I feel pretty, oh so pretty
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Mar 28th 2007 at 1:50PM
With all the whining, complaining, and threatening to quit on the official WoW forums, it may be a surprise that the most common request on the suggestion forum is for a ... beauty parlor. There have been six full threads asking for a barber shop, hair salon or beauty parlor, so people can change the looks of their character. Apparently, some people made regrettable decisions about their appearance at character selection -- bad enough to bother them, not bad enough to make them reroll.
Rasza of Elune is the leader of this plastic surgery movement. While some people want to make appearance-changing a profession, Rasza disagrees, saying that it wouldn't fit in with the current profession system. (And what would the gathering profession for a beautician be, anyway? Animal testing?) She suggests having a fee and/or a cooldown that would prevent indecisive people from revamping their looks every other day. Other people chime in with additional customization ideas, including token turn-in tattoos, battle scars, and contacts to display your PVE or PVP accomplishments on your body. And a couple diehards want the option to change race or gender, which goes a bit too far for most posters.
I like this idea, although I'd prefer a very long cooldown or a limited number of uses, to make people really think before spending a week with hideous, eye-searing faces. I'd like to change my troll rogue's hair color, just because I've upgraded computers recently and have found that red looks better than my current orange. Still, it could be worse (see above picture.)
Would you change your character's looks for a fee? What additional customization options would you like for your character -- tattoos, missing limbs, spikes?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, RP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Zuuler Mar 28th 2007 1:57PM
I have to admit, I never though dwarf women could get any uglier. That pic proves me wrong.
Ryan Carter Mar 28th 2007 1:58PM
Seriously, blizz should be all over this one. If they allowed ppl to do this, it would be sweet, perhaps in an upcoming (and still rumored) expansion pack? It would at least inspire a bit more good will toward them from players, I think.
Faisca Mar 28th 2007 3:59PM
I wish this was a feature. I wouldn't care if it had a 2 week cooldown and cost 100g a pop. When I created my main (in the VERY beginning of WoW) I chose a long beard because it looks badass.
Little did I realize at the time, the long badass looking beard covers up anything on my chest. It covers the tabard, the shirt, the armor, etc. And it annoys the hell out of me. Part of having a cool tabard is being able to show it off, and I can't do it.
Please Blizzard?
Shawn Mar 28th 2007 2:16PM
This is one of my biggest beefs with WoW. I hate looking basically like every other member of my race out there. City of Heroes spoiled me big time.
Mithral on Kael'thas Mar 28th 2007 3:13PM
The only thing is that 95% of a 'toon's body is covered by armor, so this might have limited use.
That said, this will be great for the naked-night-elf dancers!
yodaforsale Mar 28th 2007 2:24PM
I know rasza for a fact, and it's a he.
Malineros Mar 28th 2007 2:32PM
The first time I rolled, I spent some time choosing my appearance carefully, played up to 17 or so, then was inspired by a few members of our tiny (now defunct) guild to try a hunter, since they were all having so much fun on them.
I rolled a Tauren Hunter - expecting it to be a diversion and keep my Troll Rogue as my main, I randomed his appearance completely - and ended up sticking with him (today the hunter is my 70 main & the rogue is still only 18.)
Later, when I rolled my druid, I played (as I do with all toons now) with different looks to get what I wanted and was surprised I hadn't chosen certain things for my hunter, until I remembered he was random.
I regret this, as I wish my hunter had more of my own choices and personality built in, but I think this business of wanting to change looks is silliness, especially since most people who would do it would tend toward drastic changes.
Even if you're not happy with what you have (either because it was random or because you've had second thoughts on things), stick with what you've got & who cares?
...unless you're one of the orcs with the beard that grows through certain helmets xD
Pritchard Mar 28th 2007 4:30PM
Dwarf females are by far the ugliest women in the game. Even the matronly tauren women or the decaying Undead have more sex appeal that those Pippie Longstocking trolls.
Hank Mar 28th 2007 10:10PM
I have to say, this is the best idea for an in-game change I've seen, short of adding content.
Sarah Mar 28th 2007 2:45PM
I think tatoos would be interesting, I'm all for more customization. Although I've never really felt the need to change my current characters, I think worrying about their looks is silly, I would not be against having a choice to do so, I think it'd be fun, but a profession devoted to it is stupid. Maybe having a hairdresser in town or something or a tatoo and piercings parlor. :)
Marlus Mar 28th 2007 2:47PM
Another suggestion is some kind of improve for tailoring, it would be nice if tailors could change the colors of himself or others gear, so that T4 head piece would have the same skin with some different colors.
Flit Mar 28th 2007 2:52PM
Draw the line at hairstyle and tattoo/skin marking. I figure anything more than this (Because it's all you can change about your look in RL) makes your character a meaningless avatar, with no real connection to you.
hibiscusroto Mar 28th 2007 3:10PM
They should totally add a cosmetic surgery feature to WoW...and like real cosmetic surgery there should be a chance of complications like scarring, infection, other complications and even death.
Savok Mar 28th 2007 3:05PM
It's so mind numbingly simple to add a NPC that can rearrange your appearance for a fee. Don't even have to bother with extras for step one, just plonk down a NPC with the ability to fiddle with the stuff we could at character creation (not race/gender though, race especially is a stupid idea).
The only reason I can think of that Blizz don't have this in the game already is the same reason we used to only have one action bar, Blizzard are clueless as to what their customers want.
Toolio Mar 28th 2007 3:10PM
@7 - Great idea. Any armor/item crafter should have the ability to choose the color. Blizz already has dye in place. This way, even though I can't get a full armor set, I can at least make it look like I do.
Red boots, green pants, purple chest, white gloves, green shoulders, blue helm = Bozo the Clown
Burning Adrenaline Mar 28th 2007 3:13PM
This would be a very useful feature. Additionally, if Blizzard ever decided to change some of the faces (Troll female perhaps), and you were stuck with one you didn't want, this could make your day.
mr_disco Mar 28th 2007 4:41PM
So I've played a couple MMO's in my time, Galaxies was my first, and I LOVED all the character customizations. Next I went on to City of Heroes, from there: FF XI... then found my way to WoW. Out of those, FFXI has the least options, but what I would like to see done with WoW is Height adjustment. I would love to be able to make my Troll a little taller, maybe a little skinnier. I agree with the whole time separation, maybe once every 20 lvls or something would work. anyways, scars and tats would be pretty sweet too!
Gridneo Mar 28th 2007 3:21PM
I've been all over this one since the beginning too... I've compared some improvements needed to a few other MMOs:
Guild Wars - Dyes... Could change the appearance of armor (I think we need this far far far far more than changing a character's appearance)
SWG - Image Designers... Could alter the way any characer looked within the guidelines of the game... I'm not asking for additional tattoos, etc just something that will make my Female Tauren Druid less ugly... She looks good from the back I guess...
The goal is to add a little unique variety to the game, so that every T4 Female Tauren Druid doesn't look the same, etc...
I honestly refuse to EVER roll a Dwarf, Orc, or Troll Female based upon the character creation selections we are given...
Samidare Mar 30th 2007 7:45AM
My guild mates since open beta have heard me rant about this time and time again.
EQ has it right...prismatic dye. Player crafted items through alchemy that let you change the color of your gear.
Its bad enough every run is running around with the same gear. But with the options to change the color of your gear would be crazy awesome. I hated looking like every other mage, or every other hunter in my guild.
In everquest we all had epic gear. But you could tell us apart just by the colors we had. It was part of our signature and who we where. It would sure as hell beat the crappy colors the designers picked. WTF, where they high when they made dragon stalker gear purple, and the arcanist set pink? And the outland gear just plane looks like the went to the damn goodwill and just picked random stuff for armor ideas...
Being able to change your hair or something would be nice. But thats no nearly as bad as the gear in the game. Let me change that instead.
Nicki Mar 28th 2007 3:41PM
What I think that would make this even more appealing would be if there were hairstyles,etc. that were only avaible in the "beauty parlor"...we would then be given more of a selection. I don't know if I'd go the full plastic surgery bit but being able to have addtional sets of hairstyles, tattoos, piercings, etc would be a really great addition.