New Customization NPCS in the War Within?

Community General Discussion
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I think most players agree that cosmetic customization is one of the best features of an MMO, and right now there are definitely places where this could be improved in World of Warcraft both in terms of the options offered and the verisimilitude of those options in the game world. When I’m talking about verisimilitude, I’m speaking on how players go about customizing their characters. For example, I’ve thought for a while that the Barber Shop is being used as sort of a customization catch-all when there are definitely cooler ways to handle customizing your character in-game.

Focusing the Role of the Barber Shop
The first thing I’d want to see is a refocus on the Barber Shop on racial customizations. I’m perfectly fine with “barber” meaning “full-body grooming” in Azeroth since in the real world barbers were originally doctors without a proper practicing license that happened to include hair-trimming services. What this does mean, however, is that I think we should be pulling things like Druid form customizations and warlock demon customizations out of the Barber Shop and onto a different UI that was better focused on class-based powers.

Class Trainers as a Class Customization UI
World of Warcraft has had class trainers since Vanilla. Back then, your class trainer gave you quests every few levels and allowed you to reset your talents. What I’d like to see is a revamp of class trainers for Retail where they became all about customizing your class. Here are some ideas:

  1. Existing Class Customizations Moved to the Trainers: This means that if you wanted to change your bear form or summon a different kind of demon, you’d basically be going to your class trainer to make those customization swaps. This would ideally include things like Green Fire, and similar to how Inscription can make Drake Manuscripts all existing glyphs would be converted into manuscripts that allowed you to permanently unlock that customization option for use in the system. You could even animate the character using the modified spell.
  2. Daily Quests for New Customizations: In addition to regularly adding glyphs to Inscription players, give Class Trainers weekly quests where you could do something involving your class for currency that you can spend buying manuscripts from the trainer. Maybe it works like the Warlards of Draenor weekly mission table where you can pick one trainer to do a quest for and that trainer gives you an item to trade for a specific type of currency. For example, maybe Dwarf class trainers reward a currency that you can spend unlocking dwarf-appropriate customizations for the class. This could be a way to add some of those expanded War Within customizations the team has been talking about.

Wardrobe Stylists: A New Customization NPC
In addition to having Class Trainers and Barbers, the third type of model customization would be Wardrobe Stylists. This would be NPCs that modify the “base outfit” of your character, similar to how Dracthyrs can pick what sort of underwear they wear for their character and how anyone can choose jewelry. I would LOVE if a bunch of the cosmetic glasses we’ve been getting moved to this sort of an NPC, since it’s really jarring how you can’t wear a scarf and glasses at the same time.

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Blizzard just put those in, so I don’t believe they will remove them. I expect to see Death Knight undead minions and maybe even Hunter pets added to the Barber Shop.

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Keep reading to the next section, I said they should be pulled out of the barber shop and moved to a class trainer, not removed from the game.

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Considering that removing those parts of the Barber Shop’s customization is the foundation for everything else and will in all likelihood remain, there’s no reason to. Your entire premise rests on this happening when it more likely than not won’t.

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This absolutely should include druid forms, since druids change their bodily appearance while in these forms. I also think it works better/with less confusion to just include pet forms for Warlocks (and hopefully DKs in the future) in the barber shop, since they use the same system as the druid’s selection screen.

I very much disagree here. Making glyphs an account unlock would devalue glyphs, and thus most of the inscription profession’s means of goldmaking. Similarly, the green fire spell is tied to a quest. On the one hand, I could see it argued that it would be nice to do the quest once and be able to use it on your alts, but your argument is wanting more immersion in the area of customization-- quests that unlock these appearances very much give that immersion.

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I’ve actually found that Inscription doesn’t really make money off of glyphs. The runes and other consumables do it more. Drake Manuscripts basically work as I’ve said and Inscription can make Warlock Grimoires, so I think this is fine personally. You’ll see more of a rush as people try to fill their collection rather than ignore all but a handful of highly desired glyphs.

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I would love to see big class visual customization quests like green fire. I also feel that the glyph system needs to be used way, WAY more to honor class/race fantasy.

Like a Night Elf priest should not have to feel just like a Human priest. Why can’t they have access to glyphs to make their spells silvery if they want?

Why can’t Tauren priests and paladins have access to glyphs that make their spells fiery?

Pandarian elementals for Pandaren shamans?

Different trap visuals for different hunter races? (Hunters need help in the visuals department you guys)

Etc

1 Like
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More customizations is always nice.
Having some lore quests to get them is good to, its better when they give a reason for the sudden update instead of it just happening when its big stuff, like eradar for draenei.
Class trainers functioning as they do now where they sell some permanent unlocks that you just check for once an expac is fine, giving them a quest to unlock some more sounds good.

having to go back to stormwind everytime i want to change my cat from green to blue because thats the only place class trainers are nowadays when theres a perfectly good barber in every capitol city for every expac would piss me off to no end.