A compilation of suggestions
by David Bowers 
Jul 2nd 2007 at 1:00PM
I might have offered up more brilliant ideas, but the fact that I could never get an official Blizzard response there discouraged me. Besides, realizing that my first great idea wasn't all that new made me think "well someone's probably suggested all that before."
So today I just poked my head in at the suggestions forum on a whim. I discovered that the only stickied suggestion there, other than the "welcome" post, is a compilation of suggestions designed to help us realize what's been suggested before, and start thinking of something new. It has everything from UI improvements to oft-suggested expansion ideas. It's updated to a certain extent (patch 2.0) and after skipping over the 4 or 5 paragraphs beseeching people not to post their suggestions in that thread, I noticed a lot of the ideas I had were there, as well as some that I'd never thought of before. Below are a few of the ideas which struck me as most interesting:
- Racial talent trees -- In addition to the existing talent trees, characters could have the option of improving some of their racial abilities or possibly adding new ones if they invest enough points. It could be hard to balance well, but it would certainly add greater diversity.
- Guild wars and alliances -- This is something a lot of people would like, and I can see how fun it might be, especially if you two guilds in the same faction could declare war on each other, or if multiple guilds could join together in some way to provide more layers of association. On the other hand it could get too complicated and out of control also.
- Rest state shown character selection screen -- A simple but handy feature, it would be nice to be able to see at a glance which of your characters has the most rest before choosing which one to level.
- New class: Runemaster -- I always like to read new class ideas, and this one looks like one of the most unique ones to me. I personally imagine a lightly armored melee caster running around placing runes on friends, enemies, himself, or even on the ground to achieve various purposes and define the flow of the battle. I found several writeups about them that inspire me, as well as a picture of what they might look like.
Looking at the compilation, which do you think are the best suggestions? Also, which common or important suggestions are missing from it? Do you have a suggestion for how to improve the suggestions forum?
[Suggestion Box from www.suggestionbook.com]
Filed under: Odds and ends
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Lang Jul 2nd 2007 1:06PM
I hate the look of my NE hunter now. To the point of never wanting to play her anymore. If only I could change her hair from Blue to White, and change the Facial marks to less ugly ones. She was the 2nd character I ever rolled so dont want to just delete her and start a new.
NH2 Jul 2nd 2007 1:19PM
Oooh, runemasters. Just what this game needs, a bubbler.
Urthona Jul 2nd 2007 1:42PM
Everytime I read a write up on Runemasters, I think "Hm. More Shamans."
"Runes" are nearly impossible to distinguish in theoretical gameplay from either totems or blessings. If you're going to implement a new class, it's got to have a unique gimmick. Hunters have to care for pets, Paladins have auras, Rogues have combo points, Warriors have rage, Warlocks have soulshard currency, Shamans get totems, Druids get shapes. If there's a new class, it's going to be something so ridiculously unique that everyone will have to reroll to get a taste.
But yeah Beauty Parlors are long overdue. And Guild Housing isn't so much a great idea for "trophy cases" as a place for guild forums, calendar, and bulletin board.
Todd Jul 2nd 2007 1:58PM
Beauty parlor would be kinda cool, but Blizz would never let us use it to change things we wanted to but if I could repair my Tarurens broken horn to a full horn WOOT!
Runemaster = BORING
I still think rogues should get an AOE poison.
mark Jul 2nd 2007 2:00PM
They have to implement guild housing and beauty parlors some day. Those are by far the 2 most suggested and requested features. Something as big as guild housing would probably be implemented in an expansion rather than a patch though.
typecast Jul 2nd 2007 2:12PM
Here's an idea..... Why not stop pitting hardcore premades against random casual players in battlegrounds? This gets ridiculously bad on Fri., Sat. nite when you just want to log on and have some brief fun in a bg when suddenly you see 15 people on the opposing side all from the same realm kick your ass using vent, and crazy team practiced tatics. PUT THEM IN THEIR OWN TIER! I think if you have more than 5 people join as a group in a battleground it should send you to another premade tier where you face off against other premades. You could even offer unique rewards and standing like the arena for best premade standing. Seems like an easy solution to a huge problem, I don't understand why Blizzard hasn't done anything about it.
RANDOM PEOPLE--VS--PREMADE ?!(doesnt make sense.)
Stephen Jul 2nd 2007 2:17PM
Ok... here is my suggestion. I'm sure someone has come up with it, but still, let me know what you all think.
I think you should get a speed bonus when walking on roads. Like maybe +10%. It makes sense, especially if you have ever played those old table top games. They would often give you a speed bonus on roads. Or in tactical RPGs--same thing. So why not wow? It would make the roads seem to have a little more purpose other than just guides to the next zone and 'places that mobs are less likely to be.' Also, it would help lowbies tremendously--becuase most of their walking is on roads rather than those beaten-paths things found more commonly in higher level zones. And finally, why not? I don't see any major problems with it and I think it would be pretty easy for the devs to implement.
So, what do you all think? Good idea? Crap idea? I'll be interested to hear what you think and maybe (just maybe) we can get this implemented.
TheManxX72 Jul 2nd 2007 2:18PM
Armor and Tabards Enhancement System:
Does your toon look like the poster child for “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat”? Yes our Armor gives us the crucial stats to survive and do battles in Azeroth, but sometimes in our quest to get great gear we end up looking like a clown in the circus. I have seen players sacrifice stats just to get a set of armor that matches and looks good. Can this be fixed? Absolutely!
Dye System
Taken directly from other MMORPG’s. Let us change the color of our armor, from world drops and vendor purchased colors. Let us mix the color to create new ones. Thanks to a Dye preview system a player can test what the effects of a dye will do to that piece of armor. Certain pieces and sets should be exempt or have a limited effect when dye is applied, such as tier sets. Maybe even let us dye our mounts default armor. Give us rare dye drops that add a glow or aura to our armor, such as that done through enchanting.
Such a system will give players and guilds the ability satisfy their visual demands along with letting them stand out as an individual. It will also enhance the world economy and trade system.
Armor Crafting
Do you craft armor? Why not let us truly craft armor? Let us pick pre-determined bitmap designs, then apply it. Have a system that has 10 or 100 pre-made bitmaps that we can overlay on a piece of armor when crafting. This would give tailors and smiths in WoW the ability to create unique armor pieces. Stats for such pieces are already predetermined but giving the player the ability to change the visual details of a piece of armor would be priceless. Guilds can truly individualize themselves from others, players can travel to cities to show off and brag.
How nice would it be nice to have the ability to customize that epic piece of armor? That piece of armor that took weeks of grinding and hundreds upon hundreds of gold to acquire?
Baluki Jul 2nd 2007 2:47PM
There's a rest state tracking mod that you can get for Titan or FuBar called AllPlayed. However, you can't see it until you log in on a character.
I've found it to be pretty handy, because I have a lot of alts, and as soon as I run out of Rested state on one character, I look for which of my alts has had the most rest and play him/her.
strife Jul 2nd 2007 7:31PM
getting warlocks more demons that they can summon when ever. i mean come on you have to max out your talent tree to get a felguard! or you can summon a infernal only when outside that will eventually turn on you. or summon a doomguard at the cost of a teammatewho you have to rez and then he will eventually turn on you. we have to rely on our "pets" as much as hunters so why should hunters get such a vast selection of "pets " they can have and all we got with TBC exspansion was one new "pet" common there are dones of demons in the game .add a abilitie to a locks spell book that lets us keep what we enslave.
Urthona Jul 2nd 2007 5:46PM
Oh, we're doing class-specific gripes now?
Druid suggestion: I'd like a visual distinction between "Bear form" and "Dire Bear Form". If the devs can find time to make the Levitate spell for priests look cooler, they can reskin our +40 bears.
I'm NOT asking that bearform be bigger. But how about some funky feathers and armored swatches, similar to how epic birdform is a visual upgrade?
jcgooch Jul 2nd 2007 6:41PM
I think the problem with adding lots of visual customization features to both character avatars as well as armor is that it could create performance issues. One of the main draws of WoW is that it runs on a wide variety of platforms, performance-wise. You start adding a lot of individual details, and the system has to load a lot of different texture maps to render it all to you.
I played SWG and before I upgraded my memory (and even then afterwards), you'd zoom into a populated area and wait while the client rendered all the very individual texture maps. In WoW, all Frostweave Shoulders look the same, so only one texture map need be read if you walk into a room full of 'locks. :)
tallguy59 Jul 3rd 2007 8:08AM
Personally, I'm aching for new druid shapeshift forms. It's been, what, getting on for two-and-a-half, three years, and I still have to look at the Taurencat's GAPING MAW OF DEATH.
If Blizzard implements any of these, they'll do the small oneslike that instead of taking fan's ideas like the Runemaster class.
mxwp Jul 3rd 2007 1:45AM
@ 7... the road idea is genious. Travel is one of the worst parts of the game and a speed boost whilst on the road makes sense logically, and would help in game. Make it stack with mounts and any other types of speed boost: a plus 10 percent regardless. Greatly help in leveling another alt; I've already seen the scenary and just want to get from A to B. I know the Blizz will probably never do it because they want you to waste time in their game.
aldourin Jul 3rd 2007 5:33AM
@11. You have a point regarding performance issues but there is an easy solution on that. By getting your character to a "beauty salon" you will be offered only the customisation choices you originally had when you first created the character and nothing fancier. All these are already preloaded and I do not see how they will create any problems.
Asimo Jul 3rd 2007 5:35AM
From what I understand from other industry friends, a "beauty parlor" IS something Blizzard's been wanting to do. Unfortunately, it's fairly low priority (being purely cosmetic), and generally tends to have other things tacked onto it in the design stage ("Once we have this, wouldn't it be cool to add new hairstyles?"). And sadly, with the combination of these two, it's continuously pushed back by more pressing development.
Large-scale procrastination isn't very exciting an answer, I guess, but at least it's better than a grand conspiracy?
spamcatcher Jul 3rd 2007 7:40AM
The biggest thing I would like to see would be the seperation of PvE balancing from PvP balancing. So many modifications have come down the line for classes that are a result of PvP balancing, and it sucks for those of us that never play. I'd love to see them change the game so that when you enter a battleground your character is modified to take on the PvP ruleset or something along those lines.
Mochajava Jul 3rd 2007 9:14AM
@#6 -- Another brilliant idea, IMO. SOOOOOo discouraging to try to earn PVP rep while a lowbie, and running into nothing but a gang of level 19 twinks!
DV Jul 3rd 2007 9:31AM
more secondary skills or systems to tweak attributes....interesting and would help to offset that bored, wow'd out feeling we all get sometimes.
I mean its a bit of a farce that you cant even cut your own firewood....
or let us work on attributes without just having to go out and get the next best int/stam item...agility training for rogues..weightlifting for warriors...just something to make wow a little less one dimensional. We simply are not given enough options for individual character development.
(If blizz were to expand the races again it would be quite interesting to roll a goblin btw)
ben1778 Jul 3rd 2007 10:00AM
Definitely the ability to dye cloth and leather or to anodize mail and plate pieces to change the color.
That would be an obcious problem since WoW re-uses a lot of their old stuff and just recolors it. BORING.
I've already seen T1, I don't want to see another recolored version of it. If WoW is going to recolor crap at least bring back something interesting that not many people were able to see. T3?