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.

Sure I’m really looking forward to exploring the possibilities of a new class combination, but first I need to fix my mind. I have done this many, many times in the past. Do I want to do it all again?

Well, of course I want to. I could wait for all the changes that will come with Cataclysm of course, this will refresh the early levelling process no end.

However, once I actually get into the character generation screen, another problem. The characters themselves. They all seem so limited.

The preset character faces and customization options seem so limited.

Rolling a human really brings it home to me. There seems very little choice, and what choice there is – is between characterizations that really do not appeal to me at all. I mean, this is a face and character I’ll be playing for hour after hour. It would be nice if it was an enjoyable spectacle.

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.

Now I can tell what some of you are saying “It’s all about the armour choices” Well to that I say “bleh”. One well specced Paladin looks much like another after a couple trips through Icecrown. “Same-old same-old”. Ok I understand that the clothes you wear con make a big difference, but that leads to everyone walking around Dalaran with their helmets on. Ok, I might be getting a little “RPG” at the moment, but then a little role play in a role playing game can’t be bad can it?

The last couple of years have seen a lot of MMORPG’s that include a good amount of character customization. It seems that many have jumped on the idea that it is a real selling point of the game; I’m inclined to agree…Champions Online might have its faults, but the level of detail you can apply to making your avatar truly unique is astounding. This from a company with a fraction of the resources that Blizzard can bring to the table.

It would be nice if Blizzard gave us similar options for the world’s biggest online game wouldn’t it?

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

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