World of Warcraft's upcoming Midnight expansion is bringing sweeping changes to the MMORPG's transmog system, but they look to be far more expensive than players were led to believe.
Earlier this year when Midnight was fully revealed, developer Blizzard announced it would be overhauling the game's cosmetic outfit system in a way that would save players gold. Instead of having to pay gold to transmog individual gear pieces, players would instead transmog gear slots. That slot would then retain its appearance regardless of whatever item was equipped, useful as players level up and equip new gear over the course of an expansion or season.
Sounds good on paper. However, the system is now testable on the WoW: Midnight beta, and as broken down by Wowhead, players are discovering these supposedly cost-saving changes are actually extremely expensive.
At Midnight's level cap of 90, equipping a full transmog gear outfit costs around 5,700 gold, over four times more expensive than it is to equip that same set in the game right now. That means that unless a player changes their full set of gear five times, the current system is actually cheaper.
Transmog costs actually scale with level as well, so players will want to save their transmogs at lower levels to save on gold costs. It should be noted that players can save an appearance set for free just as they currently do, but actually equipping that set is where the gold costs comes in.
Outfit slots, a new feature in Midnight, also cost money. These are essentially saved transmog sets where players can go ahead and pay the transmog fee and then save that outfit for later use without having to pay the gold cost again. While players will be given two slots for free, additional slots (up to 20) cost increasingly more gold. The first few are hardly noticeable, with slot three costing 100 gold, slot four costing 500, and slot 5 costing 1,000. From there the gold costs begin to increase rapidly, with the last three slots costing 100,000 gold each.
Adding to the costs is the fact that outfits slots aren't account-wide and are instead on a per-character basis. For players who want multiple outfits on multiple characters, the gold costs begin to add up rather quickly, potentially costing millions of gold for those who want all 20 slots on multiple characters.
Outfit slots are mostly for players who want to be able to jump between transmog outfits frequently, and will work with the game's new "Situations" system. In this new system, players can change between their saved outfits automatically depending on the circumstances, and have a different appearance based on specific activities, like a cozy outfit when they are at their house or a different one when out in the open world or doing dungeons.
For those who change outfits often, the new system does technically save players gold. But for others who use transmog more casually, it could actually be more expensive. It's also a far more confusing system--one where players will now need to weigh the costs of buying new outfit slots and saving transmog sets versus overriding an existing set in an effort to save gold.
It's worth noting that all these prices are on the Midnight beta and will likely change before the expansion launches early next year, especially given the negative reception from players. But considering this feature was pitched as saving fashion-forward players money, as opposed to costing more, this feels like Blizzard took an easy win and instead turned it into a loss.
In other WoW news, early access to the game's housing system will arrive on December 2. Blizzard recently found itself in another controversy when it revealed a premium currency that will be used just for housing items on WoW's in-game shop, despite other items like mounts and transmog sets having always been sold for real currency.
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Earlier this year when Midnight was fully revealed, developer Blizzard announced it would be overhauling the game's cosmetic outfit system in a way that would save players gold. Instead of having to pay gold to transmog individual gear pieces, players would instead transmog gear slots. That slot would then retain its appearance regardless of whatever item was equipped, useful as players level up and equip new gear over the course of an expansion or season.
Sounds good on paper. However, the system is now testable on the WoW: Midnight beta, and as broken down by Wowhead, players are discovering these supposedly cost-saving changes are actually extremely expensive.
At Midnight's level cap of 90, equipping a full transmog gear outfit costs around 5,700 gold, over four times more expensive than it is to equip that same set in the game right now. That means that unless a player changes their full set of gear five times, the current system is actually cheaper.
Transmog costs actually scale with level as well, so players will want to save their transmogs at lower levels to save on gold costs. It should be noted that players can save an appearance set for free just as they currently do, but actually equipping that set is where the gold costs comes in.
Outfit slots, a new feature in Midnight, also cost money. These are essentially saved transmog sets where players can go ahead and pay the transmog fee and then save that outfit for later use without having to pay the gold cost again. While players will be given two slots for free, additional slots (up to 20) cost increasingly more gold. The first few are hardly noticeable, with slot three costing 100 gold, slot four costing 500, and slot 5 costing 1,000. From there the gold costs begin to increase rapidly, with the last three slots costing 100,000 gold each.
Adding to the costs is the fact that outfits slots aren't account-wide and are instead on a per-character basis. For players who want multiple outfits on multiple characters, the gold costs begin to add up rather quickly, potentially costing millions of gold for those who want all 20 slots on multiple characters.
Outfit slots are mostly for players who want to be able to jump between transmog outfits frequently, and will work with the game's new "Situations" system. In this new system, players can change between their saved outfits automatically depending on the circumstances, and have a different appearance based on specific activities, like a cozy outfit when they are at their house or a different one when out in the open world or doing dungeons.
For those who change outfits often, the new system does technically save players gold. But for others who use transmog more casually, it could actually be more expensive. It's also a far more confusing system--one where players will now need to weigh the costs of buying new outfit slots and saving transmog sets versus overriding an existing set in an effort to save gold.
It's worth noting that all these prices are on the Midnight beta and will likely change before the expansion launches early next year, especially given the negative reception from players. But considering this feature was pitched as saving fashion-forward players money, as opposed to costing more, this feels like Blizzard took an easy win and instead turned it into a loss.
In other WoW news, early access to the game's housing system will arrive on December 2. Blizzard recently found itself in another controversy when it revealed a premium currency that will be used just for housing items on WoW's in-game shop, despite other items like mounts and transmog sets having always been sold for real currency.
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