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."
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Dude, have you tried to level a new character recently? It's a long, boring solo grind because so few players are still levelling. It'd be fun to do with a bunch of friends, but face it - the original, populated game that we played back in vanilla is gone. The real game starts at 80.
Leveling in a new environment and doing new quests can be fun, don't you think? Like, say, making a horde character and doing horde quests if you've already done all the alliance ones.
And you'll recall that last line was used 4 months after launch, except the number then was 60. I still don't buy it.
Yeah, the first time or two. I have two level 60 alliance, two ~70 horde, and three 80 horde. New classes are still fun to learn and master but there aren't many quests I haven't done multiple times and the pre-60 quests are nauseatingly familiar.
And the last line I used was just as true back when UBRS was 'endgame' as it is now. The levelling process is basically a glorified tutorial in how to use your class. Disagree? Check most characters'/played time, I bet the average character at level cap has spent more than half of their playtime there.
Long story short, there are still bits of the game I have yet to get sick of but I have to go through a lot of the boring repetitive bits to get there and that annoys me.
Leveling in a new environment and doing new quests can be fun, don't you think?
No, not really. Instead of slaughtering 50 Murlocks for their eyes for Count Hurburk, you slaughter 50 Murlocks for their fins for Grunt Gruggrug. Instead of delivering this important set of papers to Councilman Elebuk, you deliver this package of food to Guard Urgel. Instead of...
Dude, have you tried to level a new character recently? It's a long, boring solo grind because so few players are still levelling. It'd be fun to do with a bunch of friends, but face it - the original, populated game that we played back in vanilla is gone. The real game starts at 80.
And I'd like to think it still includes a bitter divide between factions. Fostering the rivalry has always been part of the fun. By your argument, why not let the two factions communicate and raid together? Perhaps that would be all right for those that feel the merit of the game is entirely end-game raiding, but why make the game environment and lore suffer?
After all, if you don't feel the faction divide and find yourself wanting to play on the other side with some friends who are already finished with lev
Dude, have you tried to level a new character recently? It's a long, boring solo grind because so few players are still levelling. It'd be fun to do with a bunch of friends, but face it - the original, populated game that we played back in vanilla is gone. The real game starts at 80.
You're kidding, right? I have 3 80s and could level another if I wanted to in a month, probably less if I really pushed it. I have done 35 levels in a weekend. Leveling is so insanely easy now that I can get to Outland in less
I started playing WoW from Day 1. I leveled, the old-fashioned way, a Warrior from 1-60 (and with the original Hit% bug with Warriors, I can not exaggerate how painful that was), then over the next several months, a Rogue, a Druid, and a Shaman, all the 'intended' way.
By then I was *so*sick* of doing the same quests over and over, I decided to start dual boxing.
Lo and behold, the game was new again.
Used my 60 Warrior, who was very well geared by this point (BWL gear) and used him to level up a Mag
It's a business. Period. Their customers are the players. If the players want 55 free levels, faction changes, name changes, welfare epics, and on and on and on, and are willing to pay for it, either through a direct fee (name changes, faction changes) or by virtue of continuing to pay their monthly fee, they will keep getting it because at the end of the day, Blizzard, and every other major game manufacturer cares about one thing and one thing only: MONEY.
This is a fundamentally incomplete view of reality. While there are certainly people at Blizzard for whom the company is only about money, there are also people who are there because they want to make great games.
In order for a company to be truly great, it has to make a place for those types of people. I don't know first hand whether Blizzard is such a company, but looking at their products, it would appear to be the case.
On the other hand, companies that are only "about one thing and one thing only: MONEY", as you put it, are soulless places that I think should not be encouraged to exist in such a form.
That's not to say that money isn't important, but when you choose what you want to do in life, what your passion is, you don't choose to do that simply because of the money, but because it's what you love. By stating that businesses are solely about money, and nothing else, you make it just that much more difficult for the truly great companies to exist.
It's a business. Period. Their customers are the players. If the players want 55 free levels, faction changes, name changes, welfare epics, and on and on and on, and are willing to pay for it, either through a direct fee (name changes, faction changes) or by virtue of continuing to pay their monthly fee, they will keep getting it because at the end of the day, Blizzard, and every other major game manufacturer cares about one thing and one thing only: MONEY.
This is a fundamentally incomplete view of reality.
I think the whole level-based paradigm is a flawed (if ubiquitous) way to build an MMORPG, and I hope Blizzard manages to do away with it in their new MMO. It makes no sense to design a game so that all the fun comes after you've completed a long, gruelling level grind. An MMO should be fun and allow rich interaction with all or most other players the entire way through.
Wow may still be the best online RPG at the moment, but Blizzard really needs to get out of their current rut, a Red Queen situation in w
They aught to do it like how they implemented the Death Knight class (slightly more restricted). I've maintained for a long time that if you have a level 80 character, you should be able to start any class (of the same alignment) at 55. It's up to you to learn how to play the class. If you don't, your guild or PUG groups will find out fairly quickly.
IMHO there's no reason why one should have to spend weeks leveling up a character to fill a gap in one's guild.
IMHO there's no reason why one should have to spend weeks leveling up a character to fill a gap in one's guild.
Remember back when you started your first character? Did you find it easy or difficult to find players for group quest or running instances? I only started playing after TBC was out for a while and I hardly did any quest that required groups since finding players to work with was almost impossible. While I can appreciate starting at level 55, I can also see the benefits of keeping a populatio
If all your friends are horde, why did you roll alliance? See, when I started playing the game, I asked my friends what server and faction they were on, then I made my character. Of all the reasons people want to change factions, I imagine that's the least common of them.
I take it you only have 1 set of friends? And that they all still play WoW, on the same faction they originally rolled? The first half of that is rather sad, the second is pretty unlikely.
Here's a scenario for you: You start with your friends on Alliance side, your friends quit, you're alone. You reroll on another server, meet people there who also rerolled (to see the other side of the fence), realize they are on your original server too with their mains, only that they're on Horde side.
It's not like it's HARD to level up a character any more. You play for one, maybe two more months and you'll get there. 5 days of play time can get you to max level (that is 120 hours) If you only play 3 hours a day, you can easilly level one level every 3 hours, meaning you can level in about 80 days, and that's WITHOUT power-levelling.
A proper attempt at power levelling can give you 1 level every 2 hours, and if you play 4 hours a day that's you at level 80 in little under 40 days.
3 hours a day for three months may not qualify as 'hard' but it certainly qualifies as 'far more time than I should have to waste doing something I'm already sick of in order to get to the bit I would find fun'.
Secondly, because 90%+ of a server is at level cap, large parts of the early game are unavailable because it's impossible to find instance groups.
Lastly, there's the quality issue. The lowbie content is just not as good as the later stuff. In the four years between launch and WotLK, Blizzard's team has learned a HELL of a lot about MMO design. The quests in Northrend are far more varied and interesting than the ones in vanilla content. It's like being made to read all of Dickens' schoolwork before you're allowed to read Oliver Twist.
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 player
Its seems that they have 'target time' in which players can reach max level. Is max level is raised, part of leveling process needs to be changed to keep time spent reaching max level the same.
Which makes sense because player who joins game later has to catch up with population at level cap where the content is, and after several expansions it would be quite frustrating trying to catch up
Now, if they simply abolished concept of levels...
the whole game is based around making things easy for new players at the moment
The game has always been about making things easy for new players, that's why it's so popular. And I really doubt Blizzard give a shit about what reviewers think of them.
> Not even Blizzard really cares about the old content
True and valid point. It's like the old world areas kind of froze when you moved on to BC, WotLK, etc. Nothing new in politics, events, etc. There are quest lines they never seemed to finish up (such as returning some note to someone after Deadmines. I don't remember the specifics.) They did add some new stuff to Dustwallow Marsh ages ago (new quests, new flight point, etc.) but that's it. I have to agree with the others - if it wasn't for the ref
I'm one of two people I know of on my server with the Insane title. Back at level 60, I was one of a handful with a Winterspring Frostsaber. Both (at the time) required a lot of hard work, and after a while having to do what is necessary for the reputation grinds got a little tiresome. In the end, of course, I completed both of them, and it's a lot of fun to show the title, or back then, the mount. There's a fair amount of entertainment that goes into, "Oh, wow, you have that?"
...another step away from the original vision of the game.
Is it? Surely it'll keep people playing if they can switch and join friends rather than starting from scratch. I'm fairly sure that the "original vision" was closer to "get lots of people addicted and bringing in monthly subscriptions to make us lots of teh moneyz" than "get lots of people playing, but then lose them because we're too dogmatic in our rules and won't change anything to make it more enjoyable for the masses".
Considering some of Blizzard's own past statements, I don't think the original vision was simply to sell subscriptions. The first couple months of the game were pretty crazy considering they sold... what was it, their goal for a year within one month?
Honestly I don't think they had an 'original vision' at all. They just wanted to make a really, really big War3 hero map. Then they started making it better a bit at a time and look where they ended up!
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.
Still not sure how I feel about this. While on the surface it will provide a new level of convenience for playing the game, it conversely takes away from the 'value' of the conscious decisions made when creating a character.
Every time Blizzard does this the game just feels more and more watered down. The very things they are doing to cater to the very casual players are the very things that are making the game less special and easier to leave.
Nah, it's ok. How many times have you chosen a character at the beginning of a game not having any clue what you actually wanted? No reason to force people to do it; as long as there are enough limitations that changing is a serious decision, so people aren't switching one way in the morning then the other in the afternoon, it should be ok.
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.
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.
Oh noes! We all know that all alliance players are 14 year old ninja-looting griefers while us horde players are all mature, outstanding intellectuals with a good set of social skills and lots of humor. That's why I spent 3 years grinding anything from flowers, deviate fish (Yarr!) and whipper roots, while the long-eared low-level elves I killed while grinding said consumables tried to get past level 30. And then said elves would make forum posts, complaining about immature horde players! How immature!:-)
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:-)
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.
The lore does not accomodate that. An Orc who tried to join the alliance would be slain or at least ostracized. It's rare that the factions intermingle. They don't speak the same languages. They've slaughtered each others families. Etc.
That said, WOW does have other reputations that can be switched on a whim. There's a goblin town called Booty Bay that is at odds with a group of Pirates nearby. The default is that you're friendly with the goblins. But you can (and it's a blast) turn on the goblins a
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.
Alliance had the Palladin class. Horde had the Shamman class.
Then the Burning Crusade expansion comes out, further blurring Alliance and Horde by giving each of them what the other had, and they did not.
Now they're going to let you flip sides years after being stuck on one side? What's the point of having factions? Where's the lore of the hostility between the races?
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday June 30, @03:39AM (#28525535)
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.
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
Yeah but the transportation options suck, there's no way to switch off 'hard mode' and they delete your character once you get to max level. Who designed this crap anyway?
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 borin
Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another step closer to "everything for a price" and another step away from the original vision of the game.
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Just wait, it's only one step away from starting ANY character at level 55. When that happens, I know it was the right choice to leave the game :P
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Leveling in a new environment and doing new quests can be fun, don't you think? Like, say, making a horde character and doing horde quests if you've already done all the alliance ones.
And you'll recall that last line was used 4 months after launch, except the number then was 60. I still don't buy it.
Re:Lame (Score:5, Interesting)
And the last line I used was just as true back when UBRS was 'endgame' as it is now. The levelling process is basically a glorified tutorial in how to use your class. Disagree? Check most characters'
Long story short, there are still bits of the game I have yet to get sick of but I have to go through a lot of the boring repetitive bits to get there and that annoys me.
Parent
Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
Leveling in a new environment and doing new quests can be fun, don't you think?
No, not really. Instead of slaughtering 50 Murlocks for their eyes for Count Hurburk, you slaughter 50 Murlocks for their fins for Grunt Gruggrug. Instead of delivering this important set of papers to Councilman Elebuk, you deliver this package of food to Guard Urgel. Instead of...
Parent
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Dude, have you tried to level a new character recently? It's a long, boring solo grind because so few players are still levelling. It'd be fun to do with a bunch of friends, but face it - the original, populated game that we played back in vanilla is gone. The real game starts at 80.
And I'd like to think it still includes a bitter divide between factions. Fostering the rivalry has always been part of the fun. By your argument, why not let the two factions communicate and raid together? Perhaps that would be all right for those that feel the merit of the game is entirely end-game raiding, but why make the game environment and lore suffer?
After all, if you don't feel the faction divide and find yourself wanting to play on the other side with some friends who are already finished with lev
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You're kidding, right? I have 3 80s and could level another if I wanted to in a month, probably less if I really pushed it. I have done 35 levels in a weekend. Leveling is so insanely easy now that I can get to Outland in less
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By then I was *so*sick* of doing the same quests over and over, I decided to start dual boxing.
Lo and behold, the game was new again.
Used my 60 Warrior, who was very well geared by this point (BWL gear) and used him to level up a Mag
Re:Lame (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a business. Period. Their customers are the players. If the players want 55 free levels, faction changes, name changes, welfare epics, and on and on and on, and are willing to pay for it, either through a direct fee (name changes, faction changes) or by virtue of continuing to pay their monthly fee, they will keep getting it because at the end of the day, Blizzard, and every other major game manufacturer cares about one thing and one thing only: MONEY.
This is a fundamentally incomplete view of reality. While there are certainly people at Blizzard for whom the company is only about money, there are also people who are there because they want to make great games.
In order for a company to be truly great, it has to make a place for those types of people. I don't know first hand whether Blizzard is such a company, but looking at their products, it would appear to be the case.
On the other hand, companies that are only "about one thing and one thing only: MONEY", as you put it, are soulless places that I think should not be encouraged to exist in such a form.
That's not to say that money isn't important, but when you choose what you want to do in life, what your passion is, you don't choose to do that simply because of the money, but because it's what you love. By stating that businesses are solely about money, and nothing else, you make it just that much more difficult for the truly great companies to exist.
Parent
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They aught to do it like how they implemented the Death Knight class (slightly more restricted). I've maintained for a long time that if you have a level 80 character, you should be able to start any class (of the same alignment) at 55. It's up to you to learn how to play the class. If you don't, your guild or PUG groups will find out fairly quickly.
IMHO there's no reason why one should have to spend weeks leveling up a character to fill a gap in one's guild.
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Remember back when you started your first character? Did you find it easy or difficult to find players for group quest or running instances? I only started playing after TBC was out for a while and I hardly did any quest that required groups since finding players to work with was almost impossible. While I can appreciate starting at level 55, I can also see the benefits of keeping a populatio
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If all your friends are horde, why did you roll alliance? See, when I started playing the game, I asked my friends what server and faction they were on, then I made my character. Of all the reasons people want to change factions, I imagine that's the least common of them.
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I take it you only have 1 set of friends? And that they all still play WoW, on the same faction they originally rolled? The first half of that is rather sad, the second is pretty unlikely.
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Here's a scenario for you: You start with your friends on Alliance side, your friends quit, you're alone. You reroll on another server, meet people there who also rerolled (to see the other side of the fence), realize they are on your original server too with their mains, only that they're on Horde side.
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It's not like it's HARD to level up a character any more. You play for one, maybe two more months and you'll get there. 5 days of play time can get you to max level (that is 120 hours) If you only play 3 hours a day, you can easilly level one level every 3 hours, meaning you can level in about 80 days, and that's WITHOUT power-levelling.
A proper attempt at power levelling can give you 1 level every 2 hours, and if you play 4 hours a day that's you at level 80 in little under 40 days.
Not only that but if you
Re:Lame (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, because 90%+ of a server is at level cap, large parts of the early game are unavailable because it's impossible to find instance groups.
Lastly, there's the quality issue. The lowbie content is just not as good as the later stuff. In the four years between launch and WotLK, Blizzard's team has learned a HELL of a lot about MMO design. The quests in Northrend are far more varied and interesting than the ones in vanilla content. It's like being made to read all of Dickens' schoolwork before you're allowed to read Oliver Twist.
Parent
Probalby why they are accelerating it (Score:3, Informative)
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 player
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Its seems that they have 'target time' in which players can reach max level. Is max level is raised, part of leveling process needs to be changed to keep time spent reaching max level the same.
Which makes sense because player who joins game later has to catch up with population at level cap where the content is, and after several expansions it would be quite frustrating trying to catch up
Now, if they simply abolished concept of levels ...
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The game has always been about making things easy for new players, that's why it's so popular. And I really doubt Blizzard give a shit about what reviewers think of them.
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True and valid point. It's like the old world areas kind of froze when you moved on to BC, WotLK, etc. Nothing new in politics, events, etc. There are quest lines they never seemed to finish up (such as returning some note to someone after Deadmines. I don't remember the specifics.) They did add some new stuff to Dustwallow Marsh ages ago (new quests, new flight point, etc.) but that's it. I have to agree with the others - if it wasn't for the ref
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I'm one of two people I know of on my server with the Insane title. Back at level 60, I was one of a handful with a Winterspring Frostsaber. Both (at the time) required a lot of hard work, and after a while having to do what is necessary for the reputation grinds got a little tiresome. In the end, of course, I completed both of them, and it's a lot of fun to show the title, or back then, the mount. There's a fair amount of entertainment that goes into, "Oh, wow, you have that?"
Moral of the story: putting ef
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Is it? Surely it'll keep people playing if they can switch and join friends rather than starting from scratch. I'm fairly sure that the "original vision" was closer to "get lots of people addicted and bringing in monthly subscriptions to make us lots of teh moneyz" than "get lots of people playing, but then lose them because we're too dogmatic in our rules and won't change anything to make it more enjoyable for the masses".
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Considering some of Blizzard's own past statements, I don't think the original vision was simply to sell subscriptions. The first couple months of the game were pretty crazy considering they sold... what was it, their goal for a year within one month?
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How so? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
More is Less (Score:2)
Still not sure how I feel about this. While on the surface it will provide a new level of convenience for playing the game, it conversely takes away from the 'value' of the conscious decisions made when creating a character. Every time Blizzard does this the game just feels more and more watered down. The very things they are doing to cater to the very casual players are the very things that are making the game less special and easier to leave.
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Interesting option to offer but really desired? (Score:3, Interesting)
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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.
Oh noes! We all know that all alliance players are 14 year old ninja-looting griefers while us horde players are all mature, outstanding intellectuals with a good set of social skills and lots of humor. That's why I spent 3 years grinding anything from flowers, deviate fish (Yarr!) and whipper roots, while the long-eared low-level elves I killed while grinding said consumables tried to get past level 30. And then said elves would make forum posts, complaining about immature horde players! How immature! :-)
Why would you have to change your character? (Score:4, Interesting)
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EVE Online has had that all along... :)
Characters switching sides frequently sabotage their old corp or steal as much as they can
Game code isn't set up that way (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The lore does not accomodate that. An Orc who tried to join the alliance would be slain or at least ostracized. It's rare that the factions intermingle. They don't speak the same languages. They've slaughtered each others families. Etc.
That said, WOW does have other reputations that can be switched on a whim. There's a goblin town called Booty Bay that is at odds with a group of Pirates nearby. The default is that you're friendly with the goblins. But you can (and it's a blast) turn on the goblins a
And yet.. (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Betray your faction (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Yet again, they further homogonize the game (Score:2, Troll)
Horde had the Shamman class.
Then the Burning Crusade expansion comes out, further blurring Alliance and Horde by giving each of them what the other had, and they did not.
Now they're going to let you flip sides years after being stuck on one side? What's the point of having factions? Where's the lore of the hostility between the races?
More to the point: what's the bloody point?
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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?
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Time travel! It's the answer to everything!
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Whenever something like this happens, a wizard did it.
Re:They are badly losing people... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
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Some bozo with a god complex, IIRC.
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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 borin