My Thoughts on the Heritage Questline
Well, I was surprised by this, it was better than I had expected. I found myself surprised how well the choice of quest subject worked. By being on the legion rather than specifically a druid threat or Elune issue or Moonguard/Highborne problem.
Centred around the Legion
The legion and the sundering is actually the focal point for night elves, in this is where both nature and arcane meet, pre-sundering and post sundering, and also where the demon hunters come in. Mages in the Moonguard, moon priestesses and sentinels and later Druids all fight against it in the night elf stories, and actually is the main antagonist of the race. they chose well for it to be involving demons. as that’s where all parts meet.
I found it amusing they chose a young night elf male mage too. Showing again the mage class grows amongst night elves (for those who want it dead especially the horde blood elf fan that wants all alliance elf mages deleted), this is in addition to the other night elf mage characters we meet, like the one in Azsuna who uses her magic to help and study the animals, the ones in Legion off course, the Starwhisper twins and the Leysaber mage [I’m speaking Darnassian ones, not Shen’dralar, or Farondis or Moonguard ones], then the ones who do all the alliance portals in WoD, and off course the Cata ones where we see the largest collection of night elves in both Feralas and Azshara learning and studying from older Highborne are very nice and appreciated especially for the wider balance they bring to the portrayal of night elves in the main game, which ahs often been too lopsided in favour of one side (mostly druids, then others like moon priestesses, sentinels, wardnes, highborne/moonguard or demon hunters - all very exciting and likeable aspects)
Full Impressions
I also feel it was important to help players see the night elves as more than just sentinels and druids - which is absolutely silly since they can play mages and Demon hunters too, and half the kaldorei storyline centres around mages and demon hunters. Although I know most of it is born out of people not really understanding the kaldorei of WC3 outlined in the game, it’s instruction booklet and the war of the ancients, they only remember the visuals of the game and so erroneously forget the kaldorei also has a massive civilization and culture, and it has a very strong arcane component as well as a nature one, and Elune sits in both, it is also centred around fighting great world evils, and it’s main enemy are demons of the legion.
Other things I liked.
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Maiev - I really liked her here, as my like for her has kept growing since Legion, since she stopped being unhinged - i also liked her back then, but she couldn’t be a favourite as crazy, she should be the personification of a no- nonsense side of the night elves that would gut you like a fish if you put a foot wrong, just like Illidan is a personification of of the power of the night elves that will seek anything to destroy the legion for what they did - you can get behind that. Tyrande is the personification of the Elune side of the night elves and the mysterious moon goddess and the wonder of the stars, while Malfurion is a personification of the benevolence of the night elves, their good naturedly sel. Azshara been the personification fo the high arcane mage part oft he night elves, as well as their beauty but also their vanity and arrogance.
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I liked the wardens were involved, as well as the mages, we just don’t see enough of them, or the Moon Priestesses - notice again how rare a Moon Priestess is and how they are different from a sentinel even though the sentinel so are a wing of the order of Elune, the Moon Priestesses are like the nobles of the Order, their generals and leaders. The highest echelon of the Order. I’m still not happy
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I loved that ALL night elf characters could relate to this at least. Even if you played a demon hunter, i think that was important. While a DK might not necessarily relate to the night elf cantered storyline that DHs, Mages and other NElf playable classes can, still with the Ravencrest undead and later the Dark rangers, I feel there is hope for the undead night elves.
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The visualising of the face marking ceremony was good… I wish they had done a cut scene for it, but a questline that gives is great - i can only hope for one for the Night warrior and star markings of the avatar of Elune that comes i later that is perfect for Priest and mage night elf fantasies as well as a priest caste and Highborne caste - which could apply to Order of Elune warriors, hunters and rogues which are called sentinels , and Highborne warriors, hunters and rogues - meaning the markings can apply to all those classes. And because the druid class has some Elune affinity too, able to use some Elune spells, those star markings are not misplaced amongst them… afterall the druid class is half arcane, half nature so they would work for that class too.
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I liked how the quest brings together the various parts of the kaldorei by having the wardens represent the long vigil part, and the mage presenting the pre-sundering part of the night elves through their classes and showing how a new future that allows them all to be able to work together regardless of the means they eel is the best way to brighten and market hat future good…which presumably means the Highborne Order will do so via the arcane, the Druid order via nature, the Priest Order (including sentinels) via Elune, the Illidari Order (having presumably both Demon hunters and warlocks) via fel, and the newest undead additions in the DKs and dark rangers via the powers of death. Which all night elf classes can relate too. something I felt the new starting sequence description of the night elves didn’t quite make room for half the class roster. Protecting their lands and legacy , to secure their future rather than protecting their forests should have been that intro.
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Lysnader’s final text also refers to and specifically mentions the kaldorei as the children of the stars… i think this is very important even though it’s just in this click on text. It is their main identity and is often forgotten to the extent i feel the night elves are often thought of as the children oft he trees or forests, - a massive reduction of ton their far more unique duality theme between nature and arcane. The stars, Elune is their founding hand and it’s from there their name comes. . Their race in game has always had a star ward focus, and i hope in time they seriously build a good culture for them that feels unique and feels based on the stars both from a physical and practical sense to a philosophical and even spiritual sense, and i have ideas of how that looks like in all 3 of these cases.
Stars guide you, by the stars, always looking up, climbing tall trees to look at the stars may have bene their motivation to love nature despite their arcane origin and predilections. their civilization built tall towers to gaze that the stars and look at them, reach for them. Their racial magic is actually astral magic, a from of arcane magic, but because that’s the energy of the stars and moon light which resonates with their arcane origin, so they use the moon and the stars, which has implications for things like planning their cities, predicting the future, travelling with pin point accuracy through portals - having both an astrological and astronomical dimension, and it is feels highly advanced, having gone beyond fire, forest and elements of the building blocks of nature to the very stars and is quite unique. . Both druids and priests use the stars in their magic as do their mages… this is unique racial finger print, and the goddess magic often manifests through this, it’s why she is the moon goddess and they the children of the stars.
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Ama’shan - that’s a cool title and name, there should be more depth, but it’s still a nice name.
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Theme: The theme is good, centring around the legion, in a way that all night elves can relate to regardless your class and a focus that involves all characters - fighting the legion is where Moonguard, Highborne, moon priestess, sentinel, Illidari demon hunter, druid and undead (Ravencrest) all meet, even the DK night elf can relate because he is a night elf of your faction before he becomes undead so can relate.
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The family story line… this is really important. The only night elf family storylines are of characters over 10,000 years old, which is nice to see others like the Starwhisper twins outside of the Stromrage twins and the shadowsong siblings. these siblings however are young night elves, presumably I have always believed the player night elf to be one of these, rather than the fabled ancients. What is nice is that this is a family in the WOW era, the modern era for night elves, not a long vigil family nor a pre-sundering family. The family story was also a nice personal touch, while Id o like mega stories and huge implications, it’s nice to have smaller key ones that are important because if elf t unattended they could grow to be massive powerful threats, but it was nice to have the relatable angle, and how they showed the night elves in a relatable and frankly nice way.
Things I didn’t like:
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The quest was too meh - while they chose the theme well, , it just felt like… “is this it??”
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No involvement of druids, demon hunters, and also moon priestesses and sentinels (even though they are mentioned), no black moon sect, no dark rangers… to be honest I expected the whole shabang.
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No big revelation for the night elves or forsaken - but in all fairness, we shouldn’t expect a heritage quest to have this, but a new expansion or an entire content patch.
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It informs of nothing new of the kaldorei that could be excited about or relevant, although it did inform a lot of players of t he post Warcraft 3 night elf and how the Darnassians are a group that are true to their people’s honour and ideals and accept their people from all their orders or walks of life that still value or ascribe to what being a kaldorei actually means - which would be the player night elf and all night elves regardless of faction or class - which is good. An example of what I mean was if they did the quest line on the broken shore instead of Felwood, or in Feralas, - it could give us insights to what the night elves are doing there. Broken shore could have involved the Cathedral of eternal night, and it’s Moonwells, and could have showed night elves and the Order s reclamation of it which is the end result of 7.2 but never shown, we literally haven’t seen or know anything about any of the broken isle night elven groups , and this could have happened in Val’Sharah, broken shore, Azsuna or Suramar and used to give us a modern post legion view of the night elves there while still accomplishing all the things that happened in the quest. with the setting change and a few extra lines that update us for those areas.
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I liked that it wasn’t Tyrande doing it strangely, although some may feel this is more appropriate, it elevates Maiev’s authority and i think it’s high time we see more likeable prominent night elves. Maiev and Jarod, Prince Farondis, Mordant Evenshade, Broll Bearmantle, Naralex the druid and Delas Moongang - who are all interesting characters we could see more off, Drenalin is another, she left an impression after the woT questlines, we should see more of her as the undead Dark ranger character. Ravencrest as an undead DK committed to the kaldorei would be a great boon. We also met Lothrius from the Moonguard who took us through most of the Moonguard quests in Suramar, he was likeable too abut it would also be nice to get a prominent second Priestess of the Moon now that Moonfang has become a Paladin… we just don’t meet enough Priestesses of the Moon and they don’t do much.
