A talented artist in the World of Warcraft community has created stunning designs of glyph-changeable racially-themed class abilities.
Tomorrow, World of Warcraft will reveal its next expansion, the ninth in a long line of content packs that have greatly expanded the game since it first welcomed millions of eager Warcraft fans and MMO players to Azeroth. Its community grew over time, attracting both artists and theorycrafters, and one of them decided to devote time and effort to presenting the best possible use for glyphs since their inception.
Glyphs in World of Warcraft are currently stuck in an awkward situation. They were introduced in Wrath of the Lich King to supplement the new Inscription profession, and they represented a different (but equally important) way for players to gain power. On paper, it allowed for more specialized builds than the talent system could provide on its own, but in practice, glyphs just became another cog in an optimization and number crunching machine. Glyphs, in Blizzard’s opinion, became a redundancy that had outstayed its welcome. The only glyphs that survived the purge were cosmetic ones, so they were shown the door.
Avenging Glyph variants for each paladin race in World of Warcraft were introduced by a Reddit user named Fishbones06, who took the concept of cosmetic glyphs and pushed it beyond its current state of neglect. The results speak for themselves, demonstrating the potential role of glyphs in addressing another major desire among World of Warcraft players: identity and flavor.
After all, a paladin from Zandalar doesn’t worship the same gods, follow the same rites, or draw power from the same wellspring as a Dark Iron Dwarf paladin.
Allowing World of Warcraft players to express themselves in a cosmetic way through their abilities would only serve to engage them further with their class in a way that doesn’t interfere with player power, avoiding the problem that old glyphs had.
With rumors circulating that a new class and race will be revealed with the next World of Warcraft expansion tomorrow, no one knows what direction Blizzard will take. Fans’ desire for more cosmetic glyphs, which alter the appearance of a player’s spells and abilities, is likely something the company is aware of. It wouldn’t necessarily be uncharted territory, as runes are used in a similar system in Diablo 3.
In the end, Blizzard Entertainment must decide whether cosmetic glyphs are a worthwhile investment of developer resources.
