I wanna hone in on this a little bit more. If this is the case it also shows several things. they don’t care as much… thinking what’s wrong with night elves being the forest elf group? I t shows a real lack of grasp of the fantasy genre to understand forest elves are run of the mill and have been done to death, which is why that aspect is only part of the elven groups not the whole sum.
It also shows ignorant of Warcraft lore and a lack of serious appreciation for what the fans really enjoyed.
it shows lack of knowledge too . because if they new the last two points, they would have seen how unique a thing night elves were in the fantasy genre for elves. There are no star elves, there are no dark elf and forest elf combo either, , a civilization based on the night and star and moon isn’t known, it’s unique, the star themes that run though their civilization, their priestesses and even make up a large deal of their druidic spell arsenal is also quite unique.
There are no purple elves either, the colouring scheme centred around the arcane side of the night elves is also quite unique.
What sets night elves part from blood elves is not that night elves are primitive. if they didn’t know hat, then they have no clue of the lore, it’s that night elves are nocturnal, extremely arcane prolific, extremely nature prolific and extremely devout too - they are extremists in their fields, demon hunters too that wen fel, went to lengths beyond Azeroth warlocks matching the Legion demons even surpassing them - but they are extreme only in the things elves are good at which is magic, ranged firepower etc, and have carved a very distinctive unique mage magic,priest magic, druid magic and fel magic roles.
This makes sense given they are supposed to be immortal (even though that is currently not the case, they’re still over 10k years old) , that would make you excellent at anything, but their ancient civilization is lore wise the most incredible too - this is another feature of the night elves because the sharp contrast of city like Suramar and Highborne /civilization elves vs the barely no civilization when you entre their forests, where their keepers, the druids like to keep things as pure as the emerald dream is another height of the night elves - the lesson to take isn’t that night elves are nature elves, to think would be to miss that they were arcane elves too, and priest elves to and fel elves too - the lesson is that they have taken what they have to extreme levels and how distinctive each of these in.
Therefore here is the 3rd night elf attribute - distinctiveness, again no other race nor elven portrayal has such as wing, great civilization is in stark contrast to near undisturbed pre-civilization, pre man type of forests they have… they are not like humans and high elves who have forests and cities, but there is mixture, you can have small human clearings in forest etc… no, night elves have their great cities, then next to nothing, in the forest save maybe the lone hut there for a keeper, or a tiny settlement where they try to be as un-intrusive as possible.
This is part of their distinctiveness… this gives them a very enigmatic and mysterious edge, because at first they seem primitive when you see them in Aldrassil, but then you hear a little of their history and you see Darnassus, and you get the distinctive feeling there is far more to them than the initial on-the surface portrayed.
You are then encouraged to understand how someone that looks so simple could build something as incredible as Darnassus or Suramar or the Cathedral of eternal night - where are all those people? off course in time you find the reason many of them are druids, but you also find other communities in the same manner and lifestyle of their kind that built those things.
But that isn’t all, how can you live in an incredible temple structure like the Cathedral of Eternal night or the Temple of the Moon but then be okay about having a headquarters in a village like Night haven for 10k years?
this should prompt you t o then want to read more about the lore the war of the ancients and the long vigil so you then discover.
The blood elves by contrast are about their own kingdom in northern Azeroth (i.e. EK), about addiction, their recently scattered people, it’s politics with the humans and the alliance they once part off, troubles with the Amani, their new magical directives and sources, the aftermath of addiction, the Sunwell, combined with their colour themes, their religion, mixture, the sun etc, their physical attribute - etc, this is their main distinction - it’s misleading and incorrect to think blood elves are distinguished by being civilised elves and magical elves, it’s not only factually greatly incorrect, but a very poor distinction to be hard on an elf race where the race is typified by magic, beauty and nature. This off course is just a wet dream of a partisan fan who’s fandom incites him to want to cast aspersion on his rival pretty much like a football fan of one team does so over another - but a developer can’t forget (nor should the fan) that they’re football fans too)
However, sadly the game just stops showing night elves, instead of then ever expanding and unfolding their greatness in the arcane or in Elune through the priestesses, and even fel through the demon hunters, they are largely silent and absent form all the important world affairs, which okay, you could have said that was acceptable, but on top of that, you aren’t shown in game them being these incredible masters, so a person who hasn’t picked up the lore books or novels, would have no idea. how high they start in arcane circles, fell circles or priestly circles, what started to unfold is like cut short…and then you only see them most of the time in game as druids…
And a developer that thinks this is them, because they joined the team later on and have their impression of them based on the game - since like the vast majority of players, they don’t read the lore, don’t buy the novels nor read the lore information even in game - they’re gamers, they want to see the stuff, and hit the action buttons, not read walls of texts - if it’s not shown, they’re unaware, so they start working for blizzard, and are in development, and then continue to perpetuate this reduced image.
If they cared, they’d realise it’s boring by itself. Sure nature stuff is lovely, but if that’s all their is to it, it’s incredibly boring, and quite an overused trope, they would see that, and they would also see night elves have incredible established lore as great as their druidic lore in the arcane and civilization as well as in the priesthood and also in the fel via the demon hunters, there is a lot of wealth to draw from.
They’d also , with a little thought realise, the green image isn’t congruent with the theme, it’s an addition not the main, the theme is the night, purple, starlight, arcane - that’s the first core, the green of nature and fel are additions but the core is the magic of the mages and priests which is centred on the night, and the core magic of the levs… and the night elves’ version of this is the original and the greatest the elves have managed - and yet you don’t show this?
You treat them purely like forest chidden of the tree, when you called them of the stars instead and the night, with Elune and Wells of Eternity, yet they have taken a great backseat to the race’s exposure in game?
Also players found the other aspects cool, most of the playing populace are city folk, and night elves are a major race, this is why they had the is component in the unique night version, players find being badass cool, this is why they loved night elves, Illidan, the tales of greatness of Azshara and the kaldorei empire - these things get people going. this is why they are a major part of the night elves too, and the contrast to the peaceful, serene over tones of the nature side - which is why you have both.
You cut that out, what do you get? Boring and generic, but it is worse, because fans remember the other stuff, they are people that paid money for the books and they are still in circulation, the lore is still there, the older game, wc3, where night elves looked a lot more badass than they have in wow, is still there, people who come, new, then go back, see it all, would just look at the current development in comparison and find it really lacking, disgustingly enough to think it all garbage and change their mind, or at least discourage them enough from buying any new novels, or material because if they can change the lore so drastically and not in a cool way , how can you trust anything they sell?
And how can you trust a development team that fails to realise that with many people even fans of night elves there are different aspects they would lie… some would find the forest side totally cool, but finding that doesn’t stop them from liking the arcane and city side (as Suramar proved by being so popular) or the bad boy anti-hero fel side of the demon hunters (again like the kaldorei empire, the Illidari have always been popular amongst the fans), this is why you have multiple races and each race has several core things, to appeal to more people and having a realistic portrayal of a full race, as well as a grander vision.
Off course a night elf group with a great civilization, great arcane magic but also great nature magic and great forests, with diversity in males and females priests very distinctive form druids very distinctive from high brow mages, very distinctive from gritty fel using demon hunters or hardass strict dominatrix type female wardens - is very appealing.
It’s divers, it’s varied, it shows you different things, it makes it believable that this is not just some piss poorly designed thing, but believable as a fully fledged race of people that has many nations and great variations across it.
Its far more impressive, and it’s unusual in fantasy and a credit to the developers to try to do something realistic, unlike other programs that say just have fantasy races lumped into one simple category - totally 1 dimensional .
People see that an appreciate it, if you then now go back and just do one thing only for night elves, they’re not going to be impressed, they are going to think and feel you let them down big time, think or feel you are lazy or don’t care, and don’t have passion for the project you expect them to be passionate enough to sink their hard earned cash or limited pocket money into.
Face it, lore and ambience is an incredible part of a fantasy, and fantasy games, not just good gameplay and systems… this is your genre, you get the fantasy crowd, those that like Lord of the rings, swords and magic etc, and roleplaying - that’s the crowd you get, and it’s a hugely popular crowd in the world today and a huge slice of the entertainment complex amongst our generation.
Keep ignoring it and failing it, will sink the product deeper and deeper, to a point of no return. Maintain it, and you can improve it and boost and raise it and even open up for future development and keep spinning out stuff indefinitely.