The only problem with that artwork, and it is a good piece of work, credit where credit is due, is that it breaks it down into too many options, which would -easily- be seized upon by the ‘too many elves’ crowd.
Some of them are also unnecessary.
There’s not -really- a difference between a regular Kaldorei and a Highborne. It’s a caste, not a different race. Sure, they may be paler, and dress less rustically but you can already do that. Likewise the Night Warrior option listed makes no sense. That is already an option, and it looks exactly like a Kaldorei with black eyes, because thats what they are. Illidari are just Demon Hunters, so there is no need for a seperate option, its a -class- So the only one on the Night Elf bit that makes sense is the Dark Ranger option as a separate thing, but I’ll come to that.
The Blood Elf one is the same, however there is a lore error there as well. Thalassians is the Species. Again, Illidari is pointless because it is a ‘Class’ not a subsect of the species. Quel’dorei is a daft one. Sin’dorei can and do have blue eyes, it does not turn them into a Quel’dorei. It is just a standard Thalassian thing, choosing your eye colour, like for every other playable race, so there is no need for a Quel’dorei option at all. It is also misleading as no Thalassian citizen is calling themselves Quel’dorei these days, no, they honour the fallen and all call themselves Sin’dorei. The only people calling themselves Quel’dorei are the exiles licking the boots of humans. The lore problem with Sunsworn is simply that it isn’t a thing. Battlegroup Sunsworn in WoD was just that, a Battlegroup. Thats how the Sin’dorei go to war as we have seen since TBC, they interestingly seem to be one of the few races of Azeroth who can really get behind the idea of Combined Arms operations in War, where you assemble differing troop types and assign them to a battle group. It has nothing to do with golden eyes, which again are just a character choice issue. A Sin’dorei can have blue, green or golden eyes, why the need for them to be viewed as some sort of separate option, when lore-wise, they are one and the same. So no, Sunsworn makes no lore sense, that is just a name of a particular battlegroup that operates together, like the Sunhawks of Bloodmyst Isle, the Sunfury that followed Kael’thas, and for that matter the Sunreavers.
They’re identical to the ‘Thalassian’ option listed on that mock up.
So lets go back to my main bugbear on both of those, the Night Elf one and the Blood Elf one.
(Just to reiterate, I actually think the work that was put into them was great, just some of it doesn’t make sense)
Dark Rangers.
Dark Rangers would be one of the worst things that could happen as a playable option. I’ll explain why.
Blizzard have already made a hot mess of their own lore and seem to keep having blackout drunk lore moments.
So. We learn in Cataclysm that Night Elves cannot be raised from the dead without the Helm of Domination hence the Seventh Legion soldiers sent to Pyrewood are primary Kaldorei and Gnomes. “Oopsie!” says Blizz “We forgot our lore and changed it so that any old person can do it”
We learn since the very start of the Warcraft Franchise that a Dark Ranger is a Banshee that has repossessed their body, like the first one to do so, Sylvanas. We know that Banshee’s are the spirits of dead -Female- Elves. “Oopsie!” says Blizzard “We forgot our lore again, and have popped in the occasional male Dark Ranger too, despite them being lore impossible because dead male elves become Spectres, not Banshees,and Spectres can’t possess things!”
It really is like some of their creative types just got out a flip chart and wrote “Dark Rangers” as a heading, and then got all the interns in to just write down ideas without any of them having read the established lore.
Male Dark Rangers are lore breaking. (No, thats not what Nathanos is, he is an entirely unique entity created in a different way)
Kaldorei Dark Rangers are lore breaking (Night Elves can’t be raised that way, except when they can, who knew Wisps can possess dead bodies)
It just doesn’t make sense, plus consider the essential problem here.
Its a Class, not a racial subsect. We don’t see any Dark Ranger Priests, Mages or Warlocks, They’re Hunters, possibly Rogues, Warriors or at a stretch Monks, even then Warriors and Monks don’t get the Stealth abilities that Dark Rangers have. Dark Rangers are specifically described as having lost their Nature abilities and instead having Necromantic ones, how would that even work for say an Arcane Mage?
Undead Elves is one thing, Dark Rangers is another.
They would be an absolute disaster for RP realms offering up yet -another- dark and brooding type of Elf, because Death Knights and Demon Hunters weren’t enough already. You’d end up with Death Knights, Demon Hunters and Dark Rangers trying to have an ‘evil off’ against each other whilst the people playing actual Sin’dorei and Kaldorei get thrown under the bus.
I can see the work that went into it, and it looks very slick, but I still think it would be an awful thing if implemented. Sorry.