World of Warcraft's paid customization may allow race, gender changes

by Michael Zenke Nov 13th 2008 at 11:30AM

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Game mechanics

Eurogamer caught a few moments with Blizzard COO Paul Sams and Associate Producer Lee Sparks at the London, UK Wrath of the Lich King Launch event last night. There they managed to catch a few moments of conversation with the busy, busy men and asked a few follow-ups on the recently announced paid character customization options the comany has in the works. Essentially, the company views it as another value-added feature along the lines of the paid server transfer or name transfer. The paid character customization options will allow players to go back and tweak choices made at character creation.

The capacity is already in the game to change hair style and color, but Blizzard seems to be implying 'deeper' changes - facial features, skin color, perhaps even gender or race. Despite that, the two company men resisted nailing anything down specifically. The feature, Eurogamer offers, is "more about making changes to decisions made in the past than adding additional options," and isn't intended to be a new microtransactional revenue stream. "The reason for the monetary expense is more of a barrier so that people don't do it every day," Sparks said. Read on into the article for full details.

Gallery: Wrath of the Lich King

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Tags: blizzard, breaking, lee-sparks, microtransactions, paid-character-customization, paul-sams, world-of-warcraft, wow

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Cyrcle said on 12:31PM 11-13-2008

Why would anyone pay for a feature such as this when games such as Vanguard already offer it (and more) free of charge?

Rollins said on 1:20PM 11-13-2008

Because having it available in Vanguard (100k subs? Maybe?) doesn't make it available to WoW subscribers (10mil+).

Not knocking Vanguard, mind you; I personally prefer it to WoW. But the two aren't directly comparable.

Abriael said on 1:41PM 11-13-2008

Yay for blizzard combining the subscription model with the microtransaction model. Since they didn't damage the MMO community enough.

Aru said on 4:00PM 11-13-2008

This is cool. I just hope they consider making these options a bit more affordable. 25 dollars for a character transfer is a bit much imo. I know they want to discourage it, but that's what cooldowns are for. Also, it would be great if you could accumulate the ability to do these once in a while for free, like a veteran or customer reward once every few months just as a thank you or earn them with achievement points or some other in-game currency. Either way, good stuff.

Vorner23 said on 8:38AM 11-15-2008

Brilliant! I'll be able to change some generic clonelike character customisation options to other generic similar options! I can't wait to look virtually the same as everyone else.... again.

If you're not European, that was sarcasm..... god I hate this game these days! Rofflemowh!