Gender Change Will Be Free At Shadowlands Launch

[Eapoe]

All the people bringing up whether or not it’s LGBT+ related...of course it is, but in a good way. Blizzard is branching out and bringing new representation into their games. Could it be because of recent events? Sure, but who cares? A community of people who have had little to no representation in multiple games and genres are starting to get that, and it’s a good thing.
Am I white knighting Blizzard? Well, in this instance I probably am, but it’s not like they went around and yelled “look how woke we are! Look what we’ve created!” The character was literally datamined and discussed by YouTube personalities before Blizzard made the announcement about them being able to pick what they looked like. That announcement was also good because it showed they aren’t just pandering to the community but also making efforts to respect them and their pronouns and wants. Guess what, it’s not even a new concept. What Dreams May Come with the late Robin Williams also had people that picked what they felt they should/want to look like in the afterlife.
Just get over it. It’s also a completely new character. It’s not like players had some strong emotional attachment, or build up in their own head canon, to an existing character. Even if it was, people change and discover new things about themselves all the time. Every homophobe, transphobe, and bigoted person is just showing their true colors and being stupid when they complain about this.

[Allan Coe]

I do take it very seriously, being a trans person myself (trans woman). And it is the lack of acceptance that leads to people taking their lives.

I doubt it. I think it's the fact that trans people feel like they don't pass, and will never pass. And serious regret of their own self-mutilation, which they can not take back. Sorry, but we simply do not have the technology to actually change someone's sex. We can only kind of make you look like the other sex. I've seen artificial "vaginas" and "penises" and I'm sorry, but they look gross. That is not a statement about you as a human being, but rather about the doctors that would trick you into ruining your own bodies by telling you lies about how you can actually pass as the other sex. You can't and you never will. So acceptance will never happen. People can pretend, but you'll never actually be accepted as the sex you want to be, because it is an impossibility. Humans can not change reality. I might get banned for this cause this is a forbidden topic, but it is the truth, and there is no way of denying it. It's when a transgender comes to realize this truth that they take their own life, because they realize what they want is not possible. The only potential cure is to cure that person's disphoria. Maybe science will get there at some point. But it will probably be decried as bigotry by degenerate leftists. These people do not have your best interests at mind.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Basically the last vestiage of the old Character Recustomization. Now they can get rid of it and bring back the cheaper Character Rename.

Beyond that, as someone who did RP I'm leery of this because you know people are going to start RPing it willy nilly. Other than that, no big deal. It's a paper doll, let people play what they want.

[FelPlague]

Literally all other customization is going into the barbershop in Shadowlands. All races would be able to change face, skin tone, etc ... but yeah, gender would be useless to include because name change (which is a separate service from appearance change) is still paid.

All of those have been in the barbershop for awhile now.
Since the launch of BFA, literally everything but gender has been changeable in barbershop, so yeah this was long due.

[Hitei]

Name and race change should be free as well imo.

They both have other factors. The current barbershop is 100% cosmetic.
Changing race = racials. I can already see the "X keystone must be Y race, if they made it something you could just barbershop, people going human when they go out to world quest for the rep, etc. Name also has some secondary implications that make it being free/quick not necessarily a great thing.

[Morgaith]

They both have other factors. The current barbershop is 100% cosmetic.
Changing race = racials. I can already see the "X keystone must be Y race, if they made it something you could just barbershop, people going human when they go out to world quest for the rep, etc. Name also has some secondary implications that make it being free/quick not necessarily a great thing.

Racials are already a must have at the top end so there is nothing bad that could come out of having a race change included in the barbershop but i very much doubt that blizzard would ever go that far with giving players value for their time and money.

[xskarma]

Reminder that Gender discussions are against our forum rules. It's fine to acknowledge that they might be a reason for this change, it is NOT okay to use this as a jumping off point to start discussing Gender in general. Stick to the topic.

[Inci]

For all those answers saying things like:

-Regardless of being a LGBT+ thing...
-That don't bother me...

...
That's LGBT+ phobia, kids
I hope the gaming community arrives someday to 2015 at least because accepting gender identity is the real intention of this change and Blizzard is giving us an example of RESPECT for the ones who are the most excluded of the society we live in.

With all due respect, no matter what people choose into their future and which "gender" they want to choose they will always be either male or female no "other" option will be available ever. and I'm talking about real life here.

I understand the inner conflict that some people may experience but for real, you can't be other than a male or a female I hope people realize that one day.

[Sharnie786]

I actually don't think name changes should be free, even if they are on a cooldown. Now the only 3 things to think about when making a toon are name, race and class. Soon people will start demanding free everything. WoW is a product and needs a business model to stay afloat.

And technically, everything in WoW is free, go farm some gold. I did that recently for a race change. I bought 2 tokens which converted into £20 battlenet balance and I used that to race change.

As a gay, I welcome any change like this. It's representative of real life and some people create themselves in game and run around for escapism.

Not sure why it bothers people when a company is making steps towards social justice. What do you want? Social injustice?

- - - Updated - - -

With all due respect, no matter what people choose into their future and which "gender" they want to choose they will always be either male or female no "other" option will be available ever. and I'm talking about real life here.

I understand the inner conflict that some people may experience but for real, you can't be other than a male or a female I hope people realize that one day.

actually you do, ever heard of intersex people? Are you going to deny they exist. I don't blame you because most go through intersex genital mutilation and get assigned a gender by a GP who asks the parents what they want.

I don't subscribe to the idea of millions of genders, however, if someone wants to define themselves as whatever it doesnt take anything away from my life. My masculinity isn't as fragile as that.

[kranur]

Eh, probably made free because it doesn't sell well and they probavly thought it would make them look good just like the trend with other companies to get involved into matters like this for the publicity.

[Lochton]

About time. I wonder if there will be a cooldown on it.

[ro9ue]

They both have other factors. The current barbershop is 100% cosmetic.
Changing race = racials. I can already see the "X keystone must be Y race, if they made it something you could just barbershop, people going human when they go out to world quest for the rep, etc. Name also has some secondary implications that make it being free/quick not necessarily a great thing.

True, didn't even think of that.

[Raisei]

That's one seriously underpaid barber for their talents!

Agreed. Also not so sure I want some back alley barber performing complex and surely painful surgery without anathetics... could we not have like a sterile room at least? Guess we get what we pay for.

Seriously though I appreciate every bit of character customization that we can get. The new options are looking great.

Now just remove the race restrictions on classes please, they are pointless anyway. Let me play my Velf Paladin or Velf DH. It should be my call if I can live with the lore problems.

[MrLachyG]

I feel this is kind of useless while name change is still a paid service.

name change should be a paid service, if it is free then people can use it to circumvent block lists among other things which is not good. you could openly abuse someone via whisper, they block you, you change your name and you keep going.

[Leouch]

Anything that doesn't change race should have been real world money free to begin with. And given that toon gender has nothing to do with how the character actually plays, there should have been no reason to pay for it.

When it was pay for a full character redo, it made sense to pay for it, but they are sticking so much into the in game barbershop it makes no sense to keep that one aspect pay only.

bullshit, try to play BE warrior male

[bowlink]

Seems nice. I don't see a problem here.

[Mirishka]

It's amazing anyone actually becomes a game designer in this day and age. It really is. Being a lion tamer would be a less stressful job than dealing with all you brats all day.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough how much I agree with this.

- - - Updated - - -

name change should be a paid service, if it is free then people can use it to circumvent block lists among other things which is not good. you could openly abuse someone via whisper, they block you, you change your name and you keep going.

Ignore doesn't work like that anymore. Now if you ignore someone, it ignores every toon on their account as well as blocks you from being matchmaking-grouped with them (LFR, DF etc).

[Lerion922]

Good.
I'm one of the Idiots that actually used this paid service alot. I get bored with my characters really fast, so I spent hundrets of euros for this and thousands of gold for transmorphic tinctures.

I'm not a member of any lgbtq related things nor do I know anyone that is, but I defend it in a debate or something. Good thing if it helps them.

For me its just saving money and gold. Very happy about that.

[Levogames]

With all due respect, no matter what people choose into their future and which "gender" they want to choose they will always be either male or female no "other" option will be available ever. and I'm talking about real life here.

I understand the inner conflict that some people may experience but for real, you can't be other than a male or a female I hope people realize that one day.

I hope you get some education because what you said is true, but you are not understanding that gender and sex are different things.
Sex is what you got from birth (something that you can change)
Gender is what you identify to, and that can cover all of the grades of masculinity\femininity that you feel inside of yourself.

[Kathranis]

Race has gameplay tied to it, pretty obvious why that's restricted. Gender is purely cosmetic.