I’m pretty sure creating the races that were presented in concept-art would be waaaaay too difficult for the current team. Assuming the new races are made to use the same animations as the current playable race, it’s possible, but still a RIDICULOUSLY HUGE undertaking, so the devs would have to select a few races only.
I don’t know if the pay-off would really be there, in terms of gameplay.
The wearables, however, depending on how they’re done…
If it’s just textures applied on the character’s skin (like body-paints), that shouldn’t be too hard, but that wouldn’t look great on its own.
If it’s a few static 3D elements that are placed on strategic attach-point of the character’s body (like the shoulder), it’s should also be quite easy. For example, that’s how WoW used to make their armors back in 2004 and up to 2016. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.
But if we’re talking about 3D armors pieces added all over the body on top of the character’s 3D model and which are supposed to bend and twist by following the character’s animation so that they don’t clip through the body, that’s another thing.
WoW has been doing that last one since 2016, and it clearly paid off, but it also takes way more effort.
The way they go about it is that you have your character’s body which has a few alternate 3D meshes that are hidden/displayed depending on which gloves/boots your wear (as per the old 2004 system), and the recent raid sets add a secondary model on top of that which is the full set of additional 3D armor pieces without the body or textures applied on the skin, and those are rigged with the same animations as the body, and each pieces of the armor is displayed/hidden at will in-game. However, since shoulders, helmets and belt-buckle have been handled separately in the past, the devs have kept them out of that new system, so the picture below doesn’t include them.
Similarly, Creativerse has changed their character models about one or two years ago. From what I understood after looking at the 3D models I managed to extract, each limb is a different model that share the same overall animation rig, which makes the whole thing seamless.
That way, you can select separetely which arms/tool-glove/legs/head/chest/hat you want. You’re not forced to chose armor pieces that will be displayed on top of the same character template. That plus the colors, you get some VERY nice customizable characters, and it kinda feels like you can create your own race :
With that last one, the point is the races and wearables could be deeply linked.
Both the modern WoW method and the Creativerse method appear quite good.
ANYWAY, I’m voting for wearables because there’s a lot of gameplay opportunities. We could craft them, sell them, buy cosmetic ones on the in-game store, etc.