The Queue: A chilly reception (to transmog)

Blizzard added transmog to the Midnight beta this week, and I’ll tell you all more about it when I am not swinging wildly between incandescent rage and crushing disappointment. Transmog is dead (to me), long live transmog.

Let’s Queue.

I say Gnome-style houses or riot, so I guess I’m rioting.

Blizzard added music for housing zones when it launched in beta last week, and it’s really nice. Music varies depending on which part of the zone you’re in, and I think my favorite is the spooky vibes of the Duskwood area in the Alliance neighborhood. It puts a light chill in the air as you pass through.

Housing interiors also have a unique music track, and I don’t dislike it but it doesn’t have the right vibe in my opinion. It’s a little all over the map mood-wise, and doesn’t give me cozy, sitting at home vibes. Some kind of jukebox style system letting you select music or playlists would be a great solution here. But this isn’t in the beta right now and, to the best of my knowledge, Blizzard hasn’t commented on it.

You need as many copies of an item as you want to place, whether that’s putting six chairs around your dining table or building a pillow fort (which would definitely require at least a hundred pillows). Stocking up on things you might want multiples of is going to be what makes housing a potentially serious gold sink. So when you’re shopping, I’d say start with a plan for what you want to make, so you aren’t running back and forth to vendors too much. (Or you could be like me and buy two hundred pillows, just in case.)

Okay. Fine. Okay. Let’s try to discuss this.

In the live game, you currently have twenty slots to save different transmog looks, though you have to pay to switch between them. (I have looks in every slot, and have recently had to delete some to add new looks, like the top hat ensemble I am wearing right now.) In Midnight, as it is in the beta, you have two slots (and can purchase 800,000 gold more to get to the 20 you have now). These slots you can switch freely between without any additional cost, and it’s going to be an awesome system for players who want to set their transmog once and leave it all expansion, saving them time and gold.

After you unlock however many outfit slots you want (or can afford), you have to set up the transmog look for each outfit. You pay a fee to set up a look for the first time, similar to what you would pay to change transmog now. You also pay a fee if you ever want to change any the look of any piece of armor in an existing outfit.

The cost for changing a full transmog set (or setting it up for the first time) is four to seven times more than what it is in the current live game. Currently in The War Within, changing the transmog look of every single item I have equipped will set me back 1,000 gold. In the Midnight beta changing the transmog of every single item I have equipped — the exact same items on a transferred character — will set me back 4,300 gold. For a level 90 character it costs 7,500 gold to change the transmog appearance of every single item.

When swapping between existing outfits, there is no cost. If you ever want to change something in an outfit or create a new outfit — even if you completely discount the cost of the outfit slots — it is substantially more expensive than it is right now.

Again, for players who want a few looks to swap between, or a set it and forget it transmog, this system is great. They can pay up-front and never worry about it again.

But there is another type of player: me. (And presumably there are at least a few of you out there who are like me.)

I like making new transmog looks, and playing around with things. I like switching just my hat around sometimes: it’s a top hat right now, but sometimes I prefer sunglasses or nothing at all on my head. Occasionally a sun hat is nice. When I get new armor that looks interesting, I like to design transmog looks around it, and tweak and tinker until I get something perfect. I probably have a completely different transmog every couple of weeks, and in between that I’ll tweak things and play with ideas, swapping boots or belts or tabards if I think something else might look better.

And that kind of gameplay is completely lost to me unless prices change substantially change. At 7,500 gold for each outfit change, I simply won’t be able to afford it. I’m not great at gold making and don’t particularly find playing the auction house fun. What I do like is playing with transmog and being sure my character always has a neat look that suits the time and place. (Or maybe doesn’t, like when you want to ride into Orgrimmar on a turkey while wearing a three-piece suit.) I love doing this.

I do occasionally have a few looks that I swap between, and I’m certain I will lean into that more with the new system because it is free to swap between pre-configured looks as long as you do not make any changes to them.

But unless these costs are slashed, a type of gameplay that I love is gone, because I will not be able to afford it unless I buy WoW Tokens or I invest a lot of time getting good at making gold, a type of gameplay that I do not love.

I am incandescent with rage. I am in a deep despair.

The real world is a terrible place, and the least a fantasy game can offer is the ability to change my outfit whenever I want to. I do not feel like this is a big ask. I would like to be able to keep doing what I currently enjoy doing in the game. However, using the transmog system as I use it now — just changing things when I feel like it, even if I don’t unlock the pricey new slots — will come with such expense that I simply won’t be able to.

So why spend all this time farming old content for different looks? Why am I playing Legion Remix? Why am I trying to collect every color of tier set? Why am I doing most of the things I’m doing as the expansion winds down?

Today, for no reason at all. In Midnight, I’ll set a look or two and forget it. It’s too expensive to change it up or have lots of looks to swap between.

I hope Blizzard will adjust the system to at least allow me to continue playing as I do today without large extra costs. But as things stand in the beta test, a type of gameplay I really enjoy is out of my reach. It’s taken all of the wind out of my sails.

I am inconsolable, but I hope you’re having a nice Wednesday. I tip my top hat to you, for this time in which I can still afford to wear a top hat.

Take care everyone, and I’ll see you in the comments section.