Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsBreakfast Topic: Have transmogrification limits stymied your character's look?
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Dec 18th 2011 at 8:00AM
For example, I'd love to wear a leather eyepatch on my death knight, but since he's a plate wearer? No go. I would pretty much wear an Ashkandi forever and ever if I could, but if I pick up a two-handed axe in a raid or instance? Can't transmog it. My hunter has it even worse. I roleplay her as more of a backwoods, live-off-the-land type turned sniper, so she'd be more likely to dress in brown or black leathers instead of big, flashy suits of mail armor. Alas, under the current rules of transmogrification, I'm stuck with tier 11 while her Defias Leathers stay languishing in the bank. Finally, I had every intention of dressing up both my blood elf paladin and my gnomish warrior in level 60 PvP gear, but you probably heard that only those characters with the old high-level titles get to transmogrify that stuff for now.
So what about you? Are some of the transmogrification rules keeping you from putting together the look of your dreams?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 7)
mason.jdouglas Dec 18th 2011 10:09AM
I feel like blizzard dropped the ball big time on transmog. Yeah, I like it, and it lets me use a handful of items to transmog, but it's stupidly limited and poorly thought through.
I understand the need for gold sinks, but the whole implementation was awful. They should have just added a second equipment slot to each body part. Put something in there and it overwrites what's currently equipped as far as appearance goes. Leave it empty and the other slot shows. Put a cool 1K cost to unlock each slot if you have to, but it'd be a million times more cohesive.
The fact that they never even accounted for the leather/mail and mail/plate divide tells me that I alone have put more thought into this idea than their whole development team did. I mean it's like McDonald's going to their employees and saying "Here! we have a blue, green and red uniform and now you can choose which one to wear!" ..It's still a McDonald's uniform.... the illusion of choice is no actual choice.
I know I sound awfully ranty, but I've really found myself questioning Bliz's thinking lately. Some things are great, like microtransactions for pets and mounts. But the storyline has become a shadow of it's former glory... or packaged up into a book and divorced from the game entirely....and even then... Transmog was a massive let-down, Void Storage....actually turned out alright. They've penned themselves into bringing a new continent into the game in each expansion....since we're getting Pandaria, they've clearly run out of ideas there.
Here's an idea: Fluid zones....kinda like Hyjal.
Make extensive use of phasing to continue storylines in zones. Sure Elwynn forest is a starter zone, but why can't you come back at level 85 and have a storyline involving a horde attack on goldshire, then stormwind? Cause' it'd be awesome? We had to wait 6 years to see where storylines in Vanilla were going, and even then, Arathi Highlands will probably be another 6 years! That reminds me, where is Danath? That guy's a freaking king! And like Genn, a far cooler one than Varian the orc!
Monsoon Dec 18th 2011 10:11AM
I had my heart set on running the new 5-mans on my Paladin while wearing a Lovely Purple Dress, but alas it was not meant to be.
Astoreth Dec 18th 2011 2:15PM
You can still do it!
...your healers will hate you, but you can do it! :-D
VioletArrows Dec 18th 2011 10:18AM
Mostly the level 40 gear transition and being unable to change swords to maces and axes thing, but I think the worst is I had about 20 dresses I just gave up and put into void storage because cloth is right out.
Chetti Dec 18th 2011 10:19AM
Being a shadow priest I haven't played with my gear because, well, I can't see it. I can see my weapon, but I haven't found any new staves that I like. I have a funeral pyre, and I love it. So far, I haven't see anything old or new that I'd like to turn it into. But, I will hold on to it for future transmog purposes, in case the next staff I pick up doesn't look a good.
Amanda A. Dec 18th 2011 10:34AM
Look into the new Glyph of Shadow. Minor glyph, and it makes you visible-- although still slightly darkened-- in Shadowform.
DarkWalker Dec 18th 2011 10:37AM
For items below level 40, mail should count also as plate and leather should count also as mail, since those were the items plate- and mail-using characters actually used during those levels.
As for the transmogrification system, I'm quite spoiled; after playing DCUO and LotRO, I can't help but see WoW's transmogrification as too limited.
For the record:
- In DCUO, the game remembers every piece of gear the character ever equipped, and lets the player use the appearance of any of those. As for color, each player picks 3 colors for each character, and can freely assign them to different parts of each gear piece.
- In LotRO, each character has a number of appearance tabs (2 free, 5 more available for purchase), that can be switched or turned off at will. He can use any item in those, even ones he can't equip; unfortunately, weapons and shields are not included. As for color, the player can apply a dye to most pieces of gear, changing it's main color. There is also a "wardrobe", which can be purchased, capable of cloning the appearance of 20-100 pieces of gear server-wise, and storing an unlimited number of colors for each stored piece.
(Note regarding store purchases in LotRO: players get store cash from playing the game - it adds to over $50 worth of it for completely maxing one character - and also get $5 worth of store cash for each month he subscribes. A reasonably active subscriber should get, "free", enough store cash to get all account-wide benefits, such as the wardrobe and appearance tabs, in a year. Less than that if he is an alt-holic.)
themightysven Dec 18th 2011 10:41AM
Yes. On my rogue I wanted the "I'm just a non-suspicious lumberjack" look with a yellow lumberjack shirt and sandrene's invisible tunic, but alas tis not to be.
Since that's not happening I play with it a little, but am unconvinced
Amanda A. Dec 18th 2011 10:58AM
I'm also generally annoyed by the weapon type limits-- bothbecause the issue that forced all caster weapons to be main hand only is long fixed, and I don't like maces on DKs and am stuck with a mace in my tank spec unles I get ridiculously lucky during a Dragon Soul pug. I also wish I could wear my RP armor, which is largely mail and cloth, but looks like proper armor...
Mackenzie Dec 18th 2011 11:06AM
I still wanted to transmog my staff into my broom.
Sadness, it'll never happen.
Also, my enchancement shaman as a Lumberjack look didn't pull off like I expected.
Twowolves Dec 18th 2011 11:14AM
I was bummed that I couldn't build an all leather outfit for my hunter. We spend 40 levels in leather, transmorg should be class sensitive to allow mail->leather transmog for hunters, just like plate->mail for DKs, pallies, and warriors.
Dankie Dec 18th 2011 11:16AM
One thing that's made me sad is that I like matching armor. I'm also a sucker for BC tier gear - so with the re-release of Arena Seasons 1-3 in Area 52 I was excited!! .... except they forgot to re-release the boots and belts for the sets. It's put the kibosh on my super arena friends forever sentai action hero plans to take over the world. : / No matching boots and belt are a big stickler for me.
Haarits Dec 18th 2011 11:17AM
I'm all for unlocking head-slot transmog to all armor types, and--perhaps--even non-stat gray/white items. Let Worgen run around with their top hats at 85! Let cloth-wearers sport eyepatches and the Horseman's Horrific Helmet! Let mail-wearing dwarven hunters wear green cloth hoods like the Ironforge Mountaineers! I'm also all for allowing mail/plate and leather/mail classes the ability to transmog BOTH armor types onto their current higher-level gear, and mixing . And it'd also be nice if the Invisible Vest and a few more gag pieces like the Chef Hat were able to be transmogged. It'd show off shirts a lot more!
Transmog needs some fine tuning. I get that they don't want priests and mages running around in full plate armor, and don't want people Needing on gear they can't equip and that someone else would actually use for the stats, but as it is, it's a bit too limited. Needs some more fun in it.
Eternauta Dec 18th 2011 11:19AM
Restrictions that should go away, and why:
- Sword for Sword, Axe for Axe, etc.
As long as you can equip it, any weapon should be able to be xmogged with another as long as both are Two-Hand, or One Hand or Main Hand or Off-Hand.
This way one can keep the aesthetics without causing graphical glitches while trying to use a Dagger as a Two-Handed weapon.
The argument that blizzard has against this is that "a fast hammer or a slow dagger would be ridiculous". I don't see how, we already have those in game.
- The no-legendaries policy
This is the most stupid restriction in my opinion. The whole purpose of legendaries (aside from their awesome power) is to look cool and have bragging rights over those who don't have them. They are as much vanity items as they're upgrades. What's the point of spending months farming them if they're gonna last only a few months before the next big patch renders them useless, collecting dust in our banks?
- The no-statless gear rule
This one is also very stupid. Why can't I use my Warlock's starter robe for transmogrification? I love how it looks. I also think some vendor white items or even grey items have some aesthetic value.
I think this one exist because blizz made a lot of white items as "fun" gear not meant to be worn in combat. But they could eliminate this restriction and make it more of a case-by-case thing. Raiding in a tuxedo is stupid, but raiding in my starter clothes is not.
- The armor type restriction
This one's a bit tricky, because if we eliminate this rule, some classes would have A LOT more options than others, unless we let, for example, Priest to xmog their robes to plate armor they can't equip. I think this one should stay for the moment.
Finally, I think blizz should create more vanity gear to replace the stuff that we can't xmog due to some of these rules. Like plate loincloths for those Warriors who want to look like Barbarians, or various eyepatches for every armor type, etc.
Shinae Dec 18th 2011 11:23AM
I can dress my orc shaman up to look just like an Orgrimmar guard. Unfortunately, I can't go into battle like that because the gear is leather.
Tirrimas Dec 18th 2011 11:24AM
I really like how DCUO has handled this: they allow characters to collect "styles" which can be applied to any armor worn. No armor "types" that I've encountered yet. It still has like-for-like limits on weapons, but it allows a HUGE amount of customization.
lethefile Dec 18th 2011 11:30AM
Yes. The restrictions based on armor types make little sense since Blizzard's own recycling of armor models already confuse things by mixing armor type. As for weapons, I haven't been able to visually distinguish 1h swords from 2h swords since WotLK, and is the difference of axe/mace/sword really a matter of life and death in PVP? There are so many white and gray quality pieces that are actually great for transmog and not at all "silly." The blanket ban on transmogging common/poor items is like throwing out a thousand babies with the bathwater.
The transmog restrictions are probably the most poorly thought-out and arbitrary set of rules in WoW. I hope the reason they didn't put much thought into it is because they're getting rid of it anyways as part of a long term transition to let people who are against the idea get used to it.
dk Dec 18th 2011 11:30AM
Having read the comments, I'm very glad for the restrictions. I had no idea what the things were people had in mind. The game would too quickly become a parody and even self-mocking if we were allowed brooms and chef hats and lovely dresses as we battle deathwing and become heroes.
Hillazon Dec 18th 2011 11:45AM
No. That would be awesome.
Plus, every fury warrior would be dual-wielding fish.
Ametrine Dec 18th 2011 2:01PM
Wearing silly hats and wielding frypans and fish? what is this, Team Fortress 2?