Warcraft – We Want More Character Customization!

I don’t know about you, but rolling a new character in Warcraft is always something I do with mixed emotions.

Firstly, of course, there is the anticipation of the adventures ahead, mixed in with some little concern that I have done it so many times before that I might well lose interest.

It’s fair to say that I continue to play, so the anticipation wins out over possibility of becoming a little jaded.

However, once I get to the main character rolling screen, I’m always reminded of one thing…

Is it just me? Are the preset faces for characters getting really old

Humans in particular are a very weird looking bunch. The lack of real facial customization apart from the adornments of hair and piercing means they all end up looking pretty much the same. A look I would describe as “very 2005″.

There were good reasons for the paucity of detail in 2005. Computers were less able and the internet connection most people enjoyed was far slower, meaning that the time to load and cache a lot of different facial detail would have been a hurdle.

Another counter argument is that once people get to the level cap it’s all about the armour. I agree with that – but even that’s a shame. There is only one tier 10 BiS for each class/talent combination so you still end up with very similar looking characters at the end of the game.

Here, in 2010 there are lots of MMORPG’s with far less financial clout that Blizzard, that produce games with massive amounts of customization. Champions Online, for all it’s (many) faults takes character customization to an insane degree, but this is one of its charms. You’ll rarely see two “generic” looking characters from one play session to the next.

So how about it then Blizzard, what about letting us design the style and look of characters we actually would like to play?

Sadly, having seen the trailers so far for Cataclysm, it isn’t something they are considering any time soon.

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