Some of you may have heard this before, but for those that have not: it appears that Blizzard will be introducing some character customization options with the Wrath of the Lich King that will cost real money to take advantage of.
Eurogamer managed to squeeze a couple of details out of Blizzard about the coming microtransaction addition.
"When you create your character, often times you wish you'd done things differently. You wish you were on a different realm, you wish you'd had a different name or you wish you'd chosen a different look and feel," said Blizzard's Paul Sams.
"We want to give you the ability to do this, but we don't want you to do it all the time," said Blizzard's Lee Sparks. "The same thing goes for [the existing] paid character transfer, we don't want people bouncing back and forth."
Although the prices have not been set, it appears that you'll be able to change fundamental qualities about your character in Warcraft through the new system, such as facial features and skin color.
"I think the reason for the monetary expense is more of a barrier so that people don't do it every day," Lee Sparks was quoted as saying. He did not elaborate on why an experience penalty or large in-game gold cost would not achieve the same sort of barrier.
Blizzard would not be the first MMORPG to have both subscription services and microtransacations at the same time -- but what do you think? This seems like double dipping at bit to me. It's not like Blizzard is losing money with WoW -- not that I blame them for squeezing every last dollar out of the game; the customization features are optional after all.
Wrath of the Lich King comes out -- well, it came out just today actually. If you are a WoW fan you probably aren't going to read this news item, and are probably playing the game right as type this, as a matter of fact.
Update: Lydia informs me that you can already change your face and skin color for free with the in-game barber, so it seems hard to guess what changes they'll allow you to alter with a cash payment. Changing your race and class seems a bit too fundamental, but if it is not your hair, face or skin color, what else could it be? Unless they are switching the free barber to a pay-with-real-world cash barber. WoW Insider seems to believe that gender re-assigment and race changing are possible.
