It's been a long time coming, but World of Warcraft just became way more accessible for the MMO fashionistas and completionists out there, as Blizzard has allowed players to view their full collection of item appearances and transmogs on third-party websites without using add-ons.
For the uninitiated, transmogrifying in World of Warcraft allows you to change the appearance of your gear to take on the look of something else, essentially allowing you to create stylish, coordinated outfits, which is obviously the most important part of the entire MMO. Given how many different options there are, many players love collecting transmogs, but up to this point, keeping track of them on third-party websites that tell you what items you're missing has been very difficult since they required external add-ons to work, and even then the "process is kinda wonky" according to fans.
Thankfully, that's now set to change. As spotted by Wowhead, in a new post on the Blizzard forums, the dev has announced its new "Item Appearance and Character Transmog Collection APIs" – APIs being 'application programming interfaces.' It sounds a little confusing, but what it essentially means is that going forward, third-party collection-tracking websites like Data for Azeroth and Simple Armory can add support to show you which of those specific item appearances you own.
Considering that transmogrification was added to World of Warcraft in 2011, it's honestly baffling that it's taken this long for this sort of support to roll out, but it's better late than never. There's no doubt it'll be a godsend for the dedicated players out there determined to collect everything, as well as those wanting to keep track of their wardrobe. After all, what's the point of an MMO if you can't slay in more ways than one?
Fans are thrilled, too, and are calling the change "huge." One Reddit user and self-proclaimed collector writes: "Currently you have to manually upload your appearance collection second-hand via All The Things, but it doesn't work well honestly. Having appearances straight from Blizz like all the other collections on there will make a huge difference!"
It might take a while for those third-party sites to fully integrate support for appearance collections – Data for Azeroth, for example, has "added basic support" but is still working to improve it.