None of this really matters anymore, because core themes change.
Look at the Draenei; basically born the same as night elves yet their core theme is now about religion and the arcane is nothing more than side crystal…and this is even from a race of people who didn’t even ban the arcane for 10,000 years.
The modern times is Druidism. It’s why Druidic matters involve Night Elves, yet Magister matters involve others like Humans and Void/High Elves (as far as the Alliance goes.) Night Elf Magi are just thrown in to be part of the wider Human organisations, like the Kirin Tor and the 7th Legion. Why? Because Blizzard don’t like them.
If they can keep them out of the story, they will. If they can have Humans and High Elves take over the mage stuff, they will.
Current day night elf stuff is Druids and Priests at the top. Sentinels further down. Wardens come next (night elf leadership complete.) Illidari, Darkfallen and Highborne are those side areas that Shandris is learning to understand and those areas that she has always been repulsed by. None of them hold a mantle of overall night elf leadership.
This is easily mirrored with Blood Elf leadership.
Hunters, Paladins and Mages are at the top (blood elf leadership complete.) Warlocks, Illidari, Darkfallen and Warriors are just side areas.
I don’t expect Shen’dralar stuff in the future because Blizzard don’t like them. For Midnight, what do the Shen’dralar bring to Quel’Thalas that isn’t already covered by Void Elves and Sin’dorei? They bring nothing. Out of the Elves, Night Elves bring Druid stuff and once again, I expect to see more night elf druid stuff.
It’s one thing to show another part of a race for a while, it’s a totally different thing to change a theme.
Which is it?
Changing a theme is tantamount to changing a race… what’s the point of doing all that you did in the first place?
Nothing we’ve seen of the night elf is a new theme, but if the focus is changing the night elves to a forest elf race basking in beautiful sunny glades kumbaying to the trees - then they’ve missed the plot - it’s the wrong race for that and incongruous with everything about them and nullifies there point and their previous lore making it silly and nonsense.
Now if this was a major theme that had a major focus but not the principal one, then it’s fine, especially if it’s class specific. Druids can be daylight focused and focused on nature. Not the night elf race as a primary - not a race built on the night, the stars, a great magical civilization, and arcane well of eternity and a moon goddess - with a strong fel side hugely popular in the demon hunters.
The blood elf equivalence would be to changing the theme of the blood elves to a Light elf based theme, where the blood elves are now themed on the light - doing away with their arcane, hunting and those bad boy fel themes they got when they were first unveiled in WC3 TFT totally relegated to side things. Massively favour on now being light focused.
Like you can’t have more than one race with a strong core in one or two fields or even more than one race with a main theme in one field
it’s ludicrous. how many warcraft races is martial combat and the warrior identity the main theme? It’s more than one.
Sharing a speciality skill or affinity isn’t the only thing that makes you unique if that is the main reason for this.
It’s the combination of your specialities, your unique racial lore, your history, your appearance etc… all together combine to make you very unique despite sharing a lot of things that are available in the world. like magic or hunting or warrior skills.
The concept that the alliance can only have draenei as great priests because that has to be there thing and the draenei can’t be prolific or main themed on anything else and no one else can be good at priest…?
So we forget about the night elf priesthood because draenei have that theme and therefore change or ignore the magical priesthood of Elune because of that … oh draenei are purple so we have to swap the night elf colour theme to green
Let’s forget that some people like that magical night elf priesthood, that night elf purple theme,
Sure themes can change, but is it not far better to keep a race to it’s original core concept than totally change it?
Imo off course it is. I don’t think night elf theme has changed, I just think it’s currently back to a lot of the forest themes… it is possible they’ve changed it… but that’s not a good idea imo, because that’s not what was coolest about night elves and it simply ignored so much.
WE don’t need night elves to be a druid race they never were, you can give a new sub-race to be totally night elven druid, just like we have a sub-race for being totally night elven arcane - they are the Nightborne.
It won’t make sense to then convert the night elven core race now to be a long vigil era based race – it’s not the purpose of allied races, nor does it fit. it’s far better to introduce night elf worgen for that, or were-elf night elves - night elves that take were forms of animals based on wild gods… or use Sylvar for that, as night elves from the Ardenweald coming back through Amirdrassil or use the Cenarian dryad/ keeper race.
These are 3 distinct races that are all night elven based, can have physical modifications that fit their theme of both the night and the forest whether it’s green forest or blue Arden weald forest.
This is one of the uses of having allied races - they simply are a community of a main race that can just focus on open aspect or just have a different story…
Having a nature night elf subrace doesn’t remove the nature theme from the night elves, any more than having the nightborne stops the arcane theme or history of the night elves from existing or being accessible = again, that isn’t the point of the sub-race.
My conclusion? It’s silly to change a theme, and un-necessary, but it’s good to focus on other parts of the race… but let’s not forget who they are.
It’s quite silly to give the night elves all that history and identity and just ditch it. you can’t call them NIGHT elf, children of the STARS , born from arcane magic, well of Eternity, give them all that demon hunter lore, legion lore, arcane civilization and expertise lore, Moonguard, Highborne - then Elune at the centre of it all, Based on the stars and the arcane then change it. sure you can add light and void to Elune, these were there in WoTA form her alongside the arcane. You can add life to her, she is believed to have designed the life on Azeroth if night elves are to be believed.
But to change her into a nature goddess when you have an entirely different nature system of gods with a druidic religion and had her (arcane), make union with nature through Malorne in a section of night elf lore … representing their arcane and nature duality.
did I mention fans don’t want you to change a theme? They like what they signed up for. What they can like is you to done things or focus on other aspects, as too much in one area gest stale and boring after a while… If night elves just focused on the arcane and Azshara and the civilization it would be boring just as it is .
I signed up to play a night elf, not a forest elf. Having forest elf bits are cool, even as one of the major themes… but its secondary major theme. If I came into Warcraft when the forest side was been focused on and loved it - that’s fine, it’s part of the night elves, and it will always be… … I’m not going to resent blizzard when they focus on the arcane side, night and star themes of priests and mages or the demon hunter sides. That’s part of the night elf too, and it’s there in the lore, I can then go and catch up.
If I am a pure forest love, r still it’s not a bad thing that the night elves do other things or even have another main theme. I have the druid class I also have forest zones and other races like Trolls, Tauren and even Kul’tiran and blood elves have forestry and theme to them.
It is entirely weird to find out what night elves are really about after liking them for the forest bit and then reading, even buying lots of the books, and never seeing any of the other stuff… that would be weird. I’d realise, they are night elves not forest elves, and while I like the forest theme, why is it the only one being shown? It’s weird
Let me put it in blood elf terms. I came when Liadrin and the light was being focused on. I really liked it, loved the colour matching theme and the lore… but later, on going back to earlier expansions, wc3, and buying the books found out there was so much more to them… It would be weird to never see the Farstriders or the magisters or arcane evidence prevalent. and I wouldn’t then be complaining tot he developers if they switched focus to the arcane side or the farstrider forest side, or even the
Neither the Blood Elf Magisters or the Blood Elf Farstriders caused a world shattering event that was caused by night elf mages and then said night elf mages were later banished and exiled from northern kalimdor lands.
From what we see, Shandris as the new night elf leader is only just trying to understand the Illidari, Highborne and Darkfallen. That means that she, as the Sentinel Commander, never gave them much thought and didn’t care for them, which we know is true for the Highborne as she stated that she would have executed the lot of them had it not been for Tyrande’s mercy.
But they aren’t changing them into Light Elves. The Light has always had a presence within Thalassian society - the Blood Knights is just the “Blood Elf” approach to it, which I wish would go back to a TBC version of Light-draining and being at purpose odds with the Scarlet Crusade. In all Blood Elf questlines, the Magisters have always played a role, but being “Mages” is how Blood Elves were introduced in TBC, in the first place.
The Blood Elf Warlocks and Illidari just aren’t important to Quel’Thalas. Lor’themar Theron is disgusted by fel magic, as is Liadrin and Rommath.
Probably not because I do think less is more.
I’d rather have intertwined detail about the Shen’dralar and Sin’dorei Magisters than have a whole story about the origin of the Night Elf Mage clans from before the Sundering. I don’t simply care and they are simply very boring for me.
Blending Fire Magic and Arcane Magic to create new Arcane Golems is what I love about Blood Elf Mages.
Blending Nature to the Arcane is what I love about Shen’dralar.
The overall story of each race does get nailed down to one or two areas and the rest are simply there.
So for Night Elves; it’s Druids and Priests as a main focus and everyone just gets lore when it’s appropriate for Blizzard For Blood Elves; it’s Mages and Paladins as a main focus, with a small amount of Hunter stuff but arguably can come in either the Farstriders or the Darkfallen Rangers. Then everyone else is just there for lore when Blizzard deems it appropriate.
For Humans; it’s always been Mages and Paladins as the main focus, with a juicy bonus for Rogues and then everyone else is there when Blizzard deems it appropriate For Forsaken; it’s primarily Rogues and Hunters of recent, because Blizzard put an emphasis on a new generation of Forsaken Rangers being trained. Shadow Priests are a small bonus here and there, and everyone else is just there for when Blizzard deems them appropriate. For Nightborne; it’s primarily just Mages, with a bit of Hunter stuff thrown in. Here, the other classes don’t get a mention.
Books don’t compete with the visuals of a game. I’m sorry, but forcing everything we see in-game to be bent to a book that is poorly written and outdated is not good either.
But as far as Priests go - we’ve had so much of them through Tyrande and her whole Night Warrior arc. Their Priests are all about Elune and we’ve had a lot of Tyrande/Elune stuff.
Mages - again, only the Shen’dralar are left. We’ve been to Zin-Azshari…their is nothing left to see of the pre-sundering world. Essentially, aside from actually moving forward, the night elf mage story of the pre-sundering era is now over and it should remain over.
Illidari - again, not involved just like their Blood Elf cousins. Only in Amirdrassil did we see Illidari Night Elves and this is likely to mirror an Illidari Blood Elf return in Midnight…but the level of involved the Illidari Blood Elves have will be the same as the Illidari Night Elves…a quest or two specifically for Demon Hunters, but nothing that stands out.
Who and what are the Draenei? They are born Arcane masters and their theme and values have changed drastically since Argus.
Additionally, the Draenei never exiled their Arcanists for thousands of years…they just stopped being Mages and became Priests of the Light with only a handful still remaining as Magi.
Changing themes is always going to happen. Hell, Forsaken Shadow Priests were an iconic race/class lore combo and where has that theme gone now? It went to the Val’kyr and then later, went to a resurrected Human Shadow Priest who formed the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow. (Natalie Seline should have been Forsaken)
Let’s not confuse, Theme, Function and Setting either.
The night elf theme isn’t the forest, the setting isn’t either, the setting is post apocalyptic dystopian where the forest is the main refuge.
Setting
Settings can change. Night elves can have an advanced city, if it’s one or two amidst a vast dystpopian ruin- – you are changing setting if you have a kaldorei empire - like it was back then [pre-sundering] with lots of cities peoples etc type setting not if you have a couple of kaldorei civilization grade cities.
And yes, you can change the setting of a race, especially to a setting that exists in the race’s lore and history, as well as create new settings. Settings are usually starting points anyway, not end points when they are first seen.
Usually the story determines the settings, and it’s just where they are at. Warcraft started with Silvermoon in ruins. Those ruins could have been anything from near total rubble or what we eventually saw in TBC.
In the lore however, Silvermoon was the heart of the Elven Kingdom of Quel’thalas, a beautiful nature paradise the elves tended extremely well, living the high elf full of magic and natural ancient beauty.
Now if you came in classic wow - and paid attention, they’d be the refugee elves, if blizzard didn’t build their kindgom properly because they chose to focus on other races, your impression, tha’ts based on visual cues rather than information would be very different. You coudl bee forgiven to think the elves are similar to those in the Witcher or Dragonage. Fringe refugees, broken. Rather than the formidable group we got
Theme:
Theme is different. you can’t start out as night elves - define how that lies, then change the theme to forest elf exclusive - while still calling it night elf and star child. What you then do is create a sub-race for pure forest elf if you want that, but you’re better off just using the night elves in the nature capacity in tandem with their main theme, as that is a part of their main theme not the primary theme.
The main theme of the Night elf is the night elf, star based - this is centred around magic, the arcane and well of eternity with a sub- main theme in nature and the forest that the story only temporarily elevates due to the history. you don’t design a night elf you intend as a drow elf. now a new dev comes in, and just sees night elves most of the time as druids might be forgiven for thinking this is a forest elf f race… but it is false. He only saw this because former devs ditched development of the night elf race and because they had to show druids as a class all over and night elves where the only race with tauren you saw them mostly as druids. So without research or care, they will keep making the association visually void of the lore and it’s easy to sit on that primarily.
And so you get literature change from the night and the stars to the Forest, and too few original fans remain to offer the correction.
Players who aren’t night elf fans, will then think that is the night elves, they don’t read night elf lore in-game or in novels, and know no different. They most often haven’t’ played night elf zones to see priestesses, demon hunters, mages, hunters, warriors etc. Forest love now becomes the only things night elves care about. And is the reason I am very suspicious of non-night elf fans forcefully arguing for night elf themes they don’t care about and don’t play - given that if that status quo continues, they would continue to have little to no interest, and don’t care about preserving the thigns the fans like - because they aren’t fans.
Function
Now function is what they function as - night elves are functional as magical and range elves - the magic consists of high grade mates in the pre-sundering style - where a lot of the lore we have about them is from, represented by Highborne /moonguard/farondis types, also the Priestess function which is the overarching most stable theme, the druid, which is the new one and a major function for the males, and the demon hunter - the anti-hero bad boy night elf represented by Illidan. The archer/huntress/sentinel.
What they primarily function as can also vary and change. But it usually sits within the theme of the race as defined. Night elves in the lore have mostly been casters, primarily arcane, in the WC3 game they were mostly archers and priestesses, and in Wow
It doesn’t matter anymore. You have to forget about all what you wrote because this isn’t your story. It’s Blizzard’s story and they will choose where to focus the attention.
It’s time to just give up with the hope of a big Night Elf Mage focus. We’ve had Suramar and Zin-Azshari now. Their is nothing else to show in a big way. Eldre’Thalas is something small and is probably a Night Elf only quest involving it’s restoration. Why? Because nobody within the Alliance cares about it.
Also - there’s no point in being sus about none-night elf fans. This is Blizzard’s story. None night elf fans aren’t forcing Blizzard to forego night elf mages in the story…that’s as stupid as it sounds and anybody who think that needs to get some divine intervention. Blizzard is deciding who is doing what…
…Midnight has it’s place for Night Elves…and once again, I can guarantee you, it will be Druids and Sentinels. Why? Because Ren’dorei, Sin’dorei and Quel’dorei already cover every facet the Shen’dralar offer. Shen’dralar are better off having their own Alliance story in restoring Eldre’Thalas, because then they can actually claim something that is both relevant to WoW and not pre-sundering Azeroth and advances their story without it being toned down by the Void Elves.
As it stands, Void Elves are the biggest hindrance to Shen’dralar because blizzard gave all the Shen’dralar assets to the Void Elves. So now, what is the point of the Shen’dralar when you have Void Elves who do everything better.
This is not to dictate to blizzard what to do. Or tell them how to write their stories… it is to express how we feel of their work, and what this means to us.
what we like, what we don’t, why we don’t, what we are findign confusing, what doens’t mae sense to us, what could improve, what is poor quality, what is good quality. what works for us, what doesn’t. What we expect ot see, what standard, what we like to see, why we like it.
Etc.
We can’t manipulate blizzard and rally the community or any nonsense like that… this isn’t a political rally, or some ideological cause for social justice in video games or the effect on society… this is just fans who get riled up when they a re upset about something and want something to say about it.
Why they say it and what it would mean to them.
We cannot nor trying to force blizzard to give us anything. There are things we like and things we don’t like. It’s up to them to care about it or not to. This is exactly what we’ve done by and large in this topic.
I believe you are a bit mistaken in the OG theme/setting of the current day night elves. It’s that they’re a society focused on their religion and the natural world that they’re protecting. They felt a deep shame and hatred for what their society used to be with them ruled by decadent arcane nobles or with other words the highborne that literally caused the world to sunder. Which is why arcane magic was punishable by death.
Sure some lingering arcane is found in the moonwells as it’s diluted waters from the well of eternity, but it’s also a blessing of the wildlife of the area as well as a blessing from Elune.
But the end result is still the same, they rejected the arcane society of the empire. And those that refused to do so were exiled or lived fully isolated like in Suramar, Eldre’thalas etc.
Sure some Shen’dralar rejoined but they should be a very small group as they were already a small group before the Horde ran through and killed most in vanilla, and they allowed magic to be taught again with cata, but it was heavily restricted and they were only barely tolerated. The Shen’dralar was shocked to even be met with cheers during bfa. And now in dragonflight for the first time a mage was allowed to join the sentinels.
Either way a return to full on kaldorei empire era of arcane prowess where they were not in balance with nature and built giant cities is not really feasible in the near term as it would go against the characterization of what the current night elves are about or have been depicted as. Not to mention that the mage population among the night elves should be quite small and the OG Shen’dralar one even smaller.
But I don’t think the current Night Elf theme is all that confusing, because many people know Night Elves for being Druids and that sort of civilisation that was created after the Sundering.
Again - not all themes of races from their origins are the same now. Blizzard gave the night elves a reason to change from Mage to Druid and very few people will see a reverse happen.
For me, if you want an importance on big Elven cities, then we have the Horde/Suramar there, because that city is, by lore standards, still a Horde city…even when Silvermoon goes neutral in Midnight. Bel’ameth and Amirdrassil are just places that match to the new night elf theme. World Trees reaching towards the children of the stars. Trees > Arcane Spires.
Blood Elves, Nightborne and High Elves are still very much about tall Arcane Spires; whereas Night Elves are all about big World Trees reaching the stars and the Void Elves are…well, they’re about the Void (clue’s in the name, which is why I don’t really find them interesting.)
It isn’t, that’s a factional theme, not a RACIAL theme, and it’s an old one too… one that alluded to that because of how you met the night elves in WC3, which was a setting .
If you read the novels you would find out the fully fleshed version of the theme.
currently playable night elves are of the main faction of druids and priest but also of the Illidari faction and of the Highborne faction and the much smaller dark ranger faction.
Also, night elves AREN’T RURAL elves. Whether forest or civilization, they are not rural. And we expect really beautiful night elven structures that they build. Even for the druidic bits.
this is part of the problem, the majority of the really nice things night elves build that are visible are now locked in with only the horde faction night elves, and it sucks for the alliance fan ones.
you got to the forest, and the nature is beauty and then you see the crude rural buildings’ - why can’t they have done something nice like we have for the green dragonflight structures in the emerald dream or in the Ohn’ahran plains.
For the forest elf wing of things, I also expect beauty Reminiscent of the Elves. I don’t see it.
those buildings in Bel’ameth aren’t up to scratch, they make sense for maybe a remote one off lodge, or a temporary settlement - that is hastily put up to be replaced by something that has a lot more care and art.
Do you not see the problem with tin game stuff when it comes specifically to the night elves? Especially the main faction?
Night elves are not crude nor rural - yet far too little elegance and grace in their buildings and monuments exist - Emerald dream zone is basically done well this is how night elven nature should look like in more populated forest areas, except replaced with night elven type buildings and temples like we saw in the upgraded models in legion.
And cities should be more like Zin’Azshari and Suramar - but unlike humans, and blood elves, night elves only have like 1-3 currently because everything else is destroyed, but they should have some.
Night elves aren’t powerless or weak, quite the opposite, yet in the game - they are always been beaten, they do not remotely come across like they are actually 10k year old archers, or 10k year old powerful mages or 10k year old powerful priestesses who have mastered spell (in several schools - i.e. arcane, light and void for priests, arcane and nature for druid’s, arcane and elements for mages), bow and glaive etc.
None of it is cool.
And where is the magical mystery of a race that is far from human - things like their immortality, their Well of Eternity, Elune - these were the 3 really non human characteristics, then being nocturnal sapient species etc.
it’s not been shown well.
How would you do night elves?
immortal
Nocturnal
give them Darnassus, Eldre’thalas, Suramar and maybe Nar’thalas - looking pretty much like Suramar and Zin’Azsahri
Ardenweald type forest in Darkshore, Ashenvale and Amirdrassil day type, then Val’sharah, Amirdrassil Ashenvale and Feralas have the green look.
Feralas, Stonetalon and Amirdrassil - should look like the Emerald dream zone - elegant silver marble night elf buildings and great structures, but few and far between sparsed around nature. These lead to cities anyway
Hyjal, Val’sharah, Ashenvale - should look nearly untouched - the odd night elf lodge like the buildings in Auberdine, Lor’danel , like Aldrassil, would be there, but very very very few and far between, this is forest that is mostly untouched - save for ruins you will see occasionally.
Desolace, Darkshore and Azsuna would be beautiful open country. Darkshore would have the night theme heavy, Azsuna as it is in legion - even if the night elves are restoring ruins.
Stop making night elves look weak, look powerful, and look rural. They are supposed to be beautiful, highly civilized with a savage duality, elegant and crude in opposing contrasts and you should see it… with those. In the druids as well as the mages. example, a a mage looks sophisticated and highly civilized yet, walks around bear footed, having honour duels and ancient rights - a druid works around in leathers and feathers, and yet there is such an intricate elegance woven into it the simple materials belie the elegance and grace.
Where is all this coming form? it’s all coming from in-game.
Night elves modelled in Suramar, night elves in druid gear, Suramar city, Ardenweald forest, Val’Sharah forest, emerald dream forest.
Absolutely won’t happen. No race has more than 2 cities in game. Night Elves aren’t special where they get 4 cities.
I predict that a confirmed Teldrassil regrow will just be more heavy Druid-like stuff and Druid-like Darnassus.
Eldre’Thalas, which isn’t named by Tyrande, will at best, be a quest hub, but hopefully claimed by the Shen’dralar.
Quests in Shadowglen tell you outright these are undiluted waters from the Well of Eternity, and quests in Suramar tell you that the Priestesses invoke a blessing on the waters… the arcane energy, purified, is then linked to flora and fauna by the druids.
this is how the druids use life enhancing powers of the arcane to boost life.
Lore tells us that those near the well of eternity are radiated by its ARCNAE Powers, they grow stronger and larger in stature, with increased intelligence and longevity of life… this is how the arcane enhances life, and this is why it isn’t contradictory for Elune as an arcane wielding or based goddess to be life affirming… these are the concepts we were given.
through magical knowledge of the arcane, the night elves were able to greatly extend the benefits of arcane power for even greater intellect, and longevity extended near indefinitely as to be immortal.
Arcane is part of order and this is conducive to life, even though life itself isn’t pure order, everything in the Great beyond realm has a purpose and function. Night elves are the arcane and nature experts, they have two halves that people have specialised into the extreme, but they also combine them to great effect.
during the Long Vigil period that Wc3 campaign gives the story of its conclusion i.e. it is finished now, during that period, they banned the use of the Well of Eternity for spellwork as that caused demons in the twisting nether to detect Azeroth and come for the magic which they initially thought was what the demons were mainly interested in. Arcane energy/magic cannot be banned, this is not what they banned, they banned the use from the Well of Eternity which is how their incredible great works and wonders from spellwork utilised.
So during the Long vigil, while using the arcane well for spells was banned, using the arcane itself wasn’t, and using the energies to enhance life is what druids did. Not night elves, druids. Just so happened most of the druids were night elves. and they started the class, just like they started the mage class and they started the Demon hunter class.
Nordrassil was grown by Alexstrazsa as a means to hide the energy signature from the twisting nether, The Shen’dralar successfully did this through their arcane pylons immediately after the well was sundered, finding a battery for themselves in a demonic arcane entity they summoned then sealed off, using it’s immense arcane energies they successfully pilfered and filtered through their pylons powering - but that had a snag they weren’t aware off. The Sunstrider group hen exiled 3,000 years after the sundering would also erect what they called the Ban’dinoriel constructed to also hide the arcane signature of their new well created form a vial of the Well of Eternity and any spell work they would cast within its borders.
The shield in Suramar served a complete blanketing effect, nothing inside can be sensed from the outside and vice versa - it was a like hard shell dead zone to those looking form the outside. no magic signature coming off, yet inside the Nightwell the night elven Highborne there had created before the sundering, was a powerful font that supplied the city and all their spell work.
The problem with the night elves is that the lore to understand them has to be read and engaged, you can’t just play and look at stuff without reading, you have to listen to conversations, read quest texts, pick up lore books and buy novels and summary books like Chronicles if you don’t want to buy old games like Wc3.
They are the ones that said the night elves are created form the arcane wells and have an arcane essence… this makes a lot of sense given how much arcane usage is in their priest spells, druid spells and how extensive their pre-sundering civilization is in the arcane… it makes sense given their skin colour, eye colour and the majority of their hair colour.
Loving nature was taught to them by Cenarius, their peaceful, gentle and intelligent nature is what drew the wild gods to them and they taught them about nature. Gradually in time, nature alone existence wouldn’t be sufficient for them - how would it, they beings with an arcane essence… and they drifted away from that pure nature living state, .
During the long vigil, those living outside Eldre’thalas and Suramar are forced back to live like that, who tells you that this was ideal for all of them? you can still love nature but prefer your city and technology or have use of them /live in them. Also it is druids that super venerate nature, they love it, but they always work in it, you can’t expect nature loving night elf to do nothing but it in nature picking berries and climbing trees… think man. It’s stupid to feel so.
For a druid, they’re working while living in it. For the rest well, they’d only stay like that because they have to. During the long vigil, those outside the city had a very important task anyway, the actual Vigil itself, constantly watching for the legions, demonic activity, and those trying to use magic to summon the legion or learning too much of it that it would risk the world.
high elves, Highborne night elves and Shen’dralar and Shal’dorei all used magic in a concealed way, their signatures undetectable, they were not a threat as long as they stayed within those bounds, and they did, all of them, we know the Highborne Shen’dralar stayed that way till after there was no need, till after Wc3, and The Nightborne even longer. The only ones that didn’t were the high elves 3,000 years ago when they taught humans how to use magic to help them defeat the amani, this is when the magic stopped been practised in a way that wouldn’t alert the demons.
the story goes that i was excited human student that used magic so irresponsibly tears started happening and demons started coming through, , Eventually the high elves found out, and formed the council of Tirisfal to manage the issue. they managed it successfully off course, or not as it would turn out, but successfully enough that the night elves on the other side, would not know of the problem. The guardian of Tirisfal is created to protect against this threat with enough power transferred to him/her to be effective… and they were until Sargeras’ devious plot was executed…and that story, based o Medivh, that leads to the opening of the Dark portal is well known.
Ignoring the night, the stars, the arcane, etc, or minimising it is bleeding the night elves of their primary core, just to sit on their secondary core. It is worth remembering. that Night elves are presented as the original elven race and the hallmark of what it means to be an elf.
they are the full version and every other is a somewhat altered/lessened version from some mutation, loss etc. this is how they are designed, this is why they are extremely prolific in the areas that elves are good at, namely arcane magic, love of nature, agility and archery, And why they have some otherworldly quite far form human characteristics, like immortality, , have been around for impossibly long etc despite how human looking they look and yet are bigger
Anyway… … how would it feel like if humans “only lived in a forest” and only cared about trees? were only hunters , were only or mostly druids and hunters.
think… it’s boring, it’s unrealistic and it feels phony
humans would be able to do lots of other things, and have lots of other interests, there would be different nations or rather factions of them… - some would be heavy intellectuals, some would be heavy forest lovers, some would be seriously into power trips and dealing with dark stuff, some would be all about their faith and religion
so it is and should be with night elves. even if they are all together as one race, there should be different distinct factions about them. Highborne faction , Illidari faction, druid faction, and Priest/peoples faction - actually the way I’d work it would be that the Highborne were their own nation, the Illidari their own faction, the druids their own faction too, while the priests led the people - civilians, professionals, artists etc.
Bottom line is. night elves are not face people. They are not a face race made from the forest, dedicated tot he forest - that’s why you have face, and there is a large element of them involved with the night elves but they are not the night elves. Night elf is a race, core of the night, stars, the arcane, Elune, nature, demon hunting fel warriors
Because that’s their thing. That’s their gimmick. And there are plenty of factions within the nelfs that are based on a specific sector of their nature-loving culture. And they don’t just exist in forests, but those seem to be preferred.
As for your comparison with humans, that’s just dumb. Plain dumb. First of all, humans are the most diverse race in WoW when it comes to their cultural preferences, so you picked the worse example for your comparison. Also humans and nelfs are two different races with two different mentalities. While humans may be more curious, nelfs might be less, while humans are more willing and able to adapt to different environments, nelfs may be less willing to do so. Fantasy races stick to their gimmick because that is part of their fantasy. I don’t get why you people want to keep turning them into something else. So no, it shouldn’t be the same way with nelfs.
Anyway, I’m honestly bored of nelfs. Give someone else the spotlight for a while.
Take Amirdrassil - it’s in like freaking green zone… beautiful tree - the night ambience doens’t feel likke the night, mystical or magical, but the tree is designed well enough. As is the zone, but that meerald hue, in the dragon isles? it looks better in the emerlad dream than it does in the Ohn’aran plains.
And this is just part of the typical problem with night elves.
they don’t go all the way, if they did, they woudl circle back and correct, add, and fashion properly.
We would never get a situation where a new Teldrassil is all druid stuff. You woudl have a city and a temple and you would see what a night civilziation is amongst the Priesthood led new society… go to Eldre’thalas you woudl see what a modern highborne society is like that’s ocme out hte ned of 10k years of isoaltion infused with new blodo and old blodo that stayed with the long vigil faciton.
Head to Suramar and you’d see what a pre-sundering era legion period night elf sociey is like another era we are very familiar with for the night elves, even more familiar than the current era, thanks to the trilogy novels - and one of the reasons why having that exclusively nightborne, feels weird, even though the nightborne are a night elven race. Framing them correctly as it is the same society is important… they were meant ot have been healed into their night elven forms, the modles were kept to make them a playable allied race because blizzard decided to do sub-races.
Each city would depict and show something, but city, is only part of it, the night elf land is dominated by forests and ruins… so having 3-4 cities in the race feels very small in compariosn to other races.
nighte lves don’t have towns and village like humans and other races who have tons of that as they grow like regular civlizaiotns - this is how it shoudl be
So you woudl be able ot see interesting types of forests, and cities from a night race of people. While we do have suramar, it is not enough, we need more. Although i am half resigned that we would only have Suramar - and they’ll park the ngiht elves there alognside their Nightbonre sub-race as their main city, just like they’ve done with the Darkspear torlls who are now largely with the Zandalari. in Dazar’alor that serves as teh “troll city”… they still have Echo isles and all their other places, but thier city is now Dazar’alor. And it is also the Zandalari city. it’s like the darksepar have come home.
A similar thing is what I suspect they’ll do for NElves instead of giving us a Eldre’thalas and Nar’thalas as well as a rebuilt Darnassus, and ideally all 4 should be available, and homes of different factions.
Blizzard will not give one race a large number of cities and hubs, whilst everyone else is either losing there’s or only having 1.
As I say, Amirdrassil with a Teldrassil regrow.
The fact is - not even Eldre’Thalas gets a mention by the Night Elf leader. She doesn’t care about Feralas or the Shen’dralar home and neither does Mordent, the Highborne leader.
We have to give up on any sort of major Highborne focus. I was hoping for something, but that isn’t going to happen.
Hyjal, Val’Sharah, Ashenvale and returning to Teldrassil and Darkshore. At best, your probably looking at 3 uncontested night elf zones. Teldrassil, Darkshore and Amirdrassil.
Highborne stuff won’t happen since no night elf cares for it now…not even the Highborne leader himself.
She said herself about returning to teldrassil.
Teldrassil itself was grown during the Highborne exile, by Druids and was modified, shaped and finished by Druids.
It’s time to just face it. Night Elves are the main Druidic race. That is what Blizzard is doing for them, with a lot of Priest and Sentinel stuff. Mage stuff is there when/if it fits and if it doesn’t, then it will just go to Humans and Void Elves (for Alliance.)
For Midnight, Shen’dralar offer nothing in Quel’Thalas that isn’t covered by Sin’dorei or Void Elves.
Strategically speaking, a city and a seat of power in far western kalimdor makes sense.
I deally you’d want a centre in each zone - a fortress , that is defensible - you can’t have that with a forest of trees - night elves aren’t tree people and they aren’t children of the trees.
Druids do do trees yes, but when you defending a lnad , masterminding a defense, you need garrisons and the like.
Now the ones they used in wc3, were mobile ones form the ancients of War - temporary, and their bases got up and walked. this is because of the nature of the long vigil.
imagine if they had that and now built their fortifications in defensible.
suramar is best serveda s the cultural capital of kaldorie civilzation. The ngiht elf centre, nad is a city buch like Dalaran and Shattraht, in that it is racially a night elven thing… kaldorei/shal’dorei people, but it is a centre for the region - and has Kirin’tor, kaldorei and sin’dorei troops there and visitors of the isle.
it is the ancient capital of the island night elves too, and we should have and show those night elf groups capitalled there with fellow nightborne, some of whom are very much friendly with them.
Just like Dalaran is majority human, but it’s not alliance faction humans, it’s Dalaran nation humans, but then has alliance and horde representatives in the high elves and blood elves, worgen and forsaken, so to Suramar, like Shattrath is Draenei race majority, it is Nightborne race majority, with Darnassians and Thalassians making thier home, the alilance faciotn of night elves is the alliance representation and the blood elves the horde - but off course it has many night elves and Nightborne not aligned to either.
Night elves were a nation when we met them I Warcraft 3, not a Druidic people nor tree people.
In fact the night elf make and Druidism itself had an air of mystery about it that was hardly seen.
They were mostly archers, rangers and spell casting priests. The males came as Druids and demon hunters. But only Malfurion and Illidan had any screen time. It was dominated by the Order of Elune.
Sure the setting was a forest. But if you read the instruction manual like I did, this was never a forest people this was a great race that had a purpose to living like this. To stop an ancient and terrible enemy and you had the feeling that the round 2 confronstatio if one (which you knew they would) would finally free them to live again and we would see some their civilization when they rebuilt it.
Night elves are not far. They are people and one that have an established character and nature the devs should remember.
They can’t do forests like fae nor should they and the Druid life suits a Druid, not an entire race.
Lik any people they need food, resources and means. They have a history, their own ways of doing civilization already recorded for us. That it was destroyed is just part of sla story as is the reason for living amongst its ruins.
With the legion gone and the need to not use the arcane gone at this stage of the story which I remind you is the main part of the story , we should not be seeing all night elves as Druids. It’s not feasible realistic or good writing and this is not what the devs have written for them.
Hoeeever they may not be aware that how they have shown night elves mostly in wow gives this impression that is off centre of what they are and not done it justice or properly.
They are not Druids they are race a multi class and ancient race. But if you only show the Druid side most of the time you skew it falsely and then you would soon start showing night elves as entirely forest rural lot.
This also makes no sense for a peoples and one with the calibre and assortment they have.
They would be building or restoring some or at least a few of their cities , fortifying, building power and strength, trade , resources. Magic is the technology of the race and they are historical the greatest at it. Arcane magic won’t be left to linguist in the post legion world at all but flogged to restoration and the utilised the way night elves do it.
They would have a different atttitude to the hubris of the invasion period if their past. That is what is fine, but the means and expertise would be there and the lore has given us the best magical minds if the greatest magical civilization through the Farondis being around , the best magical developers to with the empires best arcanists who made the best projects in the best era and the most prolific magical battle group in history. The Moonguard whose greatest leaders survived the near genocide.
It only that they have all the ancients from that era with their perfect memory and memory transferred to new grown ones if those who die.
They have a 15 k year old priesthood that is more diversified than any other as this priesthood knows how to operate as priests, caster combatants, and battle.
With the means and knowledge
To operate an army. It’s not like they haven’t had major wars to fight.
The magical resource of the Well of Eternity and branching Moonwells are still available and fertilising the land and boosting the plants and animals is not its only use. It can also be utilised to rebuild rapidly their ruins and also empower magical defenses and offensives.
They have a gidddess that is notorious for battle prowess as well as a life giver and the priests have been demonstrated to operate both ways.
This is a multi faceted people. It’s a full race with diverse factions like the Druids and the Highborne, as well as the priests all having distinct roles and operations we have been holding the novels and shown in game too. Both pre sundering and now. And that’s not mentioning the demon hunters and warlocks likely with them giving another dimension.
They can’t return to long vigil era or state of isolation. That was never the permanent mode for them only a transitory mode that revealed to us visually part of the setting but not all. We saw them go to war in the state they had been living in, not all there was to them and the novel which contains most of the lore a battle canpaign could never tell you fleshed them out a lot more to show us exactly how much there was to them.
Night elves living in a forest preventing the legion from returning is not the destiny of the race. That is a story arc we are introduced to. They move on from there. And that intro was not full of Druids dominating everything, priests and sentinels mostly, then Druids and demon hunters and I stress there was much more to them not shown. The mages, the civilization, the ruins etc would make it seem if you only look at wc3 and not read the context of the lore that these are only forest people. But paying attention to anything would let you know they are so much more.
They are not in this state because they have devolved or are not capable of more or prefer it this way. That group is in the state you meet them as part of a so far 10k year defense war mode targeted at shielding a world from an existential and extraterrestrial global apocalyptic threat.
The story makes sense of why a people such as the night elves with that incredible background are in that state
That state is not the perma nor the default for the race. It is the prime and preferred setting of the Druid profession / religion but only for that group. It isn’t for the others because night elves are many other things and those other things have other preferences but stayed isolated because of this group. Whether they did so I cities or in forests amongst Druids.
So pushing Druidism as the bedrock and foundation doesn’t make sense. Druidism makes sense only as a part of the night elves. A wing like we saw in legion.
The main religion is arcane star one through Elune. The Druid forest folk have their own religion. It’s fine to visit that side of the night elves. It’s there in val”Sharjah. But it is not all of the night elves nor the main of the night elves.
You must not ignore or forget what is said and written about them. Their original lore that defines them as night elves, children of the stars a dark elf group from an arcane well and an arcane origin. Not a fae race or a forest race or tree people.
You must see Druidism as a part of the night elves not the whole of the night elves. You must write them as night elves and children of the stars not as forest elves or children of the trees
Doing this is making them feel like village people, very small, way too niche for a race and losing far too much of their interesting stuff left to only appear occasionally or not at all. And making what was rather unique not just a big standard forest elf race every fantasy has rather than an intriguing race that has a major part of it in the forest elf vein/ fantasy
What You need to understand in this discussion is that Starstride simply believes that Night Elves should be portrayed as OP race in this game:
This is why he will never agree with You saying
My understanding of his idea of Night Elves is that if they have ever, in any medium been shown as good/best at something, then they should now be good/best at this things simultanously. This is why he has such ideas as Night Elves:
living in harmony with nature, and having vast sprawling cities at the same time (themes often contradicting themselves in popular media)
Having, clearly visible, powerful druids (current NE and Tauren themes)
Having the most advanced and poerfull arcane mages (current BE and Nightborne themes)
Having powerfull, active priesthood (current Draenei and Human themes)
Not only that, but IMHO he shows here that he believes, that all the things mentioned in the lore should have a strong representation in game. Emphasis on the strong, because individuals like illidari, dark rangers, death knights or even shendralar are lorewise few and far between in the general elven population, yet form what I read I understand, that he believes that they should have a very strong, visible presence in the Night Elven society in game.
Think of night elves as humanity. You have people who do the whole green peace thing, the forest etc, you have people who do technology, about development and civilization, you have those who do religion etc. it’s a broad range - because it’s a race not a nation.
In general most humanity tended to civilization and technology , for very good reasons that applies to elves too - and is why they did such an incredible civilization - you cannot forget that this is a good thing - some people somehow think that civilization is viewed as bad thing for night elves or they don’t understand or do it - this is not true, and these people don’t know the night elven history, or understand why a highly intelligent people would have a civilization. And in the case of the night elves, why the main group didn’t rebuild what they have for 10k years.
This is because they assume night elves are fae people, magical fae forest race, they are not. The Cenarians and the Sylvar - both connected to night elves, are, but night elves are not. And it is worth remember that Nightborne are a night elven people and Blood elves and high elves are also connected to Night elves directly, moreso than Cenarians and Sylvar.
Now if an extra terrestrial force comes in and destroys most of that civilization, resulting in a massive global splitting of landscapes, our civilised advanced world becomes a dystopian future.
Technology brings the aliens back, and we aren’t strong enough to defeat them, so we have to abandon or ban its use till the problem is resolved.
as such we have to live a certain way. We build cities like so, but obviously in the country or forest, we do them like so, the style varies ofc, but as you can see most human cities look a certain way and most human rural areas look another way, that’s fine. We can’t build cities without using technology and having a certain level of collective resources and expertise, but if we are the same generation and group of people, we certainly have not forgotten how
When we can use tech again we will build that way. How we live is determined by our circumstance, not who we are.
who we are is independent of whether we live in a forest or city, religious or not, use technology or not. Who were re defined by our attributes as a race, our personality traits, benevolence, fairness, grace, intelligence, extremely long lived, tall, beautiful - there are certain base characteristics that define who were are regardless of our circumstance.
if we wanted a fae forest folk that knew or desire nothing else because it was in their make up - then we’d have a race for that. it wouldn’t be humanity (night elves) even if some of us are great friends with them. Similarly when we significantly change we become something else. The fact that night elves remain night elves shows you that their arcane capacity and talent, as well as essence is still the same, circumstances dictated the forest period for so many, it’s not a racial attribute, night elves do both forest and city, and so do blood elves, it is circumstances that make the blood elves more urbanised than night elves, not core characteristics. As Darnassus, Suramar and Eldre’thalas quite clearly show. So the difference isn’t that Blood elves are the urbanised or civilised elves, while night elves are not. The difference between the two is night elves are the original version of elf, more enhanced and are nocturnal, with very set traditions and ways of doing things both for civilization in urban and rural areas. The faith of Elune, the reverence of nature are part of their religions, their magical capability is part of their core and they have this in bucket loads, living in the forest for 10k year hasn’t changed this, and lest your forget the city night elves like the Shen’dralar and the nightborne and the Moonguard and Farondis in Legion are there to show you they remain very much very very talented in this, for those who choose, it’s just that the proportion is very different today. Today the magic focusing communities are much smaller and the arcane plays a much smaller role in the overall population, - it doesn’t mean blood elves are civilized and magical while night elves are not.
The degree to which we involve ourselves in one lifestyle or another would vary… before the invasion most of us were civilization types, after the invasion the lifestyle switched because of the circumstance, circumstance determines lifestyle, character determines behaviour and attitude regardless of our lifestyle.
Brought to the present topic What the night elven characteristics that define them? they have base arcane affinity and love, they are nocturnal, they are benevolent, graceful and highly intelligent, this is the description given in Chronicles volume 1.
They were first taught the ways of nature by Cenarius, but this proved not enough for them naturally, whiles many retained the knowledge and the path, they were drawn tot he arcane and the well, they taught themselves magic and gleaned knowledge of Elune, and she became the main religion replacing nature.
Now towards the sundering event, the legion invasion period saw many warped by addiction and hubris to be very uncharacteristic of night elves - the building of their civilization is not predicated on this, the civilization is already built when this happens. Setting is separate from character.
When it goes it s the same night elf people with the same affinity, character and intelligence that live in the forest so - now the druidic way becomes prevalent away, but the arcane affinity and talent is still there, and the Elune religion is still there.
Notice how the same religion is unaffected by setting, you have church folk in the greatest cities of our world and the most remote villages and locations alike.
But there is something to be said of the unique situation of an alien invasion" and and End Times/End of world scenario the night elves experienced. A dsytopian existence for a lot of them (not all of them), and the end of that period.
So who and what would the night elves be now?
Well we are told their story and shown much, we get night elves who were hiding away in cities, we get night elves who lived in forests emerge, some remain there - the druid ones, because that is there lifestyle, but many others do not, they build a new city too, lift their arcane ban etc.
So how would they develop and progress?
Well what is for sure is that hey won’t all be village people, content and happy to live as druids, because they love nature.
You can love nature and love a city too, you can love technology and love nature, you can love technology a lot more than nature and you’re free to be the odd ball that doesn’t like nature too
With your resources regained, your magic power and capability, especially since it’s the same generation, you’re not going to invent a new state of city either - totally un-necessary, with your resources back you will be able to build the incredible way you did before, especially given that you have the expert designers, builders and handlers of technology around. You will build cities like you use to, and you would build country lodges and settlements like you use to.
To think that night elves will not have city like Suramar or Zin’Azshari, or Eldre’thalas is ludicrous, and Darnassus proves it, Darnassus is built in the style of their ancient cities, yes it may look different form Suramar and Zin’Azshari in ways that account for more than regional styles, but that’s because the architecture model was updated for night elves… in exactly the same way draenei cities of WoD look different form those of TBC - with better resources and artists hired, and a desire to do better, blizzard designed a better set for the night elves.
Suramar was not created to be something exclusively “new elven” - the Nightborne were not created as new elven race, you are seeing a night elven city in the way blizzard intend it to be with improved art resources and assets and skill, and the Nightborne are a bunch of night elves that are now super addicted having being ingesting arcane, this is why they look a little different.
The problem here is that because its’ so different form what they are use to seeing for night elves those who don’t know the lore or the race don’t seem to associate it with the race, and somehow think that night elves would have something different. What you see in Suramar as well as in Val’sharah and Azsuna and Naz’jatar ruins of Zin’Azshari , as well as Eldre’thalas this is all night elven
Blizzard basically has two styles of race settings - rural and urban.
But races are not typically one trick ponies either -they are modelled like humanity is, in that you have a wide range of things to them, and things about them, the difference here is that the bigger races have several things they are very good at.
For night elves it is magic, nature and ranged warfare. There characteristics are: intensity - honed by longevity - which gives a conviction, that allows you to have stuck to something you’ve decided on and are able to do it to great levels because you’ve been doing it for millennia, whether its worship of Elune like the priests do, studying and using the arcane like the Highborne/Nightborne/Moonguard do, using nature like the druids do, hunting like the sentinels do, wielding fel magic to destroy demons like the demon hunters do… you would be highly focused in those areas and greatly developed
in fact everything about you would have that air, great cities would have the complexity and style and intricacy borne of people who have years to live , millennia to style detail and a deft touch - the beauty comes out of their graceful character, they like doing things very well and beautifully so it would look good. Even the simple structures used in settlements and villages would have an elegance to them
This would all be reflected.
It’s not about offering something that is covered by someone else. The Nightborne offer nothing that isn’t covered by the blood elves, the sentinels don’t offer anything that isn’t covered by the Farstriders.
Yet we have them all because they are versions of their own races versions of mages and hunters etc.
The Nightborne are a detailed showing of the night elven civilization, and what high magical usage looks like in night elves both before the sundering and now post sundering, post legion. The sentinels are what the night elven version of the Farstriders are, experts in forest tracking , and hunting, rangers that are also soldier use to forest and guerrilla type warfare because the Forest is a dominant landscape for most of the elven nations.
The Shen’dralar , Moonguard, Nightborne all represent a night elf racial involvement - they overlap with the Thalassian elves, but that isn’t relevant, because they are a different elven racial group they are the night elven, i.e. nocturnal elven kaldorei based group.
It wouldn’t be surprising they would be involved.
Essentially what did the Draenei add to the blood elves in TBC with the Sunwell? The blood elves have the light, know the Naaru by now and also wield magic… yet the Draenei are there… and while they have these similar professions, we appreciate them being there they didn’t have to be there… the story of the Sunwell didn’t have to include them, but it did.
You have to stop looking at things like this it clearly isn’t how the developers think or clearly the Nightborne would not have joined with the blood elves, nor the Draenei with them.
My guess is they wanna show the elves working and coming together. The blood elves had no reason to be involved with Suramar, but they were in 7.1, blizzard created a reason, cos they wanted the elves to be involved, all of them, and then they decided oh, we like Nightborne getting on with blood elves so the horde can have Suramar and our horde toons can play there and to make up for it we’ll allow the blood elves to be available on the alliance, but vary them, have em on as void elves.
I see no reason why night elves can’t be involved with Midnight - I would even expect it’s the Highborne/Moonguard type that are heavily involved, but won’t be surprised to see Moon Priestesses, and even Balance druids - or even the more forest/nature lot, the ferals and restos we saw loads of 10.2
What we haven’t seen lots of since legion for night elves are the Highborne/Moonguard types, the Farondis - the arcane wielding lot and the Illidari lot - these are major parts of the night elf fantasy we haven’t seen much. And for all the involvement of Tyrande, we really haven’t seen the Moon Priestesses show up as you know, Moon Priestesses, they have just been static NPCs with bows and arrows knocked. Not seen any great magic usage, except for Tyrande
This is why I would anticipate it’s the Highborne/Moonguard/casting Moon Priestesses, Balance druids and Illidari demon hunters that would feature for night elves in Midnight. or at least I’d like that.
What I loved about night elves were their seemingly contrasting and opposing themes.
They weren’t anything like what we’ve seen for elves in popular media, yet they were still very much elven - after all they are elves.
Popular media has not done fantasy races very well, they’ve made them 1 trick gimmicks for the most part
I greatly respected wow for making fantasy races actually feel genuinely like races.
And I’m sorry, but night elves have had vast sprawling cities and great forest cultures and societies too, this is conceivable that a race can have both and isn’t just one or the other.
This is how THEY wrote them. night elves are both the pre-sundering civilization, the ruins, the sundering event and war with the legion, the ruins in the aftermath, the forest living in the Long vigil, they are both those things and all those things.
This is what has been written about them. Their theme covers Elune, a priesthood, a night civilization, and both an arcane wielding group and nature wielding group, they also have a fel wielding group.
these are all separate, yet they come together to fight. In Wc3, one of the events like the war of the ancients, the priesthood and druids are totally different, they may not seem this way now because there has been a blurring in-game because emphasis has not shown the nuance that was quite clear in the earlier instalments, yet there was, and the arcane hold and mastery of the night elves were always there.
this is how we have the Nightborne -showing you the arcane side of the Night elves. Arcane magic and nature love are part of all the elves, it’s the racial characteristic, and is not limited to just two groups. in Sander’s statement you quote, you forget the void elves are great magic users, so in theory he should have said when you have 3 separate choices.
But that is the wrong arguments because all the elves by lore are magical, all, to then think that night elves are only nature type living in harmony isn’t correct.
it’s a strong feature but it isn’t the only one.
yes there are differences between the elves, but you have to note that Nightborne are void elves are part of the Night elf and blood elf (high elf) superset) and not separate entities themselves even though they are their own faction, they are faction of blood elves (void elves that is) and a faction of night elves (Nightborne are)
To make a comparison, Highmountain Tauren do not now represent shamanism and nature because this is a huge theme for them… nor do Lightforge Draenei now represent the light instead of the draenei, because they have a high intensity of them.
Their existence is not really to change the racial identity or scope of the main race, it’s to show another group of the same race that have biological differences, their story will also show they have other differences, but these aren’t major ones.
Night elves are still elves, they are not orcs or trolls, void of elven grace, elven civilization or magical capability, just because you’ve met most of them as druids. I would continue to remind you that night elves are huge Priests, demon hunters and mages, and blizzards lack of that visibility in most of your gaming experience hasn’t negated the very lore they themselves wrote and attributed to night elves.
the only viable conclusion is that you shouldn’t conclude night elves are no longer about these things, but rather that night elves will see more visibility on theses other sides to them soon because they are a core part of them a lot of people like. Many people like the demon hunter lore, the lore of Azshara and the kaldorei civilization, this is why the Nightborne are popular and Suramar well loved, the story o the Highborne, the Moonguard as well as the druids and the sentinels. A night elf without the Moon Priestesses being magical, the Highborne and night elven arcane magic and history, the demon hunters, Illidan and fel wielding magical prowess is very dull.
You can’t expect night elf fans who truly like the race to be happy if every time they see the race, they’re just seeing druids over and over again, and wonder why are we just seeing this when there is so much more to the race?
The conclusion that its’s because blizzard want to change the race is incorrect, i think the better conclusion is the race has been poorly managed in game.
Proof?
It wasn’t till legion we saw all the aspects of the night elves in play and in play well, we saw a pristine night elf city, we a saw Highborne, Moonguard with the new nightborne sub-race, we saw the druids in play big time in Val’sharah, we saw the Ravencrests and black rook hold, we saw the wardens for the first time in game and the demon hunters properly.
Now, while the Highborne weren’t part of wc3, the sentinels, wardens, demon hunters were a major part, yet in game we never saw or rarely saw any of these. Sentinels were there, but only in the night elf lands, through most of wow where most players are not night elven, you only ever saw night elves when meeting druids.
why mention this? it’s to show you that poor portrayal sis the case of this, not a change in intention. And this can influence how new developers view and then write the elves.
All this, sentinels, moon priestesses, demon hunters, Highborne, , night elven civilization are all part of the night elf lore and prominently so, as is night elven forests, and the woodland creatures… most of wow has neglected to show the majority of this for night elves. yet you see it heavily in the book material, and see it well in snapshot expansions like demon hunters in tBc and Highborne/warden in Legion.
Post legion we’ve had Wardens for the first time, night elves looking like sentinels from Wc3 and the box art, where we never did, where we only just saw druids, more druids, and even more druids. Even Shandris felt new, because again, it was just druids before. Cordana, Delas, Jarod, Farondis, Thalyssra, Lothrius, Maiev are all enjoyable because they are not druids - all of these appear after MoP - showing you how woeful representation was.
Blizzard is notorious for not showing other races on the alliance other than humans well. Humans get shown for everything, night elves are mostly forgotten and this is exactly why you mostly saw druids. not because they are forest elves are this is their key, but because they simply weren’t paying them attention. And that lack of attention and mostly forest elf portrayal led the new developers to start thinking of night elves as a niche forest elf group rather than a night elf group. I even noticed the new devs saying this was the core of the night elves before later correcting themselves- it was sad because it showed someone hadn’t been paying attention to the material the company had put out.
Tyrande was a virtual unknown to most wow players, she had done literally nothing in game, despite being a prominent character in 4 novels, having a cameo in MoP…
So because you saw night elf druids, you would argue Tyrande is not really a part of the night elves much, Wardens aren’t part of the night elves, nor are demon hunters, or Highborne, so why the insistence now that all of these except Highborne are part of the night elves?
None of these had visibility either… but all have had visibility, we can’t conclude that night elves are just about nature, they never were, not because this s what most people have seen. Even in Wc3, the initial outing, you didn’t see everything that was part of the night elves. Some assume that only what is SEEN in Wc3 is night elven. To them anything else isn’t. Yet the night elven civilization, the arcane masters, dark elf sorcerers and dark elf wizards and the very best in magic were part of the night elf story from the start. The WC3 manual talks of them, they are mentioned in WC3 and the WotA was been written during the development of the game, and released shortly after. People aren’t aware that a far bigger vision than initially SEEN was already planned for Night elves in WC3, not just night elves, but the entire Warcraft universe, you just didn’t see it in WC3. So to think that only WC3 stuff is valid is silly.
In wow Dragonflight, the emerald dream allows a lot of people to experience a very nature feel to the night elves, didn’t legion let you experience a very arcane feel to the night elves and a demon hunter feel to the night elves. If you didn’t, then you missed what the Nightborne, Moonguard, Farondis were 100% - if you felt hat only Val’Sharah was representative of the night elves, then I lay the fault at blizzard’s feet for not properly showing night elves through the rest of the game as the other things they are : which is mages, moon priestesses, demon hunters and sentinels.
Why is it so hard for some to get. You can have more than one thing to a race, more than one feel. Night elves are supposed to feel naturey, like a nature people, but they are also supposed to feel like a wizard magic people living in a civilization- that’s a different part of them, as well as a hunted/hunting demon ridden/fighting people in a desolate scorched fel landscape. It’s supposed to be a race!! Not a gimmick. It’s meant to have multiple things. You can never just think of humans as green peace folk that only live in forests and don’t do civilization. Some people do, but the entire race is not just defined by that. Humans are versatile, even if circumstance can put an entire race back to the stone age, some may stay “amish”, others will rise up an rebuild or diversify. Same with the night elves, fantasy people love to think of non human races as just one thing. I loved wow because it broke that nonsense, and showed non human races as feeling like an actual race. I’m not going to like and support only one dimensional view of night elves, especially when i quite like the Highborne/nightborne and demon hunter fantasy as well as the Moon priest one. And while I also love the druid one, for there just to be nature to the ngiht elves is boring.
NElves are not in the long vigil ear - this is not a forest isolation or city isolation group of people. And you have to remember there are 3 factions of night elves - post - Long vigil main group, the Highborne, and the Illidari.
Indeed, but I do think this is better it allows more creative freedom for playable races. There is no reason all races need to be the same or the same level.
In fact it is unrealistic. how can you be “highly intelligent” and lived for thousands of years, or be immortal having lived millennia and developed so much yet no different from other who are more handicapped ?
If you write the group has having achieved a level of harmony and cohesion to a near single minded agreement or cohesive directive - such as making things better - and working towards it, then making few mistakes, having extra powers or even as simple as having much better food, living regime, not plagued by maladies of the mind or deception… these all have practical consequences - that should be quite visible and it is not a bad thing to have some who are like that.
Does it mean that some groups would be better than others - only in some ways, more powerful in some, as a whole, but as individuals well, it is quite feasible that some humans can achieve a level of excellence comparable to the average elf, but the average amongst humans being far lower because of their limitations - in short, humans have potential to be as great, but haven’t got their yet due to limiting factors, still figuring it out, shorter lifespans, weaker bodies etc.
doesn’t mean special individuals cannot rise to extreme heights, and this is all you need for player characters, player characters can be a certain level, it doesn’t mean the entire race is at that exceptional level either.
I think this is plausible and allows you to have races like night elves , Draenei, blood elves, Dracthyr dragons etc as playable.
And what of the Illidari demon hunters, the Highborne/nightborne and arcane side of the night elves? that is also their gimmick.
What is the blood elves’ gimmick? It’s not class based, would you say it’s magisters magic? hen what about the Light and holy paladins or the Farstriders and forestry/rangers?
to think of night elves only in terms of nature, is the limiting factor, because you can’t think of them as Highborne, nocturnal civilization, priests or demon hunters - only nature types?
this is part of the problem. My point is that the lore has them as these other things too, and there is a lot about all these other aspects as you go through the novels, but the way the game is designed, and it’s patchy bit/part surfacing for aces as developmental goals change, has skewed this race into a class.
And it’s not good nor healthy. it makes them far less than what they once were to only see the night star group as a tree forest group only.
it is not a denial of this part of them, it’s pointing to the gaping lack of anything else, and how much more cool stuff there is to them. I have to intentionally highlight when they’ve shown the other stuff and how well loved it has been. Suramar and the nightborne/Highborne, demon hunters and the Illidari - even the cathedral of eternal night, the temple of the moon - rare as we have seen these parts of night elves in game, we have loved them immensely, and those of us who read the novels have read about a lot more of them than we encounter in the game in proportion to what is shown of night elves and we love the stuff.
After a while, we’re gonna ask where is the other cool stuff about them that also captured our imagination, and point out they are drifting too much.
you may say we are wrong for feeling that way - if you can say someone is wrong for feeling something, but we are pointing out our observations and how well, night elves with just this isn’t really night elves and it’s boring, it’s just forest elves, , and night elves were always more than just forest elves, Forest elfry was always just a part of night elves…not the “gimmick” as you put it.
So you can understand, why forest lovers that love the forest side of the night elves like myself are raising this point. The forest side without the arcane and civilised side, and the fel side, is not the night elves, but a whisper of what they are, nothing really remarkable and seen in a 100 fantasy IPs and dnd games - it’s far less interesting than what night elves are… and this isn’t about being overpowered, it’s about being night elves.