Entries in items (2)
Faction Change Service Goes Live
Posted by Amatera on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 29 Comments Tags: Achievements, Alliance, Horde, PvP, faction change, items, paid service, quests
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.
- 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.
Highlights of 3.1 Patch Notes
Posted by pixiestixy on Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - 19 Comments Tags: 3.1, Patch, Ulduar, bugs, class changes, content patch, dual spec, dungeon maps, interface, items, mounts, patch notes, water mounts
Dungeon maps? Yes, please! |
- All Ground Mounts may now swim without dismounting the rider. Flying Mounts still may NOT, and will dismount the rider upon entering water.
- Players will now be able to queue for battlegrounds from any location. Leaving a battleground will return you to the location from which you entered.
- Applying a glyph no longer requires a Lexicon of Power. The same rules for switching between dual talent specializations now apply to switching glyphs and cannot be performed while in combat, Battlegrounds (except when Preparation is up), or Arenas (no exceptions).
- Death Knights have a TON of changes that will take some time to readjust. Some spells got buffed, some got nerfed. With time, we'll see what the overall affect is. If I had to guess, it may be an overall nerf.
- Druids, hunters, paladins, priests, shamans and warlocks also are seeing substantial class changes.
- Mages and warriors will see some changes but not as many.
- Rogues, my specialty, may possibly be getting an overall buff. A couple of skills got debuffed, but not by a ton. /hopeful! What I'm looking forward to most -- Killing Spree: Now also increases all damage done by the rogue while active by 20%.
- A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man 'O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food.
- Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!
- Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
- Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill.
- You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
- You no longer need to complete the “Triage” quest to attain Artisan First Aid. Instead you can learn the Artisan skill from the trainers in the capital cities.
- You no longer need to learn First Aid from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
- A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools (hmmm, what could it be?).
- The time needed to catch fish has been reduced.
- You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Every catch has the potential for fishing skill gains, but you are likely to catch worthless junk in areas that are too difficult for your skill.
- You no longer need to learn fishing from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
- Added a recipe for combining Borean Leather Scraps into Borean Leather. You can still use Borean Scraps from your inventory to combine them. (I JUST combined a TON of these without the recipe, and hence got no levels for it. Sadness!)
- New dungeon maps have been added for all Wrath of the Lich King dungeons. (YAAAAAAAY!!)
- New Advanced features for quest tracking are now available. Players will need to activate this option within the Interface panel.
- Several new options for increased graphics such as Video Mode Ultra, higher Shadow Quality detail and new high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets.
- Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item. Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs and gems) and charged items that can be purchased with an alternate currency are not eligible.
- Confirmation boxes have been added to purchases over 150 gold.
- The calendar now supports a guild-wide sign-up sheet, allowing the event organizer to invite his or her entire guild.
- Class roles (i.e. damage, tanking, healing) have been added to the Looking For Group feature. Class roles will be displayed when sorting through the Looking For More section.
- Quest and Achievement tracking are now combined in a new Objectives Tracking window. Advanced features can be activated from the Objectives Options panel.
- On-Use items will display in the Objectives Tracking when tracking a quest that uses them. No more searching through your bags for that on-use quest item!
- Health and Fuel/Ammo bars have been added to the vehicle interface whenever operating a vehicle.
- The mini-map has been optimized for better performance. Displays for vehicles, class colors, and off-map pings have been added as well.
- Loot from clams now stacks correctly! (Thank the Azeroth heavens)
- Changed the icon for Succulent Clam Meat so it doesn't look quite as disgusting. Now 100% more succulent!
- A whole ton of glyph changes.
- Three new mounts are available from Horde mount vendors, equalizing the number of purchasable normal and epic mounts: the Black Wolf, the White Kodo, and the Black Skeletal Horse (in Orgrimmar, Bloodhoof Village, and Brill respectively).
- Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 minutes down from 60 minutes. (!!)Bug Fixes - there's a bunch for all the classes, some items and some race-related. Good stuff to make your game play a more enjoyable experience.