It’s wierd with the World Trees and their importance to the Night Elves. Basically all but Hyjal were icons to Fanral Staghelm’s hubris, especially Teldrassil, which he planted, as a replacement for Nordrassil, while that was recovering, from destroying Archimonde making it less than 30 years old by the time of it’s destruction…
I don’t really care for the pairing, as the two never had much in common and for the most part it’s only portrayed from the NE perspective, while the Forsaken have Humans, Worgen, Dwarves and a load of other more relevant stuff to worry about.
I don’t consider the Nightborne any closer to Darnassians than the Blood Elves. There is even an argument to be made for them being farther removed, as their isolation happened a couple milenia earlier than the exile of the highborne.
What I mean is, is that the Nightborne live in that “pre-sundering” Highborne lifestyle and that is the slice that they have, from their core race counterpart.
Whilst the Night Elves have everything (perhaps not that highborne lifestyle, but got highborne mages.)
Both lost their homes and my hope was that Night Elves and Forsaken would get their respective homes back.
Perhaps opening up the Dark Ranger customization once both stories had been completed, with Delaryn returning to Kaldorei civilization.
It’s the story they built as Nordrassil had blessed them with their immortality and their charge in watching over the world was in-part due to Nozdormu’s blessing.
Shal’dorei are really quite unique. They’re incredibly distinct from Kaldorei now, definitely much more than Ren’dorei are from Sin’dorei, in terms of culture, history and aesthetics. I frankly consider them a brand “new” Elven race
Indeed they are distinct enough from the Night Elves that Blizzard was still unsure if they were going to make them playable in the Horde or Alliance by the end of Legion, so they thought they could work well with the Night Elves and were different enough from them.
Eventually they chose the Horde because they realized the story of Alleria and the Void could be expanded upon by giving her her own race of “Void Elves”, but if you notice, Thalyssra tried to join the Alliance at first, before meeting the mistrust of Tyrande that brought her closer to Lady Liadrin and the Blood Elves as a result…
Both Shalassians and Darnassians embody drastically different ways of life, from the pre-sundering era. Inviting over a couple ruin dwellers isn’t going to really change that dynamic.
Not a big fan of this, because it fundamentally fails to address 2 things. Why the hell would the Darnassians be alright living alongside undead and more importantly what happened to the whole “Elune betrayed me and Tyrande abandoned us!” grudge the NE Dark Rangers supposedly held?
I’m not sure you understand what I’m saying. It’s not about the lore in this regard.
The Nightborne life is how the Kaldorei used to live…a very “Highborne” lifestyle. That sort of life is just one small slice of the overall Night Elf race and that is how it should be, for the allied races.
Whilst the Night Elves have the whole package, the Nightborne have just the old-highborne package. With this, I don’t imagine much in the way of Shen’dralar lore development. Maybe the odd Mage here and there.
I’m kind of rooting for Delaryn returning to the Kaldorei and Sira Moonwarden replacing as the leader of the Horde Kaldorei Dark Rangers. Not that I don’t like having Delaryn in the Horde but I know Alliance folks would be glad to get her back, and I like Sira somehow
Now, that’s interesting. And we don’t really need to have an impact, to feel involved in the outcome. I wouldn’t have cared about Dragonflight succession, but making it a choice that changes my gameplay experience might well make it feel relevant to me.
I understand what you mean and agree that the primary races should be more important than allied race counterparts overall, however i disagree that the Darnassians should be considered a “whole package” given that they deliberately distance themselves from the Highborne’s legacy.
Nightborne gives that slice of how the Night Elves used to live.
Night Elves still have Highborne in their ranks (not sure how as they’ve been getting killed thrice, but we’ll let that slide) so they still offer the complete package - but if you want a more city-like night-based elf, then you have the Nightborne.
The Shal’dorei feel like a specific entity that’s descended from Highborne culture rather than a time capsule of what that Highborne culture was. Their looks, France-inspired names & courtier society, 10K years of isolation and interest in astronomy and telemancy make them pretty unique.
They don’t “still have them” It’s the Shen’dralar teaching people, with magical affinity, who would otherwise have been trained as druids. Their reconnecting with the Darnassians was very recent and quite tenuous, with the subsequent events making them little better than an afterthought, in the grand cultural scheme of things.
It would no doubt be interesting to see them branch out and grow into something that’s their own, as a bridge between the Darnassians and the Highborne’s legacy, however we don’t really have that.
New Ion Hazzikostas interview : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz7X4NYypaw&t=3s
Dragon Flight was already in development before SL came out
Zones are designed to feel more alive, with the various groups and NPCs acting like they’re living their daily lives. Devs want to distance themselves from the older designs in which the zones mostly met gameplay purposes
No new Allied Race planned for Dragon Flight right now, at least not on expansion release ; ARs is not a feature they’re giving up on however, and new ones may be added in the future when it fits the story. Right now they’re focusing on the Dracthyr
Also : https://mobile.twitter.com/Wowhead/status/1548699049267568642
There’s a… Gnoll talking animation. Does it mean there will be friendly Gnolls in DF ? That would be a first in WoW, outside of Sayge from the Darkmoon Faire
Could be that Gnolls have something bigger in the pipeline than their tipical canon fodder number 4
With the Zones, in isolation they’ve generally delivered reasonably well, however the problems begin to arise, when you start looking at them together, as a package, which is eventually supposed to tie into the expansion’s primary conflict and establish the status quo, for the endgame. With the last expansion to effectively pull this off being MoP. Their proclamation of bigger and better concerns me, because they run the danger of trying to do too much too fast or end up creating lots of space, with meaningless fluff.
Well of course now that they are cuter, they will be allowed to be friendly, at least some of them
The Gnolls in the Ghostlands took over a gold mine so I don’t think the Blood Elves would really like to establish friendly relationships with them until they are there at least…I still dislike them less than the Amani, tho. In WC3 some Gnolls actually attacked Arthas and the Scourge during the invasion unlike the Trolls so at least the Gnolls were not willing to let the undead ruin Quel’thalas just to see the High Elves killed and defeated…
My understanding was that a lot of that “bigger and better” was “empty space” though, rather than making every piece of the map a quest area. And while the product can still be bad, this once again seems like them sayng the right things to me.
There is a balance to be struck and with the revamped flying i think that they allow themselves more leniency, in that regard. I definately feel you on some areas being too stuffed, but at the same time travel between objectives shouldn’t feel like the week before a paycheck.
SL zones felt so… narrow ? Like a room that’s hard to breath in and that you desperately want to get out of. Not sure how to phrase it but there was definitely something wrong with their design. At this point all I’m asking for is big empty spaces to be honest
you would like that I guess 