Why Blizzard is so restrictive about customization?

[bufferunderrun]

I do understand that thing cannot be implemented in one go, like many other features they can implement it xpack after xpack no need to go back and retroactively change thing; if they didn't come up with the garrison thing but implemented a true housing system not tied to a single xpack at this time after 3 xpack we would have a solid and refined system with ton of shit to farm for.

Same goes for mount and pets i won't ask for them to go back and make the baron riverdare horse or ashes of alar able to wear armor but they can always implement new one with that ability the same way i won't ask to make brokentooth able to wear armor still new pets can; also why it's not possible for dk and warlock to customize their summon beside the model blizzard decide with the glyph? That not even require much of work on their parts.

[Trend]

What do you think is the reason behind them being so smug about letting the player customize thing around and will that attitude of them ever change?

If you have figured out how to make granular customization work in an MMO you should apply for a job at Blizzard. Better yet, apply for the patents first, then approach Blizzard and offer to be acquired by them. You will be a VP with a salary of $500k or higher plus stock options. Then you can fix all the other challenges with the game and we'll all be eternally grateful to you.

[Seranthor]

If you have figured out how to make granular customization work in an MMO you should apply for a job at Blizzard. Better yet, apply for the patents first, then approach Blizzard and offer to be acquired by them. You will be a VP with a salary of $500k or higher plus stock options. Then you can fix all the other challenges with the game and we'll all be eternally grateful to you.

Brilliant.. I fully agree. He can be the hero he's demanding.

[yamix]

I think most of it is case by case. Sometimes it's just a matter of slowly introducing change (transmog), sometimes it's the art assets (garrison), and sometimes it's making sure the game can run on a toaster (character customization).

[Paraka]

Mount and pet customization would be really neat.


And with Shadowlands they are attempting to add new customization options for races, so that's a thing to acknowledge. Blizzard traditionally being overly restrictive of customization? I don't feel that way.





I think that you are over exaggerating.

Basically a lot of what this guy said. I do believe them adding more in Shadowlands is reflective of this.

I do believe Garrisons were a pre-emptive test to housing, but the execution was horrible. I always felt the "Outposts" were a better part of that system and that part of the system should be worked on going forward. The predetermined placements were intentional simply for a system that's so old. If they did anything it would be a "pocketed" instance like how GW2 and Wildstar approached it. It will never be open world housing.

[Mirishka]

Over the years blizzard always failed to implement any sort of customization in the game the few thing they introduced (like trasmog) are also heavily controlled by them:
-The garrison it was a prototype housing but it went really bad, first it was mandatory and a gold print machine, but it was also completely controlled by blizzard, the location, the architecture, the plots numbers and size you had only the chance to customize few small detail and nothing more and last being heavy tied to wod it was abandoned the moment that xpack ended.
-trasmog, blizzard put some heavy limitation in it and only after some time and lot rant on the forums they relaxed some of them, still it's heavy limited like heaven and earth compared to other game "dressing room/tab"
-mounts, those have absolutely 0 customization you are stuck to blizzard model, like it or not, no color change, no cosmetic armor, nothing.
-pets (hunter pets etc), almost same as mounts, if you are an hunter blizzard decide what you can tame and what not plus 0 customization for them, warlock and dk are stuck with the few model blizzard graced them through glyph.

In the end blizzard is always too much restrictive and come out as controlling freak over customization, those are lost chances to implement more collectible in the game and we all know how much peoples love to collect things in wow since vanilla and many keep playing just for it.

What do you think is the reason behind them being so smug about letting the player customize thing around and will that attitude of them ever change?

I don't know how familiar you are with the complexities of game design but its not always as easy as 'let the player decide'. Like garrisons? Allowing millions upon millions of people to place garrisons wherever the hell they wanted would have been a disaster. There were originally going to be more garrison locations but the problems Blizz experienced with the default (such as lag, FPS and disconnects) caused them to cancel plans to place them elsewhere. Which is why we got the little outposts instead.

And some of your arguments make no sense to me, like customizing a hunter pet. If you don't like the look of the pet you're taming, why tame it?

They've eased off the restrictions a lot in recent years, like letting us hide most armor slots and soon, transmogging legendaries. But ultimately its their game and it doesn't make them 'smug' to control aspects of it.

[Irian]

Because they have shit priorities or are bad at understanding the kind of things players enjoy about MMORPGs.

People might tell you otherwise but that's the plain truth of it. There's no real reason why they haven't implemented customization since Wrath, they just never wanted to. They've actively gone out of their way to remove customization by adding seasonal transmog limitations and other such nonsense as well.

WoW is lagging behind massively compared to other MMORPGs in the character department. I feel like the only thing finally pushing them to do something about it in Shadowlands is the fact that they are so comically behind at this point compared to basically every other MMO in that department.

[Thelxi]

WoW is a very macro and long term kinda game. If they gave us everything in one patch, then what will they give us in the next?

Basically, designing this game is not just adding good things, but also showing restraint and being patient. That's why you will hear often hear people saying that Blizzard is "saving X for another patch" or "using X as a marketing tool".

And just look at transmog, and how it tooks so many years and expansions to loosen up the rules enough to the point where we can hide shoulders and tmog legendaries. They could've easily done it right from the start, but they didn't. If you ask them why, they will tell you that they weren't sure the community wanted that much agency; they didn't want to change the way the game looked overall etc. If you ask their marketing department you will get a more honest answer.

[Easo]

Because small indie company, joke, ha ha ha....

But seriously, what the hell is with this thread defending this? Even the transmog rules are inconsistent and arbitrary, Blizarrd yaps excuses and then loosening of restricitons is announced as if something very big. Wasn't it Ion who said some 7 YEARS after transmog came out in Cata that uh yes, the system is still in it's infancy or something like that?
Character customisation is just totally noncomparable to anything else and players HAVE been asking for more. Well, the dated engine and overall system of how they display visuals (especially armour pieces... No hair helmets, anyone?) on the models shows...

[Meow]

All I want is to have a larger pair of breasts in WoW.

[Caradras]

I totally agree with the OP. After they added the barbershop not a single haircut or color was added afterwards. After tmog was introduced only minor changes were made to it over the years.

We cant even mog white/grey items and restrictions widely vary between classes. I for example play a priest but i can mog my staff only in a staff, not a dagger or 1-handed mace. So this limits my choices alot. While a warrior can use almost any weapontype and use the look of other types. Another thing is that the vanilla pvp gear is STILL restricted from mogging unless you got the ranking back then, its been 15 years already! And there are plenty more examples like these.

I dont buy the excuse that blizzard has a hard time with customization if i can download addons that do exactly that, change the appearance of my gear or my char. People made this for free in their own time! imagine what blizz could do if they really wanted, just put a few interns on it or something.
Another excuse i hear regarding this topic is that ppl might look ridiculous in their mogs. I like to point out that at the tmog item from this years blizzcon throws this argument under the bus. I really hate the way it makes a char look like their walking around in their pyjamas but i respect the option to do so.

To people responding to this topic who say 'dont like it, play another game then' i say this, i really like wow and iam happy with the new features we have been given. But that doesnt mean there isnt room to improve upon it. Raiders like new raids, pvpers like a new battle ground, so after many years cant we have a something new for customisation aswell? Loving a thing doesnt mean we cant complain about it!

Iam really looking forward to what shadowlands will bring in terms of customization.

[bufferunderrun]

I don't know how familiar you are with the complexities of game design but its not always as easy as 'let the player decide'. Like garrisons? Allowing millions upon millions of people to place garrisons wherever the hell they wanted would have been a disaster. There were originally going to be more garrison locations but the problems Blizz experienced with the default (such as lag, FPS and disconnects) caused them to cancel plans to place them elsewhere. Which is why we got the little outposts instead.

And some of your arguments make no sense to me, like customizing a hunter pet. If you don't like the look of the pet you're taming, why tame it?

They've eased off the restrictions a lot in recent years, like letting us hide most armor slots and soon, transmogging legendaries. But ultimately its their game and it doesn't make them 'smug' to control aspects of it.

and that goes for every system, you remember what was phasing at first? or sharding? every system at first was not perfect, the problem is not that, but a specific choice by blizzard to make the garrison a static feature of wod making it a one xpack only if they had gone with classic housing then the system could have lasted longer with each xpack refining it.

Arguments are subjective i care 0 if a class do 0,6% less dps than another and the impact of it is anyway marginal to 99,9% of players but there are lot of peoples that shat their pants over it, especially in this forum, i just ignore them and never put my nose in their threads, that said i care because even with mogs all characters in the same class look the same, if i tame lets say horridon it look exactly like another bazillion of hunters that tame him.

Also i like going around hunting cosmetic stuff in the end those thing last even after 3 xpack shit like that shiny mythic warforged titanforged piece of crap bow will last only till i replace it with the first green bow the first quest in shadowland give me.

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Iam really looking forward to what shadowlands will bring in terms of customization.

so almost nothing

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

if they didn't come up with the garrison thing but implemented a true housing system not tied to a single xpack at this time after 3 xpack we would have a solid and refined system with ton of shit to farm for.

I'm so glad for Garrisons then because I fucking hate the idea of Housing.

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so almost nothing

Sure lets ignore the fact they're adding customization to all the non-allied races.

[Seranthor]

so almost nothing

You claim you have all the answers... write it up and send it to Blizzard... Be the hero of your story...

[Boricha]

I've wished they had things like coats, capes that go over the shoulders, visible rings/necklace, skirts that don't go to the ankle, shoes with heels, hair that shows under hats, etc... but I'm guessing it's a technical issue.

[Mirishka]

so almost nothing

Yeah, just 40+ new customizations for each of the original races, that's totally 'almost nothing'.

But hey, you're doing a great job of living up to the 'whiny entitled gamer' stereotype.

[Seranthor]

Yeah, just 40+ new customizations for each of the original races, that's totally 'almost nothing'.

But hey, you're doing a great job of living up to the 'whiny entitled gamer' stereotype.

He's not getting 'exactly' what he wants... so he's point at everything as 'almost nothing'

[Sencha]

Cuz a lot of people don't care about this.

[Maxilian]

Well... the transmogrification restriction bothers me a lot, mostly because sometimes it feel that the restriction lift are a way to "add new content, without actually adding content" cause they know we will love it, regardless what it is (me being one of those)

[Lane]

I'd settle for having more variety in armor. I don't know why, but since vanilla the options for anything that isn't complete coverage from neck to ankle is virtually non-existent. Those old vanilla armors look terrible now too and they don't seem to have any intention of doing updated models for them.

I totally agree with the OP. After they added the barbershop not a single haircut or color was added afterwards. After tmog was introduced only minor changes were made to it over the years.

The ones added in Wrath weren't even new for the most part, they just resized and distributed hairstyles from other races. The new ones they did add were such poor quality they looked like they were the rejects cut before vanilla. I'm expecting a lot of the "new" customizations will be the same, but I'm okay with that since they've done a good job with hairstyles for the Allied races. I'd love to have the female Kul'Tiran ones for humans, for example.

We cant even mog white/grey items and restrictions widely vary between classes.

I still don't understand why we can't transmog white/grey quality gear.