
Originally Posted by
Mace
Sorry, not impressed. good for you if you like it. It is early days, and more is to come, but we've heard that before, many times, and NOTHING came. While all the detail was poured into Blood elves, humans, Dwarves, Orcs and all time favourites Undead etc.
Why should I , he's the one in the wrong and calling what I have written headcanon, when the things I've stated in the game and in the lore. He is stating head canon if he thinks the Nightborne substitute or replace the Highborne - blizzard have never shown or stated that. If they were, you would not see anymore Highborne, and night elf mages would be removed. You also see across every other allied race, that they reflect their core races, not one of them is substituting or replacing them. Who here is spouting head canon?
Nightborne and Suramar ARE the evidence that blizzard was seriously developing the Highborne and arcane culture of the Night elf. Look at the effort put into it. It's lifted off the pages of WotA and fits the vibe of the Night elves' pre-sundering culture but around the famous invasion period. The Azsuna Farondis model the Kaldorei as they were before addiction, because Farondis, through wise leadership, led his people well and didn't succumb to the madness going on in Zin'Azshari.
Both are night elven.. it's not just the good parts, or the good Highborne, or the druids or the priests that are night elven, the bad parts are too, the insufferable arrogance of the kaldorei, especially the Highborne, is what you see in Suramar, this is exactly how the night elven caste was written as.
This is blizzard writing the night elf lore, just because the Nightborne go horde doesn't change any of that, or what they are. Anymore than it eliminates the need or the validity of the Highborne on the alliance side. [If anything the Nightborne are the cocky highborne side of the night elves , the current Highborne are the original vein of the cast, the once arrogant but now redeemed. This is how they differe, not some imaginary substitution.
They are the same people but looking totally different. Sort of like High elves and blood elves if High elves were to be skinnier and paler. The Highborne amongst the Darnassians are the redeemed cadre of the caste, they have Shen'dralar who are now uncorrupted having broken free of arcane addiction and demonic corruption, and the Darnassian Highborne joining them who have been 10k years free of addiction. Their mindset is going to be different from the Nightborne because of what they've endured, living outside a bubble, this is how they a different psychologically, even though they are also the same group/people.
Just like Blood elves have taken a philosophically different stance to their former high elf selves, which the high elves still maintain. Yet while the same people they are different.
you can't then come and say that because Nightborne exist, the other group that also exists (and unlike high elves, are actually playable), have no relevance to the part of the lore they are all about.
Suramar shows blizzards commitment to this, and expecting or desiring the Night elf model highborne to reflect better the look and feel of the highborne caste is not unreasonable, nor is it demanding to be identical to the Nightborne. It is what the highbonre are, and they are already different from the Nightborne because they have the more whole/healthy Night elf bodies and were exposed to the post sundering world and have had much more time to deal with it than the Nightborne have. They are closer to the Farondis type display, while the nighitborne have only just got a taste of humble pie, but really haven't had to face the realities the highborne and kaldorei have had around for 10k years in a post sundering world or the shen'drlar for a few ywears, outside their fancy cities and magical conveniences.