and for game old like WoW the biological change is ONLY way to show how one race unique from other, because WE DON't HAVE customization options like eso/bdo/any new eastern mmo. till you bring modern customization in wow - you can do this only by different races, end of story.
It would stop being Warcraft when "any race can be any faction". This is core principle of it.
When new player who not familiar with Warcraft lore will join this game - he will see "good" and "evil" faction. Horde and Aliance. And he will AUTOMATICALY think of Horde as evil. He don't care for lore for now. He want to be good guy.
and how exactly you show different atmosphere? In BC only one time when we saw "High elf" buildings and they were EXACTLY the same to Blood elven one. HE "aestetic" from the past? THEY WERE INNEHITED BY BLOOD ELVES. Every tatto, hairstyle, cloth from WC1-2-3 BELONG to current Blood elves. They not magicaly wiped tatto from their faces, they not magicaly shaved their heads differently. They not stopped employing rangers, because they have their own base near QT (AND IT'S NEAR BECAUSE RANGERS ARE BETTER WORK IN THE WOODS AND NOT CITY!). You see the problem people? You Pulling PAST for your "High elves". You not trying to invent something new for them. And EVERYTHING from their past (WC1-2-3) BELONG to Quel'thalas - aka BLOOD ELVES and the same (if not higher degree) as "High elves", who "breed with lesser races = half elves"However i still consider modern Blood Elf model not to be accurate, to what High Elf should look, after all - I still see it also as possible way of highlighting different thematically atmosphere, temperament, and behavior -
http://media.moddb.com/images/downlo..._in_battle.jpg
https://orig00.deviantart.net/e2ab/f..._by_hikzbr.jpg
And everyone who bring "faction population" thing. So you think when on Vanila A-H had 70% - 30% ratio was good? I think it's good when you have 5% difference in favour of one of another. When Horde get numbers like 60 to 40 THEN AND ONLY THEN you can start bringing this argument. So cut the crap from it.