I finally went around and played both variations to some degree and i’ll admit, i’m warming to them, particularly the Windshapers. They do feel unique/different enough once i looked deeper than their base Blood Elf skeleton.
That said i do think they need some visual tweaking. I feel the Highborne and Windshapers should have different customisation options. Possibly different skin tones with Windshapers keeping the darker tones (for the love of god don’t read too much into this, i just want to separate them as much from High/Blood Elves as possible), but absolutely different jewelry, ornaments, tattoos etc.
I don’t think the Highborne should have feathers or tattoos as customisation options, they should lean harder on jewelry, eccentric hairstyles, lipstick, eye shadows etc. Lean harder on their High Elf side.
On the other hand the Windshapers should have less hairstyle but go significantly harder on feather ornaments, tattoos, maybe jewelry made of bones instead gold etc. Really run with their identity as the nature loving variation of “high elf”.
Another piece of feedback based on something i heard from Aggrend during the podcast. Please resist the temptation of giving more classes to the Windshapers. Not that i think choice is bad, but i feel to keep them fundamentally different from Blood Elves i feel they shouldn’t have class overlaps (besides Warrior/Hunter/Rogue who should just be universal classes to every race). Windshaper society being focused on Druidic and Shamanistic magic while Blood Elves (who i’m sure are coming sooner or later) get Priest/Mage/Warlock/Paladin is an absolutely perfect separation. Yes it means Horde Skyborne will always have more limited choices than Blood Elves, but i feel that’s fine as both races together literally cover every class in the game so if someone really just care about that specific look/set of animation regardless of Lore they’re covered.
The Alliance Skyborne on the other hand probably should have at least Warlock and maybe Priest/Paladin added to them once their story move forward enough and fully establish them as the resident playable High Elves which feels like the direction they’re headed anyway.