What are you expecting from the new customization options?

[Elyndres]

I'm hoping for more tattoos. I'm also hoping that Night Elves are able to choose individual hair and marking colours, and perhaps a more hair colours such as orange or scarlet. Something that has that autumn aesthetic. Some dryads have orange hair, I want that for night elves as well.

[Mace]

Here's what we know so far:

• Tattoos
• Ethnicities for humans
• New skin colors
• New hairstyles
• Selecting eye color individually
• Boneless undeads
• Draenei tail length
• Blood elves already have 40+ new customization options

My question is, are blood elves getting preferential treatment or is the "40+ options" going to be a standard for all races? What about Allied Races, are they going to receive the same treatment as everyone else or will they continue getting sidelined in the development process? Are there going to be some more revolutionary additions such as a height toggle/slider, or will the options mostly boil down to what we already know?

I'm personally not expecting anything crazy, but no matter how you look at it, 40+ new options for every race is crazy—although I would admittedly feel a bit cheated if they ended up being mainly new eye and skin colors.

What are you expecting (or hoping) the new customization options to be?

Blood elves are the most liked, most preferred and largest played race in the game by end-gamers. They are aslo the ideal female model boys lust after and girls wanna be.

They're going to have tons of options. What puzzles me is how few the alliance male night elf actually has going for him a bit disproportionate to the popularity of the race and it's characteristic of aethestic beauty that somehow wasn't bothered to be reflected in the male sex.

What to Expect
As for what to expect, well, we already know for most races, we don't know for elves the biggest played race.. I guess they're still deciding. One would assume giving blood elves blue eyes would be it, which would upset a lot of alliance and high elf hopefuls - would the counter be to design a stunningly beautiful night elf highborne alternative to lessen he sting and provide a desirable aesthetic elf alternative on the alliance?

High elf demand has been excessively high because the blood elf model is head and shoulders above the night elf, especially the male, furthermore, blood elves have been gifted the cream of elven fantasy.

• They have the lush forest and wood elf wing in the Farstriders and Eversong woods,
• They have the high magic fantasy in Silvermoon city and the arcane excellence, and
• They have the purity of the light in the Blood knights and priest orders.

Compare to the night elves, who have:

• Ruined forests and shabby druids,
• Ruined cities and no civilization, even from their own lore.
• Their priesthood is shown as forest hunters not magic dealers despite the lore painting a far better balanced picture which the game presentation doesn't bother to show.

Then model wise:

• The males have nearly every appearance quite ugly (bar 1 possibly 2),
• Far limited customisation options - (i)1 decent beard (the rest are Amish, nothing stylish - if you want no beard, you have to lose the eyebrows??!), (ii) 1 decent hair style (nothing remotely elven)
• The females look more butch and masculine.
• 1 male face that isn't shrivelled an old, despite the lore making clear, most of the males as druids spent 1000s of years sleeping in the emerald drem with druidsm likely the best ingredient for the most healthy and vibrant physical specimen (lots of rest, totally healthy magically empowered food and if you're highborne you are so obsessed with your appearance you would passs out at a wrinkle)

Well it's not surprise, high elves/void elves are much more desired. Void elves have only been out a year, and they already the 3-4th most played alliance race and they've taken most of their numbers from the night elves.

In their horde bias, blizzard failed to update the night elf both aesthetically and presentationally to be anywhere near as desirable as the blood elves. In fact, 6.0, the night elf models were by the vast majority considered worse than their classic models, whereas the care and time were taken to do a fantastic job with the blood elves.

But then the treatment in the lore has shown a similar story.

• Blood elves since they showed up have been laying waste to night elves - starting with Shalandris ilse in Ghostlands, followed by Azshara, Desolace and every time they've met.
• Furthermore, blood elves though missing in 7.0 showed up far better arrayed than the night elves in 7.1, and
• The night elven sub-race and its historical city and zones, the origin city of the night elf alliance group and it's lore, is slung over to the horde instead.
  

In every way it has mattered, in every instance they've shown up alongside or against each other. The blood elf has been shown to be vastly superior in every way that matters to fantasy lovers and people who play /like elves. Trust blizzard to make a dark elf, but present it as worse off than the high elf everyone desires, and expect people to prefer. There is nothing in lore that says the high/blood elf is more beautiful than the night elf it comes from, and in fact, you tend to have to make the less familiar skin coloured/alien looking version more attractive and appealing since it's weird skin colour (especially when it's dark (i.e. black/gray/purple) are less familiar and more off putting to the conventional beautifes that a high elf presents. This is why you make the dark elf more attractive, make it more powerful and more robust. By not being the classic pure peach skinned beauty of elven fantasy, it is already at a disadvantage. But instead blizzard goes and pulls out all the stops for the high/blood elf, leaving the night elf woefully behind and wonders why people want to play the blood elf on the alliance. Then take the void elf, the better model now available - already more appreciated than the night elf, but guess what, purple skinned is not enough, again cos pale/peach blond haired/blue eyed beauty is the standard desire. This is why:

I mean face it,
1. no surprise alliance players crave blood/high elves
2. alliance players will feel gravely cheated out when blood elves get the blue eyed option. Only an exceptional revamp of the night elf highborne and in game fortunes would make up.

[Trollokdamus]

I would like regular Draenei to get an option to have a blue/white rune like Velen or Maraad in Icecrown. Also even though it's unrealistic, I'd like more casting animation options for some races like male NElves/Nightborne because their current one is atrocious.

[Psykho]

Blindfold needs to be completely removed, now that we have demonhunters. Same logic as was applied when they decided against adding warglaives to transmog table for rogues/warriors.

I doubt they'll actually remove options for any of the races, plus I like the way it looks with the Night Warrior eyes

[Caradras]

I expect to be dissapointed. I expect we get the bare minimum, few hairstyles, maybe 1 or 2 new haircolors, a new hornstyle (my main is fem draenei).

In my opinion blizz should keep adding options like this all the time, every expansion or sometimes during a patch, similair to battlepets being added every now and then. having it as a 'major feature' for the upcoming expansion doesnt get me excited, its long overdue.

The biggest hope i have is for the transmog area. I really hope they make something new for casters, getting so bored of the long dresses with only a different pattern. I would like to see ankles, shins, knees, legs with robes/skirts/dresses of different lengths, models, splits etc. This will make boots more interesting aswell, never get to see those now.
Having a option of the robes to show only the upper or lower part would already help in this regard. Many sets also have leg armor we never see either.

Cloaks also need a big overhaul, looks terrible to have this piece of paper hanging off our backs.

Clipping issues or cutting of hair with many hairstyles and headgear combo's, blizz please fix this!

Many hairstyles still ruined by the new character models, good moment to fix those aswell.

See, i will be dissapointed because most if not all of those things wont happen. sigh

[Moonrage]

Blood elves are the most liked, most preferred and largest played race in the game by end-gamers. They are aslo the ideal female model boys lust after and girls wanna be.

They're going to have tons of options. What puzzles me is how few the alliance male night elf actually has going for him a bit disproportionate to the popularity of the race and it's characteristic of aethestic beauty that somehow wasn't bothered to be reflected in the male sex.

What to Expect
As for what to expect, well, we already know for most races, we don't know for elves the biggest played race.. I guess they're still deciding. One would assume giving blood elves blue eyes would be it, which would upset a lot of alliance and high elf hopefuls - would the counter be to design a stunningly beautiful night elf highborne alternative to lessen he sting and provide a desirable aesthetic elf alternative on the alliance?

High elf demand has been excessively high because the blood elf model is head and shoulders above the night elf, especially the male, furthermore, blood elves have been gifted the cream of elven fantasy.

• They have the lush forest and wood elf wing in the Farstriders and Eversong woods,
• They have the high magic fantasy in Silvermoon city and the arcane excellence, and
• They have the purity of the light in the Blood knights and priest orders.

I'd argue the 'Farstrider' fantasy is more alive in Vereesa and Alleria, both of which are Alliance characters.

And this is the Elven fantasy? Arcane magic, holy magic and nature? I'd say the Night Elves win in the nature department, it's ingrained in their society through the Druids, and the archers/Sentinels. The Blood Elves also share the Priest/Paladin/holy light aesthetic with the humans and Dwarves. Night Elven Priesthood and religion is uniquely theirs.

Compare to the night elves, who have:
Ruined forests and shabby druids,

Ruined forests as in Teldrassil? Well yeah, blame Sylvanas and Blizzard's love for cheap shock tactics for that. Also shabby druids? What does that even mean?

Ruined cities and no civilization, even from their own lore.

Again, is this about Teldrassil? If so, then yes I agree.

Their priesthood is shown as forest hunters not magic dealers despite the lore painting a far better balanced picture which the game presentation doesn't bother to show.

I agree that Blizzard needs to do a better job at portraying the Sisters of Elune in WoW. In Warcraft 3 it was pretty clear that the Priestesses of the Moon are part of the Night Elven military, in fact they were even the ones leading the Sentinels into battle. In WoW however, they're portrayed as robe wearing clergy, akin to a Human or Blood Elf Priest.

Then model wise:
The males have nearly every appearance quite ugly (bar 1 possibly 2),
Far limited customisation options - (i)1 decent beard (the rest are Amish, nothing stylish - if you want no beard, you have to lose the eyebrows??!), (ii) 1 decent hair style (nothing remotely elven)

Agreed.

The females look more butch and masculine.

Hard disagree. Just because female Night Elves are taller and more athletic than female Blood Elves, does not mean that they're butch or masculine. They're supposed to be warriors, even the Priestesses. They still look feminine to me.

1 male face that isn't shrivelled an old, despite the lore making clear, most of the males as druids spent 1000s of years sleeping in the emerald drem with druidsm likely the best ingredient for the most healthy and vibrant physical specimen (lots of rest, totally healthy magically empowered food and if you're highborne you are so obsessed with your appearance you would passs out at a wrinkle)

Eh, somewhat agreed. Male Night Elves have always been portrayed as older looking though. Even back in Warcraft 3. More faces that aren't angry or old-looking would be nice for a change, though.

Well it's not surprise, high elves/void elves are much more desired. Void elves have only been out a year, and they already the 3-4th most played alliance race and they've taken most of their numbers from the night elves.

Is there a source that states that most Void Elf numbers were taken from Night Elves?

In their horde bias, blizzard failed to update the night elf both aesthetically and presentationally to be anywhere near as desirable as the blood elves. In fact, 6.0, the night elf models were by the vast majority considered worse than their classic models, whereas the care and time were taken to do a fantastic job with the blood elves.

The Blood Elf model was already better than the Night Elf model, mainly due to it being developed in TBC, and not in Classic like the Night Elf model. I agree that male Night Elves still look like crap, but females look alright, especially with the fixed eyes.

But then the treatment in the lore has shown a similar story.
Blood elves since they showed up have been laying waste to night elves - starting with Shalandris ilse in Ghostlands, followed by Azshara, Desolace and every time they've met.
Furthermore, blood elves though missing in 7.0 showed up far better arrayed than the night elves in 7.1,

What? Is there even a source for this? Both Elven races just made camp in Suramar. It isn't stated anywhere that the Blood Elves where better arrayed than the Night Elves.

The night elven sub-race and its historical city and zones, the origin city of the night elf alliance group and it's lore, is slung over to the horde instead.

Yeah I dislike this too. With the destruction of Teldrassil, there isn't a single zone in Azeroth left that fully belongs to the Night Elves. Suramar, the city both Tyrande and Malfurion grew up in, is now Horde territory. Moon Guard Stronghold, Darkshore, Val'Sharah, Mount Hyjal, Ashenvale, Moonglade, Feralas are all neutral... It's insulting really. These are all ancestral Night Elven lands, yet the Horde is allowed to run rampant through these zones.

In every way it has mattered, in every instance they've shown up alongside or against each other. The blood elf has been shown to be vastly superior in every way that matters to fantasy lovers and people who play /like elves.

People who like generic LOTR Elves.

Trust blizzard to make a dark elf, but present it as worse off than the high elf everyone desires, and expect people to prefer. There is nothing in lore that says the high/blood elf is more beautiful than the night elf it comes from, and in fact, you tend to have to make the less familiar skin coloured/alien looking version more attractive and appealing since it's weird skin colour (especially when it's dark (i.e. black/gray/purple) are less familiar and more off putting to the conventional beautifes that a high elf presents. This is why you make the dark elf more attractive, make it more powerful and more robust. By not being the classic pure peach skinned beauty of elven fantasy, it is already at a disadvantage.

Night Elves are supposed to be older and wiser than Blood Elves, that's why they (atleast the males) look far older than Blood Elves. As for female Night Elves, they've always been portrayed as physically beautiful, both in game and in art (example 1, 2, 3)

Male Night Elves don't look too bad themselves in official artwork either, it's just their in game model that's hideous (example 1, 2)

But instead blizzard goes and pulls out all the stops for the high/blood elf, leaving the night elf woefully behind and wonders why people want to play the blood elf on the alliance. Then take the void elf, the better model now available - already more appreciated than the night elf, but guess what, purple skinned is not enough, again cos pale/peach blond haired/blue eyed beauty is the standard desire.

Do people care that much about skin and hair color? Draenei and Void Elves are more popular than Kul Tirans, even tho Kul Tirans have 'human' skin colors.

I mean face it,
1. no surprise alliance players crave blood/high elves
2. alliance players will feel gravely cheated out when blood elves get the blue eyed option. Only an exceptional revamp of the night elf highborne and in game fortunes would make up.

A lot of players just felt cheated that High Elves, an iconic Alliance race, was given to the Horde. Lorewise it makes very little sense, they turned to the Horde because of 1 racist Human general? To the faction that burned their forests and murdered their way through Quel'Thalas 20ish years earlier? Yeah right.

The fact that Blizzard has been parading High Elves on the forefront since WoTLK doesn't help either.

And frankly, I don't believe a revamped Night Elf model will make up for it. Some people will always prefer High/Blood Elves over Night Elves, and that's fine. I personally still prefer playing Night Elves, even though the Blood/Void Elf model is far better.

[Draeth]

Things I want:

• Ability to make pretty Human and Night Elf men instead of shaved gorillas.
• Ability to choose Human and Worgen appearance separately from one-another.
• Ability to choose Druid forms separately from hair color & weapon transmog.
• Ability to make Void Elves that have natural skin and hair colors.
• Ability to choose default casting animations.
• Anti-duckface changes made to Blood Elf male faces ported to the copy+pasted Void Elf male faces.
• Ability to choose eyebrows separately from facial hair on Night Elf men.

Things I expect:

• 10,000 new options for Blood Elves.
• Nightborne models redone to look like the NPCs.
• Alliance options to be rushed out the door in the last month of beta, incomplete, with 25% of the breadth of Horde options, never to be fixed or expanded upon.

[Wangming]

Stuff I want:
-Mummified Undead
-Eyebrowed/aged Goblin males
-Slightly hunched option for Draenei males (instead of puffing out chest)
-3D tentacle rings for Draenei instead of painted-on 2D textures
-Un-hunched Darkspear Troll males
-More beard options for Gnomes that don't clip through helms
-Blue eye option for Blood elves
-Long beards for Humans (ie: Antonidas)
-Pale Orcs
-Dragonmaw Orcs
-Pure white & pure black Pandaren
-Vulpera-like fur patterns for Worgen
-Draenic runes for Draenei (similar to Lightforged but blue)

My expectations are low so I'd be pleasantly surprised if I see any of this added.

I like your options. All of them.

[matrix123mko]

Undeads need beards.

- - - Updated - - -

Things I want:

• Ability to make pretty Human and Night Elf men instead of shaved gorillas.
• Ability to choose Human and Worgen appearance separately from one-another.
• Ability to choose Druid forms separately from hair color & weapon transmog.
• Ability to make Void Elves that have natural skin and hair colors.
• Ability to choose default casting animations.
• Anti-duckface changes made to Blood Elf male faces ported to the copy+pasted Void Elf male faces.
• Ability to choose eyebrows separately from facial hair on Night Elf men.

Things I expect:

• 10,000 new options for Blood Elves.
• Nightborne models redone to look like the NPCs.
• Alliance options to be rushed out the door in the last month of beta, incomplete, with 25% of the breadth of Horde options, never to be fixed or expanded upon.

So much Alliance salt in one post. I guess you already recovered from Teldrassil with new amount of tears.

[ercarp]

• Nightborne models redone to look like the NPCs.

I feel like that's a very high expectation all things considered.

[Alanar]

i know it probably won't look as good on the wow models, but i do like the cut.

you gotta have a razor's edge jawline like natalie to pull that off.

Well, she gets it.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not expecting anything, nor do I want anything. Stuff like this is such a waste of time and development resources, I'd much rather they focus their art team on more important and relevant things.

It's an mmo my dude, you expect the art team to do such things. The eye needs more then new landscapes or armor sets just saying.

- - - Updated - - -

top Guy's list

I think they should keep the duckface as a void elf thing now, it fits their.. total look No light skin colors my friend, we don't wanna get to close to the high elf thing

[draugril]

Dragonmaw Orcs.

Fel Orc and Broken Draenei. Demon Hunter available for both.

[Zantos]

Hadn’t given it a great deal of thought, but boneless undead is the coolest thing in there. Assuming non cloth wearers still don’t look like ragamuffins.

See, I dont understand how this is some new customization option. They already have this in China where they cannot show bones. So, this is just enabling something that already exists.

As for OP: more hair colors. Maybe individual facial features. Like, customizable nose and mouth type not all tied to 1 face option.

Oh, and 1 free character customization for each character so we can take advantage of all the new options. Dont want to spend a ton of gold to change things or add stuff.

Can't wait for the tattoo options though. That said, its going to be hard to see everything since it'll be covered in armor 99% of the time.

[Draeth]

So much Alliance salt in one post. I guess you already recovered from Teldrassil with new amount of tears.

0/10.

Unoriginal and incoherent.

[Malator]

Height and age options.

[Claymore]

WoW is the only major MMO on the market besides OSRS (lol) that doesn't have sliders for customization. It's honestly pretty pathetic. Blizzard has always been dogshit with customization so I'm not expecting much.

Honestly, I *HATE* sliders. It's way too easy to wind up with ugly or weird-looking characters when you start introducing sliders.

I think WoW has a good customization *system*. It just needs more options to fill those out, more variety in the options presented, and of the options there, maybe make them better-looking.

Human males, for example. There should be Faces that are younger and more handsome, old and decrepit, hair-colors should have streaks of other colors, not just a solid color (ie. red hair should have some blonde streaks, or instead of "grey", maybe a salt-and-pepper option), that sort of thing.

Of course, having built-in accessories, war-paint, tattoos, or scars would all be welcome options, too.

[matrix123mko]

Height and age options.

We can look old on some races. The problem is that we are still young adventurers for NPCs.

[GreenJesus]

Honestly, I *HATE* sliders. It's way too easy to wind up with ugly or weird-looking characters when you start introducing sliders.

I think WoW has a good customization *system*. It just needs more options to fill those out, more variety in the options presented, and of the options there, maybe make them better-looking.

Human males, for example. There should be Faces that are younger and more handsome, old and decrepit, hair-colors should have streaks of other colors, not just a solid color (ie. red hair should have some blonde streaks, or instead of "grey", maybe a salt-and-pepper option), that sort of thing.

Of course, having built-in accessories, war-paint, tattoos, or scars would all be welcome options, too.

I think splitting up features more would also be helpful. Instead of just "face" have eyes, mouth, tusk, ears, etc options. I hate how I may like one part of a face option but not like another part.

[Monkiy]

I don't think that 40+ new customization options is going to be as crazy as you might think.

Right now races have five customization slots (I think there may be exceptions, but I'm not able to double check), which means roughly 8 new options per slot if spread evenly, though I assume they won't be. Once you add in new options, such as tattoos, independent eye color, and tail length, that number goes down per slot pretty quickly, and certain slots are going to be easy/simple to add new choices to such as Female Void Elves' earring slot - not that this is a bad thing, I just want to point it out. Eye color in particular is going to be extremely easy for a majority of races to get 6+ options with very little development time and effort on Blizzard's end. Especially compared to say a new hair style, or beard.

They may also be double dipping in a sense with that 40+ number by combining male and female variants when talking about a race as a whole. Each model may only be getting half-ish of whatever that final number is.

[Fetus Rex]

New posture for the Blood/Void Elves and good looking torso for male Night Elves. Also feminine bodies and faces for female NE.