utility mages. If Thalyssra was a hero in HotS, she would be low damage, low health, non-healing hero that aids her team with tricks like long range portals, mana bonuses and illusions.

You know what I mean, the point is they're not as great as people think, even if you take the lore literally. Advanced civilization, great army etc, but that was 10k years ago, even if your magic is still ahead of anyone, that doens't mean your fighting capabilities are. The shen'dralar are scholars and nobles, the Nightborne stuffy nobles, they've not had real challenges until recently.

They were humiliated by three Moonguard members.

Now I'm sure they're a lot better since we first meet them, lots of fighting and tough ones too happened since.

They could pretty easily outclass a human after a year of active fighting, I think.

Only because they were betrayed. There one vulnerability was their cloe knit society, almost every elf knows the key secrets, it took one to be turned, and the scourge could counter their power. And remember th scourge had legions of undead humans Arthas had raised in his murder spree march to Quel'thalas.

Not really. Not every elf could betray them. It was Dar'khan Drathir who had a position and trust among the military and the court.

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What Moonrage said, we already got short hair styles. Hopefully we see some hair styles with longer hair.

And longer beards.

[ravenmoon]

@Mace @Astranea - it would appear blizzard has responded to a post on the very highborne customisations , asking players to post what they would like to see. So far it looks very constructive. Maybe those of you with active EU accounts can make good contributions?

Farstrider and Highborne Customisations

Looks like they are willing to listen.

[FossilFree]

I'm not a fan. Night Elves (both the females and the males) have never been depicted with short hair in official artwork. Please just give us some more long hairstyles.

I want the curly hairstyle shown in that pic you posted on page 1 of this thread. Hasn't this short hair one been in the game for a while too? I think a lot of the options we have seen so far are ones that already existed but the players couldn't choose, like long draenei tails and some of the skin tones. Pretty sure I've seen the "Kitty Forman" gnome haircut in the game too.