With World of Warcraft: Shadowlands’ beta set for next week, it’s starting to feel like there’s some actual hype building behind this next expansion. We’re learning all sorts of interesting facets to this next era from Blizzard and other sources, such as the fact that the studio is going to drop the fee to change your character’s gender in the barbershop.
“As we were adding things up in Shadowlands, we realized, ‘Gosh the only way you can change your gender in World of Warcraft is to go through this paid service.’ And we felt like that’s not the right message,” said Executive Producer John Hight.
Another big change with the expansion is the fact that unlocking flying in the afterlife will be unlocked through Covenant renown instead of grinding out multiple faction reputations. “What we’re going to do to to unlock flying in Shadowlands is that this is going to be based on renown, so as you develop your renown with your covenant, that will effectively unlock Pathfinder,” Hight said.
And Blizzard is certainly trying to rope in the faithful to commit to a six-months subscription package. As it has done in the past, the studio is offering an exclusive mount for buying a half-year package: a mechanical dragon known as the Steamscale Incinerator. What’s interesting is that players in certain parts of the world will also get a panda cub pet as well with the deal.
