Anyone who plays an RPG knows the simple rule of form over function. Whether it’s Fashion Souls or the act of sacrificing stats for the cooler looking hat, few things come before appearance in games where you can make the choice.
World of Warcraft, thankfully, rarely makes you choose. This is primarily due to the Transmogrification feature, where weapons can be modified into other weapons’ appearances. There’s a few restrictions, but generally the options are quite extensive.
Players need to stick to their armor type – a plate-wearing warrior won’t opt for a priest’s cloth robe, and a dagger can’t be made to look like a bow – but things past that get a bit more loose. Swords can look like axes, maces, polearms, and some can even turn to staves.
One thing that players have been asking for for quite some time is more simple transmogs. One of the handful of restrictions is that common and trash items – white and gray items – cannot be used for transmogrification appearances, requiring items to be of green or higher quality.
The only issue there is that the white and gray items hold the majority of the simple appearances. Players that want simplistic transmogs so that their character can be wielding a simple longsword or staff often were unable to find the simple designs they wanted.
With this upcoming expansion, it seems that Blizzard intends to add in more simple items for players that want their transmogrifications to hold a more simple, realistic appearance. However, given that these were datamined appearances, this should be taken with a bit of hesitation.
While unconfirmed as datamined items, some of the appearances seem rather concrete, with a vendor selling several of them. These items are being sold under the category of “Expeditionary” and currently contains a seemingly-incomplete selection.
At the moment, the vendor in question sells a Longbow, Quarterstaff, Staff, Greatsword, Short Sword, Dagger, and Cudgel. The vendor was also being viewed from the perspective of a human warrior, which could be restricting some options.
There are other appearances which haven’t appeared yet, such as a selection of simplistic shields, but it seems like they’re likely to appear. To acquire these appearances, players will need to complete Exile’s Reach within the Shadowlands expansion.
Of course, that isn’t to say that Shadowlands will be filled with simplistic and relatively “boring” appearances for players to collect. There are certain to be plenty of elaborate and fantastical appearances for players to obtain. Still, it’s wonderful to see fans of more simplistic designs finally getting some love.