Imagine that you could turn your appearance temporarily into any living creature in WoW - a beast, an NPC or a player. Who would you like to be?
I came to think about it as I threw a glance at MMO-Champion's overview of the changes to the alchemy profession in Cataclysm. Apparently we're going to get not only a beautiful mount (more or less a flight form available for non-druids, as far as I can see it). We'll also get a for-fun brew called "Potion of Illusion".
According to the description this potion can "transform the imbiber to look like someone else". This made my imagination go wild.
What if I did a retro raid in Black Temple? Could I put on an Illidan disguise, take a quick teleport to Stormwind and then roam about in the green pastures of Elwynn for a while, scaring the children and paying a visit to the lady with the cats? (I think he secretly admires her.)
Or what about Millhouse Manastorm? Such a handsome gnome, the world would be merrier if there were more of him in the streets!
But then on the other side, why not aim bigger when I'm given the option? Way bigger. Like Onyxia?
Restrictions
I got pretty much carried away by my imagination until I search a little for some further information. As far as I can see from the forum comments of Beta testers, you can only look like players and player pets that you have targeted. Not mobs or other NPCs. Damn.
Still - even with this restriction you can probably get yourself some entertainment drinking this potion. Totalbiscuit made a rather amusing video, where a player was turned into a dinosaur. It appears as if the spell was bugged at the moment this was recorded; the guy didn't just change shape; he grew into a crazy big size, looking more like Godzilla than anything else. Deathwing wouldn't be any match to him.
I can imagine that there are some situations where a bit of impersonating of other players can give you a laugh. The entire 25 man raid gives their raid leader a surprise as they all decide to impersonate him at a given signal. You confuse your enemies in the battleground, pretending to be a different class. Or why not flirt a bit with someone you like under influence of this potion? (Just don't pull it too far; it might be perceived as stalking.)
It's easy to dismiss this sort of fluff details. What's the point? They won't improve your performance, that's for sure. In worst case you'll cause damage if you confuse your healers by changing appearance and you'll screw up your raid.
For my own part though, I must admit that I've got a weak spot for things such as trinkets and offhands that summon adds or put a disguise on you as you use it. And actually the illusion potion is better than those items, since you don't have to swap out your real gear for it.
The critter bites
Nevertheless, it smells to me a little bit like the case of the critter bites, if you remember those. You don't? To be honest, I'm not all that surprised. I'll remind you. The critter bites is a form of buff food that allows you to temporarily tame a critter, in order to use it as your companion pet. But there's one drawback, a rather big one: the effect will only last a couple of minutes. This made those snacks fairly expensive to make, since one of the ingredients was northern spices, which you only can get from doing the daily cooking quest. Even for someone who likes fluff, it was too exclusive to use on a daily basis.
We don't know yet what cost will be for the ingredients to the illusion potion. Probably we can expect them to be very expensive at start, just like the rest of the mats you need to level your professions. (I remember frostweave cloth selling at 50 g a stack at my server, which effectively prevented me from levelling first aid for a long time. Those were the days and believe me - we'll see it again.)
But once they'll get within my reach, I'll try out some potions of illusion for myself.
Even if they sadly enough won't let me turn into Onyxia.
I came to think about it as I threw a glance at MMO-Champion's overview of the changes to the alchemy profession in Cataclysm. Apparently we're going to get not only a beautiful mount (more or less a flight form available for non-druids, as far as I can see it). We'll also get a for-fun brew called "Potion of Illusion".
According to the description this potion can "transform the imbiber to look like someone else". This made my imagination go wild.
What if I did a retro raid in Black Temple? Could I put on an Illidan disguise, take a quick teleport to Stormwind and then roam about in the green pastures of Elwynn for a while, scaring the children and paying a visit to the lady with the cats? (I think he secretly admires her.)
Or what about Millhouse Manastorm? Such a handsome gnome, the world would be merrier if there were more of him in the streets!
But then on the other side, why not aim bigger when I'm given the option? Way bigger. Like Onyxia?
Restrictions
I got pretty much carried away by my imagination until I search a little for some further information. As far as I can see from the forum comments of Beta testers, you can only look like players and player pets that you have targeted. Not mobs or other NPCs. Damn.
Still - even with this restriction you can probably get yourself some entertainment drinking this potion. Totalbiscuit made a rather amusing video, where a player was turned into a dinosaur. It appears as if the spell was bugged at the moment this was recorded; the guy didn't just change shape; he grew into a crazy big size, looking more like Godzilla than anything else. Deathwing wouldn't be any match to him.
I can imagine that there are some situations where a bit of impersonating of other players can give you a laugh. The entire 25 man raid gives their raid leader a surprise as they all decide to impersonate him at a given signal. You confuse your enemies in the battleground, pretending to be a different class. Or why not flirt a bit with someone you like under influence of this potion? (Just don't pull it too far; it might be perceived as stalking.)
It's easy to dismiss this sort of fluff details. What's the point? They won't improve your performance, that's for sure. In worst case you'll cause damage if you confuse your healers by changing appearance and you'll screw up your raid.
For my own part though, I must admit that I've got a weak spot for things such as trinkets and offhands that summon adds or put a disguise on you as you use it. And actually the illusion potion is better than those items, since you don't have to swap out your real gear for it.
The critter bites
Nevertheless, it smells to me a little bit like the case of the critter bites, if you remember those. You don't? To be honest, I'm not all that surprised. I'll remind you. The critter bites is a form of buff food that allows you to temporarily tame a critter, in order to use it as your companion pet. But there's one drawback, a rather big one: the effect will only last a couple of minutes. This made those snacks fairly expensive to make, since one of the ingredients was northern spices, which you only can get from doing the daily cooking quest. Even for someone who likes fluff, it was too exclusive to use on a daily basis.
We don't know yet what cost will be for the ingredients to the illusion potion. Probably we can expect them to be very expensive at start, just like the rest of the mats you need to level your professions. (I remember frostweave cloth selling at 50 g a stack at my server, which effectively prevented me from levelling first aid for a long time. Those were the days and believe me - we'll see it again.)
But once they'll get within my reach, I'll try out some potions of illusion for myself.
Even if they sadly enough won't let me turn into Onyxia.
9 comments:
Look like somebodies yer targeting? Mmmmmm kinky.
I don't think many healer use whats character look like to heal so confusing them with appearance might be hard. Trick of the trade and misdirect without macro might be troublesome tho.
As for onyxia and other target like that, I'd like to be able to do it as a smallish version of those mobs. A fullsize onyxia would be too easy to abuse to grief people by staying in the AH or bank hiding everything. But being able to become a downscaled version of her would still berinc some nice amusement into the game for many people. Full Alextraza raid by taking the wrathgate model. GO!!!
Oh well...
/drink
Oh that is totally awesome! :D
I imagine the huge dino bug is part of the huge pet bug. Sometimes hunter pets will appear in their original size. Which can have amusing results in the case of some of the larger tames. I don't know if you remember that giant spider in Terrakor we had to kill for one quest. That's scar to see towering over you hehe.
This reminds me of the very old Orb of Deception, but more advanced. It would be nice if both items would also help infiltrate the other faction (no matter if you looked like a tauren while being a gnome, players and hostile NPCs could target you)
It's a pity fun stuff like this don't get more utility (unless you're in a RP server)
Sounds cool. It's a shame that you can't target NPCs though. I would sooooo target Jaina Proudmoore and come after all of you people who see her as a hand-wringing, ineffectual crybaby and UNLEASH UPON YOUR PUNY HEADS THE FULL POWER OF THE KIRIN TOR!
/ahem...uhm...right....got a little carried away there.
Another interesting alchemy item is deepstone oil. Priceless tooltip
http://cata.wowhead.com/item=56850
@ Perdissa
If the effects last longer than four hours, contact your local first aid trainer
@Ratshag: a little bit, isn't it? Feels kind of natural for a mage though. Why don't we have it as a spell? Just askin'.
@Frostys: What about confusing them turning into the opposite faction? If that's possible, that will say. I'm actually not sure if it is, since I*m not in the Beta and the comments on this potions are few.
@Akycha: I think that even without the bug it will be kind of fun, especially if you run into someone displaying one of the more rare pets.
@Kurnak: I agree it's a pity. I like fluff as I said, but once the raiding season starts again I'm afrid I won't have that much time available to spend on it.
: that would be awesome, wouldn't it? You could impersonate the NPCs and turn them into what you think they should be, letting out the TRUE Jaina.
: I noted that one too. It sounds... interesting. :)
Team of 10-15 healers in a BG can look very scary...
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