Kaldorei and their new Black Eyes

[Nuggsy]

So I've enjoyed playing Kaldorei for a while now and this new black eye thing has thrown be for a loop. Personally, I really don't think I like the look of them but as someone who tries to stick to the lore I almost feel boxed into them? Apparently the elves that were in Darkshore when it happened were empowered/changed when it Tyrande Became the Night Warrior and thus their eyes changed. That's all well and good but if that's the case why does Shandris get to keep her normal eyes while I everyone else gets stuck with dark eyes?

Anyone else have more insight (no pun intended) on this matter?

[Nathasil]

It was a load of poop.

The only Night Elf who has Dark Eyes is Tyrande. They gave it to all the other NPCs because they felt all the backlash about the pre-BFA story and thought giving the Night Elves "something" would be awesome....it is not. It makes no sense. At all. No matter if you like the optics or not, it does not make ANY sense from a story/lore PoV for other Night Elves to have the Dark Eyes.

I have been a Night Elf player for almost 15 years. I "kind of" liked the general direction of the Tyrande story arc....but the Dark Eyes for other Elves than Tyrande without ANY story to back it up has caused me to simply ignore them. Lorewise, only Tyrande has them. Nobody else.

[Illusions]

Continuity exists to tie the hands of the creators etc.

There's no reason Shandris and Jarod etc don't have black eyes right now, especially after explanation from the lore stream.

Your night elf will get black eyes if they're in Darkshore, fighting in the name of Elune. When you move outside Darkshore, the magic of them will start to dissipate and it won't be a permanent thing, except for Tyrande I guess.

You can basically say you're more concerned about the Sword or Horde in BfA locations instead of Darkshore, or just move out of Darkshore fast enough for the magic to not take effect on you yet.

tl;dr if you want to adhere to the lore, just don't be in Darkshore all that much.

[Felixon]

So I've enjoyed playing Kaldorei for a while now and this new black eye thing has thrown be for a loop. Personally, I really don't think I like the look of them but as someone who tries to stick to the lore I almost feel boxed into them? Apparently the elves that were in Darkshore when it happened were empowered/changed when it Tyrande Became the Night Warrior and thus their eyes changed. That's all well and good but if that's the case why does Shandris get to keep her normal eyes while I everyone else gets stuck with dark eyes?

Anyone else have more insight (no pun intended) on this matter?

I think the reason Shandris Kept her eye colour was because...Blizzard,I'm sorry,I mean Activision forgot or didn't bother to change it! Wonder how Activision didn't decide to make it as a cosmetic thing,that could be bought through the shop (cause Warcraft today is all about the money,right?).

I personally think,that all of this Black Moon crap is written by some edgelords,who think,that everything sounds badass and evil if you put the words "darkness", "shadows" etc into the name of it. Whenever I see a night elf with black eyes it makes me feel sorry for my favourite Warcraft race - a once independent and truly powerful race made into bunch of helpless clowns with DARK EYES.

[Nuggsy]

It was a load of poop.

The only Night Elf who has Dark Eyes is Tyrande. They gave it to all the other NPCs because they felt all the backlash about the pre-BFA story and thought giving the Night Elves "something" would be awesome....it is not. It makes no sense. At all. No matter if you like the optics or not, it does not make ANY sense from a story/lore PoV for other Night Elves to have the Dark Eyes.

I have been a Night Elf player for almost 15 years. I "kind of" liked the general direction of the Tyrande story arc....but the Dark Eyes for other Elves than Tyrande without ANY story to back it up has caused me to simply ignore them. Lorewise, only Tyrande has them. Nobody else.

I didn't really think it made much sense. Felt more of a 'oh this would be easy to give them since they demand 'customization' I just think the glowing white eyes look way better and I don't see why my elf wouldn't be in Darkshore so I kinda felt like it was being forced (provided I wanted to stick with lore) on everyone but lore characters.

[etheldald]

simply because they didn't wanted to update her model?
blizzard is lazy you know.

[Caerule]

It was a load of poop.

The only Night Elf who has Dark Eyes is Tyrande. They gave it to all the other NPCs because they felt all the backlash about the pre-BFA story and thought giving the Night Elves "something" would be awesome....it is not. It makes no sense. At all. No matter if you like the optics or not, it does not make ANY sense from a story/lore PoV for other Night Elves to have the Dark Eyes.

I have been a Night Elf player for almost 15 years. I "kind of" liked the general direction of the Tyrande story arc....but the Dark Eyes for other Elves than Tyrande without ANY story to back it up has caused me to simply ignore them. Lorewise, only Tyrande has them. Nobody else.

It feels like you missed the info about them in the recent Story dev stream thing. That lore being something that should be in the game is a point. But I think that might be technical limitations. That being that you can't just change character skins in the game currently by a dialogue option on an NPC. The only available interfaces for it currently are the paid character change service, and the ingame barber shop.

So, even if the lore of it is that the Night Elves fighting at the Night Warrior's side benefit fighting near her by the energies of the Night Warrior infusing them, they can only give it to the player through the Barber Shop later. Ideally, for Night Elf players there would have been a pop-up or character dialogue box to go "Do you wish to embrace the power of the Night Warrior through the presence of Elune's Night Warrior's Avatar? (This can be changed again at the barber shop later)", that would have changed their eyes or not. But that would have taken a lot of work to accomplish put into the game code, just for this.

To summarize:
1. Tyrande isn't the only Night Elf with Dark Eyes.
2. The energies of the Night Warrior can infuse any other Night Elves fighting at the Night Warrior's side.
3. This wasn't mentioned ingame. It was shown by all the Night Elves in the Warfront having black eyes, but could've been made more clear.
4. Due to technical limitations, this transformation can only be applied through the Barber shop, rather than being a choice immediately.
5. There's no mention of it being permanent. It may very well not be, or something you can shake off. If I were to speculate, I'd say it probably sticks for as long as you are fighting the cause of the Night Warrior. If you give up the cause of vengeance to tend fields, I'm sure it'll fade.

[BrownJames]

I love this character

[Eggroll]

I can't even look at those UFO alien things that is called night elves nowadays. The real night elves are dead, the race was killed by blizzard. Nothing is left of them anymore.

This. 10.000 times. Blizz started with ruining their character models back in WoD, now they are literally eradicating them from the game as a race.

Remember what nelf ladies used to look like? Athletic, agile, proud, energetic...




@OP I mean, they didn't even bother to put the proper Tyrande model in there, they just took a common player model and put it into
the cinematic...

[Naitsade]

My idea is that it is the moonwell at Bashal'Aran, that one Tyrande used in the ritual, that causes other nelfs to have black eyes. Night elves have used moonwells to empower their troops forever, and I believe that by exposing oneself to the moonwell (drinking or bathing) in the now black swirling waters gives the night elf a small boost of powers similar to that of the night warrior. Cleansing yourself in a pure moonwell will revert you back to normal.

[Aucald]

It seems like it is pretty much up to player choice, either "I was there when the ritual happened" or "I was elsewhere fighting on another front." For those who were present but didn't gain the darkened eyes of the Night Warrior ritual it may even be a personal choice - there was a moment when the power (e.g. Elune or whatever it is that answered Tyrande's plea) communed with all present and they could choose to take on the power. Some did and gained the darkened eyes, and some either felt to do so might be seen as challenging Tyrande's position or perhaps they didn't want to truck with the darker aspects of Elune's power. Perhaps others weren't even given the option, perhaps with Elune being aware that kind of power was not for them (e.g. the Wardens and Maiev).

[sillag]

tbh ignore every explanation in this thread it is all people trying to headcanon something that doesn't work.

obviously the way the scenario is written only tyrande has black eyes but what you gotta remember is that this was all at the height of blood elf gold eyes and orc straight backs and alliance was wondering where their customization options were. so someone had the genius idea to add night warrior eyes but while they were doing it they forgot a few things such as:

1. are we gonna explain where those eyes came from
2. are we gonna explain why none of the other named night elves have them and its all just tyrande and the generic npcs

now they tried in their godawful """"""lore"""""" stream to peddle the hastily made-up explanation that being under the moon in darkshore gives em the black eyes. might seem like a good call at first however in that case you are going to have to explain to me why none of the major night elf characters have them including:

thisalee crow
jarod
the highborne mage guy
uhhh malfurion stormrage?? anyone? anyone remember this guy?

until you can do that blizzard's explanation has about as much weight as anyone else's headcanon

so tbh in your rp just make up whatever bullshit excuse you want. im sure you will have put more thought into it than blizzard did and if anyone tells you its actually cause they were under the dark moon or near the ritual or whatever else they have made up you can tell them its obviously bullshit headcanon and that they should be ashamed of themselves for propping up blizzard's lazy anti-lore.

[Toho]

I wish there was a certain glow in the eye.
Something like there is a moon or stars inside the eyes.

You know... "night" and all.

Some additional effects too.
Like glowing tattoos or maybe some sort of lunar/dark effect.

[Rozz]

Speaking of eyes, I think the devs mentioned somewhere they wanted to do more with it and other character customization. I think this means more cosmetics and separation from facial expressions are soon to come.

[Maldracai]

thisalee crow
jarod
the highborne mage guy
uhhh malfurion stormrage?? anyone? anyone remember this guy?

until you can do that blizzard's explanation has about as much weight as anyone else's headcanon.

I don't recall any of these folks being there during the Ritual. I could be wrong but I only remember them showing up during the Warfront.
As for Malfurion, he's a Druid and has enough shit going on with the wings, antlers and whatever the fuck else he's decided to grow in the past expansion. Also all the Night Elves with black eyes seem to be Sentinels.

As for Shandris, have we had any dealings with her post Ritual? Because I don't think we have and it might be slightly off putting to have her with Black Eyes during the events that took place BEFORE the ritual.

[Androsobi]

/Roleplay We must not forgive, we must not forget.

[Powerogue]

I always just assumed that, lore-wise, you took on the mark of the Night Warrior by going to the black moonwell Tyrande used and rubbing some in your eyes. Very "take up your cross and follow me" ritual showing dedication to the cause of vengeance.

As for why Shandris doesn't have it, we've seen she still clings to hope and would rather the night elf people move past vengeance and focus on rebuilding. There is some sense in that, especially as their crusade would be against an enemy who no longer speaks for the Horde. Some of the Horde, the tauren come to mind, might even be willing to help with the rebuilding efforts if the night elves could see past their rage.

We'll see Tyrande again next expansion, I don't think this is over yet.

[Kyphael]

I love it myself. Most interesting thing to happen to night elves, at least aesthetically, maybe ever. Really differentiates them from the other elves who all have bright eyes. Every night elf character I have now has the Night Warrior eyes.

[Shiza]

Maybe the Night elves who got black eyes are those, who chose to fully embrace the night warrior aspect of Elune and are in it for vengeance? Shandris has silver eyes and she also seems to reject the night warrior.

[Nathasil]

It was a load of poop.

The only Night Elf who has Dark Eyes is Tyrande. They gave it to all the other NPCs because they felt all the backlash about the pre-BFA story and thought giving the Night Elves "something" would be awesome....it is not. It makes no sense. At all. No matter if you like the optics or not, it does not make ANY sense from a story/lore PoV for other Night Elves to have the Dark Eyes.

I have been a Night Elf player for almost 15 years. I "kind of" liked the general direction of the Tyrande story arc....but the Dark Eyes for other Elves than Tyrande without ANY story to back it up has caused me to simply ignore them. Lorewise, only Tyrande has them. Nobody else.

Agreed.

Just, personally, i did NOT agree with Tyrande's arc at all because they managed to make Maiev totally obsolete. Maiev was the PERFECT choice to become the Night Warrior...now they just turned Tyrande into Maiev 2.0 and have no clue where to go with Maiev herself. A bad decision in a bad storyline.

BFA = Bad for Azeroth.

Maybe the Night elves who got black eyes are those, who chose to fully embrace the night warrior aspect of Elune and are in it for vengeance? Shandris has silver eyes and she also seems to reject the night warrior.

Maiev does not have black eyes. But i guess Maiev simply is not into vengeance all that much, right?