Blizz Responds to Faction Change Questions
Posted by 
pixiestixy on Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 24 Comments Tags: Alliance, Horde, PvP, blizzard, characters, faction, faction balance, faction change, lore, nethaera, pvp server, race, realm, reputation, server, service
pixiestixy on Thursday, July 2, 2009 - 24 Comments Tags: Alliance, Horde, PvP, blizzard, characters, faction, faction balance, faction change, lore, nethaera, pvp server, race, realm, reputation, server, service 
Well folks, it looks like we have some, but definitely not all the answers regarding how the possibility of faction changes announced earlier this week could work. Wednesday, Blizzard blue poster Nethaera updated his original post on the subject with a few more details on the matter - probably because of the incredibly high number of questions (and complaints) that players posted.Several of the updated answers relate to questions regarding the race of characters who request a faction change.
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.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.
This clarifies up several of the issues that could have resulted if Blizz didn't go about things carefully. You'll be able to decide what race you want to play in the opposite faction (and although it isn't explicitly stated, one would guess you'll also get to personalize the toon just as if you were re-rolling anew). To a certain extent. Of course, they're not going to all of the sudden allow every race to play every class. So if you're, say, a human paladin who wants to switch factions, you'll be limited to playing a blood elf. An Orc Paladin? That would just be weird. Or how about a Tauren rogue (you hear their hooves, but never see them)? Blizz will never allow us to learn THOSE secrets.
Back on a serious note though, this also means that players wouldn't be able to faction change twice and end up with a toon of the same faction but different race. This seems like a pretty obvious move on Blizzard's part. But it's good that they clarified that pretty quickly for all those skeptics out there.
Onward to more answered questions:
Q.How much will it cost?
A.. We do not have further information on this at this point in time.
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.
So maybe these are more like non-answers. It seems like the faction change would cost something. Will it cost RL money, like it does if you want to change realms? That seems the most likely scenario to me. But there also could be some kind of in-game cost as well.
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.
This part seems like it will be a HUGE pain in the ass and a ton of work for Blizzard. Basically, for every single faction- dependent item you can possibly get in-game, Blizz will have to try to match it with an equivalent of the opposing faction. Certainly, there will be many items that will match up perfectly. But there's also certain to be injustices on both sides. And that's just for gear. What about for reputation? For example's sake, say you're exalted with Thrallmar. The logical Alliance equivalent would seem to be Honor Hold. But what if the gear/mount you want is through rep with Kurenai? I foresee a related QQ fest coming.
And one more important question answered so far:
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.
Once again, this seems pretty obvious. If anything, Blizz would probably want to use the service as a means to balance out servers that are heavily populated by one faction over the other. Maybe they'll do something similar to their character transfers out of over-populated realms: Offer free faction transfers only if you're, for example, an Alliance character on an Alliance-dominant server. Then again, would anyone WANT to switch factions under those circumstances?
Well, that's it so far, and lots of questions still remain: Would faction changes be allowed on a PvP server? If so, would you be required to switch ALL of your characters' factions on that realm? It seems like Blizzard would have to make that requirement - either that or require a server change, too, if you want to only change one toon's faction. And of course, when will all this happen? It seems like it's still a long ways off. And another thing: If you decide to faction change, then change back, would you be able to regain your old gear/rep/stuff, or would it be matched with equivalents twice, and in the process change into something new? If it's the latter, the result could lead to some exploits.
And I'll add another question, since I grow attached to all aspects of my characters: Will toon names stay the same?
Now that we have a little bit more information, I'd like to know what you all think of this service. How do you think this will go, once it's implemented? And what do you think are the implications of it all? Will a sense of faction pride fade? What about knowledge of the lore - would you want to switch to a level 80 toon of another race for which you don't know all the back-story?
Stay tuned for more information as it's released!
Reader Comments (24)
I personally am looking forward to this possibility so that I can change over my toons on the Sporregar server (EU), might even think about it on my main as dwarfs are soo ugly, like the idea of Undead SP
I think this is a horrible idea. The logistics behind it are going to be very hard to implement, as you pointed out with the factions issue. I can imagine the programmers sitting around in their cubicles seeing this memo slide across their desks. Sometimes what sounds like a good idea, is the worst possible thing that can be brought up.
would be nice to change faction, but it will bring alot of problems with it. and it won't be cheap i guess
I believe that this idea can make the patch updates, but it would take quite some time, along with all the technical difficulties it would bring if something went wrong during the testing stages.
A Blood Elf Paladin still behind the reigns of a Frostsaber? But yet, due to the general schematics of the gameplay, Blood Elves can't ride that mount, its restricted to Alliance characters that are Exalted with the required faction.
Also, another thing that pops up in my mind, the achievements, such as faction and reputation achievements, would take awhile to change.
And what about WoWArmory? You are searching for an alliance character named Achmed on Gorgonnash and find instead an undead.
In my opinion, it was a good idea, but not really worth my time in expressing how many problems would arise. Perhaps it could work, if that character were switched to a completely different realm, cause if you've switched factions, you cant talk to your old friends anymore anyways. :) Nice try Blizz, its good to see you're attempting to complicate this game due to upcoming competitors.
When I was young, we used to reroll.
I wonder when they are going to let us change our class.
This sounds like a disaster in the making.
I'd much rather see the ability to learn to understand opposing factions than actually BECOME the opposing faction. ('Cause really, where's the harm in letting someone become some sort of diplomat or ambassador and speak between Horde and Alliance? It's not like people can't do it via other means if they want to.)
Still can't believe they're even considering this -_-
I've been thinking about it and the pvp realms question popped into my head, followed by a million other things that make this simply impossible to happen.
Oh well, I still say I won't change any of my toons. If I wanted to play alliance, I'd just go to another server and start a fresh character :/
Counterpart to Kurenai is Mag'har. There is no single faction left alone, even wintersaber has its' pair now, with un'goro dinosaurs mounts. So this is least concern of this whole business.
Terrible, terrible idea.
There is no gear, achievement, etc issue that cannot be solved with a little logic.
The players who want this service will pay well for it, and it pretty obviously not aimed at players who are happy to re-roll. Its aimed at players who wish to play without re-playing the content. And they'll have to pay - more power to 'em.
Just like paid toon transfer, or the barber shop, you don't have to use it and it does not hurt your game if somebody else does.
I think that this faction switch should be like the dual spec except cost more than dual did. like maybe 1k gold for every char on that realm (if it's PvP). And why would u complain about this i mean it's about nine chars to a realm, with this if ur PvP realm is full it would still cost less than the travelers tundra mount
And why doesn't anyone think about the quests? If you change faction, everyone whinks about the rep you hae, but if this changes to the other factions reputation, what will happen to the quests for that specific faction? If you are revered with the Undercity, and change to Alliance, will you be revered with Darnassus (just a speculation because sylvanas windrunner was a night elf once) and have all the Darnassus quests available to you to get easy rep with Darnassus?
i LOVE this idea.. I am alliance on draktharon and my brother is horde on a diff server.. I want to buy a server Xfer to his.. then a race chance and we can play together :)
omg i think im gonna find a new mmo, or wait for diablo 3, cause this is just too ghey. 3.2 is a complete joke itself, this is just plain retarded.
@ Pikagg
Due to the masive amount of programming involved, I think Blizzard will be getting us to pay real money, not in-game gold.
For example, a paid character transfer here in the UK costs £15 (about $20 i think, not sure on exchange rates atm), so this may cost upwards of £20-25, depending on how nasty blizzard feel that day.
This idea is quite terrible. I think for a faction change players should just get over it and reroll like we did in the vanilla days. One thing that wouldn't be too bad of an idea is a simple race change, but even then I can see many many problems coming up. Does anyone else see a game crash in the future if this becomes?
I think this is a good idea. I am not sure what all the bitching is about.
This will spare me from having to re-roll characters and start from scratch. I already have two horde characters in mind that I will be faction swapping to alliance and then transferring to my mains server.
The beauty of the pay services Blizzard offers is YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO IT. If you feel like re-rolling and starting from scratch, go for it! I personally don't have the time or the patience for that crap any more. Having played for almost 4 years now I for one am GLAD to have this service and will happily dish out the cash for the faction change.
I'm wondering just how the hell they will pull it off. I mean, it seems like, in the end, you'll end up with lesser character compared to your original. There are just so many faction, race, and class specific issues to deal with, that they'd have to just chop some things out. In my eyes, it looks to be a lot more complicated than switching from a pve to a pvp server, which is something I'd actually want to do. I dunno. Maybe they'll end up something like a hero class where you'll get all your talents and spells tossed over, but you'll have to start from scratch with everything else?
What about roleplay? Oh wait, there isn't too much of it left in WoW.
I understand the reasons behind offering this service, I personally will not be using it & I'll garuntee it is going to cost real world money not in game gold, plus there will likely be a switch over period where you will not be able to access your toon
Tbh I'd rather see an option that unlocks once you hit the lvl cap to buy new toons, they could even let you choose what lvl toon you want & increase the price as the levels go up, like many people I have several alts, 8 in fact on my mains server but 5 of them are lvl 30 or lower because I can't be bothered to go through all the low lvl quests & grinding xp again & again, I do want to try out other characters & learn about other class mechanics & if given the option to lvl 1,2 or even 3 toons & then be able to buy others at a level of my choosing I'd be reaching for the credit card right now!
I think this service is long over due on Blizzards part. I for one have made and deleted about a dozen characters just trying to find what race I want a certain class to be.
I personally play on Silverhand, which is DOMINATED by alliance by 5:1 easily. Our economy suffers pretty heavily, and pvp is just ridiculous in things like WG.
That being said for servers like mine, I dont honestly see people from a dominant side switching over, why would they? To bask in the emptiness that is horde? Nuh uh, I dont think it will happen.
As far as things like honor and rep, faction mounts, I'm fairly certain there will be some kind of in game token aquired when the game is changed that will allow you to purchase an equivilent mount from an opposing faction, and rep for things (Org, Silvermoon, Undercity, etc) will not simply transfer to there alliance versions but probably rounded down something like starting honored with all cities or something.
I think it would be cool if blizz allowed one free faction change but if you wanted to change back it would have to cost you
Sweeet! I'm goin to be a troll mage or an undead mage.
I dont care what it will cost.