That beard on Belf is weird ...Elfs are not suppose to grow them. :-/
?I can't believe the tantrum certain people are having over this. Dev Team: *Add new customization options* Community: We want more. Dev Team: Okay, later. Community: No, now!Dev Team: We want to make sure that we put the time in (...) and that we release new customizations when its gonna be really good for the game (...) that's still gonna happen in parallel with getting new content out too.Community: *Throws a tantrum*
That male belf in the pic looks absolutely hideous. Other than that, the races I play got what I wanted, I mostly wanted new hairstyles and the option to pick the eye option separate, everything is extra really. But there's definitely winners and losers when it comes to customization's. I really love what for example the worgens and taurens got. Finally made my first tauren character now that there actually is some options there. She's really cute with all the tattoos and jewelry.And then there's the ones that are lacking severely. I didn't really expect the allied races to get anything, them being a lot more new. But I was hoping for at least a few new options for the nightborne and hm tauren, new hair at least. I do hope they get something soon but with how things are with covid and all, I would prefer the devs to focus more on working the upcoming content, really make it good.
I wasn't actually expecting a ton of new options for ARs, I believe the majority of them have a lot already (the sheer amount of Mag'har options, for instance). The more the better, but it's not the most pressing issue.However, there were some adjustments I was hoping for, I mean those categories where there is too few options like skin colors for Highmountain Tauren and Nightborne. It just looks sad now compared to older races and hopefully could be adressed with a small amount of resources.
Play the popular races if you want options is the basic gist. Not everyone plays human with 400 options. And given most allied races are literal copies of existing races (goblin=vulpera, nelf=nelf, belf=velf, etc) it is not that difficult - as in dame skeleton structure. Given my Belf's hair still clips into my back from the standard battle pose after all these years, its not like they need to be perfect....
This was supposed to be the feature in place of a new class or race. What is there to look forward to if they renege on it? More of the same artwork floors in Torghast? Or same artwork raid? Maybe same artwork as Oribos or the Maw? Covenants that are impossible to switch because of anima? Alts that are impossible to play, also because of anima? The community wants to be thrown a bone. Not even any meat on it, like an Allied Race or class skins might provide. Just the bone all by itself. But apparently that is asking too much.
I'm probably not the first to think this... but if we're concerned with Blizzard "wasting" dev resources on character customization (which I disagree with personally, but let's run with it), why not just outsource it? Why not just contract the community members/players who have already put in the work showing it's possible and then just pay them to do it for them?It's not like it's outsourcing new content, balancing, class mechanics, or raid features. At worst, Blizzard just needs to make sure the customizations work in the game files before implementing them. I realize that I'm over-simplifying the process, but does the point not stand anyway?
It IS pretty stupid to just abandon adding more options...especially races that got zilch or next to zilch. Happy players= paying customers= more money, and if you can make a large number of players happy by doing something as simple as letting X race have access to Y hair color/style, eye color, etc....why NOT do it? For example, I've seen a lot of blood elf players ask for years for dark ranger options. The undead skin tones and red eyes are already in-game, they're just ticked as npc only and not enabled for character creation. That's just one tiny thing they could do (untick a bloody box) to make a lot of players happy. I understand (even if I don't agree with it) not wanting to devote time for people to make new models (like jewelry and brand new hairstyles would be), but something as simple as just sharing hair colors or already existing hair styles between races would be ridiculously easy. Or another example, give LFD access to the the options normal Draenei got, like jewelry and tail length options.
Sorry but taking 15 years to finally update your character options is a bit bull@#$%, considering the amount to options in other MMO's and for the people who will say ( but wow is a 15 year old game still being played today) ok so 15 years and finally an update? we only got the hi res versions a few expansions ago for older races, Blizzards way is to stretch content out as much as possible, many examples from every expansion shows this, its their game their right but it is frustrating when seeing it, we go zero information this Blizzcon just "we are working on it" hell only concept art for the next raid, most of the time its a small cinematic showing the new zone, new upgrades, new mounts etc, but we got a few stills and an in game cinematic, I feel very let down and somewhat pissed at the answers and information we got this Blizzconline thing, which looked very pre recorded.
Removed
This announcement was devastating. Updated character customization was a significant selling point of Shadowlands for a huge portion of the playerbase. It came *instead* of any new playable races, classes, etc. Leaving such a lopsided, 45%-finished customization pass for the duration of the next few years (at least) reflects either a dangerous level of art team duress and resource restriction, or a staggering tone-deafness. I am willing to lend them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's out of their power, but yikes, this felt so bad. This has essentially killed my enthusiasm for this expansion, funny as this may sound.
I mean it's not like they're never gonna come out with it, the community complains about the silliest things sometimes