No more race customizations for the foreseeable future

[Lazy Gecko]

Q&A just further hammered down the point by saying they're not even going to add anything new for the remainder of the entire expansion.

This really puts a big damper on my excitement for the game as a whole. I thought 9.0 was a signifier that they were finally going to pay more attention to this stuff like other studios are.

[Razion]

After the positive reception of the customizations at the expansion launch, didn't they say they had more planned for later in the expansion?
If they're saying it won't happen for 9.0.5/9.1 then I guess that implies more customizations would be in 9.2 or 9.3.

[Yarathir]

That's a pretty far departure from their proclamation that they would continue to iterate and add as Shadowlands progressed.

Very disappointing.

[Lazy Gecko]

After the positive reception of the customizations at the expansion launch, didn't they say they had more planned for later in the expansion?
If they're saying it won't happen for 9.0.5/9.1 then I guess that implies more customizations would be in 9.2 or 9.3.

I was under the impression that they had implied this earlier as well.

No, they're not saying it's just about 9.1. They explicitly said that nothing new is coming for at least the entire Shadowlands expansion.

[Yarathir]

After the positive reception of the customizations at the expansion launch, didn't they say they had more planned for later in the expansion?

They did. Which is why this feels like such a 180.

[Lazy Gecko]

I almost thought I had remembered things wrong or misinterpreted about previous statements that they were very much planning to expand on racial customization throughout the expansion. But now I'm getting plenty of corroboration that this was indeed the case.

This is really starting to feel like Dance Studio 2.0.

[Yarathir]

I almost thought I had remembered things wrong or misinterpreted about previous statements that they were very much planning to expand on racial customization throughout the expansion. But now I'm getting plenty of corroboration that this was indeed the case.

This is really starting to feel like Dance Studio 2.0.

A lot of us who were really interested and kept a close eye on it are pretty much blindsided by this seemingly drastic change of stance.

[Omedon]

Guys, more hair colors won't make sense until the "wrath of the redheads" expansion, duh!

Seriously though "when it makes sense" was almost insulting in this context. Give non answers or don't ask the question, but "when it makes sense" for customizations? Really?

[Yarathir]

Guys, more hair colors won't make sense until the "wrath of the redheads" expansion, duh!

Seriously though "when it makes sense" was almost insulting in this context. Give non answers or don't ask the question, but "when it makes sense" for customizations? Really?

Maybe Trolls having beards, allied races having more than 4 options and other races getting a somewhat more broader selection of options to personalize their characters will finally "make sense" in 10.0. >_>

[Fahrad Wagner]

Extremely disappointing, not to say something else...
There is so much more to be done with this. Just when you think Blizzard is listening and going in the right decision, they pull the worst kind of U-turn out of the hat.

[Yarathir]

Extremely disappointing, not to say something else...
There is so much more to be done with this. Just when you think Blizzard is listening and going in the right decision, they pull the worst kind of U-turn out of the hat.

This is pretty much as close to a straight up lie I can think of in recent times.

Guess Blizzard has found their feature to keep hostage for when they start hemorrhaging subs. Very underwhelming.

[Kelduril]

Yea, no Heritage armor for Pandas, Trolls/Night Elves, Human/Orcs, and Forsaken/Draenei.

Night Elves, Forsaken, Humans, Orcs had 4 sets in warfronts hello?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

"We'll continue looking at new customizations to add in the future."

Well that was another lie.

[Hallowseve17]

Haven't been here for a while and return to this unfortunate news. Is this some kind of joke? Pretty sure customization was advertised as one of the expansion's key selling points. There's no way they don't have a large enough team to continue customization. Their excuse is lousy. I see people on Twitter, most notably keyboardturn, show us that adding additional customization options is a lot simpler than many originally thought. It felt like so many races (and allied races) were given the short end of the stick regarding new options.

The community's requests and pleas seem to have fallen onto deaf ears. So many things were requested that were denied: shared allied race customization, more options formerly tied to other options being separated, more accessories for all, more allied race options, and so on. There were also more obscure, yet reasonable options that were ignored such as troll beards, dark ranger skins for blood elves, worgen tails (which are now apparently showing up in HS), and more that have evaded my mind. I personally wanted green skin for trolls since they were given dark troll and sand troll tones in SL.

And yes, I know people feel divided on this. That's totally understandable. Part of the beauty of MMOs is the diverse interests we all have. Some are more passionate than others. I hope people who deeply care for customization continue voicing their criticisms and offering feedback. This has indeed been unfortunate news.

[Three Faced Goddess]

This is pretty much as close to a straight up lie I can think of in recent times.

Guess Blizzard has found their feature to keep hostage for when they start hemorrhaging subs. Very underwhelming.

The customization I wanted the most was Dark Ranger customization: pallid skin and red eyes for Blood Elves. Both of which are already in game. All they have to do is make them available for players. What about Dragonmaw Orc options, Troll beards, upright posture for worgen and undead, Farstrider and Arcane tatts, more options for allied races in general, etc. Tauren have five face options. Male blood elves didn't get any of the jewelry. Look at the nightborne, just look at them and have the gall to tell me there's enough customization. What we got was nice, but no where near enough especially when the quality and quantity is so skewed. Customization that was promised to added throughout the expansion. I'll be honest, it's the only reason I bought the expansion because covenant sure as hell didn't spark my interest.

[Raugnaut]

Night Elves, Forsaken, Humans, Orcs had 4 sets in warfronts hello?

If you want to get technical, we've had Human and Orc themed armor since Classic.

Imo, one of the criteria for Heritage Armor is that it can ONLY be used by a single race. WF armors can be used by anyone except the opposing faction.

[Yarathir]

Player agency expansion btw.

Character customization is a touted Shadowlands feature btw.

Are you feeling it, Mr. Krabs?

[Luxeley]

I'm not a tech genius, but I do believe the on-going issue/ challenge for Blizzard is the ridiculously outdated WOW game engine. As far as I understand, and I could be somewhat wrong, but I don't believe I am, all cosmetic and combat-oriented changes require an upgrade to the existing game engine. So the addition of armor dyes or toon customization means: 1st a game engine upgrade then additional artwork and programming. Once again, the game engine greatly limits what Blizzard can and will do for the good of the game. And this is the #1 reason why a new game engine continues to make sense for the long run

[Sarethion]

Why have the artists work on new customization options if they can do another store mount

Very, very disappointing.

[McNeil]

WoW already has some of the worst customization for such an expensive game. I was mostly hyped to see all new options the moment they announced them as a major feature for SL, what they did was changing the interface to look more like it came from a mobile game and most of the new customization options they added are very underwhelming and just lacking. Nightborne still don't look anywhere near the NPC's and lack younger looking faces. I guess Blizzard just wanted to give us black and high elves and apparently everyone should be happy with it.