Highborne customizations for the Night Elves (NOT High Elves)

[[Apok]]

These guys love the stars, and there is a lot to it that has yet to be explored. Although currently they only seem interestedin showing forest/feral additions - but I hope they remember that they made them children of the stars and night elves - not forest elves. And while it's great to have vines (it really is actually), it would be amazing to have something that reflects that star legacy and expand that detail to them.

They worship the moon being elune, not the stars.


It just seems like a poor attempt at a self insert fantasy.

[matrix123mko]

Never heard of Eldre'Thalas ?

Eldre'thalas came later.

[Hellspawn]

I see, they indeed are highborne. However, look how they were initially shown as blood elves, not night elves. This hints that highborne are closer to high elves than night elves.

No they were not. And even if that hints towards nothing.
Magni states that they were pretty much night elfs and later we see Shen'dralar using the night elf model and night borne also just used the night elf model in their trailer before they transformed into nightborn.

[Ardenaso]

I see, they indeed are highborne. However, look how they were initially shown as blood elves, not night elves. This hints that highborne are closer to high elves than night elves.

or maybe because Blizzard is too lazy to give models for everyone and LemonSky's contract ended in the middle of making assets

[Mace]

They worship the moon being elune, not the stars.


It just seems like a poor attempt at a self insert fantasy.

It's just a creative insert - and it's supposed to be fantasy, and I wasn't basing it on their religious inclinations - but fyi, there is star worship in the night elf religion, it's just not been expanded on. Secondly they are children of the stars, and have this star fixation, so something to reflect that, semed very kaldorei to me, and since stars are arcane based, it would make a good highborne indicator, but can also be used by moon priests.

All night elves look to the stars if you didn't know.

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I see, they indeed are highborne. However, look how they were initially shown as blood elves, not night elves. This hints that highborne are closer to high elves than night elves.

It doesn't hint any such thing. high elves are from night elves - that's the lore, there is a strong connection. High elves didn't pop out of anywhere, they came from Highborne who are not a race, but a caste of night elves.

Elves are connected

[[Apok]]

It's just a creative insert - and it's supposed to be fantasy, and I wasn't basing it on their religious inclinations - but fyi, there is star worship in the night elf religion, it's just not been expanded on

Provide some examples of the star worship within night elf religion?

Beyond the mere speculation that their name is a derived from elune and One of her aspects is the Night Warrior, who takes the valiant among the dead and sets them riding across the sky as stars.

It would make no sense other than appeal to someone who watched a netflix show and thought "cool i wish i could look like that"

[Hellspawn]

Provide some examples of the star worship within night elf religion?

Beyond the mere speculation that their name is a derived from elune and One of her aspects is the Night Warrior, who takes the valiant among the dead and sets them riding across the sky as stars.

It would make no sense other than appeal to someone who watched a netflix show and thought "cool i wish i could look like that"

Kaldorei translated means "Children of the Stars" so there you got a connection to stars. There is no direct worshipping on starts but its part of the night, moon and starts theme.

[[Apok]]

Kaldorei translated means "Children of the Stars" so there you got a connection to stars. There is no direct worshipping on starts but its part of the night, moon and starts theme.

Which as i said is inferred to come from the night warrior aspect of elune, no worshipping of the stars themselves.

[Mace]

Which as i said is inferred to come from the night warrior aspect of elune, no worshipping of the stars themselves.

And as I said, this is a creative feature that's not based on what they worship, whether stars, wild gods or Elune. It's based on the star theme and star love of the race. This is the principle identifier of the race, so it made sense to think of things relating to it for potential features for night elves that are indicative of the arcane or otherwise.

e.g. Stars guide us emote all night elves have
e.g. Kaldorei = children of the stars
e.g. kaldorei based Priests, mages, druids casting star/moon spells
e.g. star and moon symbols all over their cities and persons.

star worship was mentioned in the Warcraft rpg, but that's no longer canon. I'm not sure if it's mentioned anywhere else, but worship of stars was not the motivation or reasoning behind this feature, but rather relevance to the people, their identity and cultural aspects that involved the stars.

[Beloren]

Which as i said is inferred to come from the night warrior aspect of elune, no worshipping of the stars themselves.

How do you infer the night elf identity comes from the night warrior of Elune? Something basically inserted into the lore in 8.1 - but night elves have had the name Children of the Stars and looked to them throughout their history from when they were introduced.

Also the night warriors seems a high battle state that also invokes void energy, I don't see how you can conclude it comes from the Night Warrior since there is star love, usage in spells and guidance independent and irrespective of the phase.

Maybe you know something I don't.

[TheFirstOnes]

If I may, I’d like to ask you to take the time to rationally explain us all exactly why and how you feel that the red, purple or green facial tattoos already in game are waaaaay more inspiring than a blue or an orange one could ever be. :-D

Markings customization was finally uncoupled from hair color last week (after I posted my mockups actually, so I already got a huge part of what I was asking/hoping for) and now they are separated there is no reason why they couldn’t have more colors considering that the recolor of such a small texture probably takes about 10 seconds. In fact, they could very easily add new shapes also.

Of course, you might have meant that you would want the facial markings totally removed because they are not inspiring to you overall...
But that makes no sense, as you can always play a night elf female without markings?

IMHO more options the better. Take the silver options for blood elf jewelry for example. I don’t like the silver color for a blood elf, and I am sure I won’t use it. In fact, I even find it somewhat breaks the default racial appearance which is about gold and red (just think of the heritage set). Yet some other player might find it the best match to their armor, so I still think it’s cool that there is such option regardless of the fact that I don’t personally care for it, and wouldn’t have asked for it.

TLDR: many new customization features are just extra options: as such, they do not always need to be astonishing or inspiring to be appreciated by someone, and therefore even a tiny addition can be a perk worth of adding when it is extremely easy to do so.

But sure, haters gotta hate, so you are totally free to disapprove of a small texture recolor if that makes you feel witty and cool. :-)

Personally, I am pretty confident all sorts of colors and shapes could find happy users in-game if they were added:

Ion right now: *Laughs in Beta*

Or at least, I hope they add these once the Beta releases.

[matrix123mko]

or maybe because Blizzard is too lazy to give models for everyone and LemonSky's contract ended in the middle of making assets

I didn't know Lemon Sky made the original version too.

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No they were not. And even if that hints towards nothing.
Magni states that they were pretty much night elfs and later we see Shen'dralar using the night elf model and night borne also just used the night elf model in their trailer before they transformed into nightborn.

I didn't see any highborne walking in leathers and leaves.

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It doesn't hint any such thing. high elves are from night elves - that's the lore, there is a strong connection. High elves didn't pop out of anywhere, they came from Highborne who are not a race, but a caste of night elves.

Elves are connected

There is a huge leap between highborne and their subjects. The difference is as visible as the one between Bronzebeard dwarves and their savage cousins from Aerie Peak.

[Hellspawn]

I didn't see any highborne walking in leathers and leaves.

And there are plenty of night elfs that are not walking in leather and leaves... I'm not sure what kind of argument you are trying to construct here.

[Ardenaso]

I didn't know Lemon Sky made the original version too.

I was talking about Reforged in that one because Blizzard couldn't be bothered to give everyone in Classic their own model and the in Reforged you know

[[Apok]]

And there are plenty of night elfs that are not walking in leather and leaves... I'm not sure what kind of argument you are trying to construct here.

Probably the simple one that differentiates the highborne from night elves - night elfs followed a druid path of belief, highborne didn't and scorned this when seperating from the night elves nad coming to quel'thalas

[Alanar]

They are a different elf sub-group, a variant on blood elves, not a replacement for Highborne or night elves. Unless you think every new sub-race is meant to replace existing races. I can assure you, that is not the intention for their creation.


It's not true, you guys trying to make Nelves into some different species, they are meant to be the elf originals, not something entirely different. Blood elves are a variation of them, not some distinct entity.
.

For the record ravenmoon as explained by numerous people and it's shown in game and told that The nightborne evolved over 10 k years.. flourishing in their old ways and the well changed them.. almost infused with arcane. So yes now Night elves and Nightborne are just so differnt that it isn't realy conisidered the same race anymore, sure it's still an elven race as you mentioned, but that's it realy. The intent was to capture the highborne vibe with a twist, because highborne on it self is just a political group even with no visually diffent aspecs. So yes it is true.
Blood elves are a evolution... not some variation lol. felblood elves are a variation on blood elves.. that is how it works lol.

[ravenmoon]

For the record Alanar, nightborne are elves, they're part of the elf species group that night elves are the source and basis of.

And fyi, Nightborne are to Night elves what Darkspears are to Zandalari or Amani are to Zandalari, Highmountain are to Mulgore tauren, or Void elves are to Blood elves, or Lightforged are to Draenei, or Dark Irons are to Bronzebeards or Kul'tirans are.

We just know the details of how Nightborne changed. FYI, all elves are arcane infused - all are constantly surrounded by arcane source (whether they use them for casting magical spells or not), it's not arcane infusion that changes the Nightborne, it's the Nightwell and the unique way they abused it - using it for sustenance - and it warped them. Yep that's right, it's not a healthy state they're in, this is why they wither in a complete breakdown - and this is why the night elves develop a cure for night elven addiction balancing arcane with nature (the heart of the balance druid theme) that's healing them atm.

The intent was to capture the highborne vibe with a twist, because highborne on it self is just a political group even with no visually diffent aspecs. So yes it is true.

I'll agree with that, I also thought blizzard made Highborne a unique night elf race or appearance. Even though I also think high elves are the first Highborne elf race, but they stop being Highborne or night elves when they become high elves because of the larger degree of change.

So yes it is true.
Blood elves are a evolution... not some variation lol. felblood elves are a variation on blood elves.. that is how it works lol.

technically blood elves are still a variation, they're just a more distinct and famous one, warranting their own representation. They've had a lot of unique lore developed for them in their history with humans and trolls in their own native region of Quel'thalas. They also have distinct motiffs, symbology, day cycles, religion all that vary from the night elf and the Nightborne. This is why you can consider them as their own race, but they are elves, and a race of elves too, they are also a sub-race.

It is not a new species with the high elves it's just a very distinct type of elf with it's own basis, unlikely the Nightborne that's based on the night elf. But the blood elf will share and have many things from the night elf it shares the same race type.

FYI, the use of race and species is wrong. Blood elves and Nightborne technically aren't different races by the official use of the term race. It's American culture use of the term race that incorrectly uses superficial variations to call things a different race when it comes to humans. Blacks, Asians , Hispanics and whites are different races in American culture, but technically that's not true, they're the same race - they're different ethnicities. Whiles species would be the primate bracket. I know you're European, and in European countries, they correctly use ethnicities. But if most of your English understanding is driven by American culture rather than British culture, you will use race like Americans do.

As it's made by Americans, this is why in Warcraft, though the same race, night elves and blood elves are different races on character creation - but more accurately character creation is showing different factions, some of which are different races. Humans and forsaken are the same race technically, but different factions of it. In CC it's called race. It's easier to notice this with allied races who are clearly not other races are they're, they're definitely other factions, but as they have physiological variations we call them other races, but it's more like they're sub-races as they're very similar to their core race. For the Nightborne, that core race is the Night elf.

[TheFirstOnes]

I wonder if Ion's just looking at this thread, secretly evil laughing in Beta for these customization's. I'd laugh my ass off.

[Hellspawn]

I wonder if Ion's just looking at this thread, secretly evil laughing in Beta for these customization's. I'd laugh my ass off.

Thats why he is a dev and you are not.

[TheFirstOnes]

Thats why he is a dev and you are not.

...Yes? Your point? I have no idea why you just said that.