World of Warcraft Updated Druid Cat and Bear Forms

Character customization is an important aspect of any MMO. Players don’t want to spend their entire career looking just like every other member of their class, they want the ability to add their own flair and truly differentiate themselves among their peers.

Some games, like City of Heroes, cater to this instinct with a multitude of character creation options. Others, like World of Warcraft, offer players the opportunity to customize their appearance through the acquisition of equipment.

For World of Warcraft druids, however, very little customization has traditionally been possible. Those who choose the feral specialization spend most of their time in cat or bear form, looking exactly the same as every other druid of the same race, regardless of level or equipment.

A level 10 Night Elf druid in bear form looks exactly the same as a level 80, and this lack of differentiation has long been something the druid community has complained about.

Fortunately, the developers at Blizzard have heeded these calls for change, and recently announced that a series of updated druid cat and bear forms will be included with the next major content update to the game, version 3.2. Instead of just one version of bear and cat form for each of the two druid races, there will soon be five possible variations.

The different forms will be determined by skin tone for Tauren druids and hair color for Night Elves.

As you can see from

the picture, the new Tauren druids come in five different colors (yellow, brown, white, grey, and black) and include several new details. Each of the new bear forms now wears a necklace and arm band, and sports an improved horn design. The old shoulder tattoo remains intact with different coloring and the Tauren bear now sports face paint as well.

Here’s a breakdown of the new bear forms and their corresponding skin tones:

• Black Bear: Black skin tone.
• Grey Bear: Dark grey or steel grey skin tone.
• Brown Bear: Red-brown skin tone.
• Yellow Bear: Yellow or light brown-grey skin tone
• White Bear: White skin tone.

Like the new Tauren bear form, the Night Elf version also sports an updated look with a new necklace and armband along with updated shoulder and face paint.

Here’s a rundown of the new bear forms and their corresponding hair colors:

• Violet Bear: Green hair color.
• Blue Bear: Teal/light blue hair color.
• White Bear: White hair color.
• Black Bear: Dark blue hair color.
• Red Bear: Purple hair colors.

The new Tauren cat looks quite a bit different than its predecessor, sporting a much more catlike face, nose ring, facial markings, braids, and ankle bracelets.

Here’s the information on which model corresponds to which skin tone:

• Black Cat: Black and dark grey skin tones.
• Red Cat: Red-brown skin tone.
• Yellow Cat: Yellow-brown skin tone.
• White Cat: Steel grey and white skin tones.
• Brown Cat: Light brown-grey skin tone.

The Night Elf cat’s makeover includes a new jeweled necklace, ankle bracelets, and facial markings. The number of claws on each hand has also increased from three to four.

Each of the new cat forms corresponds to a hair color as follows:

• Blue Cat with Dark Mane: Green hair color.
• Indigo Cat with Light Mane: Light blue hair color.
• White Cat: White hair color.
• Black Cat: Dark blue hair color.
• Purple Cat: Purple hair color.

Players are not locked into a specific bear/cat model. Druids are free to change their hair or skin tone at any time simply by visiting their local barber shop (the location of which is something every WoW player should know). While the level of customization is perhaps not quite as sophisticated as many druids may have hoped for, these twenty new forms are certainly a step in the right direction.

Blizzard has said that work on new looks for the remaining druid forms is under way as well, so you resto druids sick of looking at the same old tree may not have long to wait before you can customize bark color, or foliage, or some other element.