And that would bother me if Nightborne gave me the same feeling night elves did. The custom animations do a bit of work to differentiate them, and I still would like to see additional model tweaks to make them appear closer to the NPCs, but thematically Nightborne are a lot closer to blood elves (the aristocratic angle) than the night elves (the druidic theocracy angle).
And the concern a lot of people have when you propose “give X to the other faction” has nothing to do with lore. Of course lore supports it, but races are the lens through which players view all of the content within WoW, so as a game dev you absolutely have to be considerate of how this content will affect the population of your game. If High elves were a Horde race I guarantee we would have seen these guys as an allied race. They’d have as limited differentiation as the highmountain tauren; blue eyes, whiter skin, facial tattoo options, the works. But moving them over to Alliance? You might cause population imbalances there, and once you do that there’s really no way to undo that because Blizzard will never remove a problematic race that has already been made playable.
Comparing the Image before and a Blood Elf, even though the faces are different you can tell the difference between a Blood Elf and a potential high elf easily, in my honest opinion. Even though there aren’t any tattoos or idle stance differences.
I mean it is a paint over -to show how my warrior actually looks- that is not a seamless rendering that doesn’t actually pass as a 3D model doesn’t gut me, because that’s not the intention.
For that, I would look into actual 3D rendering, but I’m not that good at it -there are some awesome fan made modelers out there, like the person that made those custom San’layn!-
Thank you, but I do have to stress the difference between a 3D model and a drawing! So while I do like the result on my warrior as a representation of how he looks, I don’t think its fair to compare what is basically a painting to a 3D rendered model -with very harsh lightning-
Also this is part of what I mean with this edit being specific to my character; I don’t see it as the generic representation of any high elf, but my char specifically -he has a rounder jaw, also a wider nose, and more hair than average.
There is already a population imbalance. If anything Quel’dorei may correct it.
I disagree with your assertion about Shal’dorei. They are the same as the Highborne mages that were added to the Kal’dorei. They just didn’t have their home destroyed.
Elisande lives at the same time as Tyrande and Malfurion. They’re the same race.
They don’t just share a cultural past (like the difference between Quel’dorei and Sin’dorei.)
They also have no real compelling visual differences. Nightborne have tattoos, flipped ears and slightly darker complexions. (But they’re still all cool colors.)
They don’t even have drastically darker skin tones.
Looks very good for a drawing then :D. But yea, i do understand where you are coming from. But i believe it can be done though haha. Where there’s a will, there is a way. But, definitely would love to see faces similar to your drawing added.
The dude is good at his work, all i can say
Talendrion who made the piece said it’s a High Elf:
They are not. If we’re going to say that high elves and blood elves are culturally different, and this differentiation occurred over the course of only a few years, then you must agree that Night Elves and Nightborne are culturally different considering the latter developed their own society over the course of 10,000 years.
Which means nothing. One of the most famous high elves of all time also lived during the time of Tyrande and Malfurion. He was a night elf back then but ultimately became a high elf. Thalyssra is old enough to remember the sundering but this isn’t true of all nightborne. Many of them are much, much younger, as evidenced by the fact that we see distinct Nightborne children in suramar. They’ve been procreating over 10 thousand years.
They share a cultural past but allowed for the immense passage of time to highlight endemic cultural differences. The Nightborne became everything that the Night Elves despised, because it was the pinnacle of their opulence and grandeur that ushered in the first invasion of the Burning Legion. The Nightborne are painful reminders of that dark time in Night Elf lore.
Some are. The teal and blue variants are a much darker shade than any customization option found in the night elf palette. They also have an off-gray variety that can’t be replicated by the night elves. You’re also forgetting that Nightborne don’t share a single hair option with the night elves; every single one is custom made specifically for them. Sure, the skins are all still cool colors, but the palettes are distinct enough that you can look at a Nightborne and immediately recognize that you aren’t looking at a night elf. This has never been a problem for me when encountering them out in the open world.
As someone who loves night elf lore and aesthetics (and who has rolled three of them) I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree here. I feel like much of the Suramar campaign was dedicated to highlighting the fundamental differences between the two elf races, and when it was announced that they’d be going Horde I actually felt like it was a logical lore decision. The rigging is the same between the two races but they don’t actually share a single customization option between them, and with any luck their models and animations will continue to be updated (see the appropriate megathread on this that asks for a myriad of updates to the Nightborne model) so that they continue to exist as their own thing.
So I’m ultimately not really bothered by the Nightborne being on Horde, and this is as a die-hard Alliance player.
Sorry. The lore states that the Shal’dorei managed to preserve their original Kal’dorei heritage.
Likewise, if you’ve read War of the Ancients you know that the Kal’dorei follow Malfurions footsteps and the males go into the Emerald Dream while the Females keep a vigil over the forest which isn’t disturbed until the Horde arrives.
Since the Kal’dorei are in stasis until Warcraft 3 and the Shal’dorei are in stasis until legion, then the differences in culture are over the same timespan as the differences in culture of Quel’dorei and Sin’dorei.
Which is funny. The lore wrote in a massive number, “10,000 years” which can be applied to a small change. “They learned they loved Arcwine. Took 10,000 years!”
But it also wrote in a reason why 10,000 years doesn’t matter at all.
There is no customization options at all that can make you stand a Shal’dorei next to a Kal’dorei and make me think “That’s a separate race” at the moment.
The Shal’dorei males being less buff also isn’t something that makes them look like different races.
They don’t look like different races. They look like different people…
and the Shal’dorei females hardly look like that.
as to your last response… This is a Shal’dorei that I’m posting on, yes? and I like him.
However. The Horde got Night Elves… with different jewelry and markings and that’s it.
Nyshant and my Druid share the same skin tone.
At their most different Shal’dorei are a shade darker than Kal’dorei. That’s like saying, “That tan makes that human look like a different race!”
Tans don’t make a different race.
Flipped Ears (and hardly flipped.) ears don’t make you a different race. You just have different ears.
Different clothing doesn’t make you a different race.
Magic Tattoos? You could make this argument for Elves since they seem to be naturally occurring…
That doesn’t make them look like different races though.
Anyways. Horde got Night Elves so the counter argument that Alliance shouldn’t receive a race that they’ve already got makes no sense.
What they preserved is the series of cultural doctrines that characterized Night Elf society at the height of their status as an empire. Over ten thousand years, however, the Night Elves moved away from the opulence of cities like Suramar and Azshara whereas the Nightborne doubled down on it. That’s why the night elves are characterized by a druidic lifestyle and the nightborne enjoy an aristocratic existence. The differences between the two cultures are night and day.
Neither race was in “stasis.” The Nightborne were cut off from the rest of the world, but they still continued to thrive as a civilization. the Night Elves literally changed much of how their society functions in the years after the Great Sundering. You’re implying that both races are time-locked only to be released to the world in the modern era, and that’s simply not true.
I mean, funny, but that’s not the only defining characteristic of Nightborne society. They’re magocracy whereas the Night Elves are a theocracy. That’s a huge difference.
This is all a fine opinion, but it basically boils down to a matter of taste. I personally can tell the difference immediately when looking at the figure of a nightborne compared to a night elf. I do understand the complaint that the differences aren’t drastic enough for some people, but my only point is that the distinctions are self-evident that one wouldn’t confuse a nightborne mage for a night elf mage.
Which isn’t relevant anyway. If you’ll look back at much of what I’ve posted earlier you’ll see that I argue that biological distinctions aren’t necessary for determining whether a race is viable as an allied race addition or not. I’m concerned with unique aesthetic moreso than anything else, which is why I’m excited over the addition of “beefy human” Kul Tirans. They’re still humans, and yet… from a visual standpoint they aren’t.
With all due respect, repeating “horde got night elves” doesn’t make it true. Lorewise, the Nightborne are as distinct a branch from the night elves as the high elves are, especially given the fact that they’ve been mutated by the influence of the nightwell.
… by the way, why are we arguing about this, again? You know I’m not actually an anti-helfer, right? My entire point is that Night Elf and Nightborne are so inimically different that it made sense for the latter’s introduction as an allied race. I’m not actually arguing that High Elves shouldn’t also be given the same treatment. If anything, I would like to see an updated model for high elves that highlights these kinds of cultural distinctions.
The differences between Night Elves and Nightborne are the minimum level of differentiation that can be done for the High Elves, but ideally I’d like to see brand new animations and facial features similar to what the Kul Tirans received.
I just disagree with assertions that Nightborne and Night Elves look like different races.
They don’t.
Everybody just conflates whether they can identify them as being different in game as meaning they look like different races.
I’m also aware that Night Elves follow Malfurions lead while the Nightborne keep the Highborne lifestyle alive.
I think this cultural difference is similar to Quel’dorei and Sin’dorei.
Sin’dorei are busy doing drugs and being decadent in Silvermoon. Quel’dorei seem far more serious. I’m typically always referring to the Silver Covenant. As much as I like the Quel’danil elves.
There are those High Elves partying on a boat though.
I always see Blood Elves are somewhat hedonistic, while High Elves seem to be a bit more tightly wound. Sort of like a reformed drug addict who won’t let themselves relax or have fun yet because they don’t trust themselves.
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