Change your Faction? Traitors!

Nethaera announced today that they are planning for a MAJOR change. We will soon be able to switch our character's factions!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=18031079410&ST=US-2192818-IXMBZNtHwf4hY51ZMlBGKbDt5VnbbwAKhkL

Quote :

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.

I can only hope that they character's race will change as well... but, what an amazing change! Haf and I immediately jumped on the idea of switching our former alliance mains.

What are your thoughts?

Sex changes were pushing it a bit, but SPECIES changes...

I'm really not sure what to think of this one. This is for faction changes but will they make it possible to change races within a faction ? And what about faction reputations? How will they translate these?

I'm not one to change things myself. When I picked my first toon I had good reasons that I wanted to play a specific faction and race. That hasn't changed for me.

I guess the primary reason for them possibly implementing this is so friends who may have started playing at different times or friends that are new can play with one another on the same side.

I'm not a big numbers guys so is there a min/max reason for players to do this?

Talifalana wrote:

I'm really not sure what to think of this one. This is for faction changes but will they make it possible to change races within a faction ? And what about faction reputations? How will they translate these?

I am pretty sure that every Alliance-specific reputation there is a Horde-specific equivalent. Isn't there?

I was shocked when I first read the blue post. That lasted all of ten seconds.

Oh Blizzard, you cash-grabbing cad you!

I don't think this will be a big deal. It's only a FACTION change that's being offered, not a RACE change. So they flip the switch that'll make you neutral for your new faction, and hated for your old faction (damn the traitors!) They might limit the availability of this (paid) service depending on the server balance. In the end, Night Elves and Blood Elves will dance together atop mailboxes across the land.

Will this service open the door to the dreaded Racial changes? I doubt it. There would be far too much involved (racials, class limitations), not to mention it would almost eliminate the alt concept. But this is Blizzard, and there is a new expansion coming out...

Personally I wish this would happen today so I can stop leveling. The quote says that you can change factions on the SAME server. Do you think they will allow server changes for a seperate fee?

GlockGlock wrote:

Personally I wish this would happen today so I can stop leveling. The quote says that you can change factions on the SAME server. Do you think they will allow server changes for a seperate fee?

I would guess they'd allow you to pay for the server change, and once on your new server you could get the faction change.

Ya that make sense. My brain was only looking at that one way, faction change then realm change.

So if this change does go into effect, could you start the Alliance races as Horde and vice versa. I mean if you can switch factions wouldn't you be able to start as either faction?

If they did this, how would it effect the starting zones? If you can't start as the oppisite faction, at what level could you change?

Would this make it possible for a 1st level Draenei to run over to the starting Blood Elf zone and level with his overly fancy elven friend?

If this did occur....would there REALLY be two factions any longer?

Man....so many questions for something that's only speculation at this point.

(Yeah, yeah, yeah....all these questions without any answers...sue me...lol)

am happy for it i can change my human pally on staghelm to horde and one of my horde shamans to ally

Being someone with a bunch of unused level 80 characters because they are part of the weaker faction (Alliance duh!). This looks great. I really hope that if you switch faction it will include a realm change because this could end up costing a lot.

Am I the only one who is reminded of "The Sneetches" by Dr. Seuss?

After multiple faction changes, we wake up broke for the service only to discover that we can't actually tell who had stars and who didn't and that the factions may not be as different as we once thought.

I'm not a big fan of this to be honest. As I'm sure is the case for many people, when I rolled a character I chose what I did because that's the direction I wanted to take. Since then I've invested a lot into my character so to simply drop him and roll him up as something else just seems wrong.

That's a personal reason against it though and won't sit with everyone, so how about this. Doesn't this seem a tad desperate?

WoW isn't dead yet but lately it seems to me that Blizzard are trying to cash in as much as they can before it collapses. This service, along with all the other cosmetic changes you can make at a fee, would've been something Blizzard slapped down a couple of years ago, yet now they're embracing these things at a rate of knots!

Is it coincidence that Activision is now the whip behind the company? We've been told they don't/won't meddle but I'm not so sure. WoW is changing so much lately I really can't believe Blizzard want to meddle with something they've always been so adament about keeping just right.

I'm waffling on though, so I'll stop

My thoughts on this, it's unnecessary and seems a bit silly. I see its potential, and if it's implemented well then it'd be fine but you know it'll be nothing more than a paid service for a few button presses. I'd have liked to have seen an epic quest line of treachery that forged some item that led to the faction change.

An alchemist making a flask of Undeath that would bring you back as an Undead player anyone?...

Emeny.

Well the original blue post has been modified to give a few more details:

Quote :

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 don't think this is Activision's influence. First of all they said Activision would not influence WoW. And i don't think they would, purely from a buisness stand point "If it's not broke, don't fix it." Most likely they have been wanting to do this for a long time (tired of getting Reason for leaving" "can't switch faction") & they are trying to extend the longevity of the game. The game is fairly different playing on Horde Vs. Allaince (obviously better on Horde lol)

The only reason i'm angry at this decision is b/c of how they will most likely go about it. It would be amazing if they made it an epic quest chain and you would keep your race... Instead of the Transfer/cosmetic model Blizzard has set up. Blizzard could add so much to WoW by allowing you to do a betrayal quest. EQ2 has done it, and i think Blizzard could do it better. And yes, there would still be 2 sides, the conflict isn't purely racial, it's two different ways of life.

the quest would be a cool way to approach it but blizz has a business model and this is an easy way for them to make extra money.


Now, for me when they do this it would be interesting as i have a lot of my old Army buddies that are in a horde raiding guild so it would be cool to play with them for once. Yea i could go level a horde toon but i hate leveling so i rather pay when they make this available if I have the desire to.

It seems that the faction restrictions have been lifted on PVP servers. Could that mean that the faction change might not be too far behind?

Blue Post says it all:

Quote :

As we've already discussed, we’re in the process of developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. To prepare for this new service, we've removed the restriction that prevents players from creating both Horde and Alliance characters on a PvP realm. For more information on our Faction Change service, please visit the following link.

The Rokk wrote:

It seems that the faction restrictions have been lifted on PVP servers. Could that mean that the faction change might not be too far behind?

I think so. They most likely did it so that people don't feel "Forced" to pay to Xfer their faction on a PvP server to try/join friends on the other side. You can re-roll on the other side OR pay to change your faction. Smart move on Blizzard's part imo, but will piss off many PvP Server people... but then again, if the PvE to PvP Xfer didn't make them quit, i doubt this will.

That didn't take long - Faction Change has gone LIVE!

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faction-change/index.xml

Guess thats the a topic on next show

Mike

I'm a traitor to the Alliance!!

Last night me and a handful of friends faction changed to Horde. We have big city dreams of xfering to Mal'Ganis to raid.

http://www.wowprogress.com/pve/us/mal-ganis

Congratulations on the move! You will get used to the smell with time.

Thanks! I'm already used to the smell; I leveled a rogue horde side. Thankfully, I'm not completely lost in the Horde areas like the others in our group. :D

I was checking out WoW.com in regard to the poll they had regarding the Faction Change. Judging by their results, more people are switching characters over from Alliance to Horde. That seems to jive with what I heard about Blizzcon - how when people broke into their faction chants, the "For the Horde" was considerably louder than "For the Alliance". Last year, there seemed to be more Alliance callouts (by all reports).

Has the Horde become the place where all the cool kids hang out?

A few things to keep in mind when looking at WoW.com's survey results

1. They are polling a small portion of the WoW community.

2. People lie. (it's not actual server numbers, just what people are saying)

3. Most their numbers don't add up.

That being said, The Instance also took a look at the transfers. They did it by looking at server populations before/after faction transfers where available. They also concluded that there are more people switching from Alliance to Horde.

But they also brought up a good point. We're looking at #'s, not %'s. There may be more Alliance switching to Horde, but then again, there are more Alliance toons. So the %'s may be fairly close, even if the numbers are one sided.

i.e.

Alliance/Horde Pop. Before:

Alliance = 100
Horde = 70

Alliance/Horde Pop After

Alliance = 85
Horde = 85

# that Xfered

Alliance = 50
Horde = 35

% that Xfered

Alliance = 50%
Horde = 50%

If we just looked at the #'s we would say "Wow! 50 Alliance transfered while only, 35 Horde did!" But if we look at the big picture, Half of each faction transfered.

I do think there was a higher % of Alliance that transfered than Horde, but not as much as much as the WoW.com's survey would suggest.