Today in WoW: Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011
by Adam Holisky 
Aug 23rd 2011 at 9:00PM
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Blue posts
Transmogrification
Quote:
The current say so is as long as the gear's the right material (IE Mail,Cloth,Plate) and not Silly looking like the frying pan Weapon, you're fine.
The current say so is as long as the gear's the right material (IE Mail,Cloth,Plate) and not Silly looking like the frying pan Weapon, you're fine.
The gear also still has to have stats aside from armor on it. That means that there are a lot of white or grey items that might not be available initially when Transmogrification goes live.
As an aside, a lot of people have been asking about hiding shoulders, belts, etc. For now, it's looking pretty unlikely that we'll offer the option to hide anything aside from helm and cloak.
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Filed under: Today in WoW
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ronin Aug 23rd 2011 9:57PM
Re: transmogrification-- I really don't get Blizz's overly-controlling attitude about character customization.
I mean, it's a game where customizing the characters themselves is extremely limited. So you'd think they'd allow more leeway as far as outfits. But no, they've always told us they'd be somehow offended if we wore Blizzard art, but not the latest Blizzard art-- as if older artwork was somehow inferior just because it was old. Now when they're finally going to give us a way to decide what we want to wear, they tell us they don't want us to wear Blizzard artwork unless its serious Blizzard artwork.
They're still missing the point: we want to create characters that look unique, and that means sometimes we want to be whimsical about it. But Blizz just can't let go of the reins. I mean, all the options we have for gear are there because Blizz designed it and put it in game. Shouldn't that be enough control for them? It's not like they're letting players mod their armor.
So they're very late to the game-- and they still insist on being in the driver's seat. I just don't get the control-freak attitude.
(I'm not saying I don't know what their objections are-- I just don't think they're substantial enough, really, to overrule the players' desire to customize their characters with the only limits being their imaginations, rather than Blizz's arbitrary rules about what's a good outfit and what isn't.)
carranza Aug 23rd 2011 10:18PM
You may also be forgetting what a technical challenge this feature is. By gating what types of gear that can be mooged, the feature will be ready much earlier. Imagine having to code moogs for EVERY piece of gear in wow, as opposed to say, 25% of the gear.
As with anything, the feature will be improved as time goes on. I doubt the initial mooging will stay that way for very long.
And as a final point - we've been asking for this for a very long time, so be happy we're initially getting it at SOME capacity, and patiently wait for improvements :)
Arrohon Aug 23rd 2011 10:32PM
They're making it sounds like it was pretty hard to get enough devs to agree on it. A lot of them still are against it so they're gonna want more control. Once those devs see how it isn't all so bad they'll open it up more.
Hob Aug 24th 2011 2:25AM
There's probably a degree of seeing what the community is going to do, also.
It's a better move to be controlling and stingy, then release more content later, than to release everything, realize you've made a mistake, and attempt to take content or features away.
Kurtis Aug 24th 2011 7:32AM
@carranza - your reply makes it sound like there's some kind of technical limitation to the xmog process. Obviously I'm not a Blizzard engineer, but if they've got a technical limitation where they have to actually implement something for each specific piece of gear that can be xmogged, they're Doing It Wrong(tm) and, as a fellow software engineer, I'd slide significantly in my respect for their skills. Why? Because the underpinnings of their entire system would be unsustainable and by all rights should have collapsed before they reached their first million subscribers.
I work with business systems every day that have actual technical limitations like this. They're fragile, buggy and slow. It's my job to transform them into something actually usable. I usually succeed (and by "succeed" I mean, transform processes that take hours or never complete at all, and fix them so they run in a few seconds). That said, I can usually pinpoint the actual problem in a system like this in the first couple of hours. It would be nice if fixing it were that easy - *very* occasionally it's something that can be fixed in a couple days, but sometimes it's weeks of effort and sometimes it's a fundamental design problem that requires entire sections of the application to be redesigned. But my points are that a) these normally boil down to a set of about six different possible problems, and b) if Blizzard actually had any of these problems, maintenance would run from Tuesday-Saturday, every week.
Instead, I'd put good money to the idea that the xmog limitations are artificial - *any* piece of gear could be xmogged to *any* other piece of gear within the same slot/type, they're just leery of giving people that much latitude. In the future, when they start allowing people to use whites/grays and similar vanity pieces, it should just be a matter of pulling down the restriction slider a notch. The blue post even implies this.
Ronin Aug 24th 2011 10:29AM
@carranza: I'm not forgetting anything. I'm responding to what they're saying about their _philosophical_ reasons for not allowing certain items that BLIZZARD created, to be used by us for mogging. Frankly, I think it's silly for them to say, "See, you can haz 'appearance' gear-- as long as it's the appearance gear we want you to have!"
Chance Aug 23rd 2011 10:34PM
I don't care about hiding shoulders, belts, etc. But for god sake lemme hide tabards. With the faction enchants it is pretty much mandatory to wear at least one tabard for a certain amount of time if you don't want to grind dailys and they just look godawful on anyone with a robe.
Bryan Dare Aug 24th 2011 12:40AM
Hmm, what if we had an option to wear tabards either as tabards or as flags on our backs (like a BG flag, methinks, and the ones during The Battle for Undercity)?? I think that could be cool....
Josh Aug 24th 2011 5:31PM
Though I agree tabards are generally ugly, hiding them would be sorta like asking for a paycheck from Budweiser, after you painted over their obnoxious add on your race-car.
razion Aug 23rd 2011 11:58PM
If they do decide to hide shoulders at any point in the future, I'd love to be able to hide Chest items at the same time, as most chestpieces don't look too good on their own. Plus, some of us would like to play as a bare-chested crazed barbarian once in a while.
Zapwidget Aug 24th 2011 12:12AM
Although I don't play on an RP realm, I do occasionally RP with my wife, and I'm quite certain that my rogue would be very pleased if her warrior had the option to hide chest armor.
Z4focus Aug 24th 2011 4:07AM
It really gets old when every other comment about Transmogrification is "they are not letting us do this/that" , "why can't I do this". The feature is not out yet and probably won't be for a couple months. A lot of time for Blizzard to change their minds. Really we should all just be happy with them saying you know I think we should give this a try. Because when I started playing (patch 1.9 just released) there was no way in hell this was ever going to happen. I say just chill and see were they are going to take this.
/endrant
Sorry it just gets a little old
Chance Aug 24th 2011 4:34AM
Oh I'm very very very pleased with the transmog and everything about it. I could care less if they don't let us use it with certain items, I'm just happy with being able to change stuff back to older tier looks. Even if it had more restrictions, like say you could only transmog current tier gear to older tier gear and nothing else, id still be happe (though not able to use it as I have many off-set pieces).
I just wish that they'd also let us hide tabards, its something I've wanted since I started wearing tabards to farm rep for the few factions with rep tabards in wrath and wanted even more once cata dropped with all the rep tabards they added into the mix. Luckily my main is done rep farming from any faction that has a tabard available, however some of my current and all of my future alts will still have to suffer through the horrid look.
Ronin Aug 24th 2011 10:21AM
"A lot of time for Blizzard to change their minds."
And why would Blizzard change their minds, if no one told them they were displeased with the plans as Blizzard has shared them? Are you afraid they'll withhold it from us if we complain?
If we don't share our opinions, Blizzard won't know how we feel. And your post came dangerously close to "complaining about complaining". Which I'm not complaining about-- just pointing it out ;)