Hello !
I know we already asked it since a bunch of time but one cool “small” thing about customization would be to add dyeing in game.
I know Ion (or maybe the Artistic director in charge back in the days, don’t remember) said dye was a problem because of old colors used on the old items.
Fine, it’s fixable by making them usable on “new” graphic items only (since WoD for example).
I also know there is the problem of existing transmog set colors/difficulty (one color for LFR, once normal, heroic, mythic, vendor, pvp, etc…).
They could let those specific colors linked to their respective content but allow to use another dye on it.
Let say I have my Legs of the Warzazatte.
Those Legs are :
•Blue on LFR
•Green on Normal
•Yellow on Heroic
•Red with golden glowing effects on Mythic
Well, I could transmog them in black, purple, white, etc…
And if I’ve got my Mythic Legs of Warzazatte that I want to transmog into black, they’ll keep their Mythic-specific glowing effect.
Then I’m asking to customization lovers (if you don’t care I don’t think it would be relevant to answer to this topic in my opinion^^) :
What do you think about adding Dyeing in game ?
Thanks for reading ! 
I am not a fan of it in a game like WoW.
Blizzard tried it in Diablo III and I didn’t like it there either.
The problem is that the items in both WoW and Diablo are – for the most part – iconic lore items.
Tal Rasha’s armor in Diablo is purple. That’s how people visually recognize it and it’s what makes it stand out.
When people started coloring it green and black and blue, then it just looked like any other armor. There was no longer anything recognizable about it. Even more confusing did it become when other armor was colored purple and it looked like Tal Rasha’s armor, even though it wasn’t.
With WoW it’s the same. A certain set appearance comes in different colors. And those colors are used as visual recognition. This set comes from Heroic raiding because it’s blue, and that set comes from high-rated PvP because it’s pink, and so on.
I think in other games where items are just plain items and don’t come with fancy names and story backgrounds, then there’s a lot to be said for having dyes and other means of customizing the appearance of those items.
But in WoW the items are infused with story and they’re meant to be unique and special. It’s not random stuff you’re looting on your adventure. It’s some old wizard’s rotten underwear that you’ve found in some forgotten chest and you’re wearing it because it’s infused with magical properties – not because the red color is in fashion.
Hello ! Thank you for your answer !
To answer you, items in WoW are not iconic lore items for the most part.
And this is important to notice. There is indeed, but not so much.
That said, there is (and in every game using Dyeing) exceptions where you can’t using dye.
They could add iconic lore items as you said, PLUS specific colored sets into an “exception list”.
That way, you will still recognize sets and lore items without damage their stories (cause they won’t be touched).
The rest is only a huge army of basic items.
If I understand well, you should have the same problem with transmog and must be mostly Vanilla-style ?
It’s a matter of pure taste where I can’t argue at all because of our differents point of vue.
I just suggested the exceptions, tell me what do you think about it ? Would it be acceptable or do you think every single item should remains as they are ?
I like it in gw2. I dont really have any strong opinion on it in wow. Nice if we get it but not something i will get upset over if we dont.
3 Likes
Hi !
Same thing here, I won’t be upset at all if we don’t but I would love to see it in the game.^^
Sure.
There’s a compromise to be had where you can have the best of both worlds I guess.
I could certainly imagine that crafted items could be made in various colors of one’s choosing, whereas the old wizard’s magical underpants that a big dragon has been guarding for a thousand years are always yellow.
Practically speaking I’m not sure it’s all that necessary though. I mean, Blizzard’s current approach is just to make a ton of different armor appearances. And in fairness, if you have hundreds upon hundreds of different cloaks and boots and gloves to choose from – with more being added constantly – then it feels a bit excessive to add color variation to some items just because.
It feels more like excess than need.
I think there are pros and cons.
I mean, the Vanilla style definitely had the visual recognition. People wore their accomplishments on their sleeves for all to see. On the flip-side you sometimes looked like a clown.
Transmogrification erases all the visual recognition, because people can look like they’re wearing low-level rags and be fully decked out in epic Mythic raid gear. On the other hand it allows people to customize the appearance to their liking, and dressing dolls up is certainly an enjoyable aspect of WoW that many enjoy.
But I do lean toward preserving some of the visual recognition and not going all out on The Sims experience.
2 Likes
I also think it is way way more work then you we think.
I understand and to be honnest I agree with you, we shouldn’t deviate more than necessary.
Just stick to MMORPG codes (there is with or without dye).
I’m not a lore fan at all, that said, I think it’s important for the world we’re playing in to keep his story.
Same for items. Important items should conserve their appearance and their story.
That said, again, visual recognition (in my example) was something I never liked. Not for the recognition itself but for the horrible style we almost always got. 
(like clowns as you said :p)
Being free to wear what we want (visually) seems perfectly right for this kind of game, where we’re controlling, living our character.
And yet, I still agree with you, it demands limits. It’s not about asking self-showers or befoul lore iconic items, no.
Hello !
I’m sorry if I let think I was saying it’s not much work but suggesting it for 9.1.5 or using the word “small” thing.
By “small” thing, we need to understand secondary functionnality.^^
I don’t think you can apply dying to existing items (not easily at least), because they’re not coded with masks and shaders but are “painted as they are” if i understand it correctly ( im not a digital artist so i may be wrong) as if they were already compressed or rendered images to use an analogy.
it could be possible I guess, but only on new items designed specifically to be dyed.
ther’s nothing that would stop blizz from making certain armours dyeable, and other iconic ones not, if the problem is going around with a pink frostmourne.
not all items in wow are iconic, i’d say there have been no iconic items ingame since legion’s artifact weapons.
I think it could also cause increased load on the servers because it would require much more informations to be send to our clients every time a player is rendered.
1 Like
Hello !
Yeah I think that’s the kind of explanation they gave us back in… Legion maybe ?
Well not a prob, only on new items since the patch they’re adding Dyeing then. 
Dyes have been requested for a while and it’s not really that the devs don’t want to it’s more that it would require a massive amount of work because the system for armors is just not set like that in the engine itself.
Tldrl; they’ll never add dyes.
2 Likes
Mmmmh yeah, sad but understandable.
I expected maybe a little more from a huge company like them but if it’s not designed that way from the beginning… Too bad.
It cost nothing to ask, right ? 
For sure, it’s the period to ask, for once they seem to be listening to feedback now that half of the playerbase jumped ship lol.
1 Like
keep also in mind the game engine is pretty old, and they have issues when they have to touch ancient parts of the code.
1 Like
I hope you get your dyeing wish! 
2 Likes
I would love to be able to dye my amor and even weapon.
It win older games than WoW like Everquest 1,though the execution there is horrible.
I just think it be neat. Could work like in ark where you can dye different parts of the armor in different colors
1 Like
That said, I’m also very happy with the transmog part.^^
I would prefer a huge improvement on the great vault for sure but I made another topic specially for it.
As Odrihm said, it’s the period to ask.^^
It’s a good system, but for the most part it needs to be part of the basic design to be successful. Loved the combinations in GW2.
1 Like
I love it in GW2 too. I also loved it in Wildstar and Swtor for few examples, but the GW2 ones are really great.
Plus some rares dyes to got, some expansive, and you have to loot them through event, professions, etc… That’s cool.