Recently I have been wanting to change my huge Norn guy to a smaller race like human, but as a programmer myself I began to think about all of the massive data changes to my account just to make this happen and I cringe.
But then I thought about the latest fractals I ran and remembered that one changed my character into a Char and the other changed him into an Asura.
What if, we had a character “Transmogrifier” it could be sold in the store and only accessible in you home instance. ArenaNet could sell one for each race. Then a person could change races at will if they have purchased the “Transmogrifier” for that race. It would basically be a constant buff.
The best part about this is that I can change any time, maybe I just want to see the awesome new sword I have on my Asura at a huge size, so I change to a Norn. Or maybe I want to do a jumping puzzle with my huge Norn but its just easier if I switch him to an Asura first.
Also ArenaNet could limit the areas in which this is possible, maybe they don’t want your character to change during any story instance, just remove the buff. Or they could make the “Transmogrifier” hard to get, or easy, or put it on a time limit.
I think this idea provides the largest possibilities and flexibility for both user and programmers. There is no need for a huge data change on an account if I’m just essentially switching body skins. Of course, as a programmer I know that from the outside looking in everything seems much easier, but the story is altogether different when your involved in the code base.
Just an idea, hope it helps.