Phew: Blizzard clarifies you'll get every transmog from WoW's quests like in The War Within beta—and retroactively, no less

GamesMMOWorld of WarcraftWorld of Warcraft: The War WithinPhew: Blizzard clarifies you’ll get every transmog from WoW’s quests like in The War Within beta—and retroactively, no lessWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Blizzard)

Anduin holds his blade out in the World of Warcraft: The War Within cinematic trailer.

This article was posted August 9, then updated August 12 to reflect clarifications from Blizzard.Click hereto jump to the new information.

World of Warcraft: The War Within is ramping up to be massive for the MMO’s quality of life. Warbands, as a feature, make the game incredibly alt-friendly, letting players trade key currencies, “warbound” items, and giving them account-wide storage accessible from anywhere for a pretty nominal fee.

Transmog—that is, the game’s outfit system that lets you swap out the models of your equipped gear—also had a massive boost. Previously, you’d only unlock appearances for items your character could equip themselves. Now almost anything you pick up will drop into your collection.

It seemed these improvements would go one step further with the game’s questing system: For those completely alien to MMORPGs, in WoW, when you complete a quest, you get to pick one item out of several as a reward.

In The War Within beta, quests award appearances for every item theycouldgive players, regardless of the reward they chose. Players (myself included) had a miniature heart attack when it seemed that Blizzard would be walking it back in the live version of the game, as per this thread on thecustomer support forums.

The thread’s creator brings up the issue, to which a member of the game’s customer support staffwrites: “I’m afraid that this”—quests giving you all appearances from their rewards—“is incorrect, and was most likely a bug during the beta. Sorry.”

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As for why this response inflicted heartburn on the playerbase, there’s two factors at play. First off,as WoWhead notes, associate game director Morgan Day appeared to confirm the behaviour was intentional in an interview withMrGM. “Appeared” is the key word here, however, because while the question itself explicitly referenced rewarding players with every appearance, Day’s answer is actually non-specific:

“Quests will continue to grant the transmog and should be retroactive, and also with warbands coming in the War Within, any items that you have in your bank or your inventory will become collectible like I’m sure you saw. Sadly, if you deleted things, I don’t think those will count, sorry—make sure you collect things and keep them in your bank or your Void storage.”

The other factor is, well, it just seems counterintuitive. Particularly when stacked up against the way warbands are designed to work. Not only are appearances now easier to collect from non-quest activities, the quests themselves will be absent on your minimap if a member of your warband has completed them at least once.

Interestingly enough, however, I hopped into The War Within beta and found that, after knocking out a quick quest in Terokkar Forest, I was given every item for the quest “It’s Watching You!”

(Image credit: Blizzard)

A chat log in World of Warcraft showing a character receiving multiple transmog rewards.

This made me suspicious enough to make a note, in the original version of this article, that it’s entirely possible this whole thing was a miscommunication, and that the the information such staff have access to—namely, what is and isn’t intended on the live server—probably doesn’t include beta features that are yet to make it into the main game. Lo and behold, a second clarification arrived in short order.

Blizzard clarifies

Community manager Kaivax cleaned up confusion regarding the transmog system,posting to the forumslate last weekend:

“We’re also still working on the much-discussed update that makes it so that when quests are completed, all appearances from non-cosmetic item rewards will be granted, regardless of whether that particular class could have seen or chosen them. We plan for this to be retroactive, so any quests that you previously completed should grant all qualifying appearances when you first log onto any character.

“Again, our intent is to implement the above with the next patchafterthe launch of The War Within.”

It’s a relief to hear that it was all a big misunderstanding—because warbands are an absolute win for the game—both in terms ofnonsense meme peddlingandgameplay improvements.

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