We are never told that, and like many things in wow, we wiat to find out why/how.
We can only speculate on several things, the most noticeable shift from highborne night elf to high elf is going from nocturnal to diurnal. The casting off of kaldorei cultural motiffs, belifs and symbols, including worship of the moon goddess and switching to the veneration of the sun might exlain the shift.
The religion also changes, so it ispossible the light already plays a role in the sunwell, although this is pure speculation with no lore account to draw this from save the colour used is shared with the light.
I suspect they make it golden to match the radiance of the sun they are fascinated with. i think they relish their new distinct identity from all things night elvesn whether pre-sundering or long vigil).
I thought about that too, they also chose Quel'thalas because it most resembled Kalimdor.
But then this isn't entirely surprising, put yousrelves in their shoes, they hate the highborne culture for its excess and recklessness that brought the legion and destroyed the wonderful night elf empire they had all worked so hard to build and perfect, they hate the Kaldorei of the long vigil, becuase they exile them over something really stupid like banning arcane magic at a point in time it no longer makes sense to have a ban. Yet they're still night elves (albeit in transition), they love natural beauty and the land they had lived in and cultivated, the love the moon and stars, but they hate the cultural idnetity, in their travel they learn to appreciate the day and draw strength from it, as they feel the moon has rejected them and let them down, but it is still beautiful. however the sun is more radiant so they build their civilization around that, but choose a land that reminds them/resembles Kalimdor most (likely because this is what is most beauitful in all their travels), and they name their new capital Silvermoon.
My conclusion is blizzard hand'st thought much of it at the time, while the night elves may have been in the works from WC2, I think Silvermoon was named long before they had any idea the y'd do the original elves as night elves or what they would look like, let alone what their story would be. And in that context it seems silly that they'd name it silvermoon if they hate all thigns night elves ,but it also makes sense, because this is a part of them, and you may hate your kin, but you don't despise everything about them. They venerate the highborne who rebelled against Azshara, but absoutely disgusted with those that went all reckless (even though they were amongst them - yes you can hate your past self for some of the idiotic things you did, and distance yourself from crazy over excessive behaviour you use to do, knowing that drinking excessively is foolish, you hate drunkenness, but doesn't mean you give up alcohol altogether, becuase it is quite enjoyable, but such is only appropriate and fitting to be done in measured quantities)
I'm British English, U.K English is both my native and mother tongue. However I don't always spell check properly, and I do make a lot of errors while typing because I'm furiously typing away to spend as little time on Warcraft, it's worse if I respond on tablet or phone, autocorrect errors and more.. wasted enough time on this junk - yet I'm still posting.. lol. Made the classic mistake of popping into check for any news updated, then checked responses to previous comments, and noticed the topic, and got suckered into it...grr, and I was doing so well moving on.
what made you ask?
Last edited by ravenmoon; 2019-12-09 at 09:24 PM.
Getting offended is pointless unless it is something worthwhile, my ego doesn't count as worthwhile, nor does my pride.
Saying that though, immortality of the night elves was on of their major defining characteristics, yet they've been without it for more years (real time) than they have been with it. I use to wonder a lot what would happen with it... now I know it's not even worth spending time on.
They aren't in charge of anything more than their own mages.
True, but they were isolated since the sundering till the current decade and much of that time spent in isolation was NOT advancing new heights of arcane prowess but surviving and concealing their plans from each other.
I think the shendralar lost a LOT more than the nightborne... one ruined library doesn't quite compare to a whole as nation.
off set this by a couple millenia of secret culling of selves to staves off restrictions in arcane source, but sure.
nightborne are peachy due to the arcandor now so yeah it would make sense for suitable fonts to facilitate the way... the issue is that the Darnassian elves don't have such and aren't about to go join with others with the support of such fonts. The issue of other elves outside Surumar/Quel'thalas affiliation or even outside Darnassian influence really muck up the works. Farodin really doesn't make much sense nor do the moonguard presence
Ban might be lifted in cata (allowed for Shendralar to formally rejoin), but Stigma didn't end cause it is still a part of their story up through legion. BFA has little lore for any parties outside SI:7, 7th Legion, Kul Tiras, hero leader club, and the wood elf variant darnassians (aka the face of the alliance's Night Elves since WC3)
MY face when:
If I had a nickel for every time this happened in wow's lore... well I sure as shit would use that money to pay for the subscription few a good bit of time.
valewalker druid isn't part of teh darnassian society and likely not one who followed the long vigil. This point is rather pointless as it's like citing a Kul Tiran perspective on Stomrwind Politics when the Kul Tiran has been ignorant of developments in the human nations.... or hell, Alleria's ideas on the horde when she's been a thousand years separated from mortal affairs and doesn't even realize that 3 hordes have officially been organized in the realm of Azeroth in her absence.
I will continue to assert game spell schools don't equate to the same lore schools. It's a fact that if the druid spell schools were all nature a simple interupt would be the same as a 10 second silence. QoL change would have happened real quick to break that up. I think this is something that lore arcane has something else going on in the background from a learning perspective like how Druid 'nature magic' isn't the same as shaman 'nature magic' in terms of how it's practiced. Also there isn't any proof that Darnassian elves don't get hooked on magic or suffer in it's absence. We just don't see many stories concerning their magic interactions cause the lore focuses on Darnassians as 'wood elves' or the archer and amazon variety with a dash of druid here and there.
and a hefty bit of headcanon, but that's expected from you at this point
citation needed. My understanding of events is the city was issolated as a result of the war of the ancients and the sundering. There isn't much stating anything about what is happening in the city till roughly year 25 when we go in as part of classic and start poking around.
This is another odd consistency thing cause some 'demons' turn out aren't demons at all but classified as demons still. Void walkers have been demons since before void beings were established as their own things and demons have gone from being demonic beings from other planes ... to fel infused aliens from other worlds and the determining factor for some is still being embellished.
Because that makes more sense than your largely self thought up idea of a mana filtration thesis? The notion of different essence drawn from entities or filtering the energy througha system makes sense IRL, but such notions aren't set up or established in the lore... unless you want to continue with lost knowledge of the keldorei as your reasoning... Well you are Tsoukalos for the night elves so that would be par for the course.
desire for power and maintaining his position... but sure blame the demon solely. Was trying to figure out why you went on a tangent about who is or isn't evil.
Again, citation needed
But my issue is that the region was isolated for at least 10000 years. At some point the power shut off. Swapped to demons for maintaining power. Started culling their kind to make sure they had enough demon power fuel to maintain their desired levels of normal maintenance...
Actually it ENDS ends when the horde clears out more of the residents and the prince dies and they flee into the wilds. But yes, in classic.
That's probably because it's not meant to be a pristine maintained area.
Because Surumar was advancing while Eldre'thalas was killing it's own. They can both be dedicated to their practice but one was THRIVING while the other was clearly NOT.
Again the 'nerds' aren't really getting far, are not showing much in the way or new ideas except for the botched experiment that ran them into the ground and their methods for concealing that from their own peers in the city.
to be fair... most of us here think you gauge anything associated with the Darnassian branch of night elves incorrectly...
And these new fresh bunch are barely carrying the torch that you seem to regard as the mastery of the last 10 millenia... because they have been associated with it for 5~ years...
Another bunch who are 10 millenia out of practice and you want to argue as paragons of the arcane on par with people who continued and advanced in those same 10 millenia... I'm going to assume magical aptitude and it's application is a perishable skill... like marksmanship or athleticism. Don't take millenia long hiatus and expect to keep your edge.
They aren't darnassian. Again I was saying DARNASSIAN and post vigil types aren't going to be at all in the running for arcane paragon level casters. Farondi? Also not Darnassian. The moonguard? The ones I' seeing based on the broken isles... ALSO NOT DARNASSIAN.
I think you are attributing all of the pristine night elf societies facets to the modern night elf nation based out of Teldrassil despite teh fact that that nation banned or heavily restricted much of the facets of life you aspire to night elves everywhere. You then take examples of night elf organizations not associated with Darnassus in anyform as use them as examples. Farondis, the Moonguard, Shaldorei, the watchers of the Arcan'dor... none of these groups have any idea of inclination of the goings on of Teldrassil in the recent years and have no association with them at all. How they exist or have existed is not indicative of how DARNASSUS and the Alliance Night Elves have lived or existed. Eldre'thalas is a fallen city and the survivors who made it into Darnassian society do not impart the same credit that the nightborne have by virtue of them being 'highborne'
I agree with the bold... becuase I think it fully fell more than a thousand years before we get in there.
This is a very true statement but you can't call your idea of the 'complete' picture correct when it largely seems it is heavily based on information that is your assumptions or bias
The implications of a lost branch of night elf society and how it took different turns and development than the society we had available interacting with the world is a very interesting topic... but that doesn't retroactively impart anything concerning the "lost" society onto the society that had been present.
IT says there is a presence and it exists. This isn't saying HERE ARE THE ANCIENT PARAGON MAGISTERS OF OLD COME ANEW AMONG THE CHILDREN OF TEH STARS!!!! trying to posture that darnassian elves have in them the power to stand above the ranks of beings that have been engaging and advancing their understanding of arcane and arcane applications for tens of thousands of years when the darnassian ranks are all either fresh students within the past 5 years, ancient practitioners that haven't participated since the sundering (roughly 8k-10k year hiatus), or a specific school ofthought that's spent the better part of the last couple millenia (or longer... my bet is longer) dealing with the fallout from their biggest failed experiment since the war of the ancients.
There are humans who are more adept at magic in the remedial classes who've spent more time learning the ancient secrets of keldorei magics (cause that's what effectively founded the kirin tor)
We also don't see much about the assassination attempts directed at shendralar forces either... there's a laundry list of little details from non-human groups that seem to have details missing or mysteriously turn out going in a different direction these days.
Man it's always a chore going through your posts. I feel like I need someone to proof read and make sure I'm not repeating myself too much... Like citation needed on 1000 year mark in Eldre'thalas. You seem to attribute all night elf issues to a night elf hive group that doesn't exist or get portrayed in any fashion. Non-darnassian groups do not immediately get non-darnassian elves simply because they resemble them post sundering/vigil/etc. Outside the Valsharah druids, the other organizations have no explicit connections outside dealings with the player character. Posturing for moral standing at one point in the timeline doesn't really amount to much at a later point. Overly complicated thesis on metaphysical research with no in lore basis is also not a good point to stand on. Talk about looking at the complete picture all you want, but please for the sake of people's sanity... don't push your head canon and fan fiction as lore. I'm almost 100% certain some of the details discussed in here will pull one of your threads up as a top search via google and will be the only sources one could site if the information isn't present in an established wiki already.
Also, while I liked that reference to shendralar being nerds... they're the nerds like the scientists in a sci-fi horror flick where the team suffers the plot and their 'project' ran amuck. Nevermind that Surumar has multiple groups serving similar purpose while Ellisande pulls an edison fucking them over.
They only just started aging proper after that, so they'll die of old age eventually, but WoW's only taken place over like 15 years.
I know right? 10,000 years of nothing eventful, all of a sudden, BOOM. Maybe we're the problem.
Between this and the events of BFA I am all for night elves becoming canonically the horniest members of the Alliance. "I'm mortal, baby, time's a wastin'!"
This kind of makes me wonder about the timeline. From what I understand, every expac represents a year except for Cata which represented two. Like...how does this much stuff happen in such a short amount of time? The in-game passage of time is less than 9 years, yet even the passage of actual time since vanilla - 15 years - seems too short a period for all the events to have occurred on a single planet. Sometimes I feel like it would make more sense if the timeline just equaled year 22 after the Dark Portal + whatever the real passage of time is.
In ''Wolfheart'' mentioned elves who had died of old age, so yes, this is a plot hole, why Malfurion and Tyrande, perhaps the oldest elves now, look so young for their ages
Since Teldrassil was blessed without Nozdormu this time, and that it burned down anyways. Not to mention the drained waters from Nordrassil in Legion. It is save to say Nelfs are just mortal now like everyone else. And it was about damm time. They need to accept they are normal. As should their fans.