They were using Arcane Missiles, like the Void Elves, to attack the Horde races.
It’s their standard stance for spells.
They never did have a different stance anyway. I’m not sure what the big problem is for Night Elves to just stand…like…Night Elves…? Sorry, am I missing something here?
Not those, the Archers and sentinels with their bows and weapons.
It’s modelled on a more humble demeanor, reminiscent of a druid, I can see my parents yelling stand up straight.
I mean the pose stance. When you are standing still. As a highborne it is fitting to look commanding, Lordly, regal - rather than humble-peaceful typeset.
I noticed these little details and I believe they do too.
Oh…well everyone has that particular stance when using a bow and arrow.
We see it commonly used with Sylvanas’ Undead Dark Rangers and Lor’themar’s Farstrider Retinue in Nazjatar.
But it’s not something that’s needed and rather than trying to make such a pose work for the Night Elf race, they should working on features that are easily workable, such as jewelry and other things.
Edit: Hell, I’d say - never mind Silver eyes for Night Elf/Highborne styles. I’m in favor of purple eyes for Night Elves with Arcane tattoos.
I’d have to concur. Things like jewelry, better looking faces (males), symbolic arcane kaldorei features like tattoos or star effects surely are more important.
p.s. And you can’t limit them to class either, What if you’re a Highborne that is a warrior-mage or a hunter? Or a Farstrider that left the order because you had a new calling say to the Light (like Alleria did to the void? ). It may be rare, but that is the sort of choice blizzard envision - and they will hopefully provide.
Oh it makes a difference, the DH is an example of how slight animation and carry pose difference make it look so much better than the regular Night elf male. You notice it, and it sells the fantasy.
Curious how you are okay with arcane tattoos which Nightborne have coming to Highborne not the Nightborne stance? But to answer my own question - It doesn’t seem tattoos are exclusive to one race, and I guess all they need vary is how the arcane tattoo looks.
WoW head has some pictures of new night elf tattoos, they could actually just change those to an arcane effect, and give a different symbol for example?
Because the idle pose, is the firest impression you get. You should be able to look at how their standing and go “Ah, Highborne”
I think he’s thinking about the Male Night elf - the female is fine. I might agree with on the male though a bit goofy.
I am pretty sure the pale and human looking skin colors they are giving to night elves is representative of highborne people. If you read the chronicle, losing the purple hue in their skin was basically the first change that happened to them.
Because:
But purple eyes, arcane tats and playing a Night Elf Mage already give you the “Ah Highborne” expression.
But, the problem with the Nightborne models is that they can’t do as much as the night elf models.
Night Elves should look and stand like Night Elves. They are not Nightborne.
But it depends on what they looked like as Night Elves.
We can see that the Shen’dralar Zealots have very blue-ish and quite filthy, skin tones.
The Highborne ghosts in Zin-Azshari have a various array of skin tones and hair colours.
That description was telling how a specific group of highborne became high elves. The skin tone is them as high elves, not as highborne.
Highbonre would have purple tones like the every night elf. In gmae does tend to use lighter shades of purple, but since as yet highborne haven’t been given any “distinctive” skin tones as they haven’t been given a unique customisation, Queen Azshara’s skin tone is th eonly definite one we could say is Highborne.
IN the books, he cste use the arcane well the most, and it is the Well that is responsible for their purple colouration. This should mean typically Highborne would have darker purples, and blue tinges too.
Colours of arcane are silver, purple and blue - both as sieen in game and as mentioned in lore. e.g. Silver eyes of night elves is the arcane power within them, purple hue skin is the arcane Well’s influence too, and blue is another colouration commonly seen in the arcane.
Notice how Night elves have: Silver skin, one that’s bluish tinged, and lots of purple hues.
Nightborne skin tones are nightwell influenced most likely, but its possible highborne are similar. The elite section of Suramar Nightborne are likely all Highborne.
This is as far as i know.
Definitely the male, it’s awful, I can hear dad shouting, stand up straight.
I suspected as much, but I imagine the Nightborne pose is how blizzard imagine the Highborne, because the Night elves during that era were Highborne led, and the urban centres would have been most influenced by them.
And as quests showed, while the night elf changed a little (skinnier, upturned ear tips), their culture and attitude is exactly that of the invasion period of the pre-sundering era. i.e. what you read in WotLK.
Head over to Azsuna, which is the part of Suramar country the Highborne Suramar led the world in magical research, the attitudes are different. This may be because Prince Farondis led his people with the nobility of the original HIghborne or/and they were further away from the mega cities, where highborne would Lord it over the castes, and this province were all Highborne so such attitudes didn’t develop amongst them - showing you what.
It does, especially if you have ornamentation etc, but you notice these things more on close up… from a distance, it’s the pose. The running and fighting/casting animations need to be night elf so you know its a night elf ofc, but the pose can be different.
I was thinking of the male, didn’t quite think of the females, they seem fine though, they look like they’re standing straight.
It could be the males in robe/skirts model that’s off though, it’s something blizz would have to decide.
@Leíá-argent-dawn - since Nightborne are pretty much night elves, I don’t think their stance or tattoos are really the defining thing, especially since those are more linked to their kaldorei arcane and cultural habits … it’s their ears, unique faces and skinnier toned down NElf body that is trully unique.
This is why I think the stance can be shared, but I would prefer a different one nonetheless - I still think Highborne would distinguish themselves from other Night elves in ways like that - it fits their character.
They should also fix the limitations on Nightborne models, but what did you mean couldn’t do as much as others?
Exactly. The highborne who become pale from being exiled during the long Vigil by Malfurion’s group are a specific group we famously know become High elves… the pale skin is a result of them being cut off from the well.
HOWEVER… it could be possible that their skin was already mostly lighter/paler, with a purple tinge, and the removal from the Well of Eternity upon their exile, caused that tinge to go, leaving just the skin tones we have now.
Another observation is that if sun causes high elves to get tanned, then the same must happen on Night elves - because they’re the same race.
So we can also assume Night elves with darker skin tones, would include those who used teh Well of eternity more, but worked during the sleep hours of the day. Especially outdoors - which would mean druid types mainly and hunter/rogue types who can sometimes prefer off hours which for night elves is the day time.
Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t farstriders a part of the Belf army ? What could be considered as Farstrider customisation beside their armour ?
It did, until they humbled.
The thing is, if Nightborne weren’t a thing now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Night Elves can still look “Highborne” and keep the pose they’ve got. Besides, as the Dwarves have stated, their is very little difference actually between Highborne and their kin, barring skin colours are seemingly more pastier.
Their idle poses are far more limited in what they do, unlike the other allied races, who have a shared model with a core race.
If they were to give Night Elves “purple eyes”, you wouldn’t need a pose as you could see and think:
“Ahh that Night Elf has been around/wields the Arcane at some point.”
The pose is truly not needed.
But you’ve just said it yourself.
The Highborne of Azsuna didn’t need a change in pose or model to distinguish them. Through actions and core values, they are distinguished as Highborne.
Extra things like purple eyes and arcane tattoos, just emphasis the point of night elven arcana, a little more.
Again, who’s saying that all night elf magi are highborne anyway? What about if it’s one of Estulan’s Apprentices? They are not Highborne. They are Kaldorei Apprentice Magi, learning the ways of magic from Estulan and Vestia Moonspear.
I have to take a stand against the idea that the Nightborne pose should be shared, because it’s the only Legion allied race that is unique in that regard and, as a Shal’dorei fan, I want that to be preserved to only the Nightborne.
Night Elves can still look akin to Nightborne through other means.
Unlikely.
Only the Highborne of Suramar, who were feeding off the Eye of Aman’thul, were given those Nightwell skin tones.
The regular Night Elven Highborne, such as the Shen’dralar and even those Lowborne Magi of the Moon Guard, do not hold the same skin shades as the Shal’dorei. That’s crucial to uphold.
I think he’s thinking along the lines of how Alleria looks/looked in her “High Elf” appearance as well as Lor’themar Theron.
Small tattoos and other bits and pieces, but again, I have to point out that such appearances have to be shared.
If I want my Blood Elf Warlock to have what is considered “Farstrider appearance” then I will give her a Farstrider appearance.
Farstriders are an Order, like an elite group in the defense of Quel’thalas, they are not army or regular troops. THey are the Thalassian equivalent of the Sentinels.
They are the ones patrolling the forests, hunting, etc etc. The skirmishes with the Amani in the Guerrilla type warfare and the intelligence officers are Farstriders. By far the most famous Thalassians, the Windrunners are all Farstriders and they play a bigger role in the Blood elf levelling experience than the Blood Knights, on par with the Magisters.
So you’d expect things like
And while Elves can remove their scars magically, you can imagine an organisation like the Farstriders, would have a tradition of scars been worn as badge of honour, showing a different more unique side to the blood elves.
IT is up to the developers to well…develop their lroe and races, make them interesting.
Thalassians and Night elf kinds a hugely popular, so people tend to fixate much more on thier details and get a lot more into their fantasy. This is why they are typically designed with several options. Given diversity.
Apparently while high/blood elves were never initially intended to be a full race of their own but just part of the allaince group (WC3), Night elves were designed to be a full race which is why they have this massive lore, arcane highborne/moon guard, druids and nature forest, then Priestesses of elune with sientinels/warden and other things like Demon Hunters etc… they feel like a faction when you add corresponding assets.
SInce TBC, the High elves became full fledged race, although like Forsaken are linked to humans, theya re to night elves, yet they were properly beefed up. We see 3 major facets of the Thalassian.
To that they added:
Compare that to Night elves who essentially only got Nightborne as a new thing in all of Warcraft - but Night elves had muhc more to start with, especially if you add Cenarians (i.e. Dryads/Keepers), Satyrs, and Naga in their bestiary/lore bracket.
This means customisation to flesh out and give players access to these aspects are really important. The most prominent groups in both these race that players love the most are:
Neither are really having their models properly reflect them. SUre the existing models with gear can pass fothem like you said… but I highlight the Night elf male who has an eye cover mask option, a gear head piece with horns and Illidans legendary Blades of Azzinoth - now that could do a makeshift Demon hunter right? But it’s not a patch on the actual thing when blizzard actually did the appearance for the class.
Having the model specifically designed to reflect these aspects of society is great.
I think that’s just a case of blizzard not doing a specific customisation for them yet, when they eventually do things like that, they always go back and change all the associated NPCs
Blood elves and Zandalari are famous examples, as are Demon hunters too, prior to doing them properly they used standard Night elf and troll models.
I would assume this is the case with the Highborne they show in Azsuna and Darnassus. Should they want a customisation option to specifically be linked to Highborne, they’d likely change the NPCs or all the new ones henceforth would use that. It depends on how they’ve indexed them.
You auto random the indexed ones with the new custoimsation options. If not indexed, it’s too much work to go back and change all, you just show new ones that way…which works for Highborne ibecause old ones can pass off too as highborne, where this was not the case for blood elf, Zandalari or Demon Hunter.
So if Highborne aren’t indexed specifically do not expect existing ones to change, unless it’s a major character given a unique model.
This would be the logical thing to do.
But this isn’t a case of Night Elf model/Highborne model because both are the same. The Highborne are simply Night Elves and vise-versa.
But that would be an NPC thing. You won’t stop people from playing a Night Elf Death Knight or Night Elf Rogue, also using, what you would consider the “Highborne model.” That is something that would simply, happen.
We can’t be having these “let’s change the model for these select classes” because it doesn’t work like that. It’s not how Blizzard operates and they don’t operate like that because they can’t. I play a Night Elf Death Knight. Why should I be disallowed from using the Highborne model? I can RP my Death Knight as a former Highborne.
Sadly, so far, no sign of either. Whiles the new skins are appreciated, nothing screams Farstriders.
Nothing screams highborne either. WE continue to wait.
Well actually, black hair and orange hair can be “Highborne” style.
The Highborne Elves in the Azshara Warbringer had black hair and the orange hair…well, it looks gaudy. Highborne are known for gaudy clothes and poor fashion sense. 
This has been a great discussion so far, thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone!
What other customisation options would you like to see based on what’s been shown so far?
Night Elf jewelry, like earrings.
Gaudy jewelry to drive the point, home.
I’d also add purple eyes and tattoos to influence an “Arcana” influence.
We’ve seen male Night Elves receive upper-body tattoos, both arms and facial, but I think the skin colors need to be more “in-your-face” in a way. Vibrant, glowing purple for those who have been around the arcane/wield the arcane.
I would absolutely love a short non spikey hair that’s not just the helmet default hair
The void elf hairmodel 11 for men (wowhead dressing room) is perfect, you don’t even need to devoid it
Its the only real thing I was hoping to get for Belf customisation (but the other options we are getting are cool too)