So Blizzard are finally letting us change our genders at the barbershop. This is great, my Orc will be transitioning. However why do I have to pay to change her deadname? She no longer wants to be called Grokator, she wants to be called Grakatar. Why should I have to pay so she can drop her deadname?
Agree, I wanted to become a female dwarf. Thank you Blizzard for giving us such opportunity. However, it would be much better if you let us to change the names for free. I want to embrace the new side of my character. I want to appear as a butterfly that has come out of its cocoon but a name may stop my dream.I want to make the transition completely with the name change. I hope they will solve it asap
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All Iâve seen on this is a single thread that was grasping at straws, have we had confirmation (and if so can you link it)?
Donât see why theyâd make it ingame when they have it as a RMT though.
John Hight
A long time ago, we had the ability for players to go in - it was actually a paid service - and change their character. Much of that is now in the barber shop in the game, and as we were adding things up in Shadowlands, we realised, âGosh the only way you can change your gender in World of Warcraft is to go through this paid service.â And we felt like thatâs not the right message.
Unfortunately, we canât fix that right now but it is our intent with Shadowlands to take that out of being a paid service thing and [put it] in the barber shop. But thatâs not something we can easily hotfix - unfortunately we canât do that right now. It is something that weâre going to have in Shadowlands itself.
WoW is a game that doesnât try to emphasise sexual relationships so in that regard, we donât necessarily tell that part of the story other than to hint around it. But we certainly have characters [that have] - or weâve always thought of characters as having - different gender identities in the game.
We donât try to put a big focus on it and make it a big deal, we just try to make the game feel comfortable, friendly, and approachable for everybody in the game, regardless of where they come from.
Does this mean there were already trans characters in the game?
Knowing some of our designers and having conversations with them, Iâm sure that was the intent, but we like to keep things subtle.
Give em an inch and they take a mile
You get what you get⊠be happy about it
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Transitioning is an important process, and itâd be good if Blizzard showed some compassion for the characters going through that, changing their identity completely is only possible if you can change their name.
I am well aware of the fact that capitalism is inherently oppressive to transgender people, but I hope Blizzard will at least attempt to counter that.
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oooh YAY!
If theyâre letting this go in game at the expense of revenue I donât see whatâs stopping a name change at the same time, though Iâm not holding my breath.
You seem to lack an understanding of how damaging deadnames are to transpeople. Itâs wrong to charge money for that while allowing us to transition for free.
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Theyâre pixels⊠they have no feelings
Stop trying to find problems where there are none
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Blizzard implemented this citing trans rights. I think itâs only fair that they go the full way with it.
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stop being so rude, changing names during transition is a normal process
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Damn I will have to tell my best fried about this! He couldâve just gotten to Barber Shop!
Ever heard of the phrase âthe personal is politicalâ? I thought not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_personal_is_political
It does seem a total waste if they neglect to allow name changes.
No no no, name changing would be so easily abused. Like you use hacks and someone sees you? quickly go to barber and change name so when he will report you, the player will no longer exist. And itâs only one scenario.
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D⊠do we really have to call it transitioning?
Allow name change for free every month boom solved !
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Kinda, yeah, glass is full for both 
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I think thatâs a valid point, so are they going to give up the name change revenue.
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Because itâs not supposed to represent the struggles of RL gender transitions, just like picking a lighter skin option isnât going to represent the pressures of RL people with darker skin tones to bleach their skin to lighter complexions. And as far as player names go, some people are just called JĂ©llyrĂłll, or have âsurnamesâ as the player name.
Still, Iâm all for the choice of the individual. A free name change option for any player would be nice, though would probably lead to more problems than free gender changes as you have to take into account how many names are just used up these days. If they make other changes to names like extending the character count and adding the possibility of surnames (with spaces), why not?