Gender and Druid barber customizations were a missed opportunity.

[Amnaught]

One gripe I have about the new customization is that the way they added it feels like a UI element instead of a fantasy one. Like, when you go to the transmogrifier, you're paying an interdimensional being to magically warp the appearance of your equipment. The barber should change your hairstyle.

How it could have been:

- Remove skin, face, gender, and druid forms from the barber
- Transfiguration Potion: Craftable by alchemists, and sold (overpriced) by a vendor in every capital city. Using this allows you to recustomize your character using the barber UI, but includes face, skin, and gender.
- Change your druid forms at a new NPC, the Shapemasters, put them wherever druid trainers are. Equivalent to the mage's portal trainer and hunter's stablemaster, a druid NPC that does druid NPC stuff.

While we're at it, add NPCs to the game that allow the purchase of In-Game Store items with gold:
- A fancy-pants gnome or goblin that sells Store mounts and pets.
- The toy vendors can sell Store toys.
- Name-change documents sold by a notary in every bank, or craftable by scribes.
- Realm Masters either in the portal room or by the Cataclysm portals in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, which can move you to another realm.
- Class trainers can sell level boosts.
- Guild vendors can sell guild transfers and guild name changes
- Mercenary NPCs in Stormwind and Orgrimmar that you can pay for a faction change.
- Racial quartermasters can sell race-change potions.
These prices can easily be tied to WoW token prices, so the gold value is always equal to the Store cost. Bonus points if all of these aren't soulbound, so they can be bought as gifts for friends.

[Mysterymask]

yeah I get the fantasy...but why slam all that into like 3-4 npcs when one barber keeps everything simple.

The NPCs for the buyable stuff...well I imagine if they could set it up so its always in keeping with the comparable amount of token prices (seems like a lot of work for wow but lets go with it) that COULD work...buuuuuuut the UI option still seems MILES easier to implement than a handful of NPCs who you gotta write at least a semi half assed excuse as to why they can send you to a slightly similar but different dimension (or why you know about said similar yet different dimension as a Tauren Warrior)

[Mirishka]

One gripe I have about the new customization is that the way they added it feels like a UI element instead of a fantasy one. Like, when you go to the transmogrifier, you're paying an interdimensional being to magically warp the appearance of your equipment. The barber should change your hairstyle.

How it could have been:

*snip*

So take one concise thing and spread it all over the place for the sake of 'fantasy'? That's a horrible suggestion.

[Amnaught]

So take one concise thing and spread it all over the place for the sake of 'fantasy'? That's a horrible suggestion.

It should never have been one thing, though.

Imagine if every item sold by a vendor was in an auction-house styled menu that you opened with a menu button. Why have any vendors at all? Why not choose your hunter pet at the barber too?

As for the ingame store items though, I definitely support the idea of keeping the store menu with USD prices, but really there shouldf just be a way to buy those things without dealing with real money. Cut out the middle man between buying a WoW token and spending the cash on items that just go back to your character ingame.-

[Maljinwo]

While keeping the fantasy is something I understand, having to sorth so many different NPC when they all share the same goal: Change your appearance, is not good game design

[Amnaught]

While keeping the fantasy is something I understand, having to sorth so many different NPC when they all share the same goal: Change your appearance, is not good game design

So why not put transmogrification and hunter pets at the barber? Why not put Void Storage at the bank?

[LanToaster]

So why not put transmogrification and hunter pets at the barber? Why not put Void Storage at the bank?

Technical Reasons. They use vastly different UI Elements. If they Revisit the Bank, the might add the Void Storage to it. (However I guess Void Storage would more likely stop beeing a thing).

[Mysterymask]

Ok then for fantasy reasons then please give me a canonical reason for the following...

"Bob the Tauren Warrior wants to go to an alternate version of Azeroth where...things are pretty much the same but the populace is entirely different. How does Bob the Tauren Warrior who probably has very limited knowledge of alternate worlds know that this other Azeroth exists"

"John the Orc Warlock wants to defect to the alliance but there is a requirement that he drinks a magical potion where he will permanently change to a completely different..but limited choice of races in the alliance...why would John the orc do this? Why would either the alliance or horde allow such a person to do so. Hell why can't John be a Night Elf if he wants to"

"Billy the Dranaei Paladin decide's he's not happy being a Dranaei anymore so he can go to this magical potion place possibly cutting ties with his entire family so that he can become a Dwarf. If there was a potion to change you into any race why can't Billy the Dranaei be a Worgan or a Gnome if he so wanted to? Why is Billy's choice only Human, Dwarf, Dark Iron Dwarf, and Lightforged? How come his friend Sam the mage has the option to be a Worgan or a Gnome but he can't?"

"Joe the Level 5 Undead Warrior pays a guy an exorbitant amount of money to basically go into a Hyperbolic Time Chamber and get a bunch of Crappy green gear...why does it stop couldn't you technically just stay in said Hyperbolic Time Chamber a little longer and like level 200? How come they only give him some crappy green gear for the price when gold could easily give this guy a full set of PVP gear that they apparently have unlimited amounts of and he would be a better soldier for the horde. If they had this technology why the hell are they charging so much for it wouldn't it better to just shuffle the army through this so we have a fully trained army in minutes?"

[Maljinwo]

So why not put transmogrification and hunter pets at the barber? Why not put Void Storage at the bank?

Probably because the barber is used for character appearance and not item appearance
Hunter pets, likewise, are its own thing

I do grant you Void Storage. It's weird that it's not in the bank

[Amnaught]

Ok then for fantasy reasons then please give me a canonical reason for the following...

"Bob the Tauren Warrior wants to go to an alternate version of Azeroth where...things are pretty much the same but the populace is entirely different. How does Bob the Tauren Warrior who probably has very limited knowledge of alternate worlds know that this other Azeroth exists"

"John the Orc Warlock wants to defect to the alliance but there is a requirement that he drinks a magical potion where he will permanently change to a completely different..but limited choice of races in the alliance...why would John the orc do this? Why would either the alliance or horde allow such a person to do so. Hell why can't John be a Night Elf if he wants to"

"Billy the Dranaei Paladin decide's he's not happy being a Dranaei anymore so he can go to this magical potion place possibly cutting ties with his entire family so that he can become a Dwarf. If there was a potion to change you into any race why can't Billy the Dranaei be a Worgan or a Gnome if he so wanted to? Why is Billy's choice only Human, Dwarf, Dark Iron Dwarf, and Lightforged? How come his friend Sam the mage has the option to be a Worgan or a Gnome but he can't?"

"Joe the Level 5 Undead Warrior pays a guy an exorbitant amount of money to basically go into a Hyperbolic Time Chamber and get a bunch of Crappy green gear...why does it stop couldn't you technically just stay in said Hyperbolic Time Chamber a little longer and like level 200? How come they only give him some crappy green gear for the price when gold could easily give this guy a full set of PVP gear that they apparently have unlimited amounts of and he would be a better soldier for the horde. If they had this technology why the hell are they charging so much for it wouldn't it better to just shuffle the army through this so we have a fully trained army in minutes?"

1: We've literally already done it. Caverns of Time, Warlords of Draenor, etc. Alternate timelines are canon, realms are canon.
2: Canonically, he could just defect to the alliance. The potion makes it easier.
3: Canonically, he can. There's a night elf paladin in Legion, but we can't play as it for *fantasy* reasons; they're rare and so the playable class combinations should reflect that. Otherwise, you can explain to me why we have limited combinations at all in the first place.
4: "If you're good at something, never do it for free" - Ethereal proverb. Costly materials, boom.

[Mysterymask]

1: We've literally already done it. Caverns of Time, Warlords of Draenor, etc. Alternate timelines are canon, realms are canon.

ok..so why go to a universe that's EXACTLY the same sans the people why is that your only option? why would bob go to Mal'ganis over a universe where there's no war or constant war. HOW DOES HE KNOW TO GO THERE and what manner of person with this infinite knowledge wants gold a material probably not valuable to someone like this person in order to facilitate a shift in the time space continuum

2: Canonically, he could just defect to the alliance. The potion makes it easier.

Canonically if that's the case why didn't Sylvannas just change a chunk of forsaken into humans since the Alliance is so eager to get horde to defect to work as spies and sabatours...the Alliance can easily do the same.

3: Canonically, he can. There's a night elf paladin in Legion, but we can't play as it for *fantasy* reasons; they're rare and so the playable class combinations should reflect that. Otherwise, you can explain to me why we have limited combinations at all in the first place.

we don't and I cant BUT blizz isn't going to change an entire play structure just to have a vendor that they ..once again have to explain..but once again explain why in ANY sense would one species of person would want to change to another in lore. Especially the VERY prideful orcs or the EXTREMELY superficial Blood Elf..or hell ANY of said races would WILLINGLY become a Forsaken.

4: "If you're good at something, never do it for free" - Ethereal proverb. Costly materials, boom.

Ok then why aren't we just utilizing this hyperbolic time chamber...why isn't the actually Horde/Alliance paying for it in order to have a huge army fast. If we had that in the real world our military would do that in a heartbeat...have fully trained soliders/workers in HOURS intead of months/years? that would pay for itself almost instantly

[Razion]

I think it's better simplified all at the barber. I don't really think going all around town to do a small customization to see if it matches the other things and then having to dart back and forth trying to figure out what looks best trying to compare all the while dumping gold on the changes so you can see ones that aren't on the same vendors at the same time to try and get an idea of what you think is best. Man that would suck for people who don't make as much gold - changing appearances would be even more of a gold sink for them.

[Theangryone]

You can use tokens bought with gold to add blizzard balance to your account and buy those items.

[Amnaught]

You can use tokens bought with gold to add blizzard balance to your account and buy those items.

Yes but the point is that it forces you to enter a menu and spend "cash". Breaks immersion for no reason.

[Sevarin]

i sure am glad they missed the opportunity.

[cuafpr]

at first I was like what.. but then I was like ya know that would have been neat ... too bad fantasy took a back seat here.

[Mysterymask]

Yes but the point is that it forces you to enter a menu and spend "cash". Breaks immersion for no reason.

...and a Blood Elf suddenly turning into a Lightforged Dranaei doesn't?

[Lucetia]

While we're at it, add NPCs to the game that allow the purchase of In-Game Store items with gold:

You can do this now.... so why complicate things? Especially since the in-game vendors wouldn't be able to do store discounts dynamically so you'd be paying full price all the time. Just buy the token, convert it to B.Net balance and buy it that way. Stop trying to come up with convoluted things to add when there are already simplistic things. You can say it is for immersion, but it is a video game immersion will not always be possible. If you don't like it, then don't partake in the services.

[Tantaburs]

Why is a barber being able to change your race/gender/features etc... Less immersive than a potion?

If this potion existed can't you just say the goblins have it and use it?

[Powerogue]

I get what you're saying, and I can think of Guild Wars 2 doing pretty well at integrating such things into the game, but I also don't mind the system as it is. The only system I think failed was RS3 which had the microtransactions massively in your face like putting the giant elephant selling microtransaction stuff (which looks massively out of place in the game's graphics) right outside the main trading hub.