9.1.5 Character Customizations: New and Improved You

Orrrrr, customizations are important to people in a roleplaying game.

I mean, the ones that want to play a roleplaying game, that is. The twitch kids that just want a lobby game and would play a featureless cube as long as they’re trending probably don’t care.

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I’m with this guy, please give us a release date, for the love of Lady gaga.

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Also any words on balance tuning? Especially that for Death Knights and Warlocks?

I’d like Runic Power to be worth spending as Frost again that isn’t all about Breath of Sindragosa.

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There a date in there?

I’m really excited for these new customizations. I just hope it’s a sign for more on the horizon - both to bring the other allied races up to part with everyone else and to further expand character creation overall.

IMO, expanding character customization options should be part of the standard patch cycle. Imagine how awesome it would be if we got a couple new hairstyles or something with every patch!

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Feedback: Nightborne Customization

As a fan of the Nightborne and someone that has lobbied for improvements to the Nightborne model over the years, I am incredibly disappointed by the lack of quality and care that went into the 9.1.5 customizations, and that no work was done to revise the lackluster customization options the Nightborne launched with.

It is incredibly evident that the constant feedback provided on the forums to improve the Nightborne was completely disregarded. All you needed to implement to win Nightborne players over was: youthful faces, elegant hairstyles with youthful hairlines, and NPC accurate eyes. You only managed to fulfill one of those requests.

Below, I’ve compiled a list of just a few of the developer’s shortcomings with images.

:diamonds: Female Nightborne
Regal Bun - Hair missing on the side, whereas the “High Bun” has a fuller hairline.

When viewed from the top, the bangs are literally paper thin.

High Bun - The base hairstyle for the “Regal Bun” hairstyle, but features a fuller hairline. Why go through the trouble of making the “Regal Bun” hairstyle look worse when this perfectly fine base exists?

Topknot
This hairline needs to be lowered and filled in with hair on the side.

Regal
Chunky, blocky, barely resembles hair. If you told me this hairstyle was designed back in 2004 when the game was first released, I’d fully believe you.

Vim
Another hairstyle option with a receded hairline.

Highborn
This hairline is just awful. Is it NPC accurate? Partially. (See below.)

As you can see here, the NPC version has added bits of hair on the side to cover up the weirdly patchy hairline.

Shaggy
I’m at a loss for words as to what’s going on in the back of this hairstyle. It doesn’t even look like hair.

Pigtails
How does this in any way inform the identity of the Nightborne? This should actually be deleted and I’m not exaggerating. The Nightborne are meant to be elegant, even more so than Blood Elves. A utilitarian hairstyle like pigtails makes no sense for the image they’re meant to convey.

Legion Zone Overview: Suramar - With the Nightborne, there are no slums—there are just grades of “How elite are you?” They’ve all been in this bubble for 10,000 years, and they’re trained in hand-to-hand combat and spellcasting. They’re these consummate warriors, but they train as sort of a sport. Because for most of that time, there was no threat. They were closed off from the world. They worked on becoming as elegant as they could, and now you’ve got this arrogant, super-refined culture…

Eyelashes
The female Nightborne’s eyelashes are outer corner heavy, and without any added details to extend them closer to the inner eye for a natural look.

NPC Nightborne with Complete Eyelashes

Repurposed Headdress Option
The “Headdress” option they made available to female Nightborne was taken from the “Regal” hairstyle, where it was removed and then repurposed for every hairstyle. Would it have been too much to create something new?

Regal Hairstyle Prior to 9.1.5

9.1.5 Repurposed Headdress Option

Jewelry
Two of the female Nightborne jewelry options are quite clearly derived or are heavily inspired by a female Night Elf jewelry option. Would it have been too much to ask for unique options that look well done? To make matters worse, both the chain and pendant are considerably lower resolution.



:diamonds: Male Nightborne
Cascade
This hairstyle has the barest level of hair physics, and doesn’t even rest naturally in the back where the hair is longest.

Vigor
Flat, and without texture in the back.

Frontal view of Vigor hairstyle, where the scalp is visible.

Sidepart
Flat in the back, seemingly without texture. Appears identical to the back of the hair in the “Short” hairstyle. Two hairstyles featuring the same low quality texture work in the back.

Short
The back of this hairstyle looks unfinished.

Short Tail
Exposed scalp underneath the front of the hairstyle.

Underwhelming “Luminous Hands” option, as compared to the NPC Nightborne:
Player Version

NPC Version

Meanwhile, fans are able to implement customization directly from the NPC Nightborne that blows anything the developers have done out of the water.

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Ooh Nightborne lookin’ cute!

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Meh, nothing I’m interested in.
I appreciate some of the work gone into it, some other things looks nice.

Considering I’m never looking at my character face-first and mostly always from the back — a lot of these changes don’t interest me.

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I mean… maybe that particular race just doesn’t have darker skin? The lightforged are incredibly infused with the light. It makes sense that they look like walking chandeliers.

It’s like asking for a light skinned drow. It’s silly–unless they’re albino, I suppose. Just like other varieties of elves, the other variety of draenei can already have relatively dark (albeit blue/purple toned) skin.

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Customization is such a meh topic :yawning_face: …how about the devs get to work on some fresh new race/class combos? Probably too late for 9.1.5, but still a possibility for 9.2

Some ideas off the top of my head:

  • Kultiran Paladin
  • Highmountain Warlock
  • Pandaren Druid
  • etc etc

Oh and, 9.1.5 release date when?

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i think it should be a habit now to add new customization for characters every patch. doesnt even have to be a lot.

idk how much effort it takes to create new haircolours, but that’d be a nice thing to have consistently as well as separate eyebrow/hair colours.

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Yogg Saron is gone per Magni’s claim about all the old gods

Plus you’re a mechagnome from Mechagon not from ulduar

Literally the one thing I was hoping they’d get and we got whatever it was we got.

This better not turn into elves can’t have darker skin tones 2.0.

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One can dream, Clark! :angry:

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Same. I’m not overall disappointed, but I really wish they had offered variety for LFD skintones.

The pixie haircut coming in 9.1.5 is my jam.

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“Ellinia, Legendary Barber of the Elves” hehe

We should be able to change our hair in garrison.

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I’m only disappointed with LFD, but it’s because I think all their colours they do have are pretty ugly, and I have enough white on white on white characters.

At least Void Elves can look like San’layn too with the toggle and I never have to play Horde again, so despite my criticism with the LFD, I am extremely happy with the small things my main race got. Extremely.

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I don’t care if they add darker skin tones or not. I’m just saying that not all fantasy races have darker skin tones (and not all have lighter skin tones) and that’s okay. lol

Basically, I’m simply saying that they don’t have to mirror humans. They’re usually blue space goats. :laughing:

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Elves tend to be the squeakiest wheels, so they’re getting the most attention at the moment. Hopefully dwarves (both variants) will get some additional customization soon™.

Edit: And the gnome amputees. I like the idea of them but mogging is a nightmare.

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That’s cool, but why aren’t you bringing back artifact appearances with mage tower? Why are you locking people out of content for no good reason?

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