Originally Posted by
ravenmoon
You aren't the only one surprised. I was surprised, then disappointed, then appalled that they didn't. It is clear they knew of each other though. You only need read wotA, and pay attention to what Tyrande says to Thalyssra, what the Moonguard, and other Nightborne say in places like Tel'anor - they are very much kaldorei aware.
However they did change a lot of content involving the Darnassian night elf group later on. The entire broken shore questline and story was changed, it was centred around Tyrande and the priesthood, but ion mentioned they felt there wasn't enough legion effects and presence, then later wanted the Class order halls to have more of a presence and role, so the night elves were sacrificed, the Tyrande storyline scrapped.
Initially in 7.1, Elisande would goad Tyrande about their mutual acquaintance, i.e. Malfurion - establishing blizzard fully aware.
Suramar in game is built exactly according to the Suramar in the War of the Ancients trilogy too, if you read that book you'd see the entire night elven section of the broken isle, from Suramar through to Val'sharah is lifted from that book, with additions like Azsuna added. The night elf section was all about the origins and history of the kaldorei who were the ones who first encountered and defeated the Legion. Highmountain and Stormheim were made Tauren and Vrykul because they felt having 5 elven zones would be too boring.
finally even the last zone, Thal'dranath was too much night elven to deal with, and unlike the Sunwell plateau that really finished the blood elf story in that expansion, we instead went to Argus and finished the Legion, which may have been more exciting for everyone but night elf fans - the expansion ended with poor or bad resolutions and a lot of changes.
They started with a grand night elf vision and continuously chipped away.
The biggest one in my opinion was the Nightborne becoming playable, then becoming a horde race. I don't believe that was the original goal, I feel the Nightborne were meant to be healed by the Arcan'dor back to night elves and be a Highborne group facilitating the civilization wing of the kaldorei - it would serve as the new capital after the destruction of Teldrassil, while the druids would have a new home and purely druidic world tree in Shaladrassil, the sentinels would have a new base bastion in Black rook hold, , while the Highborne would have their own country in Azsuna. The demon hunters would stick to the fel affected areas while Suramar would be the capital for all groups. The priests would have their main cathedral restored as the HQ, and have temples in both Val'sharah and Azsuna serving both druidic and Highborne communities.
But the love for the Nightborne was so high, that they made the entire group of Suramar remain Nightborne, whereas i feel we would have had a remnant group of exiled enemies, who may have joined the horde later. The decision for the Nightborne to go horde i think was horde bias, they couldn't resist giving the horde all of it, and making excuses to why it would be so, it helped that the blood elf community badly wanted them - but it was easy to see their interest was purely superficial and the Nightborne on the horde contributed nothing of real relevance, while on the alliance with the night elves would be a significant lore development and race development.
In the end passion and desire won over the good of the game, imo, all this is my opinion of things, i think they made an impulsive choice that frankly ruined the integrity of everything that transpired in 7.0 - that the Nightborne joined the horde that were set to destroy Teldrassil in a genocide flew in the face of everything the victors were written to be. I don't think it was the initial plan at all, it was decided after 7.0 was released, and while 7.1 was being implemented. 7.1 was altered in several ways to facilitate this decision.