Faction change service whaaaaaattt?

[shaeman]

Blizzard said they would never allow non pvp to pvp realm transfer. They did. The sky didn't fall in.

There's a lot of emphasis about how it's all about fleecing the customer, but it's actually about giving the customer what they want (And they can charge for it too).

I posted many months ago how I wish I could swap faction. It's been something that I've seen a lot of other people have wanted.
I swapped to alliance because everyone I played horde side got jaded with the game and quit. I knew some folks that had rerolled alliance and so I did the same.
I had to level characters all the way back up just so I could get to play at the same level of content I was at before (Thank god for RAF).

I rolled mostly different classes on the alliance side, as i didn't see the point of levelling the same ones again.

Now the time invested in those horde characters wont be completely wasted. And I'll gain the use of all the professions I left behind.

Personally, I can't wait.

[TheBigBB]

What they said would ruin the continuity and that they'd never do is allow Horde races to defect to the Alliance side and vice versa. That's a far cry from a paid service to change the actual race of your toon(s).

Personally, I'm on cloud nine. I love the look of Dranei and I've wanted to have Dranei Shaman for over 2 years... But I've never gotten an Alliance toon past level 2 and my boosting characters have always been and continue to be Horde. When I can do 1-60 in 6 hours played I have no motivation whatsoever to roll on Alliance, race be damned.

GREAT point: Blizzard claimed they would never allow defection to the other side, but they didn't say they wouldn't allow the creation of a new horde/alliance character which just happens to retain the same gear and such. That's what this comes down to.

[falsfire3401]

What they said would ruin the continuity and that they'd never do is allow Horde races to defect to the Alliance side and vice versa. That's a far cry from a paid service to change the actual race of your toon(s).

Personally, I'm on cloud nine. I love the look of Dranei and I've wanted to have Dranei Shaman for over 2 years... But I've never gotten an Alliance toon past level 2 and my boosting characters have always been and continue to be Horde. When I can do 1-60 in 6 hours played I have no motivation whatsoever to roll on Alliance, race be damned.

GREAT point: Blizzard claimed they would never allow defection to the other side, but they didn't say they wouldn't allow the creation of a new horde/alliance character which just happens to retain the same gear and such. That's what this comes down to.

It'd be kinda neat if they did allow defection instead of a paid faction+race change. I always wanted my human L80 rogue to be horde...but still be human.

At least lore-wise I can make her an undead and say she died on one too many Naxx-25 PUGs, but retained her free will when she came back to undeath and the alliance would thus no longer accept her in spite of the fact she did so many damn quests for them, has existed since retail launch, killed all those 40-man L60 raid bosses, reached the rank of Knight-Lieutenant, etc...so she joined the Forsaken.

I really wonder about the specifics of reputation when you xfer factions...will they do an equal mapping ie Honor Hold->Thrallmar for the faction-specific ones, or will all your faction-specific ones start at their default level ie 0/3000 Neutral for most cases. And flight paths...will you get all the equivalent flight paths? And how about quests? Will I be reset to 0 quests completed and have to redo all of them, even the neutral ones, will I be somehow Sons of Hodir honored / Ebon Blade revered without having done any quests for them? Or will I still be at the same number of quests completed but now have a super easy time going for Loremaster and Ambassador because I can do all the horde-specific quests for every zone starting at high rep levels...

As Nethaera wrote, there's ALOT of factors they have to take into account when doing this.

It might just be we get a "premade" toon of our chosen race, with the exact same gear, and all the 'neutral' factions set to the exact same level (for purpose of rep reward gear and enchants etc).

Or maybe they just edit some DB entries, changing race, flight paths, faction-specific reps, etc. It's all still such a mystery how it will work.

[blast3r]

So this means all you Alliance no lifers can transfer to Magtheridon and join up with The Zerg no lifers. hehe

[Tdog]

Hmmm, so basically the fact that I have both a team of shaman and a team of paladins on both horde and alliance means I just wasted ALOT OF TIME!!! X(

[Tonuss]

GREAT point: Blizzard claimed they would never allow defection to the other side, but they didn't say they wouldn't allow the creation of a new horde/alliance character which just happens to retain the same gear and such. That's what this comes down to.

To be honest, I think that it would work better to allow your character to defect. There are 'traitors' on both sides, and there are also NPCs who have helped the other side at one time or another. After paying your fee to switch factions, you could be sent to either a neutral site (Shattrath, Dalaran) or simply to one of the capital cities of your new faction, with your new factions reset to friendly or neutral. If you were to pay to switch back, they would do the same thing (ie, if you'd gotten your alliance factions to exalted and then switched to horde and back to alliance, your alliance factions would now be neutral). Having your character suddenly disappear without a trace and re-appear as a character on the opposite faction pretty much pulls you out of the continuity. Then again, I guess it's not that different from a server transfer (disappear from one realm, and re-appear on another).

None of these changes bother me in particular, as they do not affect my game play negatively. And if at some point I want to take advantage of the service, it's nice to have it there. My speculation on what they're doing or why they're doing it is separate from whether or not I happen to like the ideas.

[Mosg2]

I don't think that they'll ever have an option to defect. In my mind there are a few lines in the sand so to speak, and that's one of'em. It would really ruin any sort of immersiveness.

[Multibocks]

It's too bad really, I would level a NE hunter to 80 just to defect to horde and laugh as everyone spit on me in Orgrimmar. IM ON YOUR SIDE NOW GAIS! /hug