Been really thinking about this ever since they mentioned being able to change spell effects at the barber in some recent interview. The barbershop is an untapped goldmine for true customization. Before recently all we had was transmog and the basic character customization, now we have housing as a true form of player expression but the player expression shouldn’t stop at housing and the new transmog system (as great as they both are). Gigantic wall of text incoming I am very passionate about this issue, your character is what you look at for 90% of your time in this game so this is important for a lot of people.
Spell Effects:
Let’s start with what they have actually mentioned, spell effects being on the barber is a no brainer. Throughout the entire history of WoW, many many spells have gone through visual changes. Art is subjective, some people like how old Chaos Bolt looked, some like it how it is now. Both are valid opinions, might as well let them choose. I know multiple people who won’t even play priest any more because they hate how the new Shadowform looks and there is not a glyph to use the old one. Would be a very easy win to let you use old visuals for spells. Going beyond old visuals, think of the limitless potential for new stuff they could add. Imagine if they added new spell effects for every class that were unlockable like how warlocks can unlock customizations for their demons and how druids can unlock so many different variants for their forms.
Models and Animations:
The original races all could all use a facelift. They are all way behind on customization options compared to the newer races, they have been in the game and largely untouched since 2014. Every original race deserves to get a huge update there is no doubt about it. But what if they update models and you really preferred how your draenei looked before the update? Well here is where the true beauty of the barber shop’s potential comes in: choose your own player model. Without getting into the argument of Classic vs WoD models, it is clear everyone has an opinion on this so just let them use their preferred character model. Originally when they updated the models in WoD there was a toggle to change ALL models into new or old ones, but they still used the new animations. This posed a problem for demon hunters, they are just inherently incompatible with old models because of all of their customizations. That same toggle would be even more impossible today, upright orcs, haranir, earthen, so many new things that can’t just be automatically translated to classic models. Changing your model at the barbershop completely fixes this issue, because the option to use the old model would simply just be disabled for new races/classes with no old models to choose from. If you want to use the old undead models with the old set of animations pre-WoD you should be able to. If you despise the run animation that WoD dwarves have you should be able to become a classic modelled/animated dwarf. If they update the models again and you really really want to keep the WoD model version of your night elf that should be possible as well. We should ALL be about player choice and expression. They could even go crazy with it and let goblins and blood elves use their vanilla models, maybe even crazier and let us use alpha models (I would totally play alpha female troll). This will also have the side effect of some classic players coming to try retail if they can use old models again, more players is a good thing for everyone. “I don’t want to stand next to someone using a low-poly gnome model.” Well I don’t want to stand next to people who are unhappy with how their character looks, they should be happy who cares if they are an ugly low-poly gnome that is THEIR character.
Models and Animations Part II:
Dance studio. If we are able to change models and animations at the barbershop, this is the groundwork for the fabled dance studio. We have our awesome racial dances yes, but what about unlockable dances/emote animations? Think about it, alternate laughing emotes, different /mads, /cries, /byes. Also want to throw out there maybe we should get some simple, REASONABLE, character size sliders. So I can make my gnomes slightly smaller and my orcs slightly bigger. Everyone being slightly different sizes will do wonders for immersion.
This, combined with the new transmog system, and player housing will pave the way for endless creativity and having real agency over our characters. Welcome the barbershop revolution.
TL;DR: Add old and new spell effects and character models to barbershop