Alternative rewards

This is so important that I'll start with this right off the bat: rewards that go beyond the usual phat lewtz. WoW has always very skillfully used a borderline addictive mechanism that relied on proper incentives and gratification in order to get people to make best use of the content provided. For the most part, those incentives were provided by vanquishing ever stronger enemies to obtain ever better gear. This is something the game has nailed down, which isn’t surprising considering that the game balance and its challenges hinge on the itemization curve being balanced.

However, where this game could grow is when it comes to handing out rewards that are desirable without having any impact on a character’s stats. The root of the problem is that people want to be rewarded for their efforts - but what worked in WoW classic (“spoiling” people with blues and the occasional sub-par epic as a reward for hitting exalted with several factions) isn’t really an option anymore if players can easily get better rewards for endeavors which are more challenging but far less time-consuming than a reputation grind or a quest chain (like a Mythic+ instance, for example). On the other hand handing out item rewards that are actually competitive with M+ or raid loot would force other players to delve into content they might consider boring or too time-intensive. So what is the solution?

For lack of a better word, let's call simply call them "alternative rewards", as opposed to "progression rewards” (aka “better gear”). Their payoff is immersion into the gaming world, vanity or just plain and simply convenience, and they should have the following characteristics:

•  If done right, these would give players an incentive to go through new content and yet have a feeling of accomplishment and achievement afterwards.
• They don’t force a player into doing said content – a player who just wants to progress his character can spend his entire time playing the game doing raids or instances without ever touching content of that sort.
• The reward should fit to the nature of the task. As the lacking popularity of the challenge modes in MoP and WoD has shown (especially when compared to M+ in Legion), for truly challenging content "progression rewards" may be the more fitting option.
• If possible, the task should be more interesting than a tedious grind. The armor sets in WoD (the Draenei armor or the sets of the four Orc clans) were actually pretty nice, the problem was the way they were achieved: finally getting them left a sour taste in one’s mouth because they were tied to content that was simply not interesting but nonetheless required blowing one’s time, and a lot of this at that (farming literally thousands of Blackrock Orcs for reputation and armor scraps is no fun at all).
• They certainly should be more than mere achievements, though these have proven to be quite useful when it came to measuring one’s progress towards a greater meta achievement that actually did net something that qualifies as an immersion reward.

Possible rewards (those with a * are already in the game in one way or another, although they have the potential to be expanded upon, while those with ** are untapped possibilities that haven't been implemented, but might actually be a nice addition to the game).

• Exploration*: The most basic reward, and the actual reason why people originally set out to play this game: the feeling of wonder and the sense of exploration, of gaining new hitherto unmade experiences. This of course was the basically most of the original game (at least until you hit level 60, and even at that point it continued a fair bit), but has gradually declined since then. Burning Crusade still made an effort to go into this by including content that was only accessible for players who had mastered flight (like, say, Ogri-La), but with Legion end-game exploration made a surprising comeback (more on that later).
• Titles*: The easiest sort if incentive and WoW's go-to solution in the past. The problem: is also the least meaningful since it ultimately is nothing more than a string of letters in addition to one’s actual name.

o Names/honorifics**: A possible expansion on titles: Family names, clan names and so on; can be combined with standard titles. Either they’re pre-defined (because it would be pretty cool to be able to join the house of Doomhammer), or they can be picked by the players themselves - like normal names, except that they would go beyond the name picked during character creation and would have to be earned first.

• Toys*: Another easy immersion reward – usually exclusively a vanity item with little gameplay value, although some (like for example the chef’s hat) can be pretty useful in their own right.
• Mounts/pets*: Mounts and pets are another popular reward for getting difficult-to-obtain achievements, and a considerably more interesting one than titles.
• Mobility convenience features*: These have become rather popular in the more recent past (roughly since WoD), though they have been there since the beginning. They enable players to unlock certain features which make the gameplay much smoother and avoid unnecessary timesinks (usually of the traveling sort).

o Unlocking flying*: Not dissimilar to the mount restrictions, but also not entirely the same. Nevertheless a huge convenience feature.

o Teleports*: Hearthstone, Magetower portals (WoD), flightmaster whistle (Legion), Warrior descent (Legion), Suramar portals (Legion) etc.

o Speed*: The option to get faster mounts.

o Environmental perks*: Being able to acquire waterwalking, breathing under water, etc.

• Visual gear*: While a variety of tabards has been around since classic, the implementation of transmogrification also made obtaining various pieces of armor a worthwhile endeavor.

o Tabards*: These have been a possible reward since forever, but an additional option would be introducing tabards with different cuts (or different tabard cuts in general).

o Armor skins*: Statless vanity armor has been around since MoP, but overall there have been rather few of them. The options are virtually endless – for example, every class could get various race-themed armor sets.

o Armor modifications**: Something that has been steadfastly refused so far – the option to modify one’s own armor by using dye or through adornments (ideally both).

o Transmog preset**: Instead of having to transmogrify every single set piece, the option to have a pre-defined look that applies regardless of what one is wearing. Also, the option to switch between different presets (yes, I shamelessly stole that one from SWTOR).

o Standarts etc.**: Standarts like the arena standart or the Burning Blade standart (or potential new additions like a samurai-like banner, or a set of them) so far have exclusively been non-equippable – even though they would make a decent replacement for coats in the back slot.

• Followers*: In WoD, the acquisition of followers was partially random, but a very important ingame tool; while in Legion the followers were more interesting, but the player had little say in who he got (and they were an indispensable ingame tool). 

o NPC followers*: Key characters from the Warcraft lore could be made available as companions, albeit this time they are more a nice-to-have (and a difficult-to-get) on top of that (see chapters on WoW strategy: followers.).

o Follower transmog/design/race**: The player has a lot more say in who joins him and who doesn’t, and how they look like. So if a player wants an army of red-clad Blood Elves, that should be possible.

• Property*: Real estate and everything around it. Has been somewhat implemented with WoD, but a lot of its potential was left unexplored.

o Buildings*: Various buildings, from a hut to a castle, also various workshops or fortifications.

o Cultural style**: All distinct cultural styles of every race can be used for the base.

o Furniture**: Can be unlocked and used to furnish the various buildings in and around the player's estate.

o Surroundings**: Players can acquire more land around their buildings, either for more buildings or for cultivation.

o Cultivation**: Of gardens, fields, grasslands and forests.

o Household**: Various vendors, craftsmen, professionals, quest givers, and guards can be employed.

•  Skill visuals*: The option to customize the visual effects of skills. Currently pretty much the last vestige of glyphs. Instead of limiting these to inscription, a wide array of visual effects (which, of course, would be ever-increasing in coolness) could as well be turned into rewards which have to be unlocked.

• Vehicles**: Not referring to mounts, but to actual vehicles on land, at sea or in the air.

o   Vehicles**: carriages, tanks, ships, zeppelins, airships. 

o   Equipment**: Everything from convenience features to ordnance.

o   Crew**: Soldiers, crewmembers, and other NPCs.

• Races*/classes**: Unlocking races is a brand-new feature that will come with WoW: BFA, while unlocking classes would be an entirely new one. All of the following bullet points could be alternative rewards, but might just as well be default options.

o Subraces*: Also called "allied races".

o New skins/details**: Another customization option in addition to changing the look of your armor - the possibility to change the look of your character beyond the standard skin colors/hair cuts.

o Sub-classes**: Sub-classes are a new idea - basically, they're just a cosmetic overhaul of existing classes (usually tailor-made to fit specific races), just with a new look, new skills, new visuals etc. As rewards, they would behave similar to subraces by needing to be unlocked. Of course, this would only apply if these sub-classes aren’t supposed to be a complete replacement for the baseline classes in the first place. 

o Additional race/class combinations**: Hitherto locked combinations (like, say, a Night Elf Paladin) would offer themselves to be unlockable.

 o Class names**: A nice additional option. This is not the same as earning another title, but simply a new class name. For example, a level 120 Draenei Paladin who qualifies would be a “Level 120 Vindicator” from that point onwards, a level 120 Blood Elf Hunter would be a “Level 120 Ranger” and so on.

•   List slots**: Unlocking additional preset slots (empty ones, of course) for various lists.

o Transmog presets**: See above, bullet point “visual gear”. Currently, players need to transmog each of their armor pieces individually, with presets they would spot specific looks by default, regardless of what they're wearing. If presets were made a thing, they would also make interesting new rewards.

o   Skill builds**: Currently, players have exactly one preset build per specialization option, regardless of whether they're using entirely different skills or talents for certain situations. In my opinion, pre-defined skill builds (similar to how they were handled after dual specialization was implemented) would have been the better option, if it wasn't for the fact that dual spec was limited to two of them.

• Ingame games**:This is something different from toys - they wouldn't just be funny but nonsensical additions, but actual games with proper rules in the game itself. Trading card games and the like would offer themselves for this, especially due to the fact that Blizzard already has created one with the proper background for this. 

All of the above (with the possible exception of toys and titles) will be treated in other blog posts.