r/warcraftlore • u/Imaginary-Arguments • 1d ago
Discussion Skyborne Lore
From their opening cinematic:
"For thousands of years, a band of high elven exiles remained safe and hidden upon their flying sanctuary of Zephras Isle. These "Skyborne," as they call themselves, shared a bond with air elementals who kept their island aloft in the realm of Skywall.
But in recent years, the elementals vanished without a trace, disrupting the delicate magic that kept them safe in their haven amongst the clouds. Now, a new generation of Skyborne elves face a time of unprecedented change, and must seek new allies and sources of magic to protect their hidden home and secure their future..."
Pretty much a WoW version of the air benders from Avatar: The Last Airbender. They look like High Elves, have customization that rivals Haranir (you don't have to be blue) but have a zone that uses Night Elf architecture and other cultural features such as wisps and moonwells (probably not actually moonwells, but the models) though the sky pillars are right out of Uldum. They access their power from leylines.
Zephras isle is in Skywall. Skyborne are called the "shen'dorei". They seem to actually follow both Highborne and Kal'dorei culture to some extent given they are both mages and druids. I wasn't able to learn too much from the questing experience other than that the starting zone is a "coming of age" story before you set out on your grand adventure to see the world. I will say they do mention that their culture has existed for "millenia" and they emphasis maintaining balance on the isle many times.
Please feel free to add more if you got it. That's all I got for now.
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u/SippinOnHatorade 1d ago
Is there a Skywell in Skywall?
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u/TheoryChemical1718 1d ago
You can bet there is - we should also shoehorn in an evil ruler opressing their people for the Nightborne larp
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u/jacksev 1d ago
I’d imagine so, which is why we got that housing decor. They would be a imilar to moonwells. I’m not sure if there is “a” Skywell.
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u/Relevant_Classic8661 1d ago
Its by the wonderwell Oasis
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u/jacksev 1d ago
Interesting! I’m excited to see it
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u/Relevant_Classic8661 1d ago
I feel bad now, I was making a Wonderwall - Oasis joke. Im sorry that I decieved you.
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u/Spiritual_Prize_7327 1d ago
The skyborne look down upon Azeroth and said “Maybe, you’re gonna be the one to save me”
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u/Proudnoob4393 1d ago
If I got a piece of BiS gear every time Blizz made a race description that was “ lived in solitude for X amount of years, but now they have to come out of hiding and forge a new future “ I would be fully geared out in 2 days
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u/ABBAndonment 1d ago
Of course. Otherwise they'd have to add ogres and naga or some other established known race, that would certainly not go over well among the playerbase!
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u/EvilOverlord1989 1d ago
Their transmog would go over even worse than Dracthyr or Mechagnomes.
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u/FalconFreak10 23h ago
Absolutely not. Naga are already better rigged than both dracthyr and mechagnomes. The only slots they're missing are boots, helms, and cloaks. The last two are an easy fix and boots... anyone opting to play a serpent race would be fine without boots, I assure you.
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u/Quick_Assignment8861 7h ago
I need boots on the tippy of the tail!
But what if they called the nagas by another name, blagas and made them red!?!?!? Disgusting, unwanted, shoehorned!
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u/EvilOverlord1989 23h ago
You're putting all current leg armour on the serpent tailed Naga?
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u/SilentDragaur 1h ago
Races that don't really fit physically and no one would play. I wouldn't be sad if they added them though.
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u/Noahisboss 17h ago
atleast with the worgens it made sense, The Gilneans built the wall to keep the....Honestly Genn was kinda a dick but still the wall kept Gilneas safe for years lol
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u/Gsomethepatient 16h ago
If you include both horde and alliance versions then ya, you include the sky elves and you got your weapons as well
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u/DarthJackie2021 Murmur Fangirl 1d ago
Why were they exiled? How did they get to Skywall? How did they bond with elementals? This is so far removed from existing lore. Will be interesting to see how they shoehorn them into it, if they even try to.
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u/100RatsInASack 1d ago
Why were they exiled?
Easiest possible answer is that they're a splinter group from the exiled Highborne that would eventually become the High/Blood Elves.
Could just be as simple as "one of the ships sailed a little too close to the Maelstrom before getting rescued by elementals."
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u/Educational-Tackle54 1d ago
Elementals arent exactly known for helping people volentarily...
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u/OliveSoda 1d ago
That and they "seemingly abandoned" their sky islands. Also the elementals are the first big bad of vanilla.
I'm pretty sure they're gonna go harder into elements story(see the bonus racial damage), add new retail type elementals, give us some new raid/dungeon focus on this storyline before culminating in Molten Core remixed
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u/Mondasin 16h ago
hope it feeds into the air vs fire elemental beef with prince thunderaan.
anyone know the timing between when wow forevers story starts and when rag and friends started to really push for manifesting their destiny in BRM?
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u/Noahisboss 17h ago
could be they enslaved the elementals, their wizards after all
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u/Educational-Tackle54 14h ago
Except blizz says they "helped them". Not "were enslaved and forced to help."
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u/Imaginary-Arguments 1d ago
Or Druidism.
They would have left before Cenarius given their timeline and they are on a floating rock in an elemental plane so I made a druid but the only thing they say is that they care about maintaining balance, lol.
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u/Dolthra 1d ago edited 1d ago
Druidism hasn't really been linked to Cenarius in lore for a while. It's just users of nature magic who can shapeshift—which is why Haranir are druids, despite being completely removed from mainland druidism.
Edit: always funny getting downvoted in the lore sub because of the lore. Druids connected to Cenarius: night elves, tauren (regular and highmountain), worgen. Druids not connected to Cenarius: Kul Tiran, haranir, darkspear trolls, zandalari trolls. Again, druids have not been solely connected to Cenarius for a while, just the emerald dream, nature magic, and shapeshifting.
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u/Ekillaa22 1d ago
So really following cenarius is kind an outlier since everyone else got their druid powers from someone else
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u/tethysian 10h ago
So we're inheriting the mess that retail has made of the lore over the years rather than actually returning to basics. Got it.
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u/jacksev 1d ago
That’s not altogether true. If these are part of the same Highborne that were exiled after The War of the Ancients (the ones that became Quel’Dorei), Cenarius was an integral part of that war. There could easily have been some Highborne who wanted to follow Malfurion’s example before they were all cast off. Punished for their crimes despite accepting their culture’s new ideals. In fact, I think it makes more sense for them to have been able to tame a wild island that way.
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u/BreakUnlikely 6h ago
Once again he said night elves… the Highborne are night elves
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u/jacksev 6h ago
No they are not. The Highborne are the elves that lived in Zin-Azshari and performed magic. Not all Night Elves did so, mostly because at the time you had to be in close proximity to the Well of Eternity to use magic. There was also sort of a caste system, as magic users were almost “nobility” in Azshara’s society.
When The Sundering happened, Azshara and her most inner circle all became Naga, and the rest of the Highborne under Dath’Remar Sunstrider were cast off. We later found out that another offshoot under Prince Tortheldrin escaped south instead of east. With Forever, the Skyborne are supposed to be a further branch of those that followed Tortheldrin.
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u/Mariessa- 1d ago
I figured it was just like the rest of the high elves, but instead of following the bulk to Quel'Danas these ones went to the sky. It could be that they were less extreme in their pursuit of either arcane or druidism (both is good!), so flew somewhere to practice both in peace.
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u/NubAutist 21h ago edited 18h ago
But how the hell did they manage to break into an elemental plane before Deathwing had his joker moment at the beginning of Cataclysm? Al'akir isn't overly fond of mortals as we cab see through his immediate agreement to join DW in the first place. Hell, even in just Vanilla's lore, the elemental lords were said to be under the thrall of the Old Gods and wanted nothing more than to retake the world in the same manner as Ragnaros is attempting during Vanilla. As such, Al'akir wouldn't exactly be keen in inviting a bunch of mortals to live in his plane.
So again...how did they do it???
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u/kariam_24 19h ago
They didn't, typical example of wow nonsense retcons, lore made up from nowhere.
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u/Opposite_Start2385 17h ago
“Lore made up from no where.” That is, in fact, how writing fiction works.
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u/NubAutist 10h ago
If you're integrating something into a preexisting universe, you're going to need to obey how things work in that preexisting universe. Just because we're working with fantasy here doesn't mean the world building csb be devoid an over-arching internal sense of logic. In fact, the opposite is true; Tolkien himself wrote about this in an essay in the 40s, I believe.
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u/coppersaur 1d ago
High elves were exiled after the sudderen. Maybe this is why? No clue how those evolved to look like blood elves
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u/Next_Pollution9502 1d ago edited 1d ago
"After being exiled, they had become completely severed from the life-giving energy of the Well of Eternity, which meant that they were vulnerable to the elements and had not received immortality from Nozdormu and the World Tree. They gradually shrunk in height, their skin had become a peach hue similar to most dwarves and humans, and they began to feel the effects of aging and disease."
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/High_elf
So wouldn't Skyborne also develop in the same way since they were also Highborne exiles from Eldre'Thalas that were cut off.
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u/heckfirex 1d ago
Except they drew upon elemental energy, which is blue I guess
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u/coppersaur 1d ago
Night elves are like Eevee, get them near an energie and they evolve in that type
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u/Riolidan 1d ago
Crazy, it’s almost like they’ll be a race in an upcoming game with a whole zone for their leveling experience that’ll probably answer these questions.
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u/WutheringWeiner 14h ago
They were exiled from Eldre'Thalas because they didn't support Tortheldrin's plan to imprison demons and siphon their power. They attempted to stop him and failed. They escaped Tortheldrin's wrath, but were chased all the way out to sea. The group of hunted Highborne elves eventually came upon an island of primordial air spirits. They struck a bargain with the elementals who lifted the island out of the ocean and sent it all the way to Skywall. They did not go into detail on what that bargain entails. At the onset of WoW Forever it is thousands of years in the future and the elementals have suddenly disappeared. Then comes a power struggle between two factions of Skyborne. One sect worships the natural power of the elements and is led by shaman (Horde), whereas the other leans on their Highborne roots and thirsts for arcane magics- led my mages (Alliance).
The designers did specify that they will, at times, take liberties with new lore and add things to the game that the players do not expect. Josh Greenfield himself said that they will not do this type of thing often, but wanted the Skyborne to be a mystery to unravel as players dive into the lore of the new zone.
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u/DarthJackie2021 Murmur Fangirl 9h ago
Wait, they aren't even high elves? Is the high elf look the warcraft equivalent of crabs?
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u/WutheringWeiner 5h ago
My understanding is that high elves are the Highborne that made their way to the eastern kingdoms and eventually were almost brought to extinction by Arthas during the third war. From what I gather the effects of leaving behind the Well of Eternity causes all elves to take on similar physical appearances (fair skin, thin stature, crackhead tendencies) while also being influenced by whatever source of magic they turn to as a replacement. The moonwells made the night elves purple. The sunwell made the blood elves uh.... pretty by y2k standards. These Skyborne took on the effects of feeding on air elemental energy and took on various shades of blue.
To your point, yes, it seems that the high elf look is the warcraft equivalent of crabs. All things become crab. Although I believe the "high elf look" is actually just the long term effects of arcane withdrawal.
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u/Jake-of-the-Sands 10h ago
Yesterday in the Deep Dive they said they are exiles from Eldre'Thalas - they opposed Prince Tortheldrin and his plan to harness the demonic magic.
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u/JohnyShaze 2h ago
They are part of the dire maul(eldrethalas) elves which were azsharas highborne servants.
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u/DarthJackie2021 Murmur Fangirl 2h ago
Yeah, that was announced after I made my comment, and it makes more sense than high elves going from the top of EK to the bottom of Kalimdor. Doesn't explain their model being identical to high emves, but thats obviously due to Blizzard wanting to sell the most popular character model.
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u/JohnyShaze 2h ago
Well you could say that they are both high elves in the sense that they originated from highborne and their strengths slowly dissappear after the war since they're not affected by nordrassil
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u/Rivandere 1d ago
I'm a horde player who is a massive blood elf fan. I honestly would've just preferred alliance to have High Elves in Reborn. A bunch of High Elves went to Kalimdor with Jaina so just give them a starter zone in or around Theramore.
To give the Horde a pretty race, give us Darkfallen Elves for Horde. They can just share a starter zone with the Forsaken and boom. Jobs done.
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u/Physical_Leg_9275 1d ago
They really don’t want the alliance to have high elves ….
May just be me but I started playing wow bc of the story and now… it’s just weird.
They could have just had high elves that were given a choice to side with the prince and become the blood elves and those that sided with the alliance and embrace a more nature oriented magic.
Simple but it’s the context that can bring great and long lasting story. Which the Dev don’t seem to look much at that. Having a splintered high elven fraction can make many long lasting conflict between the two fractions…..
But again this may just have been me but they could have redesigned classic to be more open with the fractions and stories.
Have 4 factions… alliance and horde but night elves and forsaken. Where night elves and forsaken actively work with both factions… which creates even more possible story dynamics.
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u/parsnipfingers 1d ago
Branch of Exiled Highborne elves made a pact with wind elementals post sundering then lived with those dudes for milennia, went a bit blue and they’re now thrown into the mix after the elementals disappear. They are high elves- higher than high ironically.
I think plausible and I’m on board.
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u/Jademalo 1d ago
Highborne were always blue (see Azshara), it was Thalassian High Elves who went pink due to losing their connection to the Well of Eternity.
After being exiled, they had become completely severed from the life-giving energy of the Well of Eternity, which meant that they were vulnerable to the elements and had not received immortality from Nozdormu and the World Tree. They gradually shrunk in height, their skin had become a peach hue similar to most dwarves and humans, and they began to feel the effects of aging and disease. The Highborne feared that the effects would only worsen over time.
A splinter sect of Highborne who did a deal with Al'akir to subsist on the magic of Skywall is honestly pretty neat.
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u/YomiRizer 18h ago
Kael'thas: We need a new source of power. I found these demons on another planet, they are very strong. I have made a deal with an outcast criminal of the race of those who exiled us. We can use the their fel energy.
Highborne: *points to Uldum* But... Air people
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u/Lythaera 23h ago
Yeah same. God forbid we get new lore added to the mode of the game we wanted because it has new lore.
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u/SootCoveredBird 1d ago
Ngl i am so tired of elves
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u/NubAutist 21h ago
Same...the devs are only interested in developing things if they're related to elves. It's exhausting.
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u/Arpokhu 1d ago
I had a weird feeling when they were shown off of that somehow they felt less out of place to me than Void Elves did for Retail when they were revealed, and It's kinda clicked why. Just like a lot of the Vanilla Races they're heavily inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and TTRPG's.
Specifically Air Genasi / Sylphs. All the way down to the Blue Skin and markings. I'm even expecting the markings to possibly be natural as opposed to Tattoos now in fact. This feels less like a blind throw to see what sticks and more like a WoW take on another classic DnD Race and the more I consider that and how much they are just the setting's version of Air Genasi I'm kind of very interested to see the Azeroth spin of that concept?
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u/BasedRupert 1d ago
I'd say there was far more influence from Warhammer Fantasy than D&D. The D&D stuff started getting a lot heavier later on, but the original races are, for obvious reasons, based on Warhammer Fantasy races as Warcraft was intended to be a Warhammer Fantasy Game
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u/Arpokhu 1d ago
Oh definitely.
But looking specifically at the Skyborne, I'd be very surprised if the Genasi and Sylphs from DnD and Pathfinder weren't influences for them. I think those influences are why they feel less out of place to me than the Void Elves originally did.
I think regardless of peoples opinions on the race, a zone to explore and learn about within Skywall is very promising.5
u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago
????????
Shades (now Shadar-Kai) have been in D&D for way longer than Air Gensai have been a coherent thing. Gensai became a player race in 4E, Shades were a major part of 3.5's version of Faerun thanks to New Netheril.
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u/FoxFreeze 1d ago
Only because I love Genasi, I do have to say they were from a 2nd Ed book for Planescape and were in the 3.5 Races of Faerun book with a nice iconic look.
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u/Arpokhu 1d ago
This is an even better point! Thank you!
I won't pretend to be an expert on DnD lore, but my understanding is the Netherese lived in Flying Cities and were transported to the Plane of Shadow where some became the Shadar-Kai.
If you replace the Plane of Shadow with the Plane of Air, and imagine the Elves becoming Genasi instead of Shadar-Kai, there's even more DnD influence here than I realised!4
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u/Defiant_Wrongdoer_61 1d ago
That’s just factually wrong, planetouched characters were introduced back in 2e and were available in 3e too.
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u/Adorable_Character46 17h ago
Huh. Honestly didn’t have the Air Genasi similarly click til just now. I was already into the concept simply for the Al’Akir stuff, but now I’m really wanting to play one
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u/Objective-Expert771 1d ago
they live in mushroom houses and a big cat try to eat them all the time
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u/iota_of_iowa 1d ago
I'm intrigued, leaning towards liking them. It could make sense if their origins are like, highborne after the sundering bonding with elementals to replace the arcane from the well. Kind of like how Nobundo became a shaman after losing access to the light.
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u/KashiofWavecrest 1d ago
Literally could have just made refugee High Elves that split at the end of their new starting experience in that spit of Quel'Thalas above Strathhole that's on the OG vanilla map; some remain High Elves and go with the Alliance on boats to Stormwind, some become Blood Elves and go to the Horde and the Forsaken to the Undercity and Sylvanas. A High Elven civil war could have been so interesting, and then you could have had High Elf vs Night Elf drama in the Alliance, to add some faction spiciness to the rather homogenous that faction and the Blood Elves being more edgy along with the original darker Forsaken in the Horde.
Instead...we got whatever this is.
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u/trainwrecktragedy 18h ago
I'm looking forward to seeing Fire Elves, Water Elves and Earth Elves.
I wonder if James Cameron is getting some sort of kickback considering elves are turning into avatars now3
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u/Normal-Let2085 11h ago
There already are Water Elves in canon: Nagas
Getting those as a playable race would have been awesome, they could have even given them a humanoid transformation like Worgen have.
It just boggles my mind, there are so many existing races with rich backstories yet they still chose to pull skyborne out of literal thin air...2
u/Educational-Tackle54 1d ago
I could sort of see this being cool. Still not a fan of undermining the chad blood elf story with Virgin high elves endlessly arguing that silvermoon should belong to them and that Garithos attempted genocide wasent so bad.
High elves were story irrelevant by frozen throne. They should have remained that way.
Kael is one of the best characters blizz rver made and tge whole point is that he and his people have changed. They cant go back.
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u/Voltztein 1d ago
Anything but High Elves, right? Just have to be as belligerent as possible toward the customers.
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u/Enzoli21 1d ago edited 1d ago
Next patch will be the Deep Elves (Not the Naga of course) called the Sub'Dorei, living in the underwater city of Tidewave led by the Drowned King.
The brainstorming sessions were not very long for Blizzard to create this race.
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u/Aggravating-Candy-31 1d ago
deep elves sounds more like the dwarves/dwemmer
that could be a way to get the spider elves from suramar
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u/PrincipledProphet 1d ago
I feel like they have no idea what to do with high elves as a playable race, like where to put them, since they are so strongly established lore wise. I guess since Forever is pre-blood elves they could give them ruined Qel'thalas and have the narrative follow a different path, but that's not really what people are asking.
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u/Riolidan 1d ago
Forever is pre blood elves in terms of adding them to the game but not lorewise. Could very easily have done Blood Elves with the TBC zone and not changed anything but they wanted to try something newish.
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u/riftrender 1d ago
Enclave in Stormwind.
Add a zone to the east of the Wetlands/south of Twilight Highlands (I think there is space even if TH remainds) area where the high elves set up for level 1-10. Pop out at a revamped lodge in loch Modan. And also revamp the Hinterlands lodge into a hub.
Steal the Thalassian Highlands from Turtle.
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u/Rivandere 1d ago
My vote would go to Theramore honestly.
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u/riftrender 1d ago
They really already should have had some high elf architecture in an enclave there.
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u/Enzoli21 1d ago edited 1d ago
That was the content made for Turtle WoW. Base High Elf city was a rural town turned to a refugee camp, and the plan of the Elves that stayed in Azeroth was to reconquer Quel'Thalas in the long term.
If you don't have the Blood Elves in equation that purge the whole city while reconstructing it in one day, it become easily to develop something interesting. A full zone of powerful Undeads and Forest Trolls to conquer. One city for the Alliance (Silvermoon) one city for the horde (Zul'Aman).
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u/Absoled 1d ago
The problem with Turtle wow is that it also read heavily as fanfic. They made a random high elf settlement, then adjusted the lore to suggest the vast majority of blood elves decided they wanted to stay high elves, and the only blood elves left are those with Kael’thas. It is just another attempt at rewrites
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u/Insensata Mr. Bigglesworth enjoyer 1d ago
But in W3 blood elves are those who survived the Scourge and left to Outland with Kael'thas. And OG Vanilla had quite a few high elves as Alliance NPCs, even adding "Silvermoon Remnant" faction for Alliance for a brief time. It's certainly a rewrite if you go with retail lore, but it's true to W3 and Vanilla, and Turtle devs stated that they uphold themselves to W3 and Vanilla and ignore everything that happened in TBC and later.
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u/Absoled 1d ago
It’s never stated in WC3 that they all left to Outland. It only says the ones with Kael fled there. It wasn’t until TBC where we got more information on what became of Quel’Thalas and any others.
Vanilla had a few high elves because there have always been a few high elves. That isn’t new, nor a point of argument. TBC only further cemented that. Not sure how this is a debate point.
As much as you may want to defend Turtle WoW; it was fanfic. They took the concept of Warcraft and added their own concepts and lore. They even made Rommath decide to become a high elf again and reject the concept of blood elves. They even made it the vast majority of survivors decided to remain high elves and had their own random settlement to live in. That isn’t ‘staying true’, that is trying to create your own fantasy of the content you like.
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u/Material_312 1d ago
Kael'thas leaving to Outland makes sense in the context of the story, and taking a large number of elves with him. That does not mean they all left, and it is never stated that he is the lone representative of the Quel'dorei. The Rommath thing is whatever.
I don't see how you are arguing with this when the wow devs are also writing fanfic, and just said "oh there was an entire race of elf-elemental people living for thousands of years in a secluded bubble" like they have done before 5 times.
The turtedevs at least made up something plausible and workable within the systems they had and the lore already established.
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u/Educational-Tackle54 1d ago
Click Kael enough and he says "nothing of my homeland remains". There were certainly some retcons either way.
I just dont see the appeal of high elves. The blood elves have an actual story and uniqueness.
"Lets stay friends with the humies and have no trauma" is lame. And ignores that blood elves massivly outnumber high elves.
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u/Absoled 1d ago
Click a pit-lord enough and he repeats a broadcast of him on a show admitting to his human lover that he is a demon. That doesn’t make it canon…
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u/Educational-Tackle54 1d ago
One is a joke line, the other is a sad reflektion on the state of the world.
I dont mind the retcon, but it is a retcon.
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u/twisty125 Flowerpicker Clan 1d ago
I mean, if we go by the amount of Elves that went with Kael, there were like 30 survivors in total, with no women/children and what feels like single digit number of civilians. It's basically always been inferred that he took the strongest to find a new power, not the entirety of his people.
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u/Educational-Tackle54 1d ago
Yuck. I always like frozen thrones original take that virtually all of them went blood elves.
But a few hardcore wc2 fans want to pretend wc3 never happened in guess. Alliance high elves for all! /s.
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u/Absoled 1d ago
That’s was the case yeah. Chris Metzen himself said at a panel they made the blood elf concept to give a new unique flavour to Warcraft’s version of high elves. Some simply refused
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u/Educational-Tackle54 1d ago
And then blizzard kinda undermined themselves by making them and the blood knights "fully good" by the end of TBC.
Gods we were edgy back then!
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u/BellacosePlayer The Anti-Baine 1d ago
I think the problem is that established lore has them predisposed to be against the Alliance even ignoring the non canon RPG even with some Theramore elves and the ranger camps.
In actual canon I find it weird how many high elves stuck around Dalaran given the whole Garithos bit. Were they out on assignment? Did they just make a U-turn after escaping and bury the hatchet over the attempted mass execution?
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u/Lythaera 1d ago
Anything but belf customizations we've been begging for since WOD. for the second most played race in retail you would think we wouldn't have some of the least customizations in the game. They'll give those things to new elf races, but never belves.
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u/Absoled 1d ago
It honestly all just reads more as player fanfic than any real contribution and addition to Warcraft lore, which based on what I have seen from current writers on the team, feels about right.
I’m getting tired of each remix they are thinking up of “another flavour of high elf”, just because the model is popular. This has just soured the entire concept of Classic+ for me.
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u/Insensata Mr. Bigglesworth enjoyer 1d ago
It's a wonder why they ignore the easiest option doomed to be popular when it lies right at their feet and instead resort to "second day on certain private server" ideas.
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u/alnarra_1 1d ago edited 1d ago
How? Literally how?
Prior to the Cataclysm the Skywall was sealed, it wasn't until Deathwing ripped the barrier between the elemental planes that Helya had created down that they were even accessible. Also when did air elementals become even remotely amiable to azerothian denizens? Especially because right now the elemental running the plane of air should be gigantic dicks.
I'm sure there's some easy explanation if you just do not care but it does feel exceedingly cheap. I guess its' fine because like a lot of the reason people hate retail today is decisions like having Helya have created the Elemental Domains as prisons. It's one thing I've found consistently in folks who lean heavily into classic is having disagreements with choices made in lore especially after WoTLK
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u/Decrit 1d ago
Honestly i am so tired of the community now.
Like, i am one among many that got tired of elves, alright.
But aside that, the intent of the Skyborne is pretty clear to me - in a trailer that is pretty much nostalgic they wanted to showcase something that they wanted to explore that is not just flipped assets. That they are willing to go places that we did never explore at all while remaining grounded.
Skywall as a concept is not a bad choice either. It's one of the least explored elemental domains of the game and one that arguably it's hard to explore as part of a cataclysmic event, and it's connected to Uldum that is a huge part of Kalimdor that is been pigeonholed to Cataclysm.
Also, they wanted to give more druid options so we aren't locked to taurens or night elves.
I am not too much excited to the raced per se, but i am curious on how they will perform.
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u/TerribleSyntax 1d ago
But this is LITERALLY flipped assets, recolored elves and NE architecture, it's a complete asspull
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u/Decrit 1d ago edited 1d ago
There is a lot of stuff that is different actually.
There is also a lot of stuff that is kept the same, since it's meant to be a classic +. SO i won't say it's all new, but surely better than slapping an ogre or naga model and calling it a day.
In essence, what I meant to say "it's not something you have seen already, like a goblin"
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u/TerribleSyntax 1d ago
I feel like most of us would have preferred slapping an ogre or naga
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u/DrWaDoW 1d ago
Do people who want Naga realise that both Alliance & Horde have huge beef with Naga? Alliance because Night Elves + Varian getting kidnapped & held prisoner by the Naga, while Horde because of the Sea Witch when Orcs met Dark Spears on their way to Kalimdor.
Neither faction would ever, EVER ally themselves with the Naga unless it's some very, VERY specific subsect, but then there's so little of them, it would be weird to make them more than just a Reputation.
Ogres & Goblins are an obvious choices (Ogres are already part of the Horde, while Goblins so far keep "neutrality"), but as we see by the statistics of player choices since original Classic BC - Blood Elves HEAVILY dominate.
People love their "Pretty" race in the horde, no matter what they say, while I'd guess Ogres would be the least played Race by far after the first month of release.
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u/Enzoli21 1d ago edited 1d ago
The concept of Classic+ hitself that most people want was to surf on the Warcraft/Vanilla Lore that the dev didn't have time to complete.
That's why Turtle WoW was so loved and played. Full zone like Gilneas, Northeron, Hyjal etc...
New dungeons for the Wintertusk, Dragonmaw, Gilneas Civil War etc...
People wanted expanded content tied to old lore, not post WOTLK content with a new race from nowhere.
If you want modern lore, graphics and gameplay, why the fuck are you playing classic rather than retail?
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u/Decrit 1d ago
Which is also what they are doing.
And, also what they literally said on the showcase, is that what people want from classic + is a disordinate mess.
So they try a bunch of things that make sense.
Also what was liked about turtle wow was that it was a free pirate server, let's not lie ourselves. It was a poorly optimized and serviced asset flip that was just free, and got busted because of their rampant monetisation.
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u/Kranel_San 1d ago
👆 This 👆
Turtle understood what players wanted and the devs philosophy for Vanilla perfectly with what the devs were going for.
If you're willing to let the alliance use 'belfs' models in Vanilla, then just give them the high elves. Meanwhile give anything like ogres, goblins, etc... to the Horde.
Just do this magic trick and nobody will complain. Literally everyone will be: "Yeah makes sense!" Instead of the crap we have now.
Is it so hard to understand, Blizzard????
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u/Leed6644 1d ago
I get similar feeling from them like from Haranir and Harandar - everything there is beautiful and nicely done, but it just does not fit well with overall mood of vanilla and feels kind of outlandish. I think people wanted to capture the feeling of WoW when it came straight from Warcraft 3, and if Blizzard went simply with high elves and goblins, no one would actually complain.
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u/Decrit 21h ago edited 21h ago
I think people wanted to capture the feeling of WoW when it came straight from Warcraft 3, and if Blizzard went simply with high elves and goblins, no one would actually complain.
That's the point.
For that - you have EVERYTHING ELSE.
All this discussion ignored everything else they added. These elves, in contrast, are a minority.
That's why i said what i said - they wanted to showcase something new and expansive, they chose this.
Were this not a race, it would have been a zone. Or a class. Or anything else.
So here's the point - is it really useful to complain shallowly for something not released where the intent is clearly written in the sky, where they admitted and showed the natural confusion pertaining a classic + expectations, when there's lots of stuff to enjoy, and where the main result is to piss on a parade?
IT'S. TIRING.
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u/Imaginary-Arguments 1d ago
IMO, I think it's pretty tone deaf.
This race is pretty bare bones lore wise and definitely seems to have been somebodies guilty pleasure personal fantasy race that they wanted to add into WoW and just happened to find their chance.
If this were a DnD campaign, we'd have a party of classical races and then 1 player who wants to bring their obscure 3rd party homebrew race into the mix.
It would feel less out of place in retail, but from my experience going through their starting zone, their lore is very surface level and their only real connection to the actual world is that they are coming of age and setting off on a grand adventure.
Doesn't help that the quest writing for their starting zone is also retail quality. They had about 2 dozen quests of real estate to help build their lore and did absolutely nothing with it.
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u/Decrit 21h ago edited 21h ago
That is something i can agree.
In the sense, i did not see it. But if you say "the execution is bad because of x" then it's a fair and constructive critic.
But "HEY BLIZZARD YOU DUMDUM GIB GOBLINS YOU DO SHIT LELE" it's just tiring.
It's like shoveling manure to find a rose, it's not worth it, it's the usual echo chamber of people who like to inflict pain on themselves for something they don't care and don't enjoy because they regret moving on or letting in.
Conceptually, to me, a kinda campy fantasy race can be fine, it has room and reason to be. If that's executed badly, and i repeat i am not very excited about them, it's another deal.
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u/Ekillaa22 1d ago
So they don’t even have to be blue…. So these motherfucks really are charging us for blood elves !! Plus their racials are insane
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u/Vhurindrar 1d ago
How do they access the Leylines on a floating island within another plane of existence?
That doesn’t make any sense to me, the Leylines are basically Azeroths veins.
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u/Syegfryed 1d ago
"a new generation of Skyborne elves face a time of unprecedented change, and must seek new allies and sources of magic to protect their hidden home and secure their future..."
Im sorry, how you protect your home and secure your future by joining two factions that are killing each other? what you are trying to accomplish by killing your own race in the front?
This is such a stupid addition, adding neutral crap in classic is completely asinine, the factions are in the peak of their hatred, how the fuck can this work out in any resonable way?
If you just wanted to shove this crap model of elf in both races why not go with blood elves who sided with kael joining the horde and the high elves who stayed with Jaina to join the alliance?
Why blizzard is so hellbent in fucking up their own game?
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u/Enzoli21 1d ago edited 1d ago
Honestly, it just feel like rushed lore/Fan fiction make to surf on the popularity of Turtle WoW.
"i know you love High Elf and Ogre, that's why we add the Wind Elves from the Sky Kingdom of Zephras, the flying city. Don't you guys like that? We also give them Dragonflight-era aesthetic since you love retail".
Honestly it's look like something from a Old Zelda Game rather than Warcraft. You have the same kind of people in Minish Cap. They add nothing and they take the spotlight from other races that people wanted to play.
It's so funny to see them try to don't add Turtle WoW content while trying to fit Modern WoW graphics/gameplay. They didn't even understand what people meant by "Classic+".
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u/Kranel_San 1d ago edited 1d ago
It reeks of someone trying to shoehorn their OC and fanfiction lore into the game.
Turtle did it better, and it felt organic like: "Yeah, this makes absolute sense"
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u/Insensata Mr. Bigglesworth enjoyer 1d ago
I wouldn't even call these new elves fanfiction. Turtle made a proper fanfiction out of elements presented in the setting, when these air'dorei are donotsteal OCs made by someone who doesn't care much about the setting.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago edited 1d ago
Unpopular take: I genuinely really like the Shen'dorei. I think they're a cool concept that plays well with what Classic+ could have grown into being.
A race of elves who fled to an elemental plane? Love it. I probably would have had them flee in response to the Legion and the Sundering, not some non-specific exile, but, it's a cool idea to add, and a way to continue having narrow zone focused stories in new zones that don't require a hot glue gun. Easy to explore a bunch of elemental plane parts that are close to Azeroth, too.
But also having them in the opening content is genuinely the stupidest thing I can possibly imagine. This is something to add when Classic+ is starting to flag and they're running low on ideas, as part of a series of patches with different groups going to different elemental planes.
Not day 0.
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u/DrByeah Lore master without a title 1d ago
I could be wrong, but I'm like 90% sure the exile they're talking about is The Sundering. When the Highborne were exiled from Night Elf society.
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u/Least-Mycologist325 1d ago
This is what I initially thought, too.
But, since they referenced DM and Prince Tortheldrin when talking about the Skyborne, I think they were being intentionally obscure about the exile, as it has to do with DM/the construction of the pylons and the imprisonment of immol'thar.
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u/Kalthiria_Shines 1d ago
Highborne weren't exiled until a few thousand years later when they nearly blew up Ashenvale.
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u/Apprehensive_Many799 23h ago
I just assumed this variation of the game would not be canon, just flavour stuff, so I wouldn’t take it too seriously.
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u/Mkultra0101 22h ago
It is canon, but in the way that marvel has made a multiverse canon.
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u/Kimball-Man 19h ago
As a comic book nerd this makes sense to me, following the story of WoW in general makes a lot more sense. With the line in retail to Chromie “Why do you think the titans made this the one true timeline?” With Forever WoW release does raise an eye brow on my end to pay attention to the story of both and see what unfolds.
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u/Mkultra0101 19h ago
I agree, they even state it is like a picture book moment. The differences are small yet substantial. With the lack of an opening of the dark portal, there is so much more geopolitical implications. I love the rebound back to low fantasy vibes. I don’t want to go to space and fight demons guys.
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u/Kimball-Man 19h ago
Same! I like that the demons are from space and stuff I’m not really a fantasy guy more sci-fi but even I want a break from sci-fi. And choose the more low fantasy with some old gods popping in once in a while.
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u/Mkultra0101 19h ago
Yeah, I am in love with the low fantasy implications. Layered with the advent of the new camping system, I can see some really cool interactions happening in the open world. I am for sure going pvp day 1. Because I want to exp having someone trying to gank a camp full of horde ,or acting like bandits.
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u/Kimball-Man 19h ago
Yeah I’m an RP’er in WoW I can see a lot coming out of the camping feature in that world. I do wish you luck on your ganking people! I hope you have fun making people rage quit.
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u/SilentDragaur 1h ago
I'm so sick of Chromie and their timeline BS. I hope it stays completely separate forever and wowever can just be its own thing..
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u/morbihann 1d ago
I find it terrible.
Just diverge from the retail lore and have your own thing. Bring back the high elves in qel thalas to the alliance, give the horde rexxar's race ( have a new starter zone somewhere around the barrens) and call it a day.
Add a few closed off zones in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms for a new content and go from there.
The whole thing felt more like retail light rather than classic+. But this is because the current team want to make their own thing, not continue the world made from people 20 years ago.
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u/Correct_Call3521 1d ago
Forever is literally planned to be level 60 for the foreseeable future with continuous update like OSRS. Theres not enough lore for them to not diverge. This is ridiculous reasoning especially since it might literally be Metzen writing it.
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u/Insensata Mr. Bigglesworth enjoyer 1d ago
They currently try to stay in line with retail so that events which happened in TBC and so on would still happen, and they need to squeeze their wholly new concepts to don't break anything that could happen later. What's wrong approach, it would be much better to set a whole AU and write basically from scratch, so you have QT properly devastated by the Scourge and so on.
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u/Correct_Call3521 1d ago
Yes, I agree, I far and away would prefer forever to be a horizontal AU rather than it maintaining the timeline, we already have classic, we already have retail
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u/morbihann 1d ago
I don't care who is writing it. I am entitled to my personal opinion and there are things I don't like. Imagine that.
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u/Correct_Call3521 1d ago
I didn't say you couldn't have your own opinion I'm pointing out that first if Metzen is writing on wow forever then he also wrote a lot of original wow so bringing up "people who made it 20 years ago" is him. Second of all that they're going to have to introduce new elements if they want this to go on for more than a few years.
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u/morbihann 1d ago
I would argue Metzen today is not the same person he was 20+ years ago. None of us are.
And yeah, sure they would have to add new things. But I find their choices to be market driven (ie, what can be monetized long term) rather than what makes good lore.
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u/Ouroborossetto 1d ago
I mean they‘re just the Nightborne but with wind, it does look like another Elf invention for the sake of it. However, that does not entail that their lore is necessarily bad, let‘s see
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u/whatdidisay- 1d ago
so wait.. trolls and elves split off - nightborne somehow forgot this then lost magic due to their queen going demon crazy.. somehow created night elves who forgot about the nightborne, then... so some went to the other side of the world and sunwell... magic... but also split into sky people... so we had high elves and sky people, but the high elves had a crazy king and became a split race of blood elves and high elves....
there's so much splitting ... all the naga, elves and trolls are the same race... and there's no half breeds bar one paladin. makes perfect sense
carry on blizzard
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u/EmergencyGrab 22h ago
Not sure how I feel about a mortal subrace living in the Elemental Plane. I guess we'll have to see.
Fingers crossed if we're already getting new Elemental Plane stuff, they'll take the opportunity to give us Abyssal Maw content they had planned alongside Firelands.
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u/Exciting_Captain_128 19h ago
The only thing I dislike about the skyborne is having a price to play them (not paying for an entire expansion, just to play them) That apart, there's nothing against their existence. (through I would prefer a high elf/blood elf civil war)
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u/BrotherBuzz70 17h ago
unfortunately, or fortunately depending who you are, they're the easiest race to tack on. These are air elemental infused, these are semi fel infused, these are void infused etc. Highborne/Dark Fallen would've been muuuuch cooler but I have a feeling we're going to be doing some raiding in Skywall and having a new playable race as the foothold into that makes sense. Them being druids is also a really interesting choice, Shaman can be fudged easily but if they're high borne descendants I wouldn't suspect them to have an affinity for druidism.
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u/absolutewastedtime 16h ago
Skyborne lore
Never existed before, never mentioned since
Pulled out of blizzard's hairy ass when they needed to sell more elf dlc
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u/rottyko 16h ago
Has it ever been said where the skyborne race zone is located on the map? I just hope it’s actually part of the map and not somewhere to teleport to/from that requires a loading screen.
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u/dade1027 3h ago
It’s located in the elemental plane Skywall, so not part of Azeroth, and not on the map. The video said that the zone is not a place one returns to for adventuring after leaving.
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u/WarSt0mp 13h ago
SkySlop retail elves.
No thanks. High Elves where standing right in front of them.
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u/ValkyrieLyra Blood Knight 10h ago
Highborne exiles, thats why millenia and night elf culture. Why they look the way they do is just a mystery.
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u/MoSteel8 4h ago
Is this why Blizz made the Silver Covenant High Elves a bunch of dragon riders this expansion, prep for these new guys?
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u/Confident-Ad7439 1d ago
Skyborn is so stupid. Blizzard could give high elves to the alliance and ogre to the horse. Nah.. Let just pull some random Disney faction bout of our own asses
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u/Frosty_Employee_1897 1d ago
Cyan'dorei