I have a strange feeling that letting Nightborne be playable was a fairly late in the development cycle decision or else they would just have one set of models for NPCs and players.
Even as someone that is personally critical of the implementation of the playable Nightborne, I don’t think this is entirely accurate.
Barring minor differences like skin color and hairstyle, all of the base features of the Nightborne NPCs are practically the same - most of those features made it into the playable Nightborne or were added after the fact, even if their implementation wasn’t perfect.
The larger problem with the playable Nightborne, in my opinion, lies more with the liberties the developers took with adding design facets that just aren’t appealing to players (heavy wrinkles, undereye darkness, receded hairlines) in an overwhelming amount of customization options.
The initial story of the Nightfallen were to restore their vitality. As of Exploring Azeroth: Islands and Isles, all Nightborne have consumed the fruit of the Arcan’dor and are restored.
I do think a few of the male Nightborne face options resemble a Nightborne that is in the early stages of reverting fully from withering.
This is a glaring issue for a lot of races, not just the Nightborne, but I agree that the Nightborne aesthetic essentially died with Legion, although I do appreciate the recent additions of the Trading Post masquare masks and the Nightborne timewalking weapons.
bfa was initially only going to add kul tirans and zandalari trolls as base races apparently, which would explain why the two elf races added are so rushed
Trust me - you’re preaching to the choir. I’m just saying that it’s not entirely accurate that they don’t resemble the NPCs we were introduced with, it was just a poor implementation.
They were just implemented poorly (like a few other, more recent races) and Blizzard is basically going to have to play catch-up with them forever, or not and let them rot as a race.
This one is relatively easy to explain because it’s similar to the old worgen/goblin monk excuse. Suramar, at least the parts your referring to, are locked to the legion expansion where the player character was an outsider.
You are still the “player character” even if your race is Nightborne therefore the treats you as such.
I would like to see more of Suramar be brought forward to the current expansion so we can explore and RP more there. But in the meantime we are stuck being in legion.
Heck Kultirans call other Kultirans mainlanders and treat them poorly. Zandalari are welcomed home as strangers. It is what it is.
My nightborne runs so weird I can barely look at her. Plus the fact shes in shadow priest form just creeps me out a bit. Was a faction change I did last month so was unaware of this…irregularity.
Otherwise she’s a perfectly stately and nice looking character.
I hate to say it but despite my favorite race in game being Nightborne I hadn’t race changed my main (this toon) until recently it lasted like a week and a half before I race changed back to Blood Elf because I had always mained a Blood Elf anyway and we look much better, have better customization, etc. Nightborne need so much work and customization to be what they should be it’s unreal.
Frankly it’s more of a resource problem. Rigging animations are very time consuming. That’s why they reuse them when they can - e.g. Jinyu NPCs and mobs use Night Elf animations.
In the case of Nightborne it was just bad planning. They decided last minute to make them playable and the only way to accomplish that was to use the Night Elf animation rigs.
It’s actually easily explainable IN universe. If you are a playable nightborne then you were part of Thalysra’s rebellion, meaning you would need a disguise to walk freely. You were likely a known traitor.
The biggest thing I want is a vest option for my nightborne’s heritage armor. I love the plum and silver color, but I don’t want to have to hide my chest and only have a bra to avoid having a dress on. c’mon blizz, give me a matching tunic of some flavor.
The biggest thing I want is for them to remove the ugly chin armor that comes with the chest piece for some god forsaken reason. Like Nightborne already have a chin armor customization option, why did they feel the need to do that? If I wanted chin armor I would’ve selected it at the barber shop.
I forget about that, because I hate the dress and hide it anyways. That chest is just awful on so many levels, and I cannot find anything that really matches the rest of it.