Highborne customizations for the Night Elves (NOT High Elves)

[matrix123mko]

The Zandalari do not rule over other tribes. They are the scholars and priest caste of their race which earns their respect.

Isn't Rastakhan titular king of all trolls?

The Darkspear have grown since allying with the Horde. This is said during Vol'jin's novel as Khal'ak (A Zandalari envoy) notes how the Darkspear thrive and grow while all other tribes are dwindling, even offering Vol'jin to make the Darkspear the Zandalari Empire's first tribe above all others

Interesting. Horde has some interesting procreation techiques that can reform three ships worth of orcs into a huge nation.

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Maybe Dark Trolls crossbreed with the Darkspear since there's not many of them left? Would explain the new customization options

It makes sense, as at this time the first halfbreed generation would be ready to fight.

[Astranea]

Court of farondis as far i can see have no difference whatsoever, and we explored then quite a bit

My point about the Court of Farondis was that they look like nobility, rather than feral/savage Night Elves.

Editor's note implies its not canon

The editor's note was a way to point out the implication of Brann's statements.

Please forgive me if I seem annoying, but I really would like my point to be clear, so I shall try to explain it again, step by step:

Brann says, there is little physical difference between the Highborne and the rest of the kaldorei.

This implies that there is some physical difference, because "little difference" is not the same as "no difference".

Brann says, that perhaps the Highborne look slightly pastier, but they still consider themselves different enough.

So the game clearly states that even though to the eyes of a Dwarf they look like just slightly paler Night Elves, the Shen'dralar Highborne still consider themselves looking/being different from the regular Night Elves.

I am not making this up you see. I am just reading the lines.

I didn't say i was not ok, you don't need to be like that, im just saying i can't see then deviating too much from the night elf base thematic

Then I misunderstood there, because I thought you meant that the Night Elves could not get any Highborne customization because they are feral savages and any elegant customization belongs to the Horde side. But I may have confused your comment with someone else's, so you have my apologies if that is the case.

i don't mind other colors or like people said jewelry, but those fanarts don't work in my eyes, too much blood elvish

As stated previously, perfectly free not to like all the art used as example.
I am just trying to say that the concept of Night Elves Highborne as a whole should not be dismissed because of the fan art used to illustrate it.

My take is that Blizzard could easily implement a few extra colors, jewels and new pretty faces for the Night Elves to make their nobility playable for those who'd like such a character more than a feral elf. This would not break the Night Elves lore, because the Shen'dralar Highborne are canon.

I don't need them to look exactly like the fan art listed. Those are just examples.
(Just like my forum avatar. Would that look like a Blood Elf to you, too, or do you think it could be an acceptable Night Elf noblewoman?)

[Thage]

Aren't highborne just night elves of a high caste? aren't they the same thing? most of those pics here seems like fanart rather than original content.

I was going to say. That's part of what made the War of the Ancients such a mess: it was easy for one side to infiltrate the other, you just needed to mimic the mannerisms of the social caste in question. Highborne and Kaldorei weren't meaningfully different beyond culturally-enforced differences, in much the same way high and blood elves aren't meaningfully-different physically (at least early on; minor differences were accelerated due to the blood elves' brief stint experimenting with fel magic as a mana source, or from proximity to those who did so for the blood elves who stuck to more benign mana sources like mana wyrms).

Meaningful physical differences didn't start manifesting until relocation and evolution in isolation, pushed along by arcane energies from their respective off-brand Well of Eternity, kicked in over the course of ten thousand years. The Shen'dralar, as we see ingame and in-lore from short stories and novels, aren't meaningfully different from the Kaldorei beyond social and cultural norms--if the Highborne were supposed to look physically different, some manner of ingame representation would be there, even back in Vanilla (after all, they used customized night elf models for high/blood elves with unique head models including upward-pointed ears to at least attempt to show notable differences from the Kaldorei).

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Isn't that logical, as all tribes are vassals to Talanji?

I think pretty much every tribe except those already in the Horde (namely, the Darkspears and Revantusk) joined up with the Zandalari in 4.1ish, and that really didn't work out so well for them, so the survivors are probably being annexed into the Darkspears since, as you note below:

Darkspear are terribly small too.

Hell, it took them most of the Fourth War before finally getting set up with a new Chieftain again. None of the troll tribes are in good shape right now (again, except the Revantusk since everyone other than the Wildhammers leave them tf alone).

They are in Warcraft 3. The troll shown on Blizzcon is a dark troll.

There's also a Dark Troll in Zuldazar using the skin tone previewed at Blizzcon as an expanded customization option. They say they're the last survivor, but it makes sense to me that a few could have been hiding out in subterranean tunnels and were brought out of hiding by goblin sappers, at which point they realize pretty much every troll out there is signing up with the Horde and there are a lot of pissed-off night elves in 'if it moves, it dies' mode.

[FossilFree]

Highborne Night Elves definitely look different from their more savage cousins:

[Georg Von Vitzthum]

Highborne Night Elves definitely look different from their more savage cousins:

yeah i said it before, look more like ashara, but to me she is blue, not pink-ish

[Alanar]

I do not think Blizzard is planning to remove the option to roll a Night Elf mage?

As far as I know, the lore tells that the Shen'dralar Highborne rejoined the Night Elves people, and started teaching the arcane arts to them again.

We know.. and it's old news.. Legends tell that the poor night elf mage guy never got hes audience with Tyrande and even the tree burned down with him presumbly, sad story realy.

Sadly afther that little happening we know next to nothing about their current status..besides well we are able to roll one, but if you talk about the whole feel and look of the arcane arts, I have to dissapoint you, we have new kids on the block who took over as the evolution of the highborne, called the Nightborne.

Night elves will get new options in shadowlands like all vanilla races etc, but I don't think that highborne time of nobels/azshara/gold/Jewels/vain will ever return as you may hope it will.

[Maljinwo]

Isn't Rastakhan titular king of all trolls?.

Rastakhan was called king of all trolls in the non-canon RPG

Interesting. Horde has some interesting procreation techiques that can reform three ships worth of orcs into a huge nation.

The Alliance can field armies of Gnomes, Draenei and Void Elves as well apparently

[Razion]

They are in Warcraft 3. The troll shown on Blizzcon is a dark troll.

Gonna add some details here.

The clan in WC3 is the Shadowtooth Clan. They help fight Archimonde in the Battle of Mount Hyjal. (They can be Trappers, Berserkers, Warlords, Shadow Priests, and High Priests.) In Cataclysm, we can find two Twilight associated NPCs that can have the dark trolls with their skins which seems to imply that those that didn't join were hunted -- this is clarified more recently in Zandalar, where they have apparently repopulated enough to have a representative in the capitol who confirms that the Twilight Cult all but wiped them out. And although they don't have any notable settlements in-game, in a Warcraft Magazine Brann speculated on their diminished population, but that he hadn't confirmed it by checking their caves yet.

[Astranea]

yeah i said it before, look more like ashara, but to me she is blue, not pink-ish

I admit I always feel a bit baffled when I read comments like this, because as far as I know... the Night Elves already have a pink skin option?

This is my Night Elf priest as she is currently in the game. Not pink-ish to you?



If this is already ok, and it can stay, then I would be totally happy to 'just' have at least some fancier hairstyles and jewels. ;-)

[yani9841]

Isn't Rastakhan titular king of all trolls?

God King of all trolls but they also had the other troll nations not part of the Zandalari empire and Zul trying to bring them in. This winds up with a vague area of lore where it's cool to have all these troll groups hanging out serving under Zandalar in some capacity and Zandalar apparently not involved in the world affairs otherwise... but lets just drop Farraki trolls into Zandalar somehow despite no other information on them since ZF was a ruin dungeon being cleared in cataclysm/classic

Interesting. Horde has some interesting procreation techiques that can reform three ships worth of orcs into a huge nation.

Wow always ignores logistics of world building. That's how we have a multi front war breaking out in Azeroth every couple years and still somehow able to handle maintaining cities and armies.

edit: on the subject of high born among the night elves...
Honestly the shendralar are probably the worst lore group around now due to all the retcons and continuity bullshit concerning elves and exposure (or lack there of) to magical fonts.

They somehow go centuries if not millenia without their magical font and come out "fine"? ok...

But something more to point out. players aren't making "shen'dralar" elves, they're making elves who are trained under them....

[Georg Von Vitzthum]

I admit I always feel a bit baffled when I read comments like this, because as far as I know... the Night Elves already have a pink skin option?

This is my Night Elf priest as she is currently in the game. Not pink-ish to you?



If this is already ok, and it can stay, then I would be totally happy to 'just' have at least some fancier hairstyles and jewels. ;-)

i was talking about the ones in the fanart, but again, if they already have pink skin why ask for that? blue in other hand have canon reference of azshara

[Astranea]

i was talking about the ones in the fanart

I believe I already told you several times that it is ok to dislike the the fan art... :-)

However I would ask you to please do not dismiss the overall idea just because you do not like some examples of fan art given, and rather to try and comment on the text of the original post, rather than just about the pictures.

The pictures are really just there to make the post more visually attractive.

The Fan Art with the most pinkish skin (Fanfoxy's - I assume you refer to that one?) was chosen because it displayed an elegant (= not feral) elf mage, but the text of the original post is what matters most.

but again, if they already have pink skin why ask for that?

That's where you may have gotten a little confused, because I have not specifically asked for a pink skin.
I am just replying to you telling that the Night Elves should not allowed to have a pink skin.

As far as the skin is concerned, the original post goes as follow:

Pale/light skin shades such as ivory and light-grayish purple and blue, always as a part of the pastier looks reported by Brann.
Electric skin shades like Azshara's midnight blue/purple or even tones of deeper blue and purple, due to the use of magic.

There is no specific request for a pink skin here... because as I said, they already have it. :-)

For the Night Elf female, there are currently three shades of pink (1, 7 and 8) if you want to check.
Then there are a couple of shades of light blue/purple (6, 10), one ivory (5), and several purplish pinks with more red tinge (2, 3, 9).

What I was asking for, are some extra pale skin within the same palette range (ivory, purple, blue) since Brann reports the Highborne have a pastier look, and some more saturated colors similar to Aszhara in her different NPC models which I am assuming may be related to her use of magic.

[Capultro]

stop elfs please.not bad,but id like new things for humans,and,not black or chinesse humans....new humans like these htt ps://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/2401715-Alteraci-Human-Allied-Race-(Fan-Concept).new ideas would be nice,but stop with elfs please...there are too many elfs actually,ejem,couff couff DH couff couff....no more elfs in big time please..humans best race ever!!!i wait heritage set and new humans not fat popeye and fat girls more please...i never will play with kultirans,they are awfull,i dont want say horrible...or ridicoulous....

[matrix123mko]

There's also a Dark Troll in Zuldazar using the skin tone previewed at Blizzcon as an expanded customization option. They say they're the last survivor, but it makes sense to me that a few could have been hiding out in subterranean tunnels and were brought out of hiding by goblin sappers, at which point they realize pretty much every troll out there is signing up with the Horde and there are a lot of pissed-off night elves in 'if it moves, it dies' mode.

Interesting thought. I would like dark trolls to appear someday with some interesting storylines.

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God King of all trolls but they also had the other troll nations not part of the Zandalari empire and Zul trying to bring them in. This winds up with a vague area of lore where it's cool to have all these troll groups hanging out serving under Zandalar in some capacity and Zandalar apparently not involved in the world affairs otherwise... but lets just drop Farraki trolls into Zandalar somehow despite no other information on them since ZF was a ruin dungeon being cleared in cataclysm/classic

It could always be like Holy Roman Empire. You know, emperor is supposed to rule entire Reich but in practise he can only influence it a bit.

Wow always ignores logistics of world building. That's how we have a multi front war breaking out in Azeroth every couple years and still somehow able to handle maintaining cities and armies.

I think it is because of us being tied to our (sometimes)mortal characters. If they were still doing RTS, they would likely spread the story over centuries.

edit: on the subject of high born among the night elves...
Honestly the shendralar are probably the worst lore group around now due to all the retcons and continuity bullshit concerning elves and exposure (or lack there of) to magical fonts.

They somehow go centuries if not millenia without their magical font and come out "fine"? ok...

They use Immol'thar as their magical font. We kill it in Classic.

But something more to point out. players aren't making "shen'dralar" elves, they're making elves who are trained under them....

And people like Ravenmoon are asking to give us possibility of playing Shen'dralar.

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Rastakhan was called king of all trolls in the non-canon RPG

Sorry then. WoWpedia is sometimes updated very slowly.

The Alliance can field armies of Gnomes, Draenei and Void Elves as well apparently

Draenei at least had a huge spaceship of them. We know that orcs slaughtered huge percentage of them but even then it is percentage of population of a race that lives for 25000+ years and isn't said to have lower fertility than humans.

[Astranea]

stop elfs please. [...] ...no more elfs in big time please.

No need to worry pal, nobody is asking for another race of elves. Just some extra customization (jewelry and a bunch of skin and hair colors) for the current Night Elves. This thread is about customization, NOT extra allied races.

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Honestly the shendralar are probably the worst lore group around now due to all the retcons and continuity bullshit concerning elves and exposure (or lack there of) to magical fonts.

They somehow go centuries if not millenia without their magical font and come out "fine"? ok...

As someone already pointed out, they fed on magic from the demon Immol'thar.

Mind you however, this magic was cleansed of fel, so they did not get tainted.

There's no retconning in the Shen'dralar being Highborne, remainly mostly unchanged (although being slightly paler as reported by Brann) and rejoining the Night Elves and serving the faction.

Players aren't making "shen'dralar" elves, they're making elves who are trained under them....

That's how it needed be back then, because the starting area for the Night Elves had a unique storyline.

However, if I understand correctly, in Shadowlands the starting area for all new characters is going to change, and this is the core of why the players will be alllowed to select a much broader range of customization for their characters.

For example:

- A player will be able to pick a Wildhammer Dwarf, while this customization would have not made sense when the starting area only concerned the mountain dwarves from Ironforge.

- A players will be able to pick a Blood or Dark Troll, while this customization would not have not made sense for a Darkspear as these skin colors belonged to other tribes.

- A players will be able to pick different ethnic Humans, while this customization would have not made sense when the Human starting area only concerned people from the neighborhood of Stormwind.

Which is why some players are now feeling entitled to ask to be able to pick a Shen'dralar Night Elf, powerful arcanist of ancient Highborne nobility, considering their people have already been living among the Night Elves since Cataclysm. :-)

[Georg Von Vitzthum]

I believe I already told you several times that it is ok to dislike the the fan art... :-)

However I would ask you to please do not dismiss the overall idea just because you do not like some examples of fan art given, and rather to try and comment on the text of the original post, rather than just about the pictures.

The pictures are really just there to make the post more visually attractive.

The Fan Art with the most pinkish skin (Fanfoxy's - I assume you refer to that one?) was chosen because it displayed an elegant (= not feral) elf mage, but the text of the original post is what matters most.



That's where you may have gotten a little confused, because I have not specifically asked for a pink skin.
I am just replying to you telling that the Night Elves should not allowed to have a pink skin.

As far as the skin is concerned, the original post goes as follow:

Pale/light skin shades such as ivory and light-grayish purple and blue, always as a part of the pastier looks reported by Brann.
Electric skin shades like Azshara's midnight blue/purple or even tones of deeper blue and purple, due to the use of magic.

There is no specific request for a pink skin request here... because as I said, they already have it. :-)

For the Night Elf female, there are currently three shades of pink (1, 7 and 8) if you want to check.
Then there are a couple of shades of light blue/purple (6, 10), one ivory (5), and several purplish pinks with more red tinge (2, 3, 9).

What I was asking for, are some extra pale skin within the same palette range (ivory, purple, blue) since Brann reports the Highborne have a pastier look, and some more saturated colors similar to Aszhara in her different NPC models which I am assuming may be related to her use of magic.

I wasn't, but now i will dismiss the entire idea just because you are annoying me and didn't get my point

[Mace]

Pretty much, while the art is beautiful, those essentially look like Thalassian elves with a lighter purple shade (lighter than void or night elves) and then lighter/blonde hair. Highborne looked just like night elves to my knowledge, and those who migrated to eastern kingdoms evolved into the thalassian elves we know today. Maybe there were some blonde highborne, but I've never seen any official art of it.

I disagree. I only got that impression of the last female. The others are completely based on the in-game night elf model face or an adaptation of it. If they remind you of Thalassian elves, that's hardly surprising, they're elves, but I feel all the pics there save from the very last female one look based on the Darnassian models

the authors are basing them on their in-game character, so they are using blizzards model.

Take the first male, one with the crstal orbs and the gold circlet, that is based off the classic model of the night elf male, one of the faces, properly brought to high def.

THe one my avatar is b ased on , reminds me or a more angular night elf face, it's handsome, but not the pretty of the blood elf male

Also bear in mind that faces are just arbitrary too be honest. humans, elves, draenei etc all are based on human faces only tauren/troll/orcs and all the furries are distinct non-human faces. human, forsaken, all elves, dwarves and gnomes

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Highborne Night Elves definitely look different from their more savage cousins:

Not cousins, kin. Same race, just carry , dress and augment themselves differently, which allows for a different appearance And they're not more savage, more humble - but even the more savage ones like the aggressive sentinels 9note not all sentinels) or the demon hunter Illidari. the Illidari is a different

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but we did saw undead npcs without exposed bones...

And they aren't getting "new" colors, other tribes as far we know are being available under the darkspear, canon colors, since we saw then.

I don't think we are going too much distant to get a pinkish white night elf, who doesn't exist in the canon, more or less variations of we already have, like, i can see more blue night elves, since i think Azshara was more blue in the old Dungeon, but the fanart are looking way too much of blood elves, even their body shape, i imagine the night elves getting more muscular "savage" options in general.

I'm sorry, maybe on some of the art, but these ones look very night elfy.


Highborne by Beurghes on DeviantArt


Highborne male by Zelulae on Thumblr


Highborne female by Aloija on DeviantArt


The Highborne by LiberLelula on DeviantArt


Highborne female by Nozomi-N on DeviantArt


And ofc





Only FanFoxy's pic looks like a blood elf.. none of the others do.
Beurghes' which is what my avatar is based on, is a variation of one of the night elf skin tones, it clearly has a purple tinge to it, it does not look peach/pale skinned like the blood elf. His face doesn't look like any blood elf either, but reminds me of an adapted night elf and is a perfect addition to the night elf faces.

Zelulae's is bluish moon white, a variation of azshara's and the moon white skin tone also on the in-game night elf model but with a blue arcane tinge. It must be noted that the colour purple of the night elves is due to the arcane as well. Arcane colours range from silver white to purple (just look at the lore associate with it and the spell colour schemes - white, bluish, purple are the 3). There is a night elf male skin tone that is like this btw, I assume her b/fs toon she based this on has that. Look at his face, it is directly drawn from one of the classic night elf male faces.. one which somehow did not make it to the high def 6.0 models but actually looks good.

Aloija's female is a moon white colour too, that is one of the option s of the night elf skin tones on females. I know this because my mage use that tone. It's not human/blood elf peach, but silvery moon white.

Finally Nozomi's one doesn't look blood elf to me either, an interesting adaptation, no night elf looks like that, but it would do as a unique new face if they chose to run with it, although it's not the female faces that need improvements, its the male ones. Her skin tone colour is a purple that would fit the night elves, I don't think that shade is available in-game currently

Finally Azshara's purple-tinged Azure. Yes it is blue but purple tinged. Almost electric, that is also very fitting.


Frankly I really don't see what you mean... Unless you don't realise that blood elves and night elves will and should have some level of similarity and cross over, as they are elves you know, and this is already ther ein the game from their models through to their architecture. Whiles the Thalassians have a distinct style it shares commonalities with the Darnassiasn, look at the domes in Darnassus, then look at silvermoon, they're just variationsof those domes with a different compostion, however SIlvermoon has many other structure,s including towers and straight buildings not seen in night elf stuff. SHift over to Suramar, and you see a more elaborate and intricate version of Darnassus' domes, which makes sense as it is a city based on the night elf empire at its height. Now the elaborate style of thsese will remind you of Silvermoon, again whose domes are based off Darnassus' cos they are elves, and Suramar extends the night elven version of that. Yet you will see new versions of night elf buildings, as if the highborne came in and replaced the wooden buildings of Darnassus with the more elegant ones of Suramar

But they are connected. Cos they are elves. Until TBC, night elves and thalassians shared the same base model, sure slightly different face, with the right skin tone, eyes and ear angles, but it was the same, TBC when they introduced the playable blood elf gave it a unique model silhouette, but in the original WC3, the two elves were basically the same, with one being a purple version of the other.

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Yes but you forget one crucial thing.. and that is the story is mobing forward and blizz cleared pushed that high nobel/arcane vibe to the nightborne. The night elves abanddon that lifestyle many years ago.. so to give something to night elves that they never had in 14 years of wow? To just add because horde has it or they used to have it( not even in wow) is a bad argument.

I see the wish and appeal I guess... , but without getting in a negative debate. I am not s huge fan of it sorry.

That's the wrong way of looking at it. Nightboren were never going to make the highborne obsolete, or do you think because Nightborne arrived they would delete the highborne mage?

I mean, did Highmountain make Tuarne obsolete or Lightfroged make Draenei obsolete? Then why would Nightborne make highborne obsolete when their a skinny ex-addict version of a night elf, while the highborne is a fully healthy still in prime kaldorei representing thevestige of nearly lost and forgotten aspect of the night elf that once dominated the race.


Other evidence:
1. Did night elf mages disappear in 7.x? No we saw more, we saw Moonguard, we saw Farondis, we saw several Kiritnor affliated highborne too

2. Absent from the WoT? No, they are specifically mentioned and shown to be busy doing the portal work to save as many lives as possible. only 3 were sent to thewarfront and eventually killed.

3. Absent from the alliance victory? No, the cinematic for BFA (after Nightborne) show two highborne night elves casting magic at the horde

4. Absent in BFA? No, not only is Mordant Evenshade fighting in DArkshore warfront (where'd Tyrande go? ), but Assaults show night elf alliance mages and night elf flamecasters alongside void elf and human ones.


The Nightborne don't remove the need for the highborne, they are a different race of night elf, a sub-race, and are part of what make wow interesting, because we have these new subraces that do fifefernet. THe Nightborne are an off shoot of the kaldorei arcane civilization.. that same civilization and its culture exist on the night elves with the Darnassians. You may not have been shown it fulyl, but you are told it and an entire book is based on its re-introduction, with evidences of the elves from Catalcysm all through to BFA and not relenting.

Did you not know that the night elven arcane civilization is more popular amongst players than gnomes? Just look at the amount of highborne, Azshara, Nightborne fans out there, that's all night elf civilization. Ofc it would be, people relate more to civilization, so the druids and sentinels will always be niche aspects of the night elves, and if that was all to them, people would find them boring, especially with their arcane lore, and the rich stage blizzard created for them.

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there isn't much dark trolls to see either, they never stated exactly what they look like as far i know

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1 - Court of farondis as far i can see have no difference whatsoever, and we explored then quite a bit
2 - Editor's note implies its not canon
3 - Yet to see people complaining about then
4 - I didn't say i was not ok, you don't need to be like that, im just saying i can't see then deviating too much from the night elf base thematic, especially if goes too much to the blood elf side, i don't mind other colors or like people said jewelry, but those fanarts don't work in my eyes, too much blood elvish

No, they won't deviate from the night elf base.. highborne will use the same model, but will likely have altered stance , new hairstyles, faces, and features for more distinction.

The pale skinned peach rose "white" elf is a blood elf thing.. the night elf highborne is the exotic purple skinned elf, with appropriate variations - however remember there is bridge over, elves are elves afterall.

Those fanarts are based on actual night elf models - so it is quite incredulous to see you look at a high rez night elf model and go..that's more blood elven..just like people looked at Suramar, and some said, oh, that's more blood elven - I am like What? Is silver, purple and moon symbols, stars not enough of an indicator..or are you all now thinking that elves looking good or high class is a blood elf thing, so any night elf looking good, even using the exact same model, is suddenly more blood elf?

I guess those people will continuously be surprised when blizzard show more high class night elven highborne and others in the time to come. And no, that's not Nightborne, Nightborne are Nightborne, a night elf sub-race, just like zandlaari are zandlari, their own type of troll.

[Georg Von Vitzthum]

snip

two of those don't like night elf at all

[Mace]

two of those don't like night elf at all

But they could be. The only one that is a bit off Nozomi's night elf female, presumably it's modelled on her own face, the ears also seem halfway between a night elf and a blood elf . But part of what you would want, especially for the males, is new faces. The classic model had at least 4 different faces.. notice how Zelulae's is based on one such face that didn't seem to make it to the new models, but is in the old ones. And Beurghes would be a new one, but it would be a great addition, a face alongside Zelulae's that could be the pair that mark out the highborne male.(especially if blizzard use those for the npcs)

[ravenmoon]

My point about the Court of Farondis was that they look like nobility, rather than feral/savage Night Elves.

To be honest I've never seen night elves feral/savage, ever. Aggressive yes - some of the sentinels/wardens/DHs - but I think people get their wires crossed

They mistake simplicity and humility of druids preferring to live in nature, and the lack of WC3 showing night elves in cities and assume they're primitive, feral, savage.

When what they're really thinking of are feral Worgen and Trolls. I think when you think of an "Elf" - savage and feral as the main quality is certainly not the racial type. Sure some elven groups may have a savage side to them, or a nasty side to them, that doesn't make them overall savage.

However, Prince Farondis and his Court are definitely portrayed as nobility, the way they behave, talk etc, and the good kind, it is what I expect the Darnassian Highborne to behave like -i.e. the original highborne calibre that didn't get all arrogant and addicted like those closest to the Queen's Court. Farondis' Court showed itself to be distinctive to be the only one to rise against Queen Azshara and not follow the reckless irresponsibity that was going on in Zin'Azshari.

To me, in the Farondis, blizzard showed what highbonre are like in their right mind and original calling. Nightborne show night elven civilization already riddled with addiction and the haughty arrogance prevalent in the pre-sundering invasion era. It is a typeset of most night elven societies, perhaps most so in Zin'Azshari.

People don't pay attention enough to night elves to pick up these details though. I like what they did. The Shen'dralar, Darnassian and Farondis highborne are excellent to form a full highborne society and community. If blizzard decide to move forward strongly with them. Which I hope they do.

Then I misunderstood there, because I thought you meant that the Night Elves could not get any Highborne customization because they are feral savages and any elegant customization belongs to the Horde side. But I may have confused your comment with someone else's, so you have my apologies if that is the case.

I do that sometimes too, but it can be easy too when there are vocal minority who want night elves to be savage - i'm like gimme a break, they're not a horde race and were never intended to be that, ever - their portrayal from day 1 in WC3, with all the released material and the consistency of it up to the present day could not be more clear - whether they are showing you druids in their humble setting, sentinels, highborne, or demon hunters or Priestess in Elune pre-sundering or vigil)

Worgen are the savage version, so are the Dark Trolls. Night elves I keep having to remind people, were not created as some primitive, less intelligent version of blood elves just because they live differently and the way hteir groups work are different. THe night elf at base is more intelligent and more naturally magically attuned with a higher affinity and tolerance than the blood elf is naturally. In game, playable blood elves use arcane suffusion, playable night elves (unless you're a mage do not) that sunwell suffusion accounts for the raised intelligence of the blood elf, but without it the night elf would be higher, and the highborne night elf, because they use arcane magic would have an average higher than the Thalassian Elf.

BLizzard created the nighte lf as the original full elf, the blood/high elf is the more humanised (human-like) elf. Sadly they are bringing DnD stereotypes and ESO ones to wow.

As stated previously, perfectly free not to like all the art used as example.
I am just trying to say that the concept of Night Elves Highborne as a whole should not be dismissed because of the fan art used to illustrate it.

My take is that Blizzard could easily implement a few extra colors, jewels and new pretty faces for the Night Elves to make their nobility playable for those who'd like such a character more than a feral elf. This would not break the Night Elves lore, because the Shen'dralar Highborne are canon.

I don't need them to look exactly like the fan art listed. Those are just examples.
(Just like my forum avatar. Would that look like a Blood Elf to you, too, or do you think it could be an acceptable Night Elf noblewoman?)

And I whole heartedly agree with you.
Look, I wouldn't get myself too flustered by some, it's an open discussion tbh, and there would be some who don't know much about night elf lore, or sotpped updating their lore from when they first introduced them

I would guess the majority of the players of WC3 have not read WotA, which incidentally was commissioned to be written before WC3 was released, meaning that all that lore was originally intended for the night elves from the start, and the WC3 manual indicates this strongly. They either don' t know this or forget to factor it in, because once you've played WC3 1000 times, or levelled 100 toons in classic seeing the same thing over an dover again, it's easy to have your impression dominated by that, especially if you don't read lore or follow it.


So they charge in on forums stating only what they know or have paid attention ro remember, and it is up to us to gently and politely point out to the m what the whole lore is showing, and point out again the evidence the game backs this up. AFterall, the Shen'dralar, the highborne, the nighborne, the Monguard, and all the settings of the night elf changes in 4.0 and 7.0 are all part of lore that was hashed out in WC3.. y et in WC3, it was largely the female sentinel warrior/huntress we saw. We didn't even see much of priests/druids (except as units) but outside Malfurion and Tyrande, only female sentinel/warriors actually had lines in WC3 - so those who played it then, tend to think of night elvs as largely female warrior Amazonian type race.

But they again are making a classic mistake, trying to peg a Warcraft race into 1 thing. First it was female amazon warriors, then it was treehugger druids, now its highborne or illidari.

The truth is the ngiht elves are all these 4 thigns, these are the 4 major things about this. The role of the arcane is greatest - their creation iand their greatest period of peace and development, their greatest magical skill set and the events that have characterised them for the alst 15,000 years, not to mention chief amongst them is the Well of Eternity and the Moonwells. Arcane waters. Next is Goddess, Elune has been in every part of night elf society and all its castes, sure Azshara at one point was the least respectful of Elune but in her reign to the very end the Priest caste order was a powerful order, especially knowing their would be no night elf empire without the Night Warriors - s o it wasn't just the arcane wielding Moonguard - and FYI, the Priesthood wields the arcnae in battle, we know that from the blackmoon ritual , Tyrande's spells in End times instant, and ofc, the starfall spel lin WC3.

3rdly is actually nature.. ELves are great nature loves, and this is a strong part of the night elves, it is powerful and strong alongside the arcane and Elune, a vital necessity during the Long Vigil because the main night elf group felt he practice of Arcane (not the arcane, but the practice of it magically) needed to be banned on pain of death because its use was the only thing known to draw the Legion to Azeroth and capable of brining them here (not it wasn't hatred of the arcane or fear of it - quit the opposite, the use of the Well of Eternity, and the Moonwells during the long vigil are evidence of the love of arcane, and the lore tells us they are connected to the well of eternity, this is why the eyes glow silver. They are suffused with power, the Thalassians disrespect them because they did not utilise that power choosing to act in fear (as they saw it) rather than embrace their heritage (which is a derogatory viewpoint of the high elves, that applies only to the Long Vigil group, not the highborne Shen'dralar nor the Nightborne).

Finally is Fel, now the fel users are demon hunters/warlock Illidari that use fel against the legion, they don't love demons and have grandiose visions of ruling the world with their power like most locks do, they use and employ demons ruthelessly, to finih the threat of the legion. Their numbers are much smaller but their impact is huge. the demon hunters, Illidan and their lore taks almost as much space as the nature, the arcane and female warrior sentinels. If anyone cared to pay attention.


All in all, they are far from a 1 trick pony. People really ought to stop pegging them as such, and it would behove us to remind them so.