WoW Patch 6.1: Selfies, Blood Elves And Twitter

World of Warcraft's 6.1 patch adds a selfie camera to the MMO. Well. It adds a "S.E.L.F.I.E. Camera" which amounts to the same thing.

6.1 is live on the public test realm (PTR) at the moment and does a bunch of other things too. For example, the new character models for Blood Elves are part of 6.1, as is Twitter integration so you can share content from Azeroth to your Twitter followers.

You can read through the exhaustive list of changes on the WoW blog and I'm sure there will be notes which are far more exciting to regular players of the game than a camera. As an outsider, though – and one who takes screenshots then spends time running them through photo filter apps and reframing or layering options – it's the item which stood out to me.

As per WoWhead, the camera is a reward for the new Field Photography mission. Of interest is that it's not just a third person floating camera which takes a picture of your character - the character actually stretches their arm out towards the screen as if using a smartphone or digital camera. Blizzard are recreating the specific act of taking one of those pictures - arm and all - even though in a lot of selfies I've watched tourists take around central London the photographer will try and manipulate their body to better hide that arm.

Here's a video from German site, MMO Zone:

The pictures can then be bolstered with a bunch of moody filters earned through another mission. There's a sketch filter, a black and white filter and a death filter.

Sketch and black and white filters I'm familiar with but what's this death filter business? I mean, there are Instagram filters which have the unfortunate side effect of making me look a bit corpse-coloured but I'm wondering if there's something more to it? Blizzard control and can read the reality you're taking the picture of in a way that photo apps can't. Presumably that would mean being able to add all manner of interesting effects as photo options – maybe the "developed" picture could have terrifying ghost children just standing in the background and staring at you.

Oh. Further investigation reveals it just applies an aura effect to the screen. I guess it's the washed-out effect you get when your character carks it and you hop off to the Netherworld. That's a shame because my unexpected horror freakout filter would have been far more entertaining.

If you're on the PTR and have the selfie S.E.L.F.I.E. Camera maybe share some of your pictures in the comments – I'm curious to see how it looks.