The players of World of Warcraft are disappointed. Because Blizzard will no longer give them something many have long been waiting for: New character customizations.
Overall, the presentation of the new content for World of Warcraft at BlizzCon went smoothly. Sure, some of the content was leaked beforehand, but the great cinematic and the prospect of a new raid made up for a lot. However, in the forum and on the subreddit, there is still a lot of dissatisfaction.
The reason for this lay in the Q&A, which contained a response from the developers that many players found hard to swallow.
We will not bring new character customizations in Shadowlands.
Ely Cannon
What was said? During the Q&A, the following question arose: “Will there be more new character customizations in Shadowlands?” The questioner refers to skin colors, hairstyles, and other cosmetic adjustments. Ely Cannon, the Art Director, responded:
We will not add more character customizations in Shadowlands. Let me explain. We believe we have added quite a good amount of customizations. We tried to add things for almost all races; only very few didn’t get as many. And those are things we will address in the future; to look at what we can do for the races that haven’t received as much.
We are trying to approach this carefully and thoughtfully. […] These are projects that are quite large. We want to make sure we invest the necessary time into them and think them through well, and that we release new customizations when it’s really good for the game and the players. And that has to happen in parallel with new content.
This is how WoW fans are reacting on reddit: The statement led to Blizzard facing a lot of criticism. In recent days, several posts on reddit have gained traction, many of which had 8,000 or more upvotes – clearly a topic that has heated the community.
Most are disappointed, especially regarding the Nightborne race. Many feel they’re not well executed. On one hand, they don’t look much like the Nightborne NPCs in Suramar, and on the other hand, they have by far the fewest customization options – there are only a handful of options each. While Humans, Elves, and Orcs now have many details and possibilities, Nightborne often still look identical.
This also led to a number of memes appearing, like this one:
When the community likes what you do from r/wow
But even players who favor other races in WoW are dissatisfied. Many players find it illogical that Void Elves do not have all the customizations of Blood Elves – such as ear size (Link to WoW Reddit). There’s no sensible explanation for this, either from a developer or story perspective.
How could it be better? One player was particularly upset. The Reddit user keyboardturn explained that he had taught himself character customizations and similar things using the WoW models.
On average, he only needs 10-15 minutes to transfer a hairstyle from one race to another. If Blizzard claims it takes a lot of time, then that is simply a lie.
There are also numerous comments under this post about how dissatisfied people are with Blizzard’s decision and how this has dealt a clear blow to BlizzCon.
Would you have liked even more character customizations? Or are you satisfied with what Blizzard has already brought in Shadowlands?
What Blizzard revealed about Patch 9.1 Chains of Domination, you can find out here.
