Faction Change Service Incoming!

[Holyssa]

*Dr. Weird voice*

BULLSH*T! ...just kidding. It's real, but may not be around for a LONG time if it's as complex as Blizzard claims.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...79410&sid=1

We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.

Huh...a "roughly equivalent" character? I suspect the kinks mean they won't copy everything, like faction-specific quests/progress (the Barov Family quests for Scholo come to mind almost immediately). But if this works the way I think it does, I can finally convert my ancient mage and scrub the Alliance germs off of it.

[Perthes]

Oh boy!

[Maube]

ZOMG that means I might get to play Ischie again! ::bouncebouncebounce:: ZOMG

Resto Druid in dah HOUSE

[Orcala]

Yeah that and CGFs are now deemed illegal in China, crazy times we are in...

[Martok]

ZOMG that means I might get to play Ischie again! ::bouncebouncebounce:: ZOMG

Resto Druid in dah HOUSE

You will once again be useful!

[Holyssa]

The Blue People hath spoken....sorta. Some Q&A is now on the above sticky:

Updated 7/1

Due to the many questions that have come up with the announcement of this new service, we wanted to take the time to answer the ones we can at this point in time.

Q. Will we be able to switch between the races on our own faction?

A. No. Players will only be able to switch to a race of the opposite faction.

Q. Will I be able to choose the race on the opposite faction that I want to change to?

A. Yes, but you will only be able to switch to a race that has your class type available to it. So if you play a human paladin, you’d only be able to change to a blood elf paladin.

Q. How much will it cost?

A. We do not have further information on this at this point in time.

Q. Will I be able to switch back to my original faction but a different race?

A. No. You will only be able to switch back to your originally chosen race.

Q. How will the switch between reputation, gear, mounts, etc be handled?

A. We’ll have more details for you at a later point in time, though we plan to keep these as close to a reflection of the other faction as much as possible.

Q. How often can you change your faction?

A. We do not have any information to share on this at this point in time, however we will have restrictions on the frequency by which players can change their faction.

Q. How will this affect the balance of Horde and Alliance on the realms?

A. We are taking great care in how we implement this new service in order to maintain balance between the factions on the realms but do not have any further details to share.

I'm hoping if this mucks with item transitions, mounts will follow the same model as the Orb of Deception does..although people may not always get the color they like (unless you have every vendor-mount already, in which case it won't even matter then):

Humans (Horse) <-> Orcs (Wolf)

Trolls (Raptor) <-> Dwarves (Ram)

Undead (Warhorse) <-> Night Elves (Saber)

Gnomes (Mechano-strider) <-> Tauren (Kodo)

Draenei (Elekk) <-> Blood Elves (Hawkstrider)

For PvP trinkets, they should just remove the race listings entirely and rename them to be non race-specific (see this Arena Trinket), considering vendors already sell trinkets with no race listing, yet the same stun-removal function (like the Titan-Forged trinkets from WG tokens).

Quest items COULD follow the same model, I suppose. One example is the old Warrior mail quests: same item, different name and side of the faction fence: http://www.wowhead.com/?compare=7133;6972.

I'd like to see how they handle things like Loremaster achievement progress. Hopefully their code monkeys don't bite off more than they can chew. But then again, it's Blizzard!

[Kadi]

Oh man, if they do this, I'm soooo going to bring my druid over to Horde Side. The new tauren druid forms are win.