Project Lore

WoW players now can change the race of their level 10 and higher characters - if they don't mind dishing out $25. Blizzard unveiled its new paid race change service today, about a month after adding the service as "coming soon" on the official website. All you have to do to start the process os logon to the Account Management page, click on the Race Change option (which is being promoted pretty heavily ono the page at the moment), and follow the instructions. Here's a few items of note to take in mind when considering a race change. For full details, check out the FAQ on Blizzard Support.

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Only a few weeks ago, WoW's faction change service went live, and now it looks like race changes within the same faction are up next. Earlier this month, Blizzard added a button for Race Change ("Coming Soon") to its list of paid services under Account Management. As you  may recall back in July, when Blizzard blue poster Nethaera put up an FAQ on the faction change service, one of the questions was whether characters would be able to change their race within faction. The answer?

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

But then earlier this month, after the button was added to the web site, Nethaera amended that, saying:

"Based on further community feedback, we have also decided to offer a race change service in the future. Players who choose to switch races will be able to change their race within their same faction and class. Additional details will be released at a future date."

Not surprisingly for Blizzard, it's a pretty non-committal response, in terms of how soon the service may be offered. But it looks like it may be coming up quickly. Thursday, Bornakk again addressed the upcoming service, saying that:

"More information will be provided on this upcoming service when we are closer to launching it. Hang tight, it's not far off."

Just on pure speculation, it would indeed seem that the service probably isn't far off since the more complex issues involved with faction changes already have been addressed. Faction change service came quite a bit sooner than a lot of people had anticipated, so perhaps we really will see this new service roll out in the near future. Perhaps even the next patch? Then there's the question of cost. Well, character re-customization costs $15. And a faction change will run you $30. So I'd guess an in-faction race change will be somewhere in the middle, probably $20-$25. Once again, this has not been confirmed, but it seems logical that it may be within that range. Personally, I'm happy with my character's race, faction and general appearance. But I know a couple of my guildies are super-excited for the chance to change their race. Whether just for looks and aesthetic preferences or to gain a different set of racial skills and passives, I'm sure there are plenty of reasons to get a new look. Who else is looking forward to using the service once it's released?

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Blue Stew is a new semi-daily column bringing you a delicious concoction of developer news, thoughts, and opinions straight from the boiling pot that is the official World of Warcraft forums. The highlights of each day include additional commentary by Project Lore staff. PvPvPvE Would you look at this pair of winners... In one thread, Paladin extraordinaire, Feanorion, wonders:

"why are PvE concerns being trumped by the concerns of such a miniscule portion of the subscriber population? "

And in another, posted the same day, Fireweed puts on her frowny-face:

"Since the Illidan kill in TBC I swore I would not touch PvE ever, ever again. It's mind numbing, forces you to deal with people you never want to deal with on your free time, it requires way too much dedication in the scene/too many people and to stay in a guild that is capable to handle it and so forth... What I really enjoy about this game is arena, even some random battlegrounds here and there with a small group."

This, friends, is a microcosm of all that is wrong with the average complainer's mentality towards the game : "I don't like it, so it shouldn't be there!" I've said time and time again that I'm not particularly in favor of PvP, at least not to its extremes, but that's the way I prefer to play. I'm not going to outright deny the ways in which other people might have fun. But the fact of the matter is that if any decisions to change the underlying structure of Warcraft, it would be based on an entirely different group altogether, as Ghostcrawler so handily points out:

"If you expect us to balance around the most popular way to play the game, then you'd see most of our changes aimed at low level alts and very few end-game raiding tanking changes. "

I think we all get so caught up in the endgame, that we forget most people who subscribe to WoW simply enjoy tooling around, by themselves, or with a couple of close friends, in the lower levels of the game. These are the people that like to level up over a week, not a couple of hours. And these are the people that enjoy picking herbs just because they enjoy picking herbs, not because they need to make flasks for the next raid. And that's why I think Cataclysm is going to be such a big hit with the community. It refocuses the game on these types of players without entirely forgetting those at the level cap. You see, WoW is a lot like this scrum-diddly-umptious cake... (image courtesy of http://www.mmmmbrains.com/blogg/) But even ignoring this group of players, can't we just all accept that PvP and PvE are integral parts of the game? I used to be a nay-sayer, too, but I've long since learned that both styles are like two delicious flavors coming together to make World of Warcraft just as enjoyable as a tasty little peanut butter cup! Ghostcrawler explains in a seperate thread why you will never see them split:

"Internal consistency for belief in the game world is part of it. Just keeping complexity down is another part of it. We don't want to see every spell or talent have two tooltips and players having to keep all of that straight. It just feels like two games with one art set at that point, which isn't what we're going for."

Please Explain Argent Tournament Reset Seems like the Faction Change service includes everything but the kitchen sink. Or, in this case, Argent Tournament progress. Kisirani gives a simple enough answer:

"I'm responding to this thread because it's written in a calm and concise manner, so thank you for that. Simply put, while it was not a decision we enjoyed making, due to the way the Argent Tournament functions it was not feasible on a technical level to properly switch progress between factions. I am sorry we were unable to offer a better solution."

I wish he would've expanded a bit more on that, but then again, that's due to my own curiosity. I'm always intrigued to know how the game is built, how its underlying systems are structured to allow certain things and not others. While I have no way of being specific myself, I imagine it's the case of simply coding, or constructing, the Argent Tournament in a certain way at a time before the requirements for the Faction Change service were fully laid out, leaving the two aspects of the game incompatible with each other. So for those of you still considering a Faction Change, please keep this in mind. You'll have to do the Argent Tournament all over again (though, presumably, the earned reputation with each home city will remain intact, even if the quest progress doesn't). And for those of you who already did, without realizing this caveat, I'm sorry! That's potentially months worth of daily work down the drain! Earthen Power Nerf: Overkill Oh, it's the weekend. I'll throw you guys one more bone to look over! This one's for the Enhancement Shamans out there, in response to the most recent PTR patch update, which makes changes to the way in which Earthen Power works, potentially affecting their performance in Arena teams:

"The 3.2.2 PTR change to earthen power will be crippling to Enhancement Shaman, I am not saying that this talent isn't a bit too powerful, but granting the shaman short term immunity to movement impairing effects is not the issue, the issue is it granting the shamans team mates the immunity. Removing the immunity from the shaman themselves will do nothing but cripple a spec that has just recently regained viability, without showing any form of dominance, except as a part of a counter RMP team in one tournament, a tournament which doesn't well reflect the state of play on live (nothing over item level 213)... I would propose that if you feel earthen power is overly powerful, you remove the snare immunity from allied targets, but leave it on the shaman, else we will see a return enhancement shaman being unable to stick to a target. We already suffer greatly from a lack of controllable damage, reliance on long cooldowns (bloodlust/heroism, spirit wolves), and inability to kill healers. Returning Enhancement Shaman an easy to kite class will severely undermine everything you have done to give us arena viability."

Ghostcrawler explains that they favored Ghost Wolf as a reducer of movement-impairing effects instead:

"We think Earthen Power and the Ghost Wolf change were trying to solve the same problem. Together they felt like overkill to us, and we thought the Ghost Wolf change was more interesting so we kept that one. Your mileage may vary and I would be surprised if many shaman agreed since they were the target of the nerf."

Alright, folks! Have a fantastic weekend, but don't forget to respond and let us know what you think about all of these different subjects before you do!

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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?

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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!

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