I ran through the Court of Stars tonight. The section where we’re glamoured to look like a Nightborne noble was so depressing, I logged out.
Hair animation, the proper model shape, mana infused hair and hands, gorgeous gold tipped armour. And then there’s the actual player models.
What the effing crap Blizzard?
Nightborne would look quite good with these clothes and the difference wouldn’t be too big.
It’s one thing (and I almost dare saying the biggest one) that makes the NPCs look so different to ours. They had stuff to show off tattoos and sets made for them. But we didn’t get these sets.
I mean, the female NB look like one of Suramar with her heritage. That much it helps. Blizzard left the cool mogs to NPCs, sadly.
Blizzard’s work on the Nightborne is indefensible. The Nightborne body may share at best a passing resemblance, but their face is completely wrong, which was the point of that comparison image.
In interviews they’re making ridiculous claims that they’re doing all these innovative techniques and upping the “fidelity” with facial animations that you can clearly see did not happen just by looking at the Nightborne model we ended up with.
They had a deadline to meet to push out the first wave of Allied Races to boost pre-order numbers for Battle for Azeroth, and they couldn’t be bothered to follow up and improve the travesty of a model they released.
I’ll never defend the face, especially that there’s only one not so bad face while others are old as H.
I was mostly talking about the body. The other has cooler mogs possibly than anything Blizzard created while the playable one has… well, a robe made based on the human model. Body type (shape) wise the males are not so different aside from the face.
If we put playable mogs on the Suramar Nightborne they’d also look strange. Suramar mogs are too cool and it saddens me we didn’t get anything like it even if just for Nightborne players.
Every time I see comparisons I am saddened. I know they must have been short on time but the playable model is a travesty. 
If the model they’ve created only looks decent with very specific equipment, that is a major design flaw. I don’t even want to get into how ridiculously oversized the male Nightborne’s shoulders look. On paper, the body may appear accurate, but there are some details that still haven’t been figured out.
It was actually the janitors at Blizzard HQ that were tasked with creating the Nightborne.
You’d be surprised how little plastic surgery you need to look like a totally different person.
I agree, though. Just saying the not playable Nightborne would also look worse with the gear the playable one is shown.
But I do agree with what you said. Though something I have to say is that every race would look quite cool with the Suramar armor the non playable Nightborne is. That set is just too good.
In those terms, the current Nightborne model needs hairline restoration, botox injections, blepharoplasty, and maybe a face lift.