Paid character customisation for WOW

By Robert Purchese Published 13 October, 2008

Plus: man who plays 36 accounts alone.

Blizzard has revealed that World of Warcraft will offer some sort of paid character customisation in the future.

Production director J. Allen Brack confirmed the news during a small press conference at BlizzCon 2008, according to WarCry. Details, however, are still being figured out.

The talk also touched on various other grey areas in WOW expansion Wrath of the Lich King: whether or not the titular super boss Arthas will be killable, for example. Blizzard's still unsure.

The developer also hasn't settled on what to do about Arthas' sword Frostmourne, and whether players will be able to loot it. This seems unlikely, given its power; the best Blizzard solutions so far are introducing the weapon as a once-per-server drop, or in shard form - which will still be a legendary piece of loot.

Takes an awful lot of raid organisation to clear out the toughest dungeons, though - if only we could do it all ourselves, like "Prepared", a man who owns 36 accounts and raids by himself. Seriously.

He has 32 Shaman at level 61, according to his letter to Dual-Boxing (including pictures), complimented by his existing eight level 70 characters. He pays USD 5711 (62 times a six-month fee) in subscription fees each year, and plans to buy 36 copies of Wrath of the Lich King at launch, costing around USD 1500.

We dread to think how much all the computer hardware and electrical bills cost him.

His main goal is to raid the Alliance cities of Stormwind and Ironforge, but he's also partial to a bit of 25-man raiding.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (36) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • Razz #1 4 years ago

    o_O That's nutty

  • viper_h #2 4 years ago

    Ho-lee shit......

    I can't even get one character to level 70!

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #3 4 years ago

    Because each account needs an activation key - one per box.

  • gremly #4 4 years ago

    That's fucking crazy XD I struggle doing multi boxing with 2 chars X.x

  • gremly #5 4 years ago

    Bertie - I thought each installation of the game needs an activation key? Surely you can have dozens of accounts on one installation?


    You need to make a copy of the WoW Folder for each account, You can open multiple windows ETC on one pc, But making a new window makes it more effective, I think..

  • bengray66 #6 4 years ago

    I think he would be better off spending five grand on medical help.

  • Darren #7 4 years ago

    Next time someone passes comment at me for buying the *odd* multiformat game on both the PS3 and Xbox 360 or PC, I'll remind them about this guy! LOL

  • shamblemonkee #8 4 years ago

    If you dont want to run them concurrently then you only need one installation, from which you can launch either account whether it be yours, friends, spouse, gf..etc.

    It then splits the account settings at the WTF folder.
    Edited by shamblemonkee at 13/10/08 @ 11:10

  • andywilkie35 #9 4 years ago

    That poor guy, he must have had such a tough time at school.

  • viper_h #10 4 years ago

    You need one key per account. You can't make a new account without a CD key.

    Also, you can only have one character per account logged in at a time.

  • groovychainsaw #11 4 years ago

    maybe he's got genuine multiple personailty disorder, and thinks he's only playing as one person...

  • Evolution #12 4 years ago

    "...it's a hobby and there are more expensive hobbies out there than World of Warcraft."

    Nice justification...

  • t8yman #13 4 years ago

    he might know how to control a small army on WoW but I bet he couldnt find a clitoris with both hands, a map and a torch.

    lollercopters.

  • Djrds #14 4 years ago

    omfg
    That's crazy... :|

  • butler` #15 4 years ago

    [insert rudamentry generalised nerd comment about wow players]

  • MasterNameless #16 4 years ago

    @butler'

    Bloody hell, so this guy is a good example of the general WoW populace? No wonder we're in a recession. Damn you Blizzard!

  • CaptCastle #17 4 years ago

    Paid character customisation? With real money? I guess they must be short of income.

    Micro transactions AND monthly subscriptions, I hope it doesn't start a trend. (What am I saying, it's WoW, of course all other MMOs will follow!)

  • saku_luk #18 4 years ago

    Blizz should sell gold, srsly that would kill all farmers and blizz would make tons of real money with this!!

  • iokthemonkey #19 4 years ago

    Micro transactions AND monthly subscriptions, I hope it doesn't start a trend. (What am I saying, it's WoW, of course all other MMOs will follow!)

    ----

    WoW (and many other games) already does that - paid server transfers, pay to change character names, etc.

  • kangarootoo #20 4 years ago

    The number of characters is one thing, and I guess just shows some very dedicated play. The "raiding by himself" bit is kind of odd though. That dude needs some proper genuine help, as I think we can all agree he is unwell. If they ever switch off the WoW servers, I think that dude will end up on the news being fished out of a canal.

    On the subject of pay-to-customise, I might have to wheel out another patented kangarootoo prediction here.

    The future of mmos is pay-for-free with revenue generated by micropayments. I suspect Blizzard are shaping up for a future that encompases that. No time soon I would say. I would also say (in the name of refining the prediction) that their first major step will be a two tiered system, with limited but free play alongside "gold" membership for a monthly sub.

    You heard it here first*


    *Given this is the internet, that statement is almost certainly not true.

  • kangarootoo #21 4 years ago

    "he might know how to control a small army on WoW but I bet he couldnt find a clitoris with both hands, a map and a torch. "

    I am always very suspicious of posters that bring insults over sexual prowess into a discuss. They almost always 'doth protest too much' ;)

  • Gl3n #22 4 years ago

    Shame how warcraft is now selling itself out in this manner. How will we ever see another RTS?

  • Marshall2008 #23 4 years ago

    Prepared A.K.A Johnny no mates

  • Marshall2008 #24 4 years ago

    I pay for 3 accounts. One for myself and the other 2 are my kid's accounts. Sometimes if I am soloing i will load up one of the kid's accounts at the same time on my Mac and assist my character.

    On the Mac you only need to make a duplicate of the wow executable in the same folder to run multiple logins at the same time. I can run all 3 accounts like this on my iMac (3.06ghz Nv8800 4GB RAM) but its a pain in the arse to control.

  • Gnort #25 4 years ago

    That guy clearly has nobody in his life. Absolutely nobody.

    Apparently he has 36 virtual dependents to look after.

  • sneetch #26 4 years ago

    @CaptCastle
    "Paid character customisation? With real money? I guess they must be short of income.

    Micro transactions AND monthly subscriptions, I hope it doesn't start a trend. (What am I saying, it's WoW, of course all other MMOs will follow!) "

    Thankfully, some people have seen past the guy with 36 accounts (who is frankly a bit nuts, he should really drop 9 of them at the least, 25 man raids).

    My initial reaction to paid character customisation is that it seems to be one greedy step too far, we pay for the game, we pay for expansions, we pay for monthly subscriptions, we pay for realm transfers, we pay for name changes and now they want us to pay for character customisation whatever that is?

    The barber shop allows you to tweak your appearance so this isn't that sort of customisation, enchants and inscriptions allow you to customise your equipment and abilities so it's not that kinda of customisation. Therefore I can only assume it's some sort of follow on to the name change service, possibly it allows you to tweak your race/class combo and possibly even faction because (again, I assume) it can't be something that gives you any advantage in the game because then they would have broken their own game. So, you can change your level 80 orc mage to a 80 blood elf warlock or possibly even an orc mage (as it's supposed to be customisation)?

    I dunno, it's vague and a bit... off.

    Edit: what the hell was I talking about in that first bit? Fixed now.
    Edited by sneetch at 13/10/08 @ 14:32

  • Drogul #27 4 years ago

    Sorry for my ignorance, but how do you control 25 characters in a raid???? I understand the different accounts and machines but I don't understand how is it possible to control all characters at same time.

  • Thornhillboy #28 4 years ago

    IRT Drogal

    Easy, graft 35 pairs of hands onto yourself. The mans a wonder of science.

  • Shakey_Jake33 #29 4 years ago

    Hoenstly not meaning to rip into the guy, but he's such a high level on so many characters, does he not have friends on the game that he can do raids with? I mean, he's willing to go such lengths and financial expenses.

    I sometimes let my brother borrow my character on FFXI if he wants to do some quest and I'm too busy to help, and he plays on a 360 and PC simultaniously, but 36 is insane.

  • Ninja_Tino #30 4 years ago

    That's a lot of pc's in one room. He could actually be pretty fit. He must have to jump from pc to pc constantly!

  • Drogul #31 4 years ago

    Thornhillboy

    You must be joking, right?

  • sneetch #32 4 years ago

    @Drogul
    "Thornhillboy

    You must be joking, right?"

    No it's true, there was an article about him on the BBC science website but it's 35 arms, not just hands, he's like a comic book villain now. ;)

    Naw, he presumable uses macros and several keyboards etc. I can see how you could do a 5 man, directly control the tank, have the DPS etc slaved so that they /assist the tank and follow attack pattern one/two etc and the healer just heals the tank. But 25? That seems a bit nuts, he'd be like an organist, but one who has to keep his heal his tank etc healed. :)

    I can't imagine he'd be able to raid a lot of the stuff like Gruul, too much moving about really.

  • HMAN #33 4 years ago

    ^^ Glol

  • chrisjm #34 4 years ago

    a real hit with the girls

  • trixter©ú #35 4 years ago

    Agree that maybe 5 would be doable - really pushing 10 for ZA or Kara but I might believe that too...but to one-man Maggie/Gruul with 25 chars? He'll never pull it off (unless he uses some kind of bots or something).

    Wonder if he greets himself in guild chat when he logs on?

  • iokthemonkey #36 4 years ago

    Therefore I can only assume it's some sort of follow on to the name change service, possibly it allows you to tweak your race/class combo and possibly even faction because (again, I assume) it can't be something that gives you any advantage in the game because then they would have broken their own game

    -----

    You can already pay to change your character name(s). My guess is if they're talking SERIOUS customisation, they're probably going to introduce sex-changes. It was a very common request for a while on the forums.

    As for changing race/class settings, that could be pretty game-breaking. For a start, your race dictates your class choices, so you could only change if parity existed (i.e. to avoid "Human Hunters.";) Changing Class would render your gear useless, so I'm not sure they could do much there, either...