A Solution: Cooler achievements, Cooler loot

Yeah, this one’s pretty obvious. If the problem is lack of rewards that affect your character, add rewards that do so.

Learn new abilities. For example, take the trinket for teleporting to respective sides in Alterac Valley. Maybe after so many kills/wins/losses you’ll gain the achievement “Don’t tell me where to go!” with a new skill in your general tab “Teleport: [Dun Baldar/Frostwolf Keep].” Another example might be a passive skill to add 1% to some gathering proc rate. Maybe killing bosses will give additional hate rating on a diminishing return basis: 10=5hr, 25=10hr, 50=15hr, 100=20hr, etc. Of course, you’d have to scale that by level, but it’s a solid example – call it “Not you again!”

Loot quest items in the mail. I’m not too hot for this idea – I’d rather see characters advance by ways other than loot – but it’s still a valid solution. Gaining certain achievements should send you a quest item that you could turn in somewhere to claim a reward. Maybe if you pickpocket 1000 items, you’ll get mail from Ravenholdt (another rant entirely) with a quest item that you can turn in for some cool gloves with a property to increase pickpocketing range (like the glyph). Get creative with it.

Access to secrets. Maybe there’s a secret room in Dalaran for people who’ve completed every heroic dungeon, a room where they sell discounted Emblem of Heroism items (like 10% discount). Maybe completing all the lore-related quests would grant you access to a library with all of the game’s books – nothing you can’t do anyway with legwork, but all in one place. Little secret locations /exclusive content that anyone can get to with a bit of work, but make you feel like the achievement was really worth the effort.

I’m sure that all the Blizzard folks can think of even more enjoyable rewards if they can get over the “achievement rewards should not affect gameplay” nonsense they seem to have in the rulebook. You can always disable the bonuses in arena if the character advancements are a threat to the (laughable) PVP balance.

Then there’s pieces you just wish were something—ANYTHING—else. As I primarily play a rogue, the most relevant example is the Terrorblade Helmet. I saw this item and was immediately baffled, and shortly thereafter progressed to horrified. The same butt-ugly model is used for the lore-related Garona’s Guise, which just makes my inner rogue weep. Other examples are very easy to find.

C’mon guys, I know you’re aware of the “don’t show helmet” option, but why on earth would you make it mandatory?

To be fair, taste obviously varies from person to person. There are most likely people out there that actually want to wear a screaming bald zombie head as a helmet. For those that don’t, they’re screwed.

A Solution: the Illusionist NPC

Here’s a solution: Create an NPC or skill that will bring up an interface with 2 slots: the Target item, and the Source item. Pay a hefty sum (say, 500 gold) to copy the model and skin of the source item to the target item. Reverting to the original look is free.

All of the sudden you’ve got a very attractive gold sink, and players can look however they want. I can stop wearing this flaming piece of junk in favor of, say, something a little more fashionable – assuming I have the original item to throw in the Source slot.

I’d be first in line to cough up a few grand to make my outfit look the way I want it to.

And this guy wouldn’t have to wear a dress.