You have been great! Thank you for the kind words and help! 
8 Likes
I know it’s a LOT to read through, but we really appreciate it.
Edit: Edited my previous long post because I no longer believe that full upward scaling for all zones is necessarily a good idea.
3 Likes
Ortho made a great post about toy and transmog restrictions over on the cc forums. I can’t remember if we’ve had this discussion, but he’s looking for feedback regarding how these restrictions have affected us. Feel free to post here about how these restrictions have affected you! Hopefully he’ll be able to see it. I’ll be making a post of my own later tonight.
2 Likes
if theres a requirement like prof/faction/rep im fine with the toon having to get that as well, but not having to keep the requirement
removing the zonelock would be a bigly win, especially for things like the Tents from the WoD Garrison
2 Likes
Why Armor Restrictions Need to Go: *(pics and thinly-veiled irritation included for free)
I got an itch to make a new Dwarf Hunter, so I rolled one the other day. Got him a fancy name and everything.
Upon spawning into the Dwarf starting area for the 40,000th time since I’ve been playing, I again remarked to myself how great it would be if my new Hunter could dress like the heroes that he sees when he first joins Azeroth, the Coldridge Mountaineers. The very first NPC’s he will encounter…
https://imgur.com/WPKHhmA
This guy. This guy is carrying a polearm. If attacked, this guy will also pull out a blunderbuss. He also spends most of his time in game, staring blankly at nothing, so clearly, he’s a Hunter. Well, my character is a Hunter too! Wow! These Coldridge Mountaineers have been holding the line against the Rockjaw Invaders for well over 10 years! What an amazing fighting force! I want to dress my character up like these super heroes! Well, WoW let’s me transmog my gear, so I’m going to go in search of what they wear…
Helm: Eldr’naan Hood (Cloth)
Chest: Fungus Shroud Armor (Leather)
Waist: Nigh-Invulnerability Belt (Cloth)
Legs: Marauder’s Leggings (Mail! Finally!)
Feet: Gossamer Boots (Cloth)
Gloves: Gossamer Gloves (Cloth - although, the model for Gossamer was changed yrs ago and no longer has the gauntlet attached to it. You can get the Emissary Cuffs to go with the gloves, but they don’t flare out.)
Cloak: Muck-covered Drape
Well, that’s odd Blizz. I guess if I wanted to transmog my character to look like a Mountaineer, he’d only end up with pants and a cloak on. Not really the look I was going for…
However, If I pony up a few dollars to Blizz, I can make him look like this…
https://imgur.com/ixuGcVw
We are far beyond the point where this is even a discussion anymore. They’ve added footie PJ’s to the game, they added a fairy costume, Org Grunt/Stormwind Armor, I mean come on? Who the hell is making this decision? Get off your high horse and be done with it.
Remove the armor restrictions, except for class/tier gear if it’s that big of a deal.
Make white and grey items transmog-able.
etc. etc. etc.
Give it a rest already.
12 Likes
Thank you so much Halite for linking the megathread in your post! Everyone here really appreciates the efforts of you and the other representatives who have taken the time to look through our feedback and communicate it for us.
2 Likes
Hello! I’m here to compile some of the thoughts and ideas I’ve had while making my own expansion ideas, as linked by Talanor a day ago. I’ll try to avoid delving into other aspects of the game like raids, PvP, or dungeons that I covered in my expansions, and keep it all aimed towards things relating to RP and how it benefits the community.
I’ll start with something a little more general purpose, though.
Open World Talents
So basically the idea behind open world talents is to provide players with an alternate progression path. They farm it up by doing open world content and it provides them with a secondary talent system exclusively active in the open world. It comes in three specializations: combat, utility, and RP.
Combat basically provides changes to a class’s rotation in a way that can be a little sillier and less balanced than you’d find in competitive content. Utility would include travel improvements, material collection improvements, and other such non combat benefits. Then RP would be giving players silly little abilities for RP’s sake that have little impact on the player’s power. Examples of this might be the ability to soothe and speak to animals in the wild as a druid.
I believe this is an important addition to the game because an RPG needs a living world. As it stands currently, the open world has slowly been aimed towards a system that prepares players to enter instanced content. Hence why it always feels like you’re doing chores. Giving players a little something more to work towards in the open world that is self contained makes the open world itself more exciting to be a part of. Ideally, there’d be more content in the open world to do and use this new toolkit on besides dailies, but that’s for another topic.
Class/Race Halls
This is very simple for RPers. We like to have story developments around our characters, both new and old places to affiliate with our characters. I didn’t like the main story of BfA, but it’s the most fun I’ve had RPing, and that’s because my character was a part of something. She joined the Horde hoping to be part of a good cause since she’d previously worked for the Legion in Suramar. It was her attempt at atonement. Then I got to have her reacting to events around the Fourth War. She fought night elves, had opinions on that, went to Nazjatar, and even contended with the mindbending dangers of Ny’alotha. My RP was very involved.
RPers want that kind of connection. A great way to provide such a connection is through the use of class or racial halls. Those will provide personal bases for characters to jump stories from. If there was a campaign for blood elves where they cleaned up Ghostlands of Scourge, imagine how many RPers would be able to spin stories off that. Characters facing the ghosts of loved ones, unleashing rage at the Scourge, finally being able to go to the villages they called home when they were kids. Suddenly you have a ton of engagement from one race’s community. Imagine that for every race, or class.
This is, in my opinion, the best way to breathe life into the RP community. We make our own content, certainly, but progressing the communities our characters are part of do wonders for giving us new routes to explore with these characters.
Another opinion of mine is that the races and organizations of the world are what people are invested in in WoW, not characters. There’s a whole political landscape that lives, grows and changes. People wish to see how that happens. We would like to know where the night elves end up now that their capital has been destroyed. We’d like to see how the Forsaken shape themselves after losing the person who’s set themselves up as their messiah. The Frozen Throne was a great expansion to Warcraft III because that’s what it explored, how the high elves reacted to the loss of their Sunwell, how the Kaldorei were trying to fix the aftermath of the Third War, and what a post-Scourge Eastern Kingdoms looks like. Class/race halls are ways to facilitate these stories and very important for maintaining an immersive world.
Personally, I think class or race halls should be a baseline thing for each expansion, covering how the organizations of Azeroth are reacting to events. Plus who doesn’t love worldbuilding?
Customization
I believe there’s tons of input already on this. Given our personal relationships to our characters, RPers will always adore more customization options. What I’d personally love to see is more simple HD sets and weapons. Also, remove the faction restrictions on the Exile’s Reach weapons! There’s no reason a Horde elf cannot wield a sword.
Then in the realm of more experimental ideas, I was thinking of more unlockable character customization options, similar to the night elf Night Warrior eyes. It might run alongside a race hall where you unlock interesting character looks for your race. It may even help explain more controversial appearance additions, like if worgen had to go through some wild god shenanigans in order to gain tail options. Or imagine if mechagnomes could find a new pair of arms in a dungeon. People would be scrambling to run it for that purpose alone!
In a similar vein, I’d be interested in seeing race/class customization combos. It’s cool being a nightborne, and it’s cool being a warlock. But what if I had visual ways to indicate that I’m a nightborne warlock? I’m talking about green eyes, green handy glowies, and green tattoos, of course! That would go miles for RPers, who suddenly get to really show off their character’s backstory through such visuals.
Last thing I want to offer in the customization field would be more experimental armor pieces. I keep thinking about this idea I had where for demon hunter tier sets they could have armor that is reminiscent of classic demons. Get a wild felhunter mane for a helmet, or succubus wings for a cloak, a pointed tail that comes in the belt slot, or hooves that come as boots. You don’t even have to mix it, just give demon hunters a felhunter set in 10.0, a succubus set in 10.1, and a felguard set in 10.2. Or something like that. Then you let the players decide how they want to mix and match it. Players generally know how they want to look, just give them the tools and they’ll go nuts.
Class Skins
RPers are pretty creative. Their characters’ backstories don’t always follow the norm for their class, and class skins is a great way to help them express that. It also safely allows Blizzard to grant us new classes without the nightmare of having to balance new classes. People have been dying for necromancers. Replace warlock fel spells with necromancy spells and demons with undead and bam, you have necromancers.
The way I’d do it is I’d treat it like transmog. You can add individual spell effects that can be slotted in on its own, or you can have full blown “sets” which are the class skins. This adds a lot of freedom, and it also streamlines the process by which players can change their class’s effects that are already in the game. Glyphs can be reworked to simply be ways to learn some of these effects, while other skins and appearances can be found through various means. Adds more reasons for people to go out and play the game, too!
Allied Races
Allied races are a bit of a nebulous concept and this could work massively to Blizzard’s advantage. They are not beholden to making a subrace specifically, they can do whatever and it isn’t stuck with the rules of a core race either. What I’m talking about is more bizarre, niche races. Someone in another thread around here said to add dryads, an exclusively druid race. That could work! Many RPers play less conventional races and currently have to take some liberties to do that, either by using their imagination or tricky reflective prism shenanigans. I myself have a Nerubian character and I’d be delighted to play them how they look.
Housing
This is another popular topic so I don’t feel like I’d have to delve too deep into it. It’s another way to express ourselves. It’s also another progression path that encourages people to play the game. You can also link the basic housing appearances to professions, adding another market that makes professions worthwhile. Could even use old world materials to give it a little more relevance.
I think the most important thing I want to address out of housing is how garrisons worked. There’s this philosophy behind it that every new feature introduced in an expansion needs to have endgame ramifications. Look at Torghast, for instance. It could have been a cool other form of content to play around with, but it had to be tied to legendaries in order to make it relevant instead of just letting it be its own thing and allowing the players who find it fun play it for fun.
Some content should exist for the fun of it. It doesn’t need to affect how you play the game in all respects. Otherwise people will feel forced to do it and resentful of the fact.
Bonus: Languages!
I think faction divides are less decisive these days. The dangers that come from cross faction communication really don’t quite exist in the open world. As such, let races know cross faction communication. Undead don’t forget Common, let them know it. High elves were part of the Alliance for ages and well integrated into the Eastern Kingdoms community, let blood elves speak Common too. Let Shal’dorei speak Darnassian. If PvP toxicity is a problem, just disable the ability to hear from enemy players while flagged.
Final little nugget I think would be neat: Add the ability to learn languages! There would need to be a system in place to prevent players from learning languages they don’t want to, but I think it’d be fun for, say, Altielle to learn demonic through study. My idea would be to have tomes around the world that you can read once every week to “enable” learning a language, so all you’d have to do after that is start listening to it. Add another way to forget your non-native languages and bam! RPers have a fun progression system to be immersed in. Add non playable race languages too! Learning Kalimag would be rad, same with Draconic.
I’m sure there’s more I might think of later. That’s all the compilation done for the time being, though! If any of this is unclear, check out the full expansion concepts where I outline it a little more concretely. I like to think the posts are very neatly organized for smooth browsing.
Edit: Also I’m well aware a problem I have as a writer is that I tend to have more in my mind’s eye than what I put down on paper. Please feel free to ask specific questions about any of these topics and I’ll gladly clarify.
Also, add the ability to hide the upper and lower halves of robes separately! I want to see legs, Blizzard. LEGS!
5 Likes
That was Tammy linking to one of my posts in this thread instead of the OP, probably by accident. But I like your ideas!
1 Like
I can see that also being a opportunity to let people choose which expacs to do, such that if they want to not do one as its not their style they can do that.
Oh yeah, and capital city revamps would be incredible. Make some allied race capitals (Shadowforge and Suramar, for instance) proper capitals with auction houses and such. Then also an Orgrimmar/Stormwind revamp. I think there’s a lot of prime real estate on the cliffs above Orgrimmar. Making it a terraced style city using Hordified Iron Horde assets would be slick. I drew a picture a few years ago of a revamped Orgrimmar. Working on a cleaned up version and I might post it when/if it’s finished.
7 Likes
I’ve spent a good long while thinking about what I’d want from a roleplay perspective, and my biggest wish would be this:
Imagine with me traveling to the Caverns of Time, and next to the vendors is a brand new one! What would their stock be? Transmog that have been in the game for NPCs since vanilla, but were never made available to players. I’m talking the Night Watch outfits, I’m talking the Dark Ranger outfits, I’m talking guard outfits, grunt outfits, tabards, weapons, shields, ways to make yourself look authentically like a character from the world. It could cost timewalking tokens if you really want, but a way to access previously inaccessible items that are already programmed into the game would take away from no one’s fun, be stupidly easy, and give the players more options and more creativity.
11 Likes
I’d like to see every race have a town. A town that can be accessed by everyone, has npcs and vendors, and actual buildings. It doesn’t need to be big, it doesn’t need to be a city in terms of functionality. I suppose I’m thinking of something akin to Theramore and Bilgewater Harbour… Just for thematic and RP purposes, and also to make the races feel like a part of the world. I’d especially like to see a Void Elf town pop up somewhere, with purple, silver and black variations of Blood Elf architecture. But I think this principle could be applied to all races.
5 Likes
Finally have time to post this:
Transmog restrictions are a major dampener on creativity. White/gray named items, armor type restrictions, etc. Best example I can think of is the Orc clan outfits. I associate Warsong with warriors, but you have to play a Hunter or a Shaman to use their armor. Thunderlords are hunters, but you can’t actually be a Hunter and wear their transmog - you have to play a leather class. Lifting some of these restrictions would give players more creative freedom and incentivize mog hunting in the game.
Toy restrictions are just awful right now. Most items that let you take the appearance of something else, such as the Ashtongue Broken, only last 5 minutes and have a 30 minute cooldown. What’s the point? That’s not very fun to use. The store item that let’s you turn into bosses lasts 20 minutes, why was this never applied to other toys?
11 Likes
I’ll die on this transmog hill. Die, I say!
Most (if not all) of the restrictions and limitations on transmog are just flat out BS at this point.
Blizz lost any argument they had when they released the Grunt and SW Soldier items. They kept ranting that they wanted ‘class identity’ to remain part of transmog. We are far past it at this point. I regularly mog one of my hunters in the Shaman T10.5 that you can get as drops. There’s thousands of other examples that can be created. They kept ranting that they didn’t want people looking “silly” and yet they allow people to run around almost completely naked by hiding clothes, or using a ‘fish’ or a ‘rolling pin’ as a weapon.
Their side of the argument no longer exists. Period.
If they aren’t going to do it, it’s either out of stubbornness or laziness. There is no other reason. None.
6 Likes
i think all arguments were lost when we can effectively hide pieces of gear
not to mention the mogs that get released on the store
3 Likes
Agreeing with the other posts that toy restrictions are abysmal. Cooldowns and buff times aside, most are wildly inconsistent with where and how they work, too. I’ve never understood why a toy like the Rotten Apple from horrific visions is only visible party side. But the Infected Arachnid Casing is visible to everyone, and can be interacted with by everyone. Turkey gun, etc. I’ve found some potions, drinks, and foods have this same issue to an extent, and the shadowlands changes to how potions work and stop effectiveness, for the sake of pve, kind of hampered some of the rp of both the game and rp servers.
I’ll write a bigger, indepth post on this sometime, but the crux of this is that these visual effects add a lot of unique flavor that’s by and large appreciated the most by the rp community. So when these effects get restricted, or removed with no options, we have a part of our fun taken away.
3 Likes
Then don’t try to have a total revamp ready for expansion launch.
Xpac launches and 4-5 zones have been updated, with new quests, storylines, and thats as far as the story takes us. Add dungeons, raids…
And then 6 months in, 10.1 could come out and add 2 more zones, and continues the story.
Rinse and repeat.
Sure it might mean a 3 year expansion before they get it all done, but as long as there’s new story to go along with the new zones every patch, I’m happy!
1 Like
I’d love to see that picture!
1 Like
One of the worst toy restrictions I came across recently was a toy that worked in oppisite of the inky black potion. Is the Jar of Sunwarmed Sands. It’s only obtained with timewalking currency , works for two hours but has a 24 Hour Cooldown.
That completely baffled me, because sometimes events or RP may be rped at a different time of day narratively, and it makes no sense to supply the night time potion, but completely bar a day time potion should you want the sun to be out for what ever you are doing.
I do wish you could see the moon though with the inky black potion…
8 Likes
Since this seems to be the place, hello from Emerald Dream. Got a few ideas that I/we have thrown around and discussed for years in various forms. Since many other ideas have already been touched on, big focus here is sharding, rp-pvp, and cities.
Remove War Mode and Sharding for RP servers. The largest issues we've experienced have been directly related to sharding and War Mode. Removing these is likely the largest obstacle and least likely outcome.
For those that were not around or in the know even just 4/5 years ago, Emerald Dream was an RP-PvP server that had a reputation (for better or worse) of being the RP-PvP server. It was who are and what we loved. There was a reason many of us went there, and why many also left once War Mode and sharding made it almost impossible to continue despite some of our best efforts. It, similar to WrA and MG, split community members into War Mode shards, and even into shards within those shards, while also combining servers and their players with each other who have close to 0 connection to one another.
If I could ask for one thing to look into and hopefully implement, is reversing all sharding and War Mode on RP realms. Of course issues of faction balance will always be a thing, but RP servers are about community first and foremost. Basically revert MG, WrA, and ED back into pre-legion states.
Removing these also brings back World Defense, giving us an idea where people are at, offering incentives for going back out into the world, and gives us RP-PvPers another chance at life in a way. I’m certainly not letting any dwarf into the Barrens again!
At the very least, I would ask that all sharding is removed in all major cities like it is in Stormwind and Orgimmar. This allows us to use Silvermoon, Iron Forge, the Dalarans, ect. without worrying about which shard people are on, who else is on them, and needing to turn on/off War Mode.
Update major cities, make them accessible, and fill them with most to all amenities of the capitals.
Similar to the sharding idea, people coalesce where things are practical and accessible. People gather in Stormwind and Orgrimmar not because they are necessarily the best cities, but because they have been flooded with game play resources. The portal rooms, transmog, gear venders, graphic and narrative updates, quest hubs and starting points. Places like Iron Forge, Silvermoon, Darnassus (RIP) were amazing RP spots where people could gather and use as hubs or high traffic areas. Compounding the issue is as more resources are allocated to the capitals over and over again, it reduces the spaces and areas that are left open or accessible for roleplayers to gather.
Of course not all things need to be transferred over, or some transferred in differing ways. The embassy for allied races does not need to be replicated everywhere but a transmog vender, item upgrader, and portal room would need to be (though it would be neat to have a Maghar post in Orgimmar, Highmountain in Thunder Bluff, Nightborne in Silvermoon, ect).
Again, sharding would need to be turned off as well. It would be silly to put in all this work just for half of the target population not to see each other.
Lastly as a hot take - remove flying in all major cities. They’re suppose to feel lived in and crowded. Not open stalls and spaces with 100 players afk up in the air. Emptiness also adds a deflating atmosphere to the game, especially in its “big” cities and hubs.
World Update/Narrative Direction. Keep RPers "grounded" to the story and Azeroth.
This is far more of a game play and expansion thing, but a lot people overlook how an expansion, its narrative, and where we are going effects the RP community. A significant number of us have quit, moved to classic, or have at least stopped RPing due to narrative directions and jarring experiences in the world. You can still walk into Orgrimmar and see Warchief Garrosh, Vol’jin, and Sylvannas all standing there if you pick up the quests just right. There was a reference to Warchief Thrall (as current) I remember finding even a few years ago in Ashenvale. We’re still fighting in Southern Barrens, the Cataclysm seems to be actively happening all across the world still, Gilneas is super under utilized, and Vol’jin is still going to pierce Garrosh’s black heart. We’re 10 years in the past as we go out, or even just begin.
Further, the ‘big bad is going to destroy all of time and space’ does not resonate with us. Us as in those I’ve at least spoken to. We can’t get into it. We can hardly use it for our RP and it elevates our characters to a position we don’t play them as. Gives us stories at the people level, not the cosmic level. We can work with that.
"Suramar" each city. Make everyone its own, truly, filled out zone.
Replace Suramar with Zuldazar, or Boralus. Any work for this example. While very similar to the above, this is specifically improving city design and usage. Make these capitals/major cities their own zones with quest hubs, story progression, exploration, and open spaces. This was already half way done, though through different methods, in BC with Silvermoon and has been shown to be incredibly loved and useful in the three cities mentioned at the start. More questing can be added, a whole new zone type, urban, is added to the game on a grander scale. This is something RPers and non RPers are really missing out on.
More class/cosmetic glyphs. Further character expression.
A Blood Knight is not a Knight of the Silver Hand, is not a Sunwalker, is not a Vindcator. Yet, all are expressed effectively as the same. There are small differences that matter, like their class mounts, but through armor sets, spell abilities, and even in class halls they seem homogenized. We can use glyphs for different auras for paladin that better reflect their race, as an example.
Same goes for say warlocks who want verdant spheres back (maybe give them to mages too for they can stop complaining), more hex options, more polymorph options, ghost wolf/insert new animal here options, loa specific looks for classes, tidesage looks for classes, necromancer looks, the list goes on.
9 Likes