Faction Changes Q&A
Perhaps the biggest news in the past week -- aside from 'Cataclysm', that is -- hasn't been Patch 3.2 itself but a service Blizzard has apparently been working on for some time. Paid faction changes. We received quite a number of tips about it and even saw our story make a cameo on Attack of the Show. Players have been asking for something like this for a while, and there have been incidents of entire guilds rerolling from scratch to defect.
Of course, with the shocking news comes a lot of questions, so Nethaera hops on over to the forums and answered a few concerns that players had. The biggest bummer for me was that I couldn't change race within my own faction! So... let me get this straight... I can change faction and become a totally different race but I can't swap my Blood Elf Death Knight into an Orc? Blasphemy! Unfortunately Blizzard doesn't think choice of race isn't something you can regret unlike faction choice. Anyway, more answers after the jump...
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.How much will it cost?
A.. We do not have further information on this at this point in time.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Odd how they won't allow race changes as part of paid character customization when faction change obviously creates a bigger impact on the playing environment. Then again, Blizzard may just be wary of players jumping to another race to min-max, such as all PvP players hopping on to Humans for that extra trinket slot. Oh well. Stay tuned!
