Project Lore

We knew they were coming soon, but not this soon! Looks like Blizzard has given the Paid Faction Change service the go-ahead and it's now available for use (WoW or Battle.net ID necessary to log-in). Of course, according to the website, there are a few conditions to consider before you make the shift:

• The faction change process is not immediate, and a character will not be available for play while a faction change is pending. Under normal conditions the process should take under an hour, but please allow up to several days for a faction change to complete.


• During this process, you will select a new character race from the opposite-faction races that have the character's class available. You cannot change a character's class.


• To see how character-specific information such as achievements, reputations, and items are affected by a faction change, refer to the Translation Table.


• A realm transfer is not included in a faction change. However, the restriction on having members of both factions on a PvP realm has been lifted, so you can have characters of both factions on a single PvP realm.


• A character can change factions once every 60 days.


• Not every character will be eligible to undergo a faction change. If applicable, the reason a character is not eligible will be brought to your attention before payment is rendered. For example, faction changes may not be possible on certain realms or only one "direction" of faction changes may be allowed on a given realm.

Orcs becoming Humans! And Humans becoming Orcs! What has Azeroth come to?!

A comprehensive FAQ, which can be also be found on the Faction Change site, details things even further. Here are some highlights:

• You can only transfer one character per transaction (so if you're planning to go full Alliance of full Horde, expect to pay out the nose).


• The character to be transferred must be at least Level 10 (under that, you might as well just make a new toon on the opposite faction).


• In addition to changing factions, you will also get to re-customize and re-name your character.


• You can switch a character back to their original race/faction, but that requires another paid transfer (and likely falls under the 60-day rule).


• The Faction Change itself is represented by a button next to your selected character on the character select screen, which will appear after you have been logged out for at least 30 minutes. The screens you go through will be similar to those used in the New Character Creation process, and you will be able to preview the changes before confirming.


• Your old character's name will be locked from use for 90 days, assuming that you decide to change it back.


• Items, Equipment, Titles, Achievements, etc. will remain unchanged unless they are faction-specific, in which chase they will be switched out for an equivalent.


• Non-combat pets, even faction-specific ones, can be transferred.


• A character who is being transferred will have their quest log cleared and all related items will be destroyed. Faction-specific quests which contributed to achievements will no longer be counted.


• Reputation will remain intact, though primary faction reputations will be transferred to their equivalent (i.e. Orgrimmar for Stormwind).


• Flight paths will be changed, but will remain level appropriate (a level 40 transfer will not automatically have all of the flight paths available to their faction).


• Friend and Ignore lists will be reset.


• Guild Masters cannot take advantage of this service.


• PvP-related currency (arena points, honor, etc.) will be carried over, except for any earned between the last maintenance and the time of the Faction Change.


• Mail and Auctions needs to be cleared before the change is made.


• Having more than a certain amount of gold per level will prevent you from using the Faction Change (this is over 20,000 at Level 80).


• This service cannot be used to change races within the same faction. That feature will be implemented later.

Whew! That's quite the list of requirements, but if you think you're ready to deal with them, keep in mind that you're still going to have to plunk down 30 USD for the switch. That currently makes it the most expensive of the character modification services, indicating that Blizzard considers this quite a big deal (and so should you).

While Horde is outnumbered nearly 3-to-1 on my server, I can't say I really have any friends on the Alliance side, so it's unlikely that I'd ever change factions without an accompanying server transfer, too (55 USD, yikes!). How many of you out there are planning to make use of the Paid Faction Change, and why?