Blizzard removing fee to change gender in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jkap_Goat

I would hope for other inspirations instead of world of War-oof

i know this game is inspired by WoW, but they should look into other games for ideas

---

Sure, looking at only one source is hardly a mind broadening experience- they should look at many games. New games may be coming up with fancy and risky ideas that SE could learn from without having to risk so much themselves. Indie games, not that there are many mmorpgs of that type lol, tend to be a nice hot bed of out there concepts. Although technically they don't have to look at just MMO-rpgs.

Hopefully they get some time in work hours, occasionally (doesn't have to be that often), just to look at their field, new trailers, new features of other games, etc- I assume many after working long hours on a game are not eager to then spend their off time to then be forced to play specific types of games. Might be helpful like once in a while just to have 'research' day where they look at other stuff rather than their own and then talk about it. With perhaps someone, like Yoshida, ensuring that they don't detour strongly into other game's work- need to be aware but doesn't mean turn into a copy paste machine. They honestly might already do this, I know early on in pre/ARR era that Yoshida said he encouraged the team to look around and noticed that they hadn't seen what others had done when making their own stuff (paraphrasing).

Fantasia should be a regular reward, for example 1 at each seasonal event or something, allowing everyone to change their character sometime.
Then, those who want more, can still buy more.

(to me it should simply be free, or that most progress/collection be shared between characters, but whatever)

Different games. Appearance has never mattered that much in WoW because the character creator was always (and remains) incredibly limited. WoW character individuality was derived through gear. This is in pretty direct contrast to FFXIV, where it is rare to see an exact clone of yourself, but practically everyone at the level cap (glamour not withstanding) is wearing identical stuff.

Also, WoW sucks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TeraRamis

Different games. Appearance has never mattered that much in WoW because the character creator was always (and remains) incredibly limited. WoW character individuality was derived through gear. This is in pretty direct contrast to FFXIV, where it is rare to see an exact clone of yourself, but practically everyone at the level cap (glamour not withstanding) is wearing identical stuff.

Also, WoW sucks.

---

They literally have an event where you compete with other people in a subjective fashion show contest that ranks people on their transmog based on the themes presented.
You get rewards for it.
There's a race with a racial that discounts the cost to transmogrify their gear.
They're updating their character creator in the expansion the OP mentioned to greatly increase the amount of options (and combining that increase of things to change to while removing the cost to change is not something to ignore.)

Appearance matters in WoW.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Driavna

"Hey another company is doing a very consumer friendly move, but lets not request (or even want something similar) for it because is coming from WoW. And we are supposed to hate WoW!". :confused:



I no longer play WoW and have zero interesting in doing it, I'm happy with FFXIV. However, I like to keep tabs on MMO's in general and, no matter how much more charismatic FFXIV character are to me, next expansion WoW is going to have a very similar amount of customization compared to FFXIV alongside a more diverse race selection.

The only reason they are doing it is because of this: after all the addition to the barber shop their character customization service was pointless.

---

Well last time I checked into wow, you could only do very basic cosmetic changes, so if theyre adding in gender swapping now and complete customization outside of race, yeah it is a nice feature.

However, all this being said, I would much rather spend money on Fantasia if it meant a far more indepth character customization engine be used. I know there are Fantasia junkies who swap character races like they swap shirts, but a vast majority of players probably dont fantasia that often. And I think people would be more interested in more customization options rather than the removal of fantasia and broaden existing customization availability at the aesthetician.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Melichoir

Well last time I checked into wow, you could only do very basic cosmetic changes, so if theyre adding in gender swapping now and complete customization outside of race, yeah it is a nice feature.

However, all this being said, I would much rather spend money on Fantasia if it meant a far more indepth character customization engine be used. I know there are Fantasia junkies who swap character races like they swap shirts, but a vast majority of players probably dont fantasia that often. And I think people would be more interested in more customization options rather than the removal of fantasia and broaden existing customization availability at the aesthetician.

---

Yet WoW is getting both. More options and everyone will be free to customize their character using said new options.

I know I'm repeating myself but just happen I really don't get it, how anyone could be against something like this. Also, why fantasia has to disappear? SE could keep it to change your race/gender.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Driavna

Why anyone will be against a better in-game esthetician is eluding me.

---

I'm not against adding more options to the Aesthetician. I think that would be good. There have been a few times I've gone to the Aesthetician and wished some of the other options were there.

I'm against people using dumb arguments based on what other games do. Talk about this game and how the proposed change would improve it instead of saying "this game did it so you should, too".

I respect that the original idea is that players shouldn't be able to change their character's appearance too greatly on a whim but we're practically at that point in real life. Plastic surgery exists. So does gender reassignment surgery. So do skin dyeing and bleaching methods. The game would lack the recovery time that real life has but then the game skips over a lot of real life time inconveniences already.

I think the key would be scaling the cost based on what's being customized. Two thousand gil sounds fine for a haircut and slight makeup adjustment, which would probably run someone $100 at a modest salon. Costs related to gender reassignment surgery (just the surgery, not all the costs related to transitioning) vary a lot but seem to average around $25,000. If the game cost were to scale at the same rate, that would make it 500,000 gil.

Considering how often some players Fantasia, sounds like it would make a good gil sink for the game. Those who don't want to (or can't) pay the gil fee could still use Fantasias.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Driavna

I under the impression that fantasias are mostly used to change race or clan. Anyway, with WoW this change made sense, after all was the only missing option from the barber.

SE should consider giving us almost all the same options with had during character creation, with the exception of race/clan/gender.

I can assure you that goblin technology is totally safe. Now, if you excuse me, I need to recalibrate all my prosthetics limbs.

---

I'd say this should eventually be the case - everything but race, gender, clan would be incorporated into a re-customization option. I do think it's interesting that they keep the glamour closet separate from the barber shop, when the magical concept behind a glamour could easily apply to facial cosmetics as well - eye color, hair color changes etc. Personally I'd like to see them integrate the two in one interface where you could customize your appearance and armor at the same time.

In the end I do agree that fantasias are no doubt a nice money maker for them, and I don't foresee them getting rid of them.

Do I want free fantasia? Of course I do.


Do I think it will happen anytime soon? Nah. If it took over a decade to get WoW to finally offer free customization, why would we expect SE to do this any faster? Especially with fantasias being highly profitable.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jimmymagic

Delete this thread plz....FFXIV Forum not WoW

---

it was a suggestion for ffxiv, your post should be deleted instead