Permanent Humanoid Transformation Toys - Use Until Canceled

Community General Discussion
1

I’d love to see a change in the way that the toys that transform you into various humanoids (such as the Orb of Disguise, Darkspear Pride, Mark of Ashtongue, etc.) work.

Currently, you can turn into a playable or a non-playable race with a transformation toy for 5 minutes to one hour, with a 3 minute to a 24 hour cooldown, respectively.

Instead, I’d love to be able to transform into that humanoid and stay in that form until canceled. It should persist through death.

BENEFITS:

1) Players can now stay immersed in another race as long as they like. This makes the game more fun!

2) You can play as non-playable races without having to wait for them to become playable. This works well for the Broken, and even for Blood Elves. Similarly, Blizzard could introduce an Orb of the Quel’dorei that turns you into a High Elf, and BOOM, no more need for High Elf allied race.

3) Play as an opposite-faction race. If these humanoid transformation toys lasted until canceled, then you could choose to have a Human on the Horde side. All you’d have to do is make the corresponding Horde character that becomes Human by using the Orb of Deception!

4) Allows for greater fluidity and storytelling via “Fluid Factions.” Right now, the faction cities are forever stuck within their affiliated factions; the Tauren can never join the Alliance; the Worgen can never join the Horde, etc. HOWEVER, if you allow Permanent Humanoid Transformation Toys, then you COULD have the different racial faction cities break off and join the opposite faction without necessarily losing your character! IF such an event were to occur, Blizzard could offer one-time FREE race changes, and people could use these orbs to maintain their characters’ race while staying in their previous faction. It also allows for a much more realistic war, since in war allegiances change at times.

CONS:

1) Too many people may play as “Horde Humans” or “Alliance Orcs” to ruin the division. While it’s true that there’s always some traitors, it may ruin immersion if all the playable races go Horde.

2) “You can’t play as that!” Perhaps Blizzard doesn’t want us to play as Broken the entire time, or as a Goblin in the Alliance.

3) People don’t buy character customization/race changes/faction changes as much anymore.

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Can’t sell character customization rerolls like that.

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Woah now! You’re ask for TOO MUCH fun.

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OP,

What you describe would be “FUN”. Blizzard employs the Fun Police to discourage the act of “FUN”. Want an example?

The guild options where Blizz took away a lot of features and players have been asking for those options back? Months and months of Silence from the devs?

Corgi toy that lets you see npcs as corgis? Only you can see this change… and has no realistic cooldown? HOTFIXHOTFIX FUN DETECTED HOOOOTFIIIIIIIIIX RIGHT NOOOOWWWWW!!!

I would LOVE your idea to be implemented, it would be fun! Blizzard will never allow it.

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To try and play devil’s advocate here, if you want to play as a different race, just roll a character of that race. Toys are toys, they shouldn’t be permanent, though the cooldown/duration on some could be adjusted since some are just unreasonable.

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There’s just one toy that I can think of, I’m not a toy expert, but the pirate hat from the water zone turns you into a slightly bigger gnome - without any cooldown. I’m surprised they didn’t nerf the fun out of that one. I guess most people don’t like gnomes so barely anyone uses it or something so it has been hidden under the radar…

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/signed

It won’t happen because the current devs would never allow so much fun to happen. They’re the ones who nerfed them to the ground in the first place.

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They changed the corgi glasses and won’t let us transmog the flower crowns blizzard doesn’t want us to have fun.

I wish though Op, but Blizzard has proven to not be trusted with fun items.

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This is a great con, yes!

I think mostly, for me, the fun in this toy is in being able to play as an opposite-faction race. In addition, I really enjoyed playing as a “High Elf” on my Death Knights.

I remember having a ton of fun on my Alliance DK (even RIGHT now), every 30 minutes, as a High Elven Frost Battle Mage. It is also great to play as a random “Horde Human” or “Alliance Tauren,” etc.

Overall this could revolutionize the way that factions play out. Because if you’re a Tauren, for example, and Thunder Bluff joins the Alliance, you’d have to either a) faction-change your Tauren to Alliance, or b) remain Horde. With the Permanent Humanoid Toys, you could remain Horde without too much extra work on Blizzard’s side.

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I don’t know why toys have such long cooldowns anyways. Toys shouldn’t really have cds honestly.

I guess the fun police are in charge of the toys?

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I think that certain toys which can be abused–such as the ones that turn you into a GIGANTIC unit–have cooldowns so that people don’t harass others with it.

Most toys, however, aren’t like that. Certainly, the humanoid transformation toys do not harass anyone in any way. It makes no sense that those are on a cooldown.

If I want to be a Goblin for the Alliance (via rolling a Worgen), I should be able to do that. If I want to be a Night Elf on the Horde side (via rolling an Undead), I should be able to do that.

It harms no one. I am still playing the game and leveling as usual.

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I don’t think “fun police” is really a great way of approaching it, though I do see why people think it’s about that.

They’re supposed to be temporary buffs not permanent. And while many people may not agree with the perspective, it’s to preserve the uniqueness and “fun” of the item to make it not an always on thing.

I would agree that some things could use shorter cooldowns. And some should probably be longer in some cases because they have the ability to annoy other people. But I’m not the fun police nor am I qualified to say which of those is which.

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Thanks Crepe for bring your wet blanket to the fun party, LOL!

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While I appreciate the sentiment that “it would ruin the fun if they’re always on,” that simply won’t be the case.

If we can use something ALL the time, we will eventually grow bored with it and stop using it, anyways. After a few months of being an Alliance Orc, for example, I may say “hey, I want to see myself as a Human again,” and I’d cancel the toy buff.

It corrects itself.

Meanwhile, we CAN use it freely and it enjoy it endlessly. I truly do not see that point as being valid.

And again, I’m not talking about toys that interact with others, such as a football or a toy that makes a loud noise, or one that causes others to dance. It’s just the humanoid transformation toys. They change how I look.

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Whenever blizzard detects fun, they nuke it out of orbit.

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Actually, I appreciate Crepe’s input because he’s telling us how the Devs see it.

It’s important to know their point of view so that we can politely get them to re-evaluate it through logic and reason.

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I guess for many many people, 5 minute fun with 30 minute cooldown is just a real downer. Honestly how many toy languish and are not used because it’s just to much a pain to use them for so little payoff?

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They need to go through all toys and change their duration and cooldowns. It needs some consistency.

You can be permanently transformed with potions and elixirs. I see no reason to limit toys unless they are exceptionally flashy.

Also zone limited toys need a look I think. They basically become useless pretty fast.

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That would mean having fun. Can’t have that.

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I miss transformation items like this. I remember using them in EQ2 because I had to, but many others used them for fun. I think they were called petrified eyes or something like that? They basically took your appearance and sliders and matched it up with that of whatever race you were whose illusion you were using, and you could just keep up the illusion. I used to have to use them in certain expansions because the race I was playing (Iksar) was not welcomed by the NPCs, so they would not give quests to me. I had to use the racial disguise item to fool them. :slight_smile:

1 Like