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Faction Changes Coming To World of Warcraft
A Blizzard representative today announced that they're working on a service for players to switch factions in World of Warcraft, going from Horde to Alliance or vice versa. "There's still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we're pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it." They also said there would be "some rules involved with when and how the service can be used."
Yet another step closer to "everything for a price" and another step away from the original vision of the game.
Some of my guild have on occasion mused about switching faction, still under the "grass in greener" assumption that the opposing side has less asshats or are better at pvp. Be warned, the asshats are everywhere.
I've noticed something. We hear from people who have done the majority of the content that WoW has, they beat Vanilla, they beat BC, they made good progress in WotLK. But then the game changed and it was ruined! Because there isn't a single chance in the world that after you spent 4 years beating all the content, both PvE and PvP that maybe you just got tired of the game? For instance, I love pasta. But if I ate great big helpings of pasta for dinner 4 or 5 days of the week for four entire years, I bet I wouldn't like pasta as much. And no, its not because someone 'ruined' pasta, it because I got tired of something I did a lot of.
Time travel! It's the answer to everything!
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Why not simply change factions, with whatever character you have? It is a bit pointless to change character (or morph into another). The real social interaction (or call it Paranoia) would start, if - with the click of a mouse - yesterday's enemy could be today's friend and vice versa. Whole guilds changing sides would also be a nice touch especially in PvP mode. Again: With the click of a mouse, in the middle of a battle. All the cold-war amneties in mercenary heaven. "You do not pay me enough and I'll go rogue" is a whole new business model, a whole new industry waiting to be born. "Realpolitik" in the virtual world. Bliss :-)
EQ(II) has had the option to betray your faction from the get go..
So what other "innovations" can we expect from Blizz in the years to come; player housing, guild halls?
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
I've always thought they should have a special quest that lets you betray your faction. At the end of that quest you are officially part of the other faction. Because of your betrayal, you wouldn't be accepted back into your original faction, so this would be a one-way switch.
I think WotLK was when a lot of people realized that the last glimmer of challenges and "player skill" in WoW have been patched out. It's been reduced to basically a complete skill-less game.
Now, it wasn't a hard game from the start. But it was good, quick fun. A bit like the fast food of online games. It's not really rewarding for a long time and getting anything ain't something you brag about because you know you could put a 6 year old there and he'd succeed (and if you don't have a 6 year old handy, slap together a script), but it was ok for the time.
The rewarding moments ceased to exist with the advent of certain abilities that made even the tank scriptable. AoE aggro that can essentially not be broken. Now where's any kind of challenge left? That you can fire your spells and styles in the correct order to maximize damage (because you won't have to worry about aggro anymore, at least if the tank is at least as good as a small script)? Please, google the correct sequence...
I don't want to brag to others how much I accomplished, but at least I want to have the feeling that I didn't just waste my time doing something anyone can do. But that seems to be the appeal, and I don't care too much that people want to play that. To each what they like.
What bugs me to no end, though, is that other MMO makers dumb and water their games down in an attempt to attract the WoW players. Even EQ2, which started out as an insanely HARD game. And I mean insanely hard. I don't mind challenges, but EQ2 was like pulling teeth, without any kind of drugs, every single level was a battle, right from the start. After a few months it had a fairly good challenge level and was quite playable. In the meantime, it has been reduced to lalaland as well. And it's not any better for any other game that I'd know of.
So, IMO, essentially what keeps WoW afloat is that there are no real alternatives if you're fed up with EZ-Mode gaming. The rest of the games have been turned into copies of WoW, so you can just as well stay there.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For one there's the simple matter of races. Each side has races that are totally unique to it, there's no overlap. So to change sides necessitates a change of race. that is just how the game is set up. That's not the only thing, of course, but just a major example. the game was designed such that when you are on a faction, that is that. There's no switching back and forth. It wasn't made as some other games where you can declare allegiance, which can be switched. This is a long standing war and races have chosen sides that don't change. Game code reflects that. So it would be a major rewrite to implement that, not to mention a major shift in game mechanics that many players might not like.
Instead, they are likely going to implement a system that just does a conversion on your character data. Basically it'll pull your data from the database, change the necessary things so that you are on the other side, and then place your character back in the database. It'll probably be an offshot of the existing character transfer script, which deals with all the checking to make sure a character can be moved to a different server (which sometimes is in a different datacenter) without problems.
You also have to remember that the problem with what you describe is that games HAVE done that and in almost all cases they make a rapid run to the bottom and fail, or at the very least have few players. The problem is that humans are not nice and don't want to work together, especially when there aren't consequences, and even when there are. A short look at human history tells you this. Our democratic societies where most people enjoy rights are the exception, not the rule in history. Even today there are many societies where the strong dominate the weak.
Well, that's what you get in games, especially since there aren't permanent consequences in them. The griefers get powerful and stomp on everyone else. Life sucks if you aren't the elite. This happened in Shadowbane to an extreme.
So if you want a game with balance and rules, those rules must be enforced by the design and the game masters. The players won't do it themselves. The power gamers will oppress most people, and most people will up and leave to play something more fun.
That's one of the reasons why WoW works. You have instant and enforced allies and enemies. There isn't a case of "Anyone who is good joins this group, everyone else is excluded." No, everyone on one side is allied, period. The PvP system is controlled in a way that Blizzard wants it, it isn't a free for all.
If you want games like that, they are out there, but WoW isn't one of them and I don't think Blizzard wishes to make it so. They've got a model that works for them, to the tune of billions of dollars per year. I doubt they are anxious to radically alter that.
So I imagine this'll be quite limited in scope, much like the current realm transfers. You pay Blizzard a fee, and if everything checks out (in terms of what you can bring with you and so on) they execute the transfer. You then can't do a transfer for some length of time (30 days currently I think). The idea is if you play horde and your friend plays alliance, you can switch so you both play the same. The idea is not to radically alter the game.
They also may use it to try and balance out sides. Some servers have a big numbers imbalance, and it perpetuates since the side with more people has more new people join to play with friends. They could entice people ot switch with cost-free transfers and such. They already do this on high population realms. When too many people total are playing, they offer free transfers to new realms with low population for those that want to.
They continue to make it faster to gain the lower levels. I imagine this will continue, as the level cap raises. Seems like the over all idea is that it takes the same amount of time to max out, regardless of what the max is.
to that end they've already reduced the XP it takes, increased rewards and so on. Next step appears to be ot make transportation available earlier. Mounts are going to be made available at much lower levels.
They seem to do a good job of refactoring the game to keep it fun for new players. At least if they aren't, I'm at a loss as to why their subscriber base keeps growing.
At this point, all the fees they have are related to meta-game type things only, none are related to in game content. You pay to access the game, you don't pay a special fee for access to raid content. Likewise they offer you the ability to transfer to a new server to play with friends, not the ability to buy gear. They sell a change of appearance, not a bag of gold. Now they are going to offer the ability to change sides.
The idea seems to be that if you make a meta-game choice you later dislike, you aren't stuck with it. You can change your mind. In the game world itself, you have to do everything in there with the tools available. This purchase system is only for things that you don't control in game and that really don't have an impact on gameplay.
If they were selling in game items and such, yes I'd dislike it. However they aren't, they are just saying "If your friends play on a different realm or a different faction, you can pay to switch over and go play with them."
Also the fee seems to be as much based on making people think about it and only do it if serious as making money. I'm sure they don't mind the extra cash, but notice that they also impose time limits. You can't transfer characters all the time, there's a 30 day limit. If it was only about money, they'd let you transfer as often as you liked to make more fees.
This seems to work. Because of the fee and the time limit, you don't see people jumping servers often. It is reserved for those that have a real reason.
You know that this isn't the first time Blizzard has lowered mount requirements, right? It sounds like /you're/ one of the "noobs" who hasn't paid your "dues in sweat." Real men got their mounts at level 40 and paid 90 gold just for the riding skill. Except Tauren, who couldn't even use mounts.
Or maybe -- just maybe -- players getting a land speed increase so they can get from 20 to 30 a little faster isn't the end of the fucking world. Let's face it, getting through those mid levels in Azeroth is boring as hell, especially now that the old zones are practically empty. The point is that Blizzard doesn't want players to dread spending hours doing things. If that's the kind of game you're looking for, maybe Final Fantasy XI is more your style?
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
More to the point: what's the bloody point?
You're looking too deeply, my friend.
It is a game (and a hobby).
The point is to enjoy the time you spend doing it. This should help some do that without impacting other's ability to do the same.
Does there need to be more of a point than that?
As a WOW Player I think the reduction of time for the mounts makes sense. Walking around was the worst part of leveling. However leveling a "toon" from 1 to 80 should remain. That is how you learn how to play the toon. Especially if they are an entirely different class like cloth armor from plate. I have plate toons (Pally and DK) and I enjoy them at level 80 as well as when I was leveling them. Clothies have their advantages and I will be working on one for various reasons but starting at level 1 is good. I will have to learn how to attack and work on strategy to become proficient with the class. Changing this would be a mistake IMHO. Also allowing people to take a high level toon and switch sides I have mixed feelings about. I think if they allow it they should loose all achievments that are not available to the other side. Not get the equivalent. There should be a penalty for changing sides otherwise people will do it for various reasons that could ruin the game mechanics and achievments.
Switching realms to an imbalanced realm is already prohibited if your faction happens to be the most numerous there. Conversely, switching to a realm where your faction is in the minority is often free. They'll probably do something similar with this.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.