No, it’s a trope.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedEyesTakeWarning
It’s associated with exceptionally great druidic potential, so there’s indeed a pertinent Nature connection. Azshara and Illidan didn’t meet that potential because, potential or not, there’s no fully accounting for if someone’s upbringing leads to their personality becoming ill-suited to the particular rigors of druidic mastery.
In a way Illidan and Azshara were almost like singular microcosms for the nascent night elves as a whole in that regard. Initially born with a uniquely deep link to Nature, they instead latched onto the easy power of the arcane to the exclusion of their natural gift.
Considering Azshara’s eyes were seen as a sign of greatness, the belief likely predated her reign, and may well have even had its roots in the pre-empire night elves’ closer ties to the forest and its spirits, wherein the true meaning of golden eyes may have aligned more closely with their cultural practices at the time.
I.e. in the old, pre-Highborne days it’s perhaps possible that the association between golden eyes and greatness originated from the night elves of that time still associating greatness with one’s closeness to Nature. Then as they increasingly drifted toward the arcane and began leaving the old ways behind, it may have adopted a more generalized sense of having a grand destiny.
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See, I got more of a “love child of a ninja and Arabian warrior” vibe. I don’t dislike it, but I’m not sure I like it either.
I just know I’d collect those xmogs.
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I think your reading too much into the cut screen depiction. Except for those that have golden eyes all Night Elves have silver eyes. Also Elune’s special powers are labeled but she’s really just an aspect of light. They probably gave it that label to avoid creating a lunar or astral magic label.
Not sure about the walls but I like the constructs. Maybe if they have more of an moon style design to the walls instead of the Black Rook Hold style.
Now you know this is too good of an idea to be implemented.
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This was my first thought, she looks more like the Dark Ranger model.
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I hate to say it, but…frankly that archer’s appearance looks almost like it’s reminiscent of the current Darkshore Warfront armor sets. With the gold accents and the maroon fabric, it looks a lot less like circa WC3 night elf armor and more like WoW-era Alliance night elf armor.
Which comes across as kind of…unfortunate.
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Yes. It doesn’t match the rest of the Night Elves art theme at all.
Its an artistic jump the shark in visual form. No other Reforged model deviates from its original model in any way that’s comparable. Every other model pretty much matches and expands upon its original form. This is not a remaster, this is a revision or a retcon.
I would expect an explanation as to why they are throwing the original source out the window, but I doubt we will get one. They are cowards when it comes to uncomfortable questions. Its probably to appeal to Chinese censor boards since the Western market is a minority now, or in fear of some social platform backlash by a vocal minority of people that feel the need to be offended for others who probably would never play the game to begin with.
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“Hey guys, what should we give the race that is characterized by their eye colour being the colour of moonlight, to the point where any deviation like golden eyes is considered important?”
“I dunno, pinkish-red glowing eyes?”
“Perfect.”
Also, lacking in brute strength? I’m pretty sure the night elves are different from other elves in part because of their physical strength and prowess… to be called ‘the perfect warriors’ by Grom Hellscream implied a certain level of strength beyond just physical fitness.
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damn they went full burka, really blizzard?
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WoW. Good thing I didn’t preorder because the new models are ugly. Why do they have red eyes? I recall the nelfs having moonlight eyes.
This too. Why did they cover up the nelf archers? Blizzard doesn’t have a problem using their original look during the war of thorns, now they’re making the nelfs halal. Smh. Are they going to make the abominations more kid friendly too?
Grom seems to have a different criteria for what a good warrior ought to be compared to the classical rendition. We know as a Warsong he valued mobility, hit and run, and aggression. He got all of those from his initial encounter with the Sentinals.
If we’re looking at a pure WC3 game mechanics PoV then the description is right. Nelfs could never out muscle in the other 3 races, and always relied on archer spam. The bear druids were mostly used as healers anyway.
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So, upon visiting the Warcraft subreddit, it seems that the archer in the pic is not in fact the night elf archer, but the dark ranger unit they tossed in there for reasons, possibly because the dark ranger can be hired in WC3 as a unit regardless of faction.
Not trusted enough to post an actual link, sadly, but I’ll just ‘cleverly’ space it out.
https:// i.redd.it/ykqiz065ze631. jpg
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but dark ranger in wc3 uses sylvanas model. I wonder if she will have unique model or that’s just her
I gotcha.
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So why would they insert a character that isn’t even a Night Elf unit?
I’m probably the most vocal person here who calls out Blizzard in not paying attention to their own lore, but this is an unprecedented screw-up. You’d think a Small Indie Company™ known for is quality would catch an obvious snafu.
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oh my god they look horrible.
After seeing the models of arthas,jaina and uther i really had my expectations a little more higher for nelfs…
i guess that was a mistake.
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I think it’s because the love for Night Elves has been lost as their teams change over time. ![:frowning:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")
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I can see that. Its quite apparent that the team working on WoW since Cataclysm see Night elves as a mistake in their mongoloid vision of Warcraft 2. But you’d think that the team working on WC3 would at least understand the game that outsold the others and put WoW on the map is entirely different from the one that people “claim” is the heart and soul of Warcraft.
Its just bad when the official art seems more in common with a bad fanfiction than the Studio that made the original game.
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The Red energies are a mystery… They could be Red Fel Magic given to the Lich King by Kil’jaeden(who uses Red Fel Magic despite his Green Fel Eyes) or some unknown version of Death Magic…
Before anyone mentions the Mogu’s Red Magic: The Mogu have used Green Fel Magic in MoP(Reclaimer Zuan at the very least has used it in Kun-Lai Summit) so the Red Magic is probably Fel Magic in all instances aside from Blood Magic.
That leather armor set is just tragic.
So they basically just copied Sylvanas. I missed all of those. Also those gloves are hers too.
Why would they do this and open themselves up to so much criticism? It’s not line they don’t know that the lore is important to the fans, they’ve released 3 compendiums on just the lore! It’s just ridiculous.
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This may seem simplistic but I wonder…
Maybe the Archers eyes and bow string are red because they are displayed as the Red Player, and if you are Blue or Green or another color, they would switch?
The Druid of the Talon appears to have the Teal Team markings.
Just a guess.
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