why won't blizzard allow us to mod characters?

[Deleted]

people are exploiting the game through bots and they dnt get banned yet your not allowed to add textures, the exploiters are already in game so i say use those ski nthings its not like u will be banned cos blizzard want your $$$

[Deathpath]

because modding can be used for exploiting and blizz can't tell if you are exploiting or just having fun

cheaters are usually the reason why we can't have nice things

I wish blizz allowed mods. than I'd use those mods that make the girls naked

They had nude mods. They stopped working in cata. I didn't use them but my friend did and he was pissed when it stopped working. But the same mod made it so nelfs had demon hunter tattoos and a bunch of other cool stuff.

[Mirishka]

People who have exploited the game through modded models and textures are the reason you can't. End of story. Not sure why this point is so hard for you to understand.

Also, comparing WoW to Skyrim and even other MMO's is pointless. WoW is WoW. Blizzard defines WoW's rules and TOS, and we aren't allowed to mod the graphics because of people who hack, exploit and cheat. To you its just a harmless 'make my tauren prettier' - to the next guy its making things easier to see for an advantage, making gates smaller to exploit BGs and raids, etc etc. Its for the best, for the game as a whole, that people can't mod it.

[Paladin885]

I would argue that by paying the sub you're not only allowed to play but you're "invited" to their servers where their data is located. Therefore, you are not allowed to mod their own shit. Doing so would be hacking, and we all know what that means...

[bufferunderrun]

Blizzard is very protective torward it's art design, think about mogs how many years peoples begged for a way to customize armors and weapons and they refused when other games even older than wow have it in various incarnation? And even after they implemented it look how many restrictions where placed on that only now are beginning to lift.
Even now many games have a very easy interface to customize armors, blizzard mog is complicated and somewhat even punishing, forcing you to go back everytime to an npc to remog and forcing you to wast the already restricted bank/storage space; is that because blizzard is unable to build a easy interface? No absolutely, is because blizzard is iperprotective when it come down to art design.

Also because peoples will abuse it do you remmeber when peoples used a mod to change the netherwing eggs model to spot them more easly?

[Boogums]

Because changing the game files is against the rules.

You can change other player's models for exploitive purposes. Imagine making everyone but yourself a tauren so it's much easier to target them, this would be cheating. I don't care if you don't like this answer, but it's THE answer.

We can't mod models of characters because people will cheat.

[siccora]

To see myself getting more joy in playing this game just by changing the race (ugly panda to nice draenei) what would happend if blizz change all the vanilla models? awesome!

[traen]

Blizzard is lazy and slow.
They don't want players to contribute into game development because of 2 simple reasons:

1. They'll have to spend time and money to check and control what players contributed. Because obviously new content should not allow you to make your life easier and new content should not change the game lore.

2. Players are better and more motivated than developers. They can develop amazing things in no time. Just give players tools and they will release high texture packs, they'll rebuild all zones in the game making them better detailed. They'll create amazing spell effects, new dances, moves, emotes. Whatever you wanted to see. Gigabytes of new content monthly.
And this will make blizzard look bad, because it takes them years and years just to create new character models or add few new spell effects.

So yeah... not going to happen.

[Okacz]

One of the biggest exploit in WoW raiding history was in Blackwing Lair, when players hacked into the system and changed some models (not sure exactly), making the fight with Nefarian piss poor easy. So, I guess Blizzard doesn't wanna that to happen.

[Cosmic Janitor]

As said above, changing game files is against the ToS. They don't want players changing the game files because it's what exploiters/cheaters do and they can't tell if you're just changing a skin or using it to exploit.

Thats not quite true. Like with the interface folder they could just make a simple folder that contains the basic models/textures and that can be changed. Coding such an infrastructure shouldn't be impossible either, most of the groundwork is already there (and used by modelviewers and such), it all comes down to blizzard allowing it, which probably won't happen, as they would practicly admit that their art team is not up to par when it comes to character models / textures, even though it would solve the whole "new player model" problem in an instant, because people could just make their own or at least modify the current onces to look less shitty.

There might also be some reasons that are linked to competetive gameplay like pvp, even though I'm not sure what good changing the look of your enemies would do ?

Edit: Eh was that thread already 4 pages long ? I completly missed that ..

[Deleted]

Truth be told, I don't think they actively scan for it anymore. The model editing scene was at it's peak during BC and started dying during WotLK. I also suspect that their main issue currently are botters. I've been using texture edits for well over a year and no warning, no ban, nothing.

Not saying that they are, but they could. If there was some major exploit that was made with model/texture changing, Blizz could start scanning and banning. It may not happen, like you say, it's not a very common way of exploiting anymore, but if it does, then you for example could not complain if you got banned.

[Baloneyz]

-snip-

"I would so make my human an HUGE PENGUIN! It would be so great!
And make my Night Elf an Tree ant from LOTR! El-ou-el!"

Seriously, it would be too much trolling from the players and so much hard work from the Blizzard.

[Tehterokkar]

last i checked (patch 3.3) you could run with as many custom models you wanted.

however, if warden detected a few specific models had been changed they would write your name down on the 'random mass ban' list.

i imagine it is still very possible. there is always a way.

i wouldn't recommended breaking the terms you agreed to, however. just isn't cricket.

Warden can't detect stuff if you modify WoW.exe and tick "Read Only" on the mod files. You cannot get caught for player-model editing, unless you go shouting it in the trade chat or something.

[kivipää]

because model changing is against the ToC?

it being agains the ToC is a consequence of Blizzard not allowing it, not a reason for it. ToC is just a document telling what is and isn't allowed. Your statement is equal to "Blizzard doesn't allow it because Blizzard doesn't allow it".

The actual, obvious reason would be that when they detected a client hasb een modified, they either cannot detect exactly how it was modified or would have to spend extra resources to find out. Thusly they enforce a blanket ban instead for easier implementation.

[Deleted]

A playerbase happily participating in "anal" and "dirge" spam would be way too inclined to find undesirable uses for most forms of character modding.

[Orange Joe]

Some sort of program that can scan what mods(what they are and what they do) people are running? I'm very surprised that this apparently doesn't exist, considering technological advances these days. o.O

Scanning doesn't show them what models you are useing. Best it would do is give them the file name. Only way they could see the models is if they download them from your pc.

[Nobleshield]

I think it might because the code doesn't properly support it, and because it might open the floodgates. Now I don't know much about modding but aren't you basically modifying the game code? If so what's to stop some malicious person from putting something nasty in there?

That could be a reason why. We all know it's against the ToU but I at least would like some speculation as to why, beyond just "Blizzard says so". They have to have a reason (which could be as simple as "control").

It seems from reading other replies that I'm mistaken and the mod is just the texture that the code looks for. In that case I can only assume it's because you can do things like other peopel said, make rares gigantic using the Ragnaros or Deathwing model so you can easily find them, and give yourself an unfair advantage.

[Deleted]

I don't understand why Blizz is not simply allowing us to use mag'har or taunka (or the dwarfs from Dragonblight) as a skin for characters. It don't know how much work it is to allow this skins to be used, but it would be really great for a lot of players and would not hurt anyone, or does it?
I have seen npcs with tattoos, still, we don't have the option. With the updates for the races coming, I can only hope blizz really makes a good job and not just update them to pandaren standart. granted, the pandaren look great. but they should ad tattoos (warpaint for fur), the option to show rings and necklaces, and stuff like that. even the bodypainted chest and pants should be adressed.

[Trassk]

I don't understand why Blizz is not simply allowing us to use mag'har or taunka (or the dwarfs from Dragonblight) as a skin for characters. It don't know how much work it is to allow this skins to be used, but it would be really great for a lot of players and would not hurt anyone, or does it?
I have seen npcs with tattoos, still, we don't have the option. With the updates for the races coming, I can only hope blizz really makes a good job and not just update them to pandaren standart. granted, the pandaren look great. but they should ad tattoos (warpaint for fur), the option to show rings and necklaces, and stuff like that. even the bodypainted chest and pants should be adressed.

indeed. just things like altering skintones, adding tattoos or scars to a character. Nothing of this nature is game breaking and its just an art design alteration to something already existing in the game.
Blizzard takes a clear stance on disallowing mods from addons to alter the games performance, yet we can still change our interface and UI with addons, so why can't we change character and make it more intresting. I'd love to have tattoos on my orc, or download things like invisable chest and shoulder armor well showing off those tattoos.

[Rivellana]

indeed. just things like altering skintones, adding tattoos or scars to a character. Nothing of this nature is game breaking and its just an art design alteration to something already existing in the game.
Blizzard takes a clear stance on disallowing mods from addons to alter the games performance, yet we can still change our interface and UI with addons, so why can't we change character and make it more intresting. I'd love to have tattoos on my orc, or download things like invisable chest and shoulder armor well showing off those tattoos.

If you're asking why Blizzard doesn't add these options to the character creation themselves so that players can choose them, that's entirely different.

If you're still asking why we can't mod them with other programs, it's already been explained many, many times in replies to this thread. Warden sees that you have changed game files (MPQ files) but without putting further work/time/money into checking which files you've changed, they don't know if you're doing something innocent like adding a tattoo or something more malicious like turning the WSG flag into a gigantic tree so you can see the flag carrier easier (and thus exploiting). So they disallow it all.

I'm no expert, but I don't think addons change the MPQ files, yet mods do. I could be wrong but I think that's the basic concept.