World of Warcraft plays dress up

The options for visual customization at the character creation stage in World of Warcraft are extremely limited in comparison to Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest II. I always thought that what WoW lacked in initial customization, they made up for with the unique looking armour and weapons found in game. However as the endgame approaches, every player wants their avatar festooned with the most powerful of epic gear. Ultimately, everyone in each character class ends up looking more or less the same.

With the upcoming 1.7 patch, Blizzard intends to implement a feature called the Dressing Room, where a separate window shows your avatar wearing armour, clothing and weapons before purchasing them. This feature works regardless of the required level of the equipment, allowing you to plan your snazzy new outfit in advance. I can see this also being useful for any Soulbound items you may find that are otherwise unsellable to other players once you've worn them. Though the entire prospect of simply previewing clothing on your character seems ridiculous when compared against a system that actually allows you to customize your outfits.

Tailoring and Leatherworking are the only professions that allow the use of dyes to be used in the crafting process, but even then they're only for use in certain recipes. When I look back to the item creation system in Star Wars Galaxies, it not only allowed players to change the appearance of the item, but also experiment with the item's stats themselves. Through probability and the Engineering skill level, even lower level Artisans in Star Wars Galaxies are able to create powerful items relative to their character's level. World of Warcraft has a similar system in that the recipes you obtain when you first select a profession are usually useful for your character at that level, but the process by which the items are created is extremely stringent in comparison. Indeed, even the player-enchanted items in World of Warcraft's Auction House begin to seem repititious in light of some of the unique or rare drops you would find by simply killing monsters. The entire crafting system seems underdeveloped in this regard.

World of Warcraft has turned into a completely absorbing experience for me; this is a world I can spend hours simply wandering through, paying no heed to the tasks I may have volunteered myself for. The first time I visit a new region I take a few moments to simply observe my surroundings - sure, the monsters may have simply changed names or color, but the environments are easily the most carefully designed elements of the game. With such limited choices for building new characters, I'd like to see more effort put towards allowing players to customize their characters during the game. The social aspect of World of Warcraft is certainly part of the appeal of playing, but careful examination of the gameplay reveals a startlingly slim difference from the typical stat-pumping RPG.

I know you too well