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

"Players can change their character’s gender at any time for free, thanks to in-game barber shops"

meanwhile here we have to pay 10 dollars to change the color of our eyes

square enix should take note

It makes them money and glamour is the true endgame with lvl gear costing millions above actual max lvl gear. I would personally love to see them use the achievements currency as a way to buy fantasia but from a business model why would you give something for free when people are throwing money at it? Plus WOW has some PR that needs to be fixed and free gender changes is a small price to pay for more subs.

Fantasias remain the highest selling item on the Cash Shop. There's no chance in hell SE is giving up that money.

Consider in WoW you have to make an entire character every time you want to change your class.

In the Sims 4 my character can go to the toilets and whoohoo.
Your turn Square Enix.

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Originally Posted by Lily_Skye

"...thanks to in-game barber shops"

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I don't care how good a function that is from a player's perspective; from an in-universe character perspective that sounds distinctly uncomfortable...

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Fantasias remain the highest selling item on the Cash Shop. There's no chance in hell SE is giving up that money.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't care how good a function that is from a player's perspective; from an in-universe character perspective that sounds distinctly uncomfortable...

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

So that viera/hrothgar can be excluded from changing gender too?! You guys just like adding salt to the wound for the male viera and fem hrothgar supporters.. If they can't have it nobody should have it! :mad:

So long as there are people who would spend 1000 bucks to change appearance 100 times in FFXIV, forget it, lol.

I just can't do it, personally. It's weird as hell seeing my character changes race and/or gender and none, not even the Scions, are weirded out by that and everything is business as usual, it's such a massive immersion breaker for me, hahah.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't care how good a function that is from a player's perspective; from an in-universe character perspective that sounds distinctly uncomfortable...

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"snip, snip"

Personally I don't understand why people have the need to mutilate their characters which they have used for years, just make a new character instead.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Consider in WoW you have to make an entire character every time you want to change your class.

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I feel like this is one of the reasons I'm not too keen on playing that game. FFXIV spoiled me on classes/jobs. I wanna level monk? I go unlock it and get going. I wanna level astrologian? Same deal. From what I've heard, that's not something you can do in WoW and it docks major points off for me.

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

I feel like this is one of the reasons I'm not too keen on playing that game. FFXIV spoiled me on classes/jobs. I wanna level monk? I go unlock it and get going. I wanna level astrologian? Same deal. From what I've heard, that's not something you can do in WoW and it docks major points off for me.

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If only in FFXIV they also count on MSQ progression when doing job unlocks.

Like, it's so weird doing Lancer job quests *after* you have finished Heavensward, or that many trainers/NPC saying my character is just "some adventurer" in low level job quests when in MSQ she is already world-famous as god slayers, hahah.

I am still trying to head-canon this discrepancy myself.

The one thing I want SE to provide is to add name change service to fantasia (without adding to the cost of fantasia). Other than that, I don't mind having to use fantasia to change a character's more major features.

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Originally Posted by LaughingBanana

I just can't do it, personally. It's weird as hell seeing my character changes race and/or gender and none, not even the Scions, are weirded out by that and everything is business as usual, it's such a massive immersion breaker for me, hahah.

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That's why you have to log out when you use fantasia. When you are logged out, the "reality" of the game world changes and it's like you've been the new you all along. Like my character, an au ra who has always had a miqo'te name.

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Originally Posted by linayar

The one thing I want SE to provide is to add name change service to fantasia (without adding to the cost of fantasia). Other than that, I don't mind having to use fantasia to change a character's more major features.

That's why you have to log out when you use fantasia. When you are logged out, the "reality" of the game world changes and it's like you've been the new you all along. Like my character, an au ra who has always had a miqo'te name.

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Huh.

That's an interesting way to head canon Fantasia.

I never tried it but you can't change names? Why...? I don't get it. This is rough especially for people who likes to follow appropriate naming conventions for races.

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Originally Posted by RyuSaarva

Personally I don't understand why people have the need to mutilate their characters which they have used for years, just make a new character instead.

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That's an incredibly weird way of looking at it.

Why would Square do it? Fantasia probably makes them as much money as subs do, and glamour + cosmetics are endgame. You're literally telling a company, "Hey stop making a crap ton of money from this feature because some other company isn't". Lastly, changing character appearance isn't huge in WoW due to limited options. Transmog are what people go for when it comes to customising their character.

https://www.fanbyte.com/features/ffxiv-naoki-yoshida/

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In the end, he offers a different perspective from that of the World of Warcraft team. “By no means do we want to criticize anybody or say that, ‘well, this has got to be the way.’ But… so, with anything that you change like your hairstyle or putting in a color contact, something that’s more instantaneous. It’s something that you change all the time,” Yoshida begins. “But gender is such a sensitive topic because this is not something that’s instant. That’s why people are very proud of what they identify with and they try to live their lives to their fullest to express themselves and the gender that they identify with. And so do we want to treat this in a casual manner?”

Yoshida clarifies this is completely his personal opinion and that it’s something many people — including members of the team — are largely torn on. But he feels uncomfortable with the notion of something that is akin to flipping a switch. He worries that, by allowing for more freedom, “it might actually take the issue a bit too lightly.” It’s something he continues to think about as both a game designer and a person for the future of Final Fantasy XIV.

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Originally Posted by Lily_Skye

"Players can change their character’s gender at any time for free, thanks to in-game barber shops"

meanwhile here we have to pay 10 dollars to change the color of our eyes

your turn square enix

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WOW players need to pay $15 to change the color of their characters' eyes when I last played at the end of Legion.

What was that again?

Wish square added options to change eye color atleast

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Originally Posted by RyuSaarva

Personally I don't understand why people have the need to mutilate their characters which they have used for years, just make a new character instead.

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You don't really need to understand. All you need to do is respect their gender identity choices (whether in-game or in RL) and accept them for who they are without judging them.

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Originally Posted by Lily_Skye

"Players can change their character’s gender at any time for free, thanks to in-game barber shops"

meanwhile here we have to pay 10 dollars to change the color of our eyes

your turn square enix

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but this isn't WoW

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Originally Posted by Jin-

Wish square added options to change eye color atleast

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Isn't there an option in the inn room to change your appearance for gil? You need to do a quest to unlock it but i'm fairly certain you can change everything there. I used it once already and it takes you back to character creation options. Am i missing something here?

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Originally Posted by LaughingBanana

Huh.

That's an interesting way to head canon Fantasia.

I never tried it but you can't change names? Why...? I don't get it. This is rough especially for people who likes to follow appropriate naming conventions for races.

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Name change is a completely disconnected system from Fantasia and doesn't even follow the same method of triggering it with an in-game item. You just pay for it through Mog Station and it prompts you to edit it next time you log in.

I'm personally on the side of not wanting to alter characters once I've created them, but I've had to make a few name changes over time to straighten out lore-accurate naming. It would be great if I could do that with the useless Fantasias I have sitting unused in their inventories.

On the large-scale theoretical impact of making Fantasias available in-game, I have to wonder how much it would really affect their sales. If they were untradeable and purchased with achievement points, there would be a very finite supply of them to any one player - and at the rate some people go through them, the vast majority would still need to be purchased.

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Originally Posted by MagicAura

Isn't there an option in the inn room to change your appearance for gil? You need to do a quest to unlock it but i'm fairly certain you can change everything there. I used it once already and it takes you back to character creation options. Am i missing something here?

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Nope. It looks like the characters creation screen but a lot of options are not there. Mostly only things you would normally be able to change in RL, and a few questionable ones, are available. :)

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Originally Posted by MsQi

Nope. It looks like the characters creation screen but a lot of options are not there. Mostly only things you would normally be able to change in RL, and a few questionable ones, are available. :)

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Ah okay thanks! I changed my hairstyle and colour so i never explored further. :D

Isn't fantasia letting you change everything though? Never used one so i'm not sure.

Just because one big game does something doesn't mean every other game has to follow the same path.

And remember that Blizz sold their Race Change for $25.00 for many many years.
This change they are making is probably (imo) due to all the backlash they have recieved during the past year/s and the drop of players, as a try to get people to come back and play.
If they could I'm sure they would've kept the pricetag on it.

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Originally Posted by MagicAura

Ah okay thanks! I changed my hairstyle and colour so i never explored further. :D

Isn't fantasia letting you change everything though? Never used one so i'm not sure.

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If I remember you can change anything but your birthdate and guardian and also initial job you selected.
Everything else should be viable for changing.

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Originally Posted by MagicAura

Isn't there an option in the inn room to change your appearance for gil? You need to do a quest to unlock it but i'm fairly certain you can change everything there. I used it once already and it takes you back to character creation options. Am i missing something here?

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It takes you to the character creation screen but your options are limited.

Generally speaking you can make "surface changes" (hair, face paint/markings, scars, jewellery) but not physically change the character's height, skin/eye colour, face structure and so on.

There are a few exceptions, mostly due to the way they've repurposed the settings to do interesting things on some races - Au Ra can partly change their eye colour because the limbal rings are controlled by the setting normally used for unique racial tattoos or earrings; Hrothgar can't change their hair because that setting is used for fur pattern, and the mane is integrated into the face shape (which can't be altered).

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

WOW players need to pay $15 to change the color of their characters' eyes when I last played at the end of Legion.

What was that again?

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WoW never had a setting for eye color. Was tied to the head you picked. I think eye color, along more options for customizations, are coming with WoW next expansion. When the characters models got reworked, at some point, players were allowed to change heads and skin color.

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

Pretty bad troll thread. I give it 1/10. Oh I won't ever go back to playing WoW by the way. It is an absolutely horrid game with an even more terrible community. I hope you enjoyed my retort.

Wow had to do that to save face. Remember china? Blizz wants you to forget and the best way is to give things for free. SE isn't in hot shit like Blizz is. Also, why you want to copy wow? Just play wow?

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

WOW players need to pay $15 to change the color of their characters' eyes when I last played at the end of Legion.

What was that again?

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you're almost two expansions late

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

So that viera/hrothgar can be excluded from changing gender too?! You guys just like adding salt to the wound for the male viera and fem hrothgar supporters.. If they can't have it nobody should have it! :mad:

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Gawd, gotta say ILY for that comment! Changed my mood today!

On topic, I don't think gender change should be included, but to expand our crystal bell with options like eye color and skin color would be amazing.
Also, agree with the reply, the fantasia should allow name change. I often change races, and cannot feel complete without changing the name.

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Originally Posted by Lily_Skye

you're almost two expansions late



it's a WoW clone after all

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I dunno, in the beginning it may have been "similar" to wow, but I don't think it could be called a clone now. It's very different in most aspects.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I dunno, in the beginning it may have been "similar" to wow, but I don't think it could be called a clone now. It's very different in most aspects.

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I mean the clone may have grown up and been through different experiences, but I'd say the clone moniker is still an apt one.
Don't forget this game was revived by sitting the devs down and having them play WoW to learn how successful mmos operate.

(ever notice how SE/FF does better when the game is designed with humility and when games bomb it's usually due to hubris, thinking their IP is some untouchable juggernaut? Directly competing and responding to WoW is not only good for us as customers, but good for the game as a whole.)

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

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Originally Posted by Jimmymagic

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

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Amen brother.

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Originally Posted by Jimmymagic

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

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Not that I think SE needs to massively rework fantasias just because big bro WoW made a change, but it is good practice to keep an eye on your competition to see what they're up to. Would I turn away additional options being added to the aesthetician? Of course not! But I do also recognize fantasias are a massive seller for SE and can only assume that they don't see much reason to change things at this point.

Now, if we're talking hopes and dreams, I think I'd far rather have them copy BDO's options. You can buy a relatively cheap 30-day pass that lets you change your full appearance as many times as you want to in that time period. I tend to get rather nitpicky on appearances, and it's reassuring that if I hate a change, I can just go back as many times as needed to fix things up. With XIV, you're stuck dropping another $10 since they have no grace period at all.

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Originally Posted by Roda

I mean the clone may have grown up and been through different experiences, but I'd say the clone moniker is still an apt one.
Don't forget this game was revived by sitting the devs down and having them play WoW to learn how successful mmos operate.

(ever notice how SE/FF does better when the game is designed with humility and when games bomb it's usually due to hubris, thinking their IP is some untouchable juggernaut? Directly competing and responding to WoW is not only good for us as customers, but good for the game as a whole.)

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I dunno, in the beginning it may have been "similar" to wow, but I don't think it could be called a clone now. It's very different in most aspects.

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To be honest, I feel like it was less of a clone when it was launched than today. There are many things that FFXIV did differently than WoW but have been streamlined, removed and turned into a WoW-like thing.