They couldn’t even do a decent model for Thrall’s son in the Heritage Quest, leave 'im alone 
(Which, of course, a fan on Twitter [Handclaw, I think] did pretty much straight away, and it looked great)
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Unfortunately, what you say is false my friend. In Day of the Dragon, it is Neltarion who is present and not Nefarian. Then, to have the book in front of you but in VF (Even if I doubt that they have modified the description of his appearance), Neltarion is described as a handsome man with a severe appearance and hair black as onyx. There is no mention of his skin color.
For Nafarian who appears in human form in World of Wacraft, his complexion is more “ashy” than anything else. In any case, visually that’s how I see it. And in the official artwork, his complexion is more “ash” than anything else. But Wrathion has a darker skin color. And an inspiration that reminds me a lot of the character of Mois in the Princes of Egypt that I really like. But that the Black Flight can have a darker skin appearance doesn’t bother me. And I enjoy seeing different inspirations in Azeroth. And I loved young Wrathion’s first outfit.
Cherryblosom :
For the skin colors available before Shadowland, I found that they were still very light skin colors. Maybe from the perspective of a light-skinned player, these colors were “darker” but for a non-light-skinned player, that wasn’t really the case. In any case, it was difficult to identify with it I think.
Anyways. As of Warcraft 1/2/3, there were no characters with darker colors among Humans or Quel’dorei. In World of Warcraft, it was darker tones but still very light. For Tanaris, I never really knew where they came from or how long they had been there. If some say that they arrived after Jaina, I trust even if from memory, there was mention of their arrival well before. That Tanaris was a very famous place among the South Sea Pirates and that they used it as landmarks.
That World of Warcraft offers more diversity and customization choices so that players can identify with their character is a good thing. But I think it’s not important to look for an explanation because there really isn’t one. It’s like that. We are not in a universe like TES which seeks great coherence in the appearance and cultures of its people. Nor in Tolkien’s universe where there are not only white and blue-eyed characters as some believe.
But the initial question in the thread was if there was an explanation/origin for these appearances. The answer is no." And you don’t have to look for it. Then there are some who like it, others who don’t like it. Everyone has their own opinion and you can keep it to yourself.
Well yeah, skintone colours as well as many things in World of Warcraft don’t make any sense, but this isn’t anything new.
Quel’thalas is described as being magically kept in a permanent state of warm spring and summer typical to an equatorial or tropical climate (minus the rain) and most canon elves are displayed as being incredibly pale. Stormwind is located in a stormy region landlocked between a rainforest and a volcanic region, and most canon characters in it are displayed as, again, being light-skinned.
If you drink the demon blood that makes your skin go green a second time, your skin becomes red; except if it’s demonic blood from an alternate universe, which is actually the same blood from the same demon from the same timeline because the Legion works like that, in which case your skin gets volcanic fel rock growths.
Pretending that somehow any of this made sense up until the point where they added the options to become anything else than caucasian-looking faces with different shades of skin is utterly silly in a videogame where scrolling up and down the eye colour section of an undead’s customization screen in a completely dark room looks like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuNHGGjgIpI
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Green means go. You can still drink a little more fel, as a treat.
Red means stop. You’ve hit the limit. You’re a sip or two away from liquifying yourself and everyone in the immediate vicinity.
It makes sense to me!
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Other than bad lore information or jumping to conclusions, I don’t see any such evidence. I’ve never seen a darker skinned Quel’dorei before Shadowland. I’ve never seen a dark-skinned Human before Shadowland as well. There were simply options of light, more or less dark skin. And Wrathion who was a Dragon in a “Humanoid” appearance. This was also the case for the Dwarves who had light skin or a fairly “ashy” option that was reminiscent of the Dark Irons. There weren’t these options before. And these options were requested more and more vehemently by a part of the community who accused Blizzard of racism in the absence of these options.
And it’s funny that you talk about the Draenei because the addition of the “red” colors is causing a lot of talk. But for other races, there is no discussion to be had because the options remain the same as they have been since the beginning of World of Warcraft. So I don’t see why players would complain about their color options. Except the players who have been asking for a long time to be able to play Forest Trolls. And of which I am one…I would have preferred to see a “green” color option for the trolls than a darker color option on the Sin’dorei. For as long as we’ve been asking. 
Afterwards the most important thing is that the players are happy. I think this is mostly the case. And I like our Story characters.
May I present:
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And is that a dark skin color for you? I find it very Caucasian-self-centered.
Ugh. Shut up.
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It’s the case. It remains a fairly light color. If you are unable to understand it. I think you need to question your perception of colors. Because to say that is like the options we have now. There is a problem, sorry.
Bro you can literally colour-pick his skin to see for yourself.
Stop being the poster boy for the “Orc RPers are racist” trope.
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My mum, a black woman, has a similar skin tone.
You’re being weird.
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That was literally the darkest skin colour available to human models at the time. The reason we didn’t see dark-skinned elves or black humans really up until Dragonflight is because they weren’t in the game. That’s it. It’s not overly difficult to understand and it’s not particularly hard to go “okay, so these characters have always existed but weren’t previously shown.”
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Wildhammer dwarfs tend to be described as having darker/tanned skin because they spend more time outside and in the sky.
I think darker skin tones fit em well.
With that said some Earthen are quite dark, so still makes sense for dark skinned dwarves. Same with humans and vrykul (iron edition).
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My man. The reason it’s of significance is because draenei don’t naturally exist with a red hue. You play an orc. Orcs don’t exist naturally with a green hue. The story is that magics have given them a different appearance to how they exist naturally. It’s really not comparable to characters just existing with darker skin.
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I cannot see, I am legally blind
I also give you all, the first East Asian man in WoW I, and probably many others encountered. It’s not dark-skinned obviously, but just to show that humans inspired by something other than the Caucasian ethnicity was present in wow:
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I’m not bro, mate.
I would watch because I don’t play Human on World of Warcraft or rarely. But I’m sorry, vintage Vanilla with the old graphics. It’s not “black”. You can try to justify your vision by imposing it and trying to make people believe that the other is racist without proof. But it’s not with an argument from authority without foundation like that that you’re going to be right. I don’t know who taught you that but he was wrong.
And the Orcs are the least racist in Wow after the Tauren. Keep the Orcs away from your funny ideas, please. 
Man you were much funnier when you were simping over an orcish maiden’s thighs tbh.
I think it’s a reference too.
No funny. Only trashy and low key racist.
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