World of Warcraft: Forever gives you transmog options, including turning it off

Transmog is coming to World of Warcraft: Forever, or not, depending on how you want to play. Some players love to be able to customize the look of their character, but other players like their progression to be reflected in how they look. This may seem like an impossible conflict, but Blizzard is giving everyone what they want with a toggle.

When you first log into WoW: Forever, you’ll be presented with two modes that affect how your game appears: Classic or Enhanced. These have pre-configured settings so you can start playing right away, which include transmog settings. Classic gives you close to the true WoW Classic experience — older character models, no points of interest or quest objectives on the map, and no transmog. Enhanced gives you a more modern look with all of that turned on, including higher definition character models and a single bag. If you change your mind later, you have the option to change those settings. For transmog, you can simply speak to a dedicated NPC who can turn transmog on or off depending on your whims.

Turning transmog off will turn it off completely as though it never existed. You’ll see everyone’s gear as it truly is at all times. Just like in Classic, you’ll be able to turn your helm and cloak on or off for your own benefit, and you’ll always see other players’ hidden helms or cloaks. Non-transmog players won’t even be affected by transmog collectors. Blizzard, hoping to curb hoarding tendencies by needing on gear just for transmog, is also making a couple changes. When gear drops in dungeons — uncommon or rare bind on pickup — all eligible looters will automatically collect the appearance, leaving the need option for players who will actually use the gear. Epic gear appearances, however, will be tied to the player who loots and binds the item in order to preserve a bit of the prestige from having epics.

Other restrictions for transmog include some changes to make it feel more authentically Classic. You’ll only be able to transmog an item to the same type, so the healer Paladin wearing a cloth robe can only transmog to cloth pieces — a limitation that modern WoW will be abandoning soon. However, you’ll be able to pick multiple armor type appearances for each slot in order to preserve your outfit if you happen to get an upgrade, just like the modern transmog interface. Appearances need to be at your level or lower while leveling up, but hitting 60 will remove that and open everything up. VvP will require the proper rank in order to transmog those appearances.

At the end of the WoW: Forever Deep Dive panel, we were told that this is just part of the transmog overview and there’s a lot more that we’ll be hearing about in the coming days and weeks. Blizzard took a lot of care in adding transmog for players who want it, while making sure it impacts non-transmoggers as little as possible. It seems they’re truly trying to go for the best of both worlds here in giving players the autonomy to decide how their character looks. How will transmog affect your WoW: Forever experience? Which option will you choose?