Barber Shop Additions / No Race & Faction Change in WotLK Classic

barber shop additions no race & faction change in wotlk classic featured image

Among the long list of features coming in WotLK Classic & the changes that Blizzard is making to improve the player experience was a little, somewhat cryptic announcement regarding the barber shop:

Barber Shop Improvements – In the years since the Barber Shop was first added in Wrath, World of Warcraft has added additional customization options, including some that originally were only available as paid services. We’re going to incorporate all of those improvements in Wrath Classic rather than reverting to the authentic 2008 behavior.

It was not clear what additional customization options this paragraph was referring to. So players took to Twitter to ask Brian Birmingham, WoW Classic lead, and thankfully, he responded! According to mr. Birmingham, the additional changes this passage to refers to are changing your face and gender, which were paid services back in the day. This is a very welcome addition to the game, allowing players an extra degree of customization of their character without the need to pay.

However, he also disappointed a lot of players by clarifying that the barber shop additions do not include the race and faction change features, which are not planned for WotLK Classic at all, barber shop or otherwise. The exact rationale for this change was not given, but mr. Birmingham did say that “Part of the concern was people changing races just to be the lastest flavor-of-the-month based on specific racials”, as as well as that Blizzard could reconsider.

Nevertheless, a bit of a mixed bag of news. Players who aren’t happy with their character’s appearance and gender will be very happy, while those who aren’t happy with their character’s race or faction are no doubt somewhat disappointed, as they’ll have to level up a new character if they want to change race / faction, as it has been the case since Classic first came out.


What are your thoughts on this topic? Are you happy about Blizzard adding the option to change your character’s face & gender, and that they’re restricting the ability to change your race & faction? Or would you rather be able to change race & faction, even if it was a paid service like back in OG Wrath of the Lich King? Let us know in the comments below!

Brian Birmingham – (Source)

No, the additional changes in the barber shop are the ability to change your face and gender for in-game gold, rather than as a paid out-of-game service. Race and Faction change are *not* planned for Wrath of the Lich King Classic.

About the Author

Pride

Classic WoW is my jam, with a passion for PvP. Most know me as Baranor, the ret paladin guy, but I'm secretly a druid main, don't tell anyone. In my free time I play Switch games, particularly JRPGs. Some day I'll be making my own games and I humbly hope you play those too!

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

7 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Kuilox
Kuilox
1 year ago

Faction changes should be implemented, the imbalance on servers are already so out of wack it doesn’t really make a difference. At the least, it lets me play with friends of the opposite faction on the same server without spending weeks preparing another character.
As well as Alliance racials being overall better in WOTLK, I prefer being alliance.

Last edited 1 year ago by Kuilox
hehe
hehe
Reply to  Kuilox
1 year ago

just buy a boost lul

eheh
eheh
Reply to  hehe
1 year ago

theres only 1 boost lul

Tides
Tides
Reply to  eheh
1 year ago

Get another acc lul

MeThePlayer
MeThePlayer
1 year ago

Here are the words of Patrick Dawnson “Director of Production on World of Warcraft” and Tom Jones “Technical Designer” at Blizzard.

“Blizzard is considering adding services that allow players to change faction or race. ”

So the gentleman is very nice but he should not sell the skin of the bear before having killed it

Thank you … and good evening people.

Name
Name
1 year ago

Not entirely sure this os the right choice. Just leave it as it was. There’s a lot of “I know this guy is a gnome because he looks like a gnome” familiarity, and I’d hate to see that change, either by sex changes, face changes (would change their portrait) or race changes 🙁 very negative

diesel
diesel
Reply to  Name
1 year ago

this comment literally makes 0 sense.

Scroll to Top