About 10 minutes ago, I had an epiphany. It’s just one of those moments where the universe just makes sense, and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, why don’t we have tattoos yet in a game so filled with cultural variety and magic?’
Now, first and foremost, the counter-argument to not having tattoos would obviously be ‘They’re a choice, and not an obligation’, and, they’d bring some life and and some diversity into the older races.
As far as tattoos themselves go, they represent experiences and stories. What if instead of chasing achievement mounts, you could complete a Valkyr achievement of sorts, and unlock an upper chest - arm tattoo with a similar Nordic design to that of the Valkyr? What if tattoos could be sold and distributed?
They would be a breath of fresh air, and open up so many opportunities for playability and collectability.
Now, in terms of ‘why now?’, this is the PERFECT time for their implementation, seeing as Blizzard intends to rework Transmogrifying to permit players to hide more of their gear, and expose more of their skin.
Besides, many of the new Allied Races sharing models with older races have now had a variety of tattoo models added, and, many unique NPC’s have them. What would it cost to update this for everyone?
Now, the question ‘How could they be implemented’ leaves us with a number of diverse choices, and, to my knowledge, none would hurt the game in anyway whatsoever.
Let’s take a look at a few possible implementation concepts:
- Achievements
Mounts… Who likes MOUNTS?! (I do, but, work with me). Well, what if, instead of mounts or titles, new achievements (or older ones) gave the option of rewarding players with a thematically relevant tattoo option, and/or color? What if killing the Lich King rewarded players with a Frostmourne tattoo? What if being an indomitable force in PvP rewarded players with some special tattoo options that would make other players fear them, and passively be completely aware of their badassery?
- Professions and/or Vendors
What if tattoos merged themselves into an existing sub-proffesion, or became their own kind of profession? This would, again, give players a wide selection of recipes to learn and trade, and would enable sub-professions to get a breath of fresh air after having not been incredibly developed for so long. What if farming different locations yielded thematically relevant tattoos of different rarities and body parts, and would reward people willing to do so with these seriously badass body markings? Additionally, what if different vendors from more minute locations in the game, but more culturally RICH ones had a few different patterns and designs for sale, a testamant to having visited these places, and having immersed oneself’s character to these different locations?
- Class/Race Specific
So, I just recently discussed how class identity had all but vanished in the current version of the game. Nowadays, to me at least, I just use the class I feel like playing, never really expanding my reasoning farther than that. What if, through a series of interesting and challenging quests, players could display what their class means in terms of the world’s lore, and what they’ve accomplished playing said class? Interestingly, some druid forms have markings, and, I’ve always thought they were pretty cool. What would it cost to elaborate on this, and implement them for all classes?
Tattoos are already in-game.
The concept of adding tattoo customization to the game would be a much less foreign and spontaneous one than people may originally imagine. A few unique NPC’s already have tattoos:
‘Tattooed Marcy’ [Human Female] - https://www.wowhead.com/npc=24543/tattooed-marcy#screenshots:id=463086
Cultists (Vary) [Human Male] - https://www.wowhead.com/npc=8547/death-cultist
Wildhammer Dwarves [Dwarf Male and Female] - https://www.wowhead.com/npc=4782/truk-wildbeard
(updating this as I go, I hit publish too early hehe… oops)
Feel free to add to my post with suggestions!
Or PvP too. And other things.
