Wrong. Nightborne have access to the death knight class with the understanding that their race has been producing corpses since rejoining the world. Ditto for the void elves, of whom there are (inexplicably) hundreds as of BfA, dying left and right. In battle against the Horde, primarily, with many opportunities for val’kyr resurrection.
Bizarre take. The Darkfallen have never entered into the “Alliance high elf” fantasy; since their inception they’ve been uniquely aligned with the Forsaken. Fair skins and baby blues were the void elves’ high elf customizations, not the pallid flesh and crimson eyes of the erstwhile Forsaken queen and Horde Warchief.
But sure, I guess an ex-dark ranger quadruple agent is a valid RP backstory now, hilarious as it is.
To be absolutely fair… red eyes feel like they’d be a valid, ‘Void,’ customization, and Void Elves already had several gray skin tones. I don’t think I’d mind the Void Elves getting Dark Ranger customizations if they were supposed to reflect more void-themed options. But, we’re never told that, and they’re literally called Dark Ranger customization.
Well, if you’re okay with it being locked to Death Knights then. I would say that is fair. I don’t think people hung up on no Darkfallen Nightborne would be, however. Bolvar didn’t seem as keen on raising Scourge forces in general. We only know that he was sending agents out to collect corpses of slain heroes and raising them as Death Knights.
Considering it was never stated at all that the Darkfallen void elves were raised by Sylvanas, we’re left to speculate. Sure, my interpretation of Darkfallen High elves might rely on speculation, but I would say it requires more speculation that Void elves were being raised. Considering we’ve seen High elf Darkfallen in the lore prior to this point, and did not see any Void elves being raised nor see it mentioned at all to my knowledge.
Not at all, the through line is very easy to follow.
High elf dies to Scourge → Gets raised as Darkfallen and joins Sylvanas → Leaves the Horde after BFA to join the Alliance. Makes no less sense than Night elves who decided to stay with the Horde that killed them and destroyed their home and raised them in the condition they currently are now.
The thing is, I’d be surprised if they hadn’t, they just never tell us anything unless there’s some kind of interview for publicity. Even then, customizations are not something the Game Direction views as legitimate content. It’s why they tried to go back on their promise of expanding character customization throughout Shadowlands, until people called them out on it.
Speaking for myself, it’s that last part of the chain of events I find difficult to believe. Then again, an entire, ‘Squad,’ of elves corrupted by the Void were welcomed into the Alliance with open arms to the point they were strolling freely and unmolested through the streets of Darnasuss (before Teldrassil got torched) so uh… yeah. I guess a bunch of former Horde Dark Rangers joining the Alliance and being greeted with hugs and baskets of assorted perfumes isn’t as far fetched as it ought to be.
I’d feel better about it if maybe we had some sort of story involved, such as a group of Kaldorei Dark Rangers who grew to be close friends with those High Elven Dark Rangers, or heck, some High Elves in the Alliance who were happy to reunite with their loved ones even if they were now undead. Vereesa was pretty happy at the idea of living with the Banshee Queen at one point, after all. I suppose that could work for others.
It’d just be nice if we had the tiniest hints that any of these scenarios are intended.
I don’t find it difficult to believe at this current juncture in the story. We saw humans welcoming their erstwhile Forsaken kin back, and the narrative that humans hate the undead unconditionally is no longer true. I don’t think the Alliance would have a problem with the undead rejoining them.
Really? “Risen void elf rejoins the void elves” is a harder sell to you than “elite agent of the Forsaken flips on a dime after returning to power in Lordaeron and swaps factions after twenty years in the Banshee Queen’s service”? Turalyon would be as stupid to induct that guy into the Alliance as they would be to go there.
I don’t necessarily mind the “imagination rules supreme” approach to race/class/whatever combinations, but some are so egregious on the surface that a modicum of plot acknowledgement wouldn’t be amiss. This one didn’t even get a nod in Velonara’s Return to Lordaeron denouement, it was so much an afterthought.
That’s what I heard, too. That supposedly BFA was only going to add Zandalari and Kul’tirans, but some developer was toying around and making void elves on their own time, showed it off, and Blizzard decided to implement them because most of the work had already been done. So that kicked off the whole “allied race” schlock.
Contrasting that is their admission that nightborne were never originally designed with the intent that they’d be playable so they had to take a hatchet job to night elves to make them work. It seems pretty clear to me that despite looking more different than its parent race, nightborne were the real afterthought.
The NPC models, that were in no way designed to be playable since they’re not rigged to wear Player armor sets or use Player emotes, is a clear sign that Nightborne were not intended to be a playable race until much later. And what we got in terms of quality and the severe lack in customization options clearly shows that Nighborne were a rush job to try and get them out the door to be with the other three.
The simplest way I can describe the whole Void Elf vs Nightborne is:
Nightborne - amazing backstory, garbage player model
Void Elves - garbage backstory, excellent player model (especially considering they’re just a copy+paste of Blood Elves which is the most, if not second most, played race in the game)
EDIT: And the funny thing is, I actually like the Nightborne. I plan on race-changing this guy to be one the day they unlock Shaman for everyone. I love their backstory and the fact they’re the closest we have to Dark Elves/Drow in the Warcraft universe. I just wish their model wasn’t so garbage.
I’m grouchier on the whole concept and felt none of the allied races did anything for me, and especially dislike that nightborne were added because my dumb brain goes “well if naga are ever considered as a playable race, they’d now be culturally redundant with nightborne and won’t go horde” so they put me off. Also feels like a cheap way to try to force more of a connection to Suramar as a horde player after-the-fact when the expansion was over.
I remember when Aethas showed up in the mage order hall with the nightborne apprentice and I was already going “oh no please don’t let this be a teaser”. Ugh.
The risen Void Elf part is where I scratch my head. I mean, Lor’themar exiled the Void Elves because they were a threat to the Sunwell. If Sylvanas just raises them as Undead and they’re in the Horde… That’s kind of going over his head.
And yes, the natural answer to that is, “Well, just keep the Void Elf Dark Rangers away from the Sunwell.” That in and of itself results in aggravation, because nix, ‘Dark Rangers,’ from that, and suddenly you have no legitimate excuse for why Lor’themar exiled them to begin with!
To be fair, that’s part and parcel of the whole concept of a warchief in the first place. They’d get the final say. Lor’themar could exile anyone he wants from Silvermoon but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t simply go to any other horde city and enjoy the same protection.
That’s how Warchiefs find themselves staring down a rebellion, and its not as if it would’ve been Lor’themar’s first time reconsidering old alliances. Hell, with Alleria there holding out the hand of friendship for Anduin, and the Void Elves already proving every preconception the Blood Elves have had about the Alliance has been wrong (as if High Elves hadn’t already been proving that for ages), Lor’themar would have had few reasons not to consider leaving the Horde over Sylvanas going over his head like that.
Other than leaving the Nightborne in the lurch, but I doubt they wouldn’t have been welcome as well, and honestly, after seeing Teldrassil burn they should’ve been having second thoughts as well.
Maybe but once the topic of Teldrassil comes up, it becomes ridiculous to consider the horde continuing to exist at all, whether or not the stupid council was in play or not. Not really a warchief problem, IMO.
One thing I don’t like is factions I’ve gotten exalted with turning into enemies (Zandalari in Catalcysm in particular, and at least the Klaxxi had the decency to admit they were going to upfront). So I quickly went from love to hate. Because the story does such a good job at tricking you into liking the Nightfallen. Presenting them almost as homeless chemo patients, them being so frail and vulnerable, having to feed them and at one point even carrying Oculeth over your shoulder to get him to shelter after he won you over with his adorably witty and zany banter.
But that’s the sad part. You’re not really seeing who they are during that time. You’re just seeing a tiny slice of their lives when they are desperate, starving, and having their minds and bodies degrade in a most horrible way. You’re not actually seeing who they were before then. Or who they will be once you’ve cured them, helped bring them back up to health, and return them to power in the negatively presented society they came from.
Who they are when they’re not ostracized and sick is what all of the Suramar campaign put blinders on us to avoid.
But I was willing to see who they would become, and even intended to get their heritage armor by leveling a Nightborne from scratch, and I figured another Elf Horde alt could be good.
Until I got to the character creation screen. I thought maybe it was just the character creation screen not putting the model in the best light, but then I zoned into the Nighthold on that character and it was so much worse in motion. I was dismayed by how hideous the playable Nightborne models were. The only saving grace would have been if they could have been Druids so I could stay in Cat Form and not have to look at the way the Nightborne models were rigged. There were even Terrace Grove-Tenders taking after High Botanist Tel’arn in the playable Nightborne phased version of the Nighthold, right?
No dice. Nightborne couldn’t be Druids, and had no real way to hide how ugly they were. So I deleted that character and haven’t tried again since, even after Thalyssra flipflopped again at Nazjatar, convincing Lor’themar to work with the Alliance by reminiscing on how the Night Elves, High Elves, and Blood Elves worked together with her faction to liberate Suramar and then after at Orgrimmar got all chummy with Jaina, too.