Powerleveling Leather Working From 1 to 450

Leatherworking  is one of those professions that doesn’t get a whole lot of play.  But it does have reasonable gold-making and toon buffing potential for your character – plus it’s not all that expensive to power level if you do it properly.  Having a good Leatherworking Guide can certainly save you time and expense.  The link above will take you all the way through the steps to do it cheaper and faster.

Primarily we recommend that you use professions that have the greatest benefit to your toon for end-game activities such as arena and raiding.  The crafting professions are generally best for this but the list of professions with the best toon buffs combinations is fairly short.

You’ll see a lot of casters going with Tailoring and Enchanting, while mail and plate wearers tend to go with Blacksmithing and Jewelcrafting for their min/max needs.  It’s hard to beat those combinations for pure added power.  However, if you already have those professions covered and need something different for balance Leatherworking isn’t a bad choice either.

The fur linings can actually outdo the extra gem slots from blacksmithing, even if you are slotting in the JC only gems.  If Spell Power and Attack power fit your toon needs best, Leatherworking is a great choice.

The Leg armors and drums also have some decent profit potential from auction house sales.  And considering there are probably far fewer Leatherworkers than Tailors on many servers it means that for the most part you can probably make more selling leg armors than threads.  That’s not always the case on every server, but you might look into it.

Getting all the mats for leather working may be a little tough for power leveling, but if you know ahead of time what you need and have any patience at all at the ah you should be able to get it done without too much waiting and expense.  Northrend mats should be plentiful, it’s the mid levels that might give you fits.  A DK alt with skinning is just the ticket to solve that issue.

If you’re cheap, and don’t mind farming, skinning is a joke to level.  If you skin your way through the mats list in our Leatherworking Guide, you’ll have no trouble making it through the rougher parts of the leatherworking mats.  Plus, DK’s come with all the flight paths and and epic land mount to boot, so you don’t have to waste skinning on a main.

So while Leather working may not be your first choice, it’s certainly not a bad choice for an end-game profession.  And if you’re using it for raiding you may very well end up with one of the new 264 ilevel gear recipes which are selling quite well in patch 3.3.  As a matter of fact – I may just do JC/LW on my old druid.  In the end leveling leatherworking is not all that hard and gives you a chance to Dominate in raids and at the AH.

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Recruit your best friend …  YOURSELF!

In the 1st article we outlined the basics of the RAF program.  In this article we will explore the ways to exploit the program for maximum DOMINATION.  Some of these setups may be beyond you and/or your computer’s abilities.  It is up to you to choose the one that best fits you and enjoy the free extra xp.

Let’s start with the basic Acct setup as this is the same regardless of how you use the program.  You will end up having 2 accounts with this program, the Veteran account and the Recruit account.  The veteran account is your main account that you want a new alt on.  The recruit account is a free account you are just using to gain extra XP with.  Now lets get down to business.

1. The 1st step is to send YOURSELF a recruit a friend email using the warcraft website.  Just log into the veteran account (via the Blizzard web site) and send a RAF invite to your email address.
2. When you receive the trial offer email follow the email instructions and in no time you have a free 10day trial that is tied to your main account.  This is what can be called a disposable account. After the 10day trial, you may never use it again. Now the fun begins.

Log onto your veteran account and roll up your desired new alt.  Please keep in mind that the trial account is Vanilla WOW, so no Draenei or Blood elf quest zones are available for questing with the trial account.  You can make one of those on your main account if you wish, but the pair will not be able to use those starting areas.

Character pairing tips.

• If you make a melee based toon, I highly recommend a Shaman for the trial account if possible, but honestly any healer class will do quite well. I like the shaman because they can just drop a few totems which will buff your primary toon, then sit there ready to heal if needed. Again, maximizing benefit for least amount of work.
• If you make a caster toon, then you will probably want a melee class for the trial account. If you’re not planning to dual box, then any old toon works on the trial account as it is just going to pop up when needed.

Now that your accounts are set-up and you have rolled your toons lets discuss working the pair.  We covered Multi boxing in a previous Casual Corner article.  Make sure you read it, it covers the basics of the Multi boxing style of leveling, and nothing changes when using it for RAF.  Well nothing other than getting THREE TIMES the XP per kill and quest!

It is realy just that simple. In no time at all your new alt will be level 20 and into the fun levels, or better yet all the way to lvl 60 and ready to hammer outlands into submission!

Now I know your all asking, well what about the toons on the trial account? You have options for those toons.

• If you really want those toons, you can always pay to move them to your main account.
• Or if you want to push and get maximum boost you could turn the trial account into a full blown account, which buys you a full month of bonus XP mayhem and opens the door to RAF your way on to lvl 60 on both accounts.  An added bonus of the recruit account being a full account is that now you can trade between toons to make sure they are both geared! Plus after those 60 levels you then have 30 free levels on the trial account to hand out to another toon on the veteran account WOOT!

One last tasty RAF leveling tip;

Leap-frogging Levels:  When dual boxing try to keep the recruit toon’s lvl slightly ahead of the veteran account toon. This can let you leap-frog the veteran toon a level at the last minute before hitting 20. When the recruit toon dings to 20 and the veteran is just a hair short of 20 the recruit can gift the veteran toon a level! BAM your lvl 19 that was 99% to 20 is now 99% to 21 YEEHAA! Then turn in that last quest on the veteran and catapult into 21 in style! This also applies to lvl60 if you decide to convert the trial account into a full blown vanilla WOW account.  Get the Veteran account to lvl59.99 and then gift it a free level!

You can do similar when your gifting levels to your other alts.  Before you start gifting levels, get the verteran account alt as close as possible to going Ding THEN grant the levels.  That way you are working for cheaper lower level XP and buying your way higher into the gifted levels.

I am not a power leveler by any means.  But this system really makes power leveling possible for even the most casual WOW player, and you could soon find yourself with a fleet of 60’s ready to sprint thru outlands. At one Point in a single month I ended up with a total of six lvl 60 toons, two pairs I ran up and then a pair of toons on the veteran account that were already lvl 30 and were granted free levels to 60!

Something to  watch for

Blizzard recently did a sale on vanilla wow, it was $5.00 for the full base game, including the free 1^st month.  For $5.00 you had yourself a power leveling tool good all the way to 60! Sadly, this was a 2-day sale and is over, but keep your eyes open, you never know when they will do it again, and pricing for the base game should only drop as they release Cataclysm.

Alts are cool, chicks dig scars, DOMINATING is eternal.

Wicked of Dominate
<Fenris>

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Leveling the Hardcore Casual way

In the last few years Blizzard has made numerous changes to the “low level” game to help get players into Northrend as quickly as possible.  XP is lower per level and quest rewards are increased, leveling a toon has never been faster.  Add to that the Recruit-a-friend (RAF) program they implemented back in June 2008 to help push players into TBC content and we have an Altoholics paradise!

I am going to share a little set-up I have found quite useful for getting toons past the often tiresome lvl 1-mid 20’s, FAST.  I am talking 1-20 in a single day of relaxed playing, or a single evening after work if you use Gavin’s guide or know the start zones well.  The best part it is FREE! This article will focus on the lvl 1-20 program.  It can be adapted to help all the way to lvl 60 as well, but more on that later.

Many players do not truly understand or appreciate the RAF program.  They do not realize it can be a leveling tool; they don’t have any friends to recruit, so why pay attention right?  A few of us Milk it for every level it is worth! To begin lets cover a few key points about RAF:

• The RAF invitation includes a FREE 10day trial account for the “new player”

• Once the offer is accepted the accounts are linked for 90-days, well past the 10-day free trial (more on this later).

• This trial account is a Std trial account; it can’t trade, buy in AH, and is quite limited due to past abuses.

• The trial account is Vanilla WOW, with no access to Blood Elf or Draenei starting areas.

• When the linked accounts are partied together they both get TRIPLE XP for EVERYTHING that is not grey to them. That means mobs AND quests, but they must be partied to get the bonus.

• Each toon can summon a toon from the other account once per hour.

• For every 2 levels gained by the recruited account they can gift a free level to a lower level toon on the veterans account.

• ALL bonuses stop at lvl 60.

• After 1^st paid month on recruit acct, the veteran acct gets a free month.

• After 3 paid months the recruit account can gift one Zhevra mount to any single toon on the veteran’s account.

As you can see the benefits are quite large, and well worth exploiting.  Now that I have outlined the base program for all of you I will throw some teasers and tips out to you to get you thinking about the next article.

• Holidays;  Blizzard is now giving xp for the holiday quests, the RAF program triples this too, so take advantage and get some easy triple xp! The recent Pilgrim holiday was a a perfect example and I actually double dipped. Those that follow DYS read about how easy it was to get 1-300 cooking skill for a few gold, but each quest kicked out 3x XP using RAF!! As a toon in my teens I was seeing 3500xp per quest!

• Traveling: The free hourly summon ability is extremely handy. It works not only with the new alts, but all toons on both accounts.  What I found worked well was having the toons hearthed to different places.  Like one in Org and one in UC. Need to travel to TB or Org for a quest turn in, hearth the toon there and summon the other toon.  Need to head back to UC for training your undead priest, hearth him home, train and then summon him back.  Need to run to the next FP or quest point?  Log onto a bigger toon , fly there, then summon the other toon to you.  Log off the big toon, onto the new alt and use the trail to summon him.  Bam, in minutes you safely made the journey. I actually used that to get both toons every FP in both continents when they were only lvl 20 over the course of a week.

That’s all for now, see what trouble you can cause and as always DOMINATE.

Alts are cool, chicks dig scars, DOMINATING is eternal.

Wicked of Dominate
<Fenris>

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In my previous article we shared a fairly common player type: the Alt-o-holic.  At times the pull of this addiction becomes so strong that simply playing one alt is not enough.  The altoholic finds themselves wishing to play multiple toons at once.  Well we, at Dominate, are here to help!

I want to introduce you all to an extreme form of Altoholism called Multi-boxing.  In the past this was typically called Dual-Boxing, but has in general changed to Multi-Boxing.  Seriously, once you have 2 toons running, why stop there! ?

Some of you that have been playing the game for a while have probably had exposure to Multi-boxing already.  Those that have experienced it on a pvp server arena, or battlegrounds most likely shudder just at the mention of Multi boxing.  This is because you are one of the thousands of victims of this cruel form of Darwinism, a true “Peace thru superior firepower” solution to pve and pvp.  For those unfamiliar with it let me paint you a picture before we go any farther.

Imagine being on a pvp server and innocently running out of Booty bay to go kill some Pirates.  You look around to make sure nobody is close to gank you, all is clear so you begin casting on a mob but suddenly about the time your spell hit it’s target POOF you are dead.  Wait, what just happened?  You spin the camera around a there stands 5 shamys all waving at you simultaneously.  You rub your eyes thinking your seeing things, they all move in one motion, maybe it’s a glitch because your pc is overheating…  While you sit there wondering what happened you whatch them all mount up and run off.

No you were not imagining it, You just got Multi Boxed!  Don’t despair, even the best player can’t overcome the sheer firepower that can be thrown out by a master Dual boxer.

Basic Set-up

There are various ways to set-up your computer(s) for what is called Multi-boxing.  That is, running 2 or more sessions of WOW at the same time. These will typically fall into one of four basic formats.

1. running multiple computers manualy
2. running multiple computers using keystroke clone software
3. running wow multiple times on one PC manually
4. running wow multiple times on one PC using keystroke clone software

Multi-boxing is a subject that can and does fill entire websites.  The set-up, macroing and software variations are far beyond what can be covered here.  For real detailed information, help and up-to-date set-ups I highly recommend visiting http://www.dual-boxing.com and http://www.multiboxing.com they have everything you need to know about how to get set-up to dual box like a pro.

• I have always in the past  used the 1st option listed.  It can be cumbersome to control and may not maximize output like the story example above, but it offers the benefits of tackling quests that require more than one character without having to look for someone to party with.
• For the last month I used option 3 with two WOW windows and I click back and forth.  Not very efficient and tedious to use, but I was up and running within seconds of logging on both toons.  There really is no “set-up” other than tiling your wow sessions like shown.
  
• Just this week I have begun the trial of using keyclone software, and while it has taken time to get going, now that I am figuring it out, it is the best way to go by far and worth a few days of research and set-up.  Having all your toons locked together and casting/healing/targeting with one keypress is jus thte best way to go.

Character pairings

The combinations and ways of pairing your Dual boxing toons are about limitless, and vary greatly based on the player’s desires and playstyle.  Usually dual boxers fall into one of two styles.

• Pure firepower
  This is a group like the one I mentioned earlier. Typically they are caster classes and rely on sheer dps to knock down anything in their way in one cast cycle, or 2 if the target is much bigger or elite.  Some people will mix caster classes like mages, priests, shaman, and warlocks, others will stick to one class.
• Balanced group
  These players will stick with two maybe 3 classes in their little party.  The group will typically have a melee toon and play more like a classic group meleeing mobs down, healing etc.  Shaman are a very common toon in these as they offer offensive casting, totems and healing in one class while still retaining some armor for defense, druids and paladins are also a great choice.  My preference is to run a Retribution Paladin lead with shaman in tow.  Plate armor and solid dps backed up by heals and caster dps plus totems..

Since I was a manual Multi-boxer in the past, I typically ran a Balanced group format.  My favorite pair by far has been pali lead and shamy follow.  The pali as we all know is a very strong solo class, add to that the shammy with totems, heal and offensive spells make a nice strong team.  Once they get up in levels they get reallt strong.  Consecrate, Chain lightning and Magma totem make a Brutal AOE grinding package from an early level.  I have run a shamy & Priest pair lately, and while strong, it does not compare to the Pali/Shamy

Now that I have a keyclone package working, I am experementing with the multi caster format and have a mage/priest pair up to lvl 6.  I know it is not much, but I have never leveled a mage past 20 so it is a start!  Talk about power though, it is something that cannot be appreciated until you try it!!  Now I am debating on making another pair of toons to try 4boxing for the 1st time.  However that requires additional accounts, and I will be covered in another article!

Alts are cool, chicks dig scars, DOMINATING is eternal.

Wicked of Dominate
<Fenris>

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Products We Love – Razer Naga, The Ultimate WoW Gaming Mouse

Click Here To Order Yours!

We’re a big fan of nifty peripherals here at DYS, just in case you hadn’t noticed, but every now and then even we get blown away.  Every month or two we test a new product in the market to see if it offers something more for our readers.  In order to get a review at this site, the thing really has to add something to the wow experience for the novice and pro alike.  Not making our cut doesn’t mean it’s a bad product, just that it doesn’t meet our Dominating and demanding flavor.

But every now and again we come across something that actually changes the way we play.  The Sennheiser headphones are great, but won’t really make you a terrific player.  The G13 game pad will – I still use both of them every single time I play.  But the Razer Naga blows away everything we’ve ever reviewed by such a huge margin that it’s a little hard to know where to start saying just how good it really is.

First things first, then.  It’s a standard size mouse (even though the button field looks pretty intimidating in the pic above) with 12 extra keys on the thumb side (for righties anyway).  That is the big difference between the Naga and every other mouse on the planet.  It has the standard left, right, scroll, scroll click, four and five buttons as most gaming mice – but adds twelve more keys for your thumb.  One look and we KNEW we had to give it a spin.

How Does It Feel?

In just ten seconds it was apparent it was the most comfortable mouse ever.  It’s like holding hands with your sweetheart.  The texture is just smooth enough to be soft, just matte enough to be completely slip free.  Not only do your index and middle finger glide into the perfect rest position, but there is a little shelf for your ring finger and a cup for your pinky that actually make it more relaxing to have your hand on your mouse than anywhere else.  You hate to let go of the thing to type.  So in the tactile area the Naga gets a 10+ out of 10.

Cursor Response

The drivers are super easy to install both on Mac and PC.  The interface is clean and offers a degree of movement control that is nothing short of outstanding.  It supports Dpi ranges from 100 to 5600 – which is a range from nearly dead turtle to fighter jet speed.  You can also adjust the acceleration factor and frequency response over broad ranges.  But the really slick part is that you can set it to control the X and Y axis Dpi independently.  That is a real WoW factor.  If you use a wide screen setup it is so nice to have the cursor move faster from left to right than up and down.  Cursor response and setup = 10 of 10

Movement and Function

Most mice have a few little slip pads on the bottom and a big bright lazer or whatever.  This beauty has a slip ring around the entire perimeter of the bottom, which makes it glide like butter.  It even has an extra slip ring that completely surrounds the invisible lazer orifice.  One thing is for certain, if your mousing surface isn’t completely clean, you’ll know it in about half a second. (we also prefer the Lazer exact mat for all our mice, but it’s especially nice with the Naga).  I prefer a free-wheeling mouse, but since very few have that option I can’t deduct too much for the incremental scroll.  The four and five buttons are right up at the very front and absolutely WILL give your a hand cramp if you try to use them very often, but we’ll get to why this makes almost no difference later.  And, finally the button clicks are easy enough to make without much force, but firm enough to avoid lots of accidental clicks – pretty much perfect.  Movement and function = 9 of 10

Extra Juice

Now we get to the good stuff.  Those 12 extra buttons are so good it’s not even fair to rate this thing against other mice.  It turns all those other mice into meece.  There’s everything else – and then there’s the Naga.  I pitched my G3 in a drawer for good and didn’t have a qualm in the world about doing so – and I loved that mouse.  Even apart from the extended functionality, the Naga is just a much better overall mouse, but those extra keys are WAY past incredible.  And then I played with them.

I fully intended to try to use as little hyperbole as possible, but that’s completely impossible in this situation.  Compared to every other mouse I’ve ever used – and I go through mice like a tomcat, the Naga would have no peer, leaving even the G3 completely in the dust.  But those extra buttons make it so different that it becomes completely unfair to all the other mice in the world.  If the G3 (a really good mouse) rated a 45 out of 50, the Naga (even without the buttons) would have raised the bar to 60, and that’s no kidding.  Those 12 new buttons put the bar at 100, and we’ll put the Naga right there 95 out of 100, which means there really isn’t any way to compare apples to apples.  everything else just got pwned.

That extra button pad automatically binds to either the: 1 through = keys on your keyboard or the number pad keys, whichever you prefer.  I already had bar one and two in Bartender assigned to those suckers as it is, so with the flip of a switch I can use my one mouse to toggle 24 keys – it’s so slick you have to use it to believe it.  And then comes Vuhdo – yikes.

Plug this thing into Vuhdo and you are one little macro command away from complete and total healing Domination.  And, in reality, it could almost make the choice between Healbot, Grid/Clique and Vuhdo closer to meaningless than ever before.  We’ll discuss that macro in the next article since it’s so slick and useful for so many other situations, but just know that you probably would never use it nearly as much without the Naga.

You’re Wasting Time Here!

All there is left to say is get one.  Get one right this minute.  Do not pass go, do not argue, just get it and Dominate.  Ask for it for Thanksgiving, your birthday, Christmas and New Years.  Beg, borrow, cheat, lie, steal or work like a fiend until you can get one.  Get up from your chair right now and go to the store – yes, it’s THAT good.  Once you plug this dude in, you’ll find 50 new ways it can improve your WoW life in about 5 minutes.  I am seriously excited about this thing, as if you couldn’t tell, but it really is the single best gaming peripheral I have ever seen.

If you can’t stand it, and we’ve done our job, you can click on the pic at the top of this article (or below) to go directly to Amazon and get one for yourself.  You don’t have to use our link, of course, but honestly, once you use the Naga you’ll never know how you played with anything else.   Go get one, and bring your Domination to a whole new level of pwn.

Order The Razer Naga Now

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Lower Level Flying Mounts Make Leveling In Outlands And Northrend A Breeze

We knew that it would make leveling easier, but until we tried it out in Outlands we just didn’t know how much easier it would be.  And you can complain all you want, but we love the way flying to quest means a whole new level of domination at level 60 and beyond.

We arrived in Hellfire on a fine hot afternoon about 2 weeks ago.  Since Law and his crew always have extra cash lying around, buying the flying mounts was no problem.  Hopping from one quest to another in Hellfire is so good it’s almost scary.  Remember how the stupid pigs have an aggro radius of like 4 miles?  No more of that crap, and Fel Reaver be danged.  It’s an experience like nothing else we’ve ever had.

Even in Northrend, the places you had to fly to were so freakin far apart that part of the fun was lost.  You can only really appreciate how much better the whole process is when you go back and see just how much different Borean Tundra is with a flying mount compared to running around on a ground mount.  Plus, when you DID get your flying mount in Northrend, most of us had to live with the regular version (at least those of us with a bazillion alts) and it was painfully slow.  But now that even regular flyers are fairly fast, you might just skip the epic flyer on a true alt since the basic Kmart mount is actually quite livable.

But perhaps the best part of being able to use the new, faster regular mount in Outlands and Northrend is that is will shave oodles of time off you leveling runs.  So much time, as a matter of fact, that it’s giving us problems with the guide.  People are leveling up so fast that they get ahead of the guide and run out of levels before they riun out of zones.  Not that it’s a bad thing, mind you, just stating the facts.

Petitepowerhouse and the all girl review crew went from 58-68 in Outlands and never even really got into Nagrand.  I mean, 10 levels in Hellfire, Zangarmarsh and Terokkar?  It’s ridiculous, ridiculously delicious.  Now, Petite didn’t have a level 80 main to send her the BoA cold weather flying book at level 68, so they are grounded again and hating it.  But for all the rest of you who are sitting on a level 55 alt, you just might consider running them up to 80 now.  Flying mounts in Outlands – now that’s Dominating!

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FOR THE HOrde. . .Wait, What Side Am I on Now?

We’ve been talking bout it for some time, and it really seemed that it would take a lot longer than it has for this to take effect.  But this afternoon Blizzard released the news that the faction chnge service has gone live.  Since it’s big news, but there isn’t a LOT of news, we’ve borrowed from the official Faction Change FAQ page since it represents the most up-to-date and complete information available.

What is the Faction Change service?

Our Faction Change service is designed to allow existing characters the opportunity to change their designated faction (from Horde to Alliance or Alliance to Horde).

How do I begin the Faction Change process?

To begin the Faction Change process, please visit the Account Management page, select the Faction Change option, and carefully follow the instructions provided.

How much does this service cost?

Each Faction Change costs $30.00 USD (not including applicable taxes). This covers a single Faction Change for a single character.

Is this service taxed? If so, how can I tell if my purchase will be taxed?

Players in select states in the U.S. may be subject to taxation when using our Faction Change service. This list includes, but is not limited to:
- New Mexico
- Texas

Can I change multiple characters’ factions at once?

No. The Faction Change service only allows one change per transaction. If you would like to change multiple characters’ factions, you will need to pay for each one separately.

At what level can I change a character’s faction?

Characters level 10 and above are eligible for a Faction Change. Death Knights will be unable to change their faction until level 60.

Will PvP realm restrictions prevent me from changing a character’s faction?

No. PvP realms no longer possess any faction-based restrictions. You may now play Horde and Alliance characters on any realm you wish.

Will this service allow me to customize a character and select a different name once its faction has been changed?

Yes.  Each Faction Change purchase will also provide the target character with an included re-customization and optional name change.

When I change factions, can I select any race for the character?

You may select any race of the new faction provided that it is available for the character’s class.

Does that mean I can use this service to change the character back to its original faction?

Absolutely; however, this will require purchasing another Faction Change.

When I change a character back to its original faction, can I select any new race?

Yes. As noted previously, though, you will only be able to select a race that is available to the character’s class.

Will I be able to select Cataclysm races and class combinations for a character once they’re available in game?

Details are not available at this time. As development continues, though, we hope to provide more information.

How often can I change a character’s faction?

You may change a character’s faction every 60 days.

What happens after I initiate a Faction Change?

Once your payment has processed and after you have remained logged out of the game for at least 30 minutes, you will see a new button to the left of the character’s name upon next login. Clicking on this button will allow you to select the character’s new faction and race, as well as customize the character’s look and name. These steps will greatly resemble the character creation process.
To complete the Faction Change, press the button labeled “Click to change your character’s faction” and confirm your selections. If you do not wish to change the character’s faction immediately, you may do so at a later time.

What will happen to the character’s old name?

If you opt to change the character’s name, the name will be locked from use on the realm for 90 days. You are not required to change the character’s name, though; this is simply an option we provide included with the Faction Change.

What will happen to the character’s equipment when I change its faction?

Equipment which is not considered faction-specific will remain unchanged by this process. Faction-specific equipment, however, will be automatically exchanged for a cross-faction equivalent. You can view a full list of faction-specific equipment and their cross-faction equivalents here.
**Please note that neither enchants nor socketed gems will be affected by an exchange.**

Will the rest of the inventory (materials, alternate currency, etc) be affected in any way?

As with equipment, items which are not considered faction-specific will remain unchanged by this process. Faction-specific items will be exchanged for a cross-faction equivalent. You can view a full list of faction-specific items here.

What will happen to the character’s mounts when I change its faction?

Mounts which are not considered faction-specific will remain unchanged by this process. Faction-specific mounts will be exchanged for a cross-faction equivalent. You can view a full list of faction-specific mounts and their equivalents here.

What will happen to the character’s non-combat pets when I change its faction?

Non-combat pets will not be affected by this process and will be available once the character’s faction change completes. This even includes faction-specific non-combat pets.

What will happen to the character’s achievements when I change its faction?

Achievements which are not considered faction-specific will remain unchanged by this process. Faction-specific achievements will be exchanged for a cross-faction equivalent. You can view a full list of faction-specific achievements and their equivalents here. Please note that all achievements relating to the Argent Tournament will be reset.

What will happen to the character’s titles when I change its faction?

Titles which are not considered faction-specific will remain unchanged by this process. Faction-specific titles will be exchanged for a cross-faction equivalent. You can view a full list of faction-specific titles and their equivalents here. Please note that all titles relating to the Argent Tournament will be reset.

What will happen to the character’s reputation levels when I change its faction?

Upon changing factions, the reputation level associated with the character’s previous race will become the reputation level of the new race. All other racial reputations will be converted according to the following chart:

• Orc (Orgrimmar) ↔ Human (Stormwind)
Tauren (Thunder Bluff) ↔ Gnome (Gnomeregan Exiles)
Undead (The Undercity) ↔ Night Elf (Darnassus)
Troll (Sen’jin) ↔ Dwarf (Ironforge)
Blood Elf (Silvermoon) ↔ Draenei (The Exodar)

• Additional faction-specific reputations will be converted into their cross-faction equivalents (if a cross-faction equivalent exists). You can view a full list of qualifying faction-specific reputations and their equivalents here.

• Faction neutral reputations will not be affected by this process, and faction-specific reputations which do not possess an equivalent will be lost.

What will happen to the character’s quests when I change its faction?

Quests which are active in the character’s log at the time of the Faction Change will be cleared and all quest items associated with these quests will be destroyed.
With this, completed quests that are considered faction-specific will be removed from the list of completed quests and no longer count towards any running “quests completed” totals. Should you ever elect to change back to the original faction, the original list of completed quests will be restored. Completed quests that are considered faction-neutral or possess a cross-faction equivalent will be unaffected or automatically exchanged without any detriment to the quest completed totals.

What will happen to the character’s flight paths when I change its faction?

All flight points associated with the character will be reset and you will receive a new list of flight points which are appropriate for the level and new faction. Please note that as the Dun Niffelem, Shadow Vault, and Crusader’s Pinnacle flight points are associated with faction-specific quest lines, they will not be automatically provided. To regain these flight points, the character will need to re-complete the appropriate quests.

What will happen to the character’s “Friends” and “Ignore” lists when I change its faction?

The character’s “Friends” and “Ignore” lists will be reset following a Faction Change.

What will happen to the character’s Guild and Arena team(s)?

The character will not be affiliated with any Guild or Arena team following a Faction Change. Guild and Arena team tabards will be removed and Arena team ratings will be reset as a result. If the character is a Guild Master, you will not be able to perform a Faction Change.

What will happen to the character’s honor and Arena points?

Any honor points, Marks of Honor, and lifetime honorable kills will not be affected by this process. Earned Arena points will carry over, as well; however, any pending Arena points accrued after the last maintenance period, but before your Faction Change is initiated, may be lost.

What will happen to the character’s mail and auctions?

Active mail and auction items will prevent a character from Faction Changing, so please be sure to pull all mail from the mailbox and take down any auction items prior to initiating the Faction Change process. These items will be handled as normal inventory.

Is there a gold limit for Faction Changes?

Yes. Characters possessing too much gold for their designated level bracket will not be eligible for a Faction Change. Please use the following table as reference.
Level 10 to 30: 300 gold
Level 31 to 50: 1000 gold
Level 51 to 69: 5000 gold
Level 70 to 80: 20000 gold

Where will the character be located after the Faction Change is complete?

Once the Faction Change is complete, the character will be moved to the capital city of its new race.

What will happen to the character’s Armory profile?

Once you have completed the Faction Change process, the character’s Armory profile will be updated to reflect any faction, racial, gender, or name changes. Please note that our Armory system is still in beta at this time, so the character’s profile may not immediately display the updated information.

Will this service share a cooldown with the Character Transfer, Character Name Change, or Character Re-Customization services?

No. The Faction Change service will not share its cooldown with any of these services.

Can I use this service to change race on my existing faction?

No. We will be releasing a Race Change service in the near future for this purpose.

Will this service share a cooldown with the Race Change service?

Yes.

Can I purchase a Faction Change for a character that has a pending Name Change or Re-Customization or is in the process of being transferred?

No. Before you may initiate a Faction Change for a character, please complete any pending Name Changes, Re-Customizations, or Transfers. These pending transactions will prevent you from initiating a Faction Change.

When will I be charged for the character’s Faction Change?

You will be charged immediately upon pressing the confirmation button on the Faction Change page.

Is there any way to cancel a Faction Change while the process is pending?

Because your payment method will be charged immediately upon confirmation, you will be unable to cancel the process once you have pressed the confirmation button and the Faction Change process is underway.

Is there any way to reverse a Faction Change once it’s completed?

No. Once a Faction Change is done, it is permanent. You may, however, purchase another Faction Change to switch back to the original faction once the service cooldown time has elapsed.

13 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

As the World Of Warcraft Turns

How History Affects Play In World Of Warcraft Just Like Real Life

When you were three years old, you probably had a stuffed animal that you slept with every single night.  If you’re as old as I am you might have gone through the mind numbing experience of playing retarded games like “Chutes and Ladders.”  You might have done some of the particularly stupid stuff we did (not to mention dangerous) when we would buy several thousand (yes THOUSAND) bottle rockets around the 4th of July to . . . get this, shoot at each other.  Yes, we even went so far as to take PVC pipes and make shoulder mounted rocket launchers to improve our accuracy – sigh.  (And if you do anything of the sort your parents should knock you upside the head and not blame me for giving you a dangerous idea – it was seriously dumb and I hope you’re not).

In the early 1900’s the big band sound was all the rage – I doubt any of you have a single tune from that era on your Ipod.  In certain ancient civilizations drinking urine was pretty chic.  The early 80’s brought us fondue parties, and we’re all certainly glad cell phones aren’t the size and weight of bricks any longer.  If you’re wondering if there is any point to all of this it’s that each of us experiences life in a completely different way, and each generation moves through the experience along a unique path.  What is cool today is going to fall right into the nerd ditch in just a few minutes.

There are a few of us who have played every game that Blizz has ever made.  Diablo was the first game to really do the online multi-player thing.  That was way back in the day where just about the only internet connections outside of gigantic metropolitan cities was a 28k dial-up (ick).  Needless to say the original B-net was pretty lame for those of us in the rural category.    Beyond that, you could play all the way through the entire game in about 30 hours – even the first time through.  It was fun, but fairly linear, and then you made a sandwich and played Nintendo.

I loved Starcraft, but didn’t get around to Warcraft until the middle of 2006 (after a couple of years of non-stop D2).  I figured if I was going to get into WoW, I needed to go back and play WC, WCII, and WCIII so that I would understand the storyline and all that kind of goop.  You know how much it helped me?  Zilch, Zero, Nada.  I learned next to nothing from playing the three prequels – at least nothing that actually accelerated my play in WoW.  I still get lost in the lore, but who gives a crap if it doesn’t make me a better healer.

And when it comes to playing the game, the very best players are those who play well NOW.  It’s kind of fun to think back about how unbelievably hard Kara was the first week it came out, but does it really make you a better player if your guild is falling apart now and you are still slogging through Ulduar?  You still think you’re leet  just because your old crew pwned Kara?

Pardon another small digression at this point.  You don’t have to listen to me at all.  I’m just a dood writing for a small web site about a game.  But one of my favorite writers ever – Mr. J.R.R. Tolkien had a theory about history and what it really means to any story.  He said (and I quote very loosely here) that:

…if you are going to write about someone walking down a road toward some mountains that the author needed to know who built the road, everyone that ever walked on it and everything that had ever happened in the mountains ahead.  Those little references to past history gave weight and depth to the story even if the reader never comprehends them all….

After his death, Tolkein’s son found this huge chest full of little notepads.  They were full of handwritten stories from Middle Earth that have been published as the “Books of Lost Tales.”  In them, Tolkein tells the full story of middle earth from creation all the way through the Lord of the Ring trilogy in poetry and prose.  Call them his own personal expansion of the Silmarillion.  They are amazing, and by far his best stories were in that back history and not in the last story (that’s just Lawbringer’s serious inner Tolkien geek talking though).

Some of his best tales were those he never intended anyone to read.  All those stories just gave him what he needed to create what is arguably the best fantasy trilogy ever written.  But whether or not YOU know all the history of Middle Earth will have very little impact on your enjoyment of reading LotR for the first time.  I read LotR about 15 times before I discovered the Books of Lost Tales.  And while reading the past history HAS given me more enjoyment of the final story, it hasn’t made me a better reader.

My whole point of this comes from something that most of you should know is one of my pet peves.  It never fails – every time Blizzard changes something about the game – and I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME, some doofus is going to write something that looks almost exactly like this:

Blizzard is just ruining the game for everyone.  Now you can get all this epic gear too easy and I remember how hard it was when I had to use a hammer on my old keyboard in VC just to get this one spell to work and now people get all these better graphics and rogues are stupid the new races suck because goblins have voices that bother me . . . . . .

…ad naseum.  You get the point.  The problem with this is that not a single one of those people actually live their OWN lives that way.  It bothers me because it couldn’t be any less intellectually honest.   It’s untrue, silly and just an excuse to gripe out loud in public and I don’t really like people like that in RL, so it REALLY bugs me when people punk about a game.  Sigh to the nth degree.

If those people really believed the juice they were pouring, they would go back and play all of the same lame games their parents played when they were growing up.  If your ability to enjoy the “WoW” experience is completely dependent on having “experienced” the same thing that people 4 years ago had to experience in the same ways they experienced them – how much MORE true would this be in real life?

But we certainly don’t see people hand spinning thread to make fabric to make their own socks – now do we?  I mean, how can you really appreciate socks if you never had to make your own socks like your great-great grandmother had to do?  You don’t deserve socks, and the fact that you can get better socks these days than ever before at basically any store in the country for super cheap just makes socks worthless and stupid and I hope that socks go out of business because cheap and good socks have completely ruined the footwear industry.

Apply this spurious thinking to virtually anything in any part of your real life and you’ll see just how silly it gets almost instantly.  If the game didn’t change you would have gotten bored out your mind three years ago and be stuck playing LotR or AOC right now because WoW would be a non-entity.  But it doesn’t mean that every new player HAS to play every stinkin’ thing that has ever been important to the game in order to have any fun or be any good at the game like it is right now.  They don’t make high school football players play in leather helmets just to experience the way it was back in the day.

Back in the day was lame compared to right now.  40 man raids were a pain in any piece of anatomy you care to mention.  The game right now is better than it has ever been and the next expansion will make it even better.  I know this is true because if the game wasn’t getting MORE fun then LESS people would play it.  You cannot sell a crummy product for 8 straight years.  Change is necessary and good the vast majority of the time.  Blizz gets griped at 24/7/365 and they use that input to change things that need to be changed and ignore the silly stuff.  If you’re so smart, go form your own company, develop games and see how that goes.

Most games fail because they do not stay fresh.  They keep the same old same old content and people get bored of it in about 2 hours.  WoW is good BECAUSE it has changed so drastically.  It more accurately resembles real life in that way.  Players that are new to the game can see the history they have missed when they ride through  the northern part of Deadwind Pass and wonder “what the heck is down THAT road?” But that certainly doesn’t mean they ever have to do Kara in order to have an appreciation for how good the game is.

When Cataclysm hits, it will be be a little sad for me to see Darkshore destroyed.  I’ve spent so many freakin hours in Auberdine it’s not even funny.  But it will give ME a better appreciation of the new content.  I agree with the goobers that having been through things gives those of us who DID go through them a better overall appreciation of the storyline, but that depth of understanding doesn’t make us better players.

Plus, on the flip side, if the level cap was still 60 and we were all still grinding it out for our T2 – the game would REALLY be dead.  THAT would ruin the game.  Not changing would kill the game.  Moving content forward so that even those of us who have done almost everything still have something to work for is NOT going to kill the game.  And every time the game moves forward, you have to go back and keep some balance so that the new player has some hope of doing the cool stuff at the end.

In all reality the reason Blizz does change the game is for YOU.  Yes, you; the guy standing in the back griping in a solid stream about how Blizz is ruining the game.  If you still had to level up the same old way you always did and do the same old dungeons you’ve always done you would stop paying your monthly fees and actually quit (we could only be so lucky).  Blizzard changes the game to keep the pros and old-timers interested.  Your leveling envy for the new guys who have it easier is just an envy complex and you should grow up and get over it.

You would roll your eyes so far back in your head you would never find them again if teachers these days said the same stupid stuff they used to say to my generation in high school: “you can’t use a calculator because if you never learn to do math on paper you won’t be as good at it.”  Dumbest thing I ever heard.  If we are supposed to NOT advance we would all still be skinning animals for their tallow to make candles just to have some light after the sun went down.

It’s even worse when the argument co-joins two disparate thoughts such as: “Don’t use electricity.  The Romans and the Greeks didn’t have electricity and using it makes you weak and inferior.  Sure, I have electricity NOW, but in pre-BC there was no electricity so you should go back and pedal the generator to drive your computer like I had to in fail-ville back in the day.”

Every generation stands on the backs of the work of the previous generation.  We don’t make kids develop their own languages and letters from scratch like someone had to 7,000 years ago.  We advance by taking what was done before us and then using that knowledge to do things quicker, better and faster than ever before.  But the jealousy of “how easy it is these days” always comes out.  Sure, I had to use a slide rule, but the reason we don’t use them any more is because it would be a waste of time and effort when there are far better methods of solving mathematical problems these days.  Sure, you had to figure out how to lead a 40 man raid on Onyxia, but that doesn’t mean that everyone should have to go back and do it exactly the way you did it.

You blazed a trail.  It was hard work and the next people coming down the road shouldn’t have to cut the same weeds you cut.  The really neat thing about WoW, if you’ll stop and think about it, is that you are becoming part of a fantasy history.  The changes work because the game works better now than it used to and that’s the way things should be.  Gear should get better and some things should get easier as the society as a whole progresses.  You have become part of that progression.  Don’t complain, it’s really cool that someone has enough forethought to sustain a fantasy world that moves enough to not get stale and boring.

Regardless of whether you are one of those people who have their brains plugged in all the way or whether you are in the slightly disconnected from reality group – when Cataclysm hits you are going to have no choice whatsoever.  The storyline is about to take a giant leap forward, and one of the oldest parts of the story – Deathwing – is going to change the whole World of Warcraft permanently – and for good.  And it IS good that the game is getting a complete overhaul.  It means we can enjoy it for another few years instead of having to move on to something far more lame – something where the story line never changes (console games ftl).  I, for one, will be glad when content progresses to the point where I never have to step foot in the Occulus again.

So I don’t want to hear that kind of stuff any more.  You wouldn’t apply that fail logic to anything else in the world (I know people try but that doesn’t make it less silly), and just because you apply it to WoW doesn’t make it less fail.  If you think the game is ruined then for pete’s sake quit playing right this second and plow a field with a mule and walk to school uphill both ways in the snow so you’ll enjoy life more because you have experienced the same way of playing life that your ancestors did – but watch out for the saber-toothed tigers – I hear they are a little tough in PvP.

60 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

More News From Blizzcon About Cataclysm Expansion

Now there is way too much to cover to be sure.  Information about Cataclysm is simply dwarfing everything at Blizzcon so far.  We are in the process of coming up with a better way of presenting information that is class specific without repeating ourselves and without just regurgitating every single blue post in its entirety.  In reality the folks at Blizz announce things a little schizophrenically.  So there is no real rhyme or reason to the press releases we’re getting.  But we’re sorting it all into more usable segments.  Plus, the folks at Blizz don’t worry too much about spelling and grammar in their posts.  We know it’s a little odd to correct a quote, but we just couldn’t stand it, so we cleaned up the worst bits.

Here is all of the general news that doesn’t fit cleanly into a category like”Hunter” for instance.  We’ve collected these bits out of four different blue posts – enjoy!

• Level cap will be 85 because developers wanted to focus on the right things: redoing Azeroth and providing more end-game content.

• A new guild advancement system  will let you earn guild perks and level a guild through 20 levels with points to spend in a talent tree. You will access abilities such as cheaper repairs, less durability loss on wipes, or mass resurrection.

• Phasing can now add and remove terrain based on your progress. Coasts will be progressively more flooded depending on how far you are in a storyline for example.

So who are we trying to kill anyway?

• Deathwing, the leader of the Black Dragonflight, will be the main villain of the expansion.

• Deathwing heard the whispers of the Old Gods after the arrival of the Burning Legion.  He eventually grew very powerful and also became very, very crazy.

• His plan was to catch the Alliance and Horde unaware with something so massive that it would bring up the Elemental Planes.

• The Elemental Planes were created by titans to contain the elementals.  They weren’t happy with this decision and some of them, like Ragnaros, got really angry.

Old World

• We all left a little part of ourselves in Northrend and the old world will be much darker than it was to make heroism and brotherhood more meaningful – like Warcraft should be.

• Every zone will be revamped with new quests, items, and art. The old world will be a brand new experience and you won’t have to deal with the annoying agility/spirit quest rewards anymore.

• Azeroth is now flyable. Pretty much all the zones [sic] will be changed to some extent.  Some of them, like Elwynn Forest, won’t change too much; but others, like The Barrens, will be sundered in two by Deathwing.

• The Wailing Caverns are now a lush and verdant Area.

• Desolace now has a lot more water and a lot of plants can be seen in the screenshots.

• The Horde finally conquered Southshore.

• Auberdine was destroyed and the night elves have set up a new camp north of it. Garrosh wants to expand the horde and has built a fortified camp at the south of the zone.

• Stonetalon has been cleaned by the Goblins.  Azshara will be the new Goblin zone, and they are using quarries in the mountains of Azshara to build their town.

• Apparently Orgrimmar will be rebuilt and reinforced with steel.  It now looks a lot like Garrosh strongholds.

• Undercity has been redesigned to be flyable.  It now looks much more impressive from the outside.

New Zones

7 new zones will be added : Twilight Highlands, Mount Hyjal, Deepholm, Uldum, Gilneas, The Lost Isles, Sunken City of Vash’jir.

Starting Areas

The Worgens and Goblins starting zones levels go from 1 to 15.

Vasj’ir

Sunken City of Vashj’ir will be an underwater zone and was the home city of Lady Vashj before the original sundering.  This is a gateway to the Abyssal Maw. Going through the Abyssal Maw will take you to the Elemental Plane of Water.  Even though the zone will be underwater you will be walking on the sea floor here.  New underwater mounts will be available and should have the same speed as normal flying mounts.

Deepholm

• Deepholm will be the new hub of the expansion and you will have portals here to let you teleport to Hyjal, Uldum, etc.   The Twilight’s Hammer now serves Deathwing and have brought him back to full health in the Temple of Earth at the center of the map.

• Deepholm isn’t really connected to Azeroth, the connection is where Deathwing emerged from the ground.

Uldum

Uldum will have at least two dungeons and is heavily inspired from [sic]  Egypt. The sea at the west of Tanaris was just an illusion created by the Titans and Uldum is actually a brand new zone. It is rumored to hold a super weapon. Uldum is also the home of the Tolvir, a race of stone-like cats created by the titans.

Plane of Fire

Ragnaros used the cataclysm to come back from the Plane of Fire where we sent him and is now besieging the World Tree in Mount Hyjal to burn it down. Malfurion is back from the Emerald Dream. The whole zone (Hyjal) will make extensive use of phasing.

Twilight Highlands

The Twilight Highlands will feature Grim Batol.  Deathwing literally broke open Grim Batol as he emerged from the ground. This is the new Twilight’s Hammer base in Azeroth and both Horde and Alliance will have a new port town with boats here. The Red Dragonflight is still here but has been pushed back to the west of the zone near the Wetlands.

Dungeons & Raids

• The Firelands will be a new raid dungeon.  It will let you go to the Elemental Plane of fire and visit Sulfuron’s Keep, Ragnaros will be there and he’s really pissed.

• Uldum will feature two new dungeons, the Lost City of Tol’vir and the Halls of Origination (a titan city).

• Grim Batol will have a level-up dungeon and a raid instance.

• Skywall (Air Elemental Plane) will have a level-up dungeon and a raid instance.

• The Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep will be back with brand new level 85 heroic versions.

• Blackrock Caverns will be a new level-up dungeon located in Blackrock Spire. This is an entirely new dungeon, new art, new creatures, new everything.

Player vs. Player

• Battle of Gilneas will be a new battleground where the objective is to control the city by controlling as many districts as possible.

• Tol’barad will be a new PvP zone and will also be the most important daily quest hub. Just like Wintergrasp, a battle will happen every few hours and the winning side will get access to the Tol’barad Prison and extra daily quests (the really profitable ones).

• Rated battlegrounds will be added to the game and should get you the same rewards as Arenas.

• New arena maps will be added.

Guild Leveling System

• The idea behind the guild leveling system is to make people want to be in guilds and make people feel better about being in a guild. The goal is to take that feature and make it the best they can. (Guild Talent Trees, etc …)

• You will be able to create guild heirlooms with the new guild leveling system, you can buy profession plans and anyone in your guild can wear that item, it will scale with level.

Raids & Dungeons

• You can’t get Frostmourne because it would take control of your soul. Frostmourne would be playing your character, not you. The weapon has an unique fate and the encounter is going to be mega.

• There won’t be any option to do Onyxia at level 60 anymore after the revamp in 3.2.2.

Cataclysm

• There isn’t any plan to prevent ganking in the contested zones of Azeroth, even with flying mounts available here. This is just part of being on a PvP server.

• They can’t spoil the Thrall / Garrosh storyline, but with the cataclysm raging everywhere, what do you think the world’s mightiest shaman would need to do?

• Northrend and Outland won’t really be affected by the Cataclysm but some of the areas will be updated for the expansion. For example, you will be able to level up Archeology in Outland.

• XP in Battlegrounds need to be fixed because there is a lot of XP leeching in the 71-80 Brackets. Once it’s fixed, it will be improved across the board.

• Multi-passenger flying mounts could be added in the future. They might also allow crafters to craft 310% flying mounts if they already completed an achievement rewarding one.

• Every healer class can now dispell magic, the niches will other debuffs.

• Engineers might be able to craft bows in the future.

• If you already own a 310% mount, you might be able to boost the speed of all your 280% mount to 310% just to let you use the one that you prefer.

• Casters will finally get a Legendary item in one of the first raids of the expansion.

• Cataclysm will change the ways abilities are learned. Abilities ranks are gone and ability will just scale progressively with levels instead.

• Most of the Talent Trees will be changed dramatically, a lot of the passive bonuses will be removed and talent trees should be more fun. (No more “Hurray! Level up! I just got 1% more hit!)

• You will never be able to cleanse the Corrupted Ashbringer.

25 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post

Blue Posts Confirm Faction Change Service In The Works In Post Regarding Lifting Of PvP Realm Class Restrictions

We didn’t buy it when the news first broke.  Several online sources last month touted a blue post at the Blizz forums that mentioned that Blizzard was working on providing players with the ability to change faction from Ally to Horde and Horde to Alliance.  Unfortunately we were unable to locate the original post at the forums, so we kept the idea on the shelf until we got further solid confirmation of this news.

Just a few days ago a well known name on the forums referenced the original post in its entirety, bringing solidity to the idea and we thought it was high time you heard about it.  This actually leads us to more good news for those of you who use the Auction House Mastery Guide, and we’re going to lump both bits of news together and give you an overview.

PvP Realm Cross Faction Toon Restrictions Lifted

This is the post that led us back to the original idea that Blizz was working on a Faction Transfer Service.  Because of this, Blizz decided to lift the restriction that does not allow you to have toons of both Alliance and Horde on the same PvP server.  Here is the post from Eonix confirming this change:

As we’ve already discussed, we’re in the process of developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. To prepare for this new service, we’ve removed the restriction that prevents players from creating both Horde and Alliance characters on a PvP realm. For more information on our Faction Change service, please visit the following link.

Included in this post is this link: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18031079410&sid=1

Now you can create toons of any faction on any realm.  We also imagine that this will help ease the imbalance of Ally to Horde ratios on some servers, but not nearly as much as the next issue.

Faction Change Service Coming in WoW

If you follow the link from the Eonix post above you will find the original blue post concerning the faction change service.  And don’t give me the usual QQ chorus about how this will ruin the game.  It’s not going to do anything but help balance things out.

Right now, and for as long as I’ve been involved with WoW, the general rule is that Ally will outnumber horde on most servers – especially PvE.  This service is going to give players the opportunity to take their level 80 and switch factions.  The toon would retain roughly the same gear, reputation and achievements.  Of course, duplicating everything is practically impossible because of the many differences between factions, but you should find that it’s an equal swap.

There isn’t a lot of FAQ to this point, and the service is probably going to come either several patches down the road or with the next expansion, so don’t get all hot and bothered just yet.  While we can see several major advantages to this service; one, in particular, stands out.

Make Leveling Easy On Yourself

Leveling toons is both easier and takes longer than ever before.  With the XP caps lowered through 70, and more XP from kills and quests you can rocket through levels like never before.  However,Northrend is a time sink.  Overall it still takes a lot longer to go from 1-80 than it did to go from 1-60 or 1-70.

But most of us have a comfort zone or some level of expertise with one faction or another.  For me, leveling as horde is faster than Ally, and has fewer “sticky” spots where the going gets tough for a while.  There are simply more easy quests for horde, and the progression into new zones flows better for the most part.  The scenery sucks a LOT more, but hey, we just want to hit 80 as fast as possible – right?

With the faction change service, you could easily quest level, powerlevel or RaF a new toon with your uber geared level 80 Ally, and then rush up to 80 doing content you are already familiar with to start.  Then you can just make a few dozen runs through heroics with your buddies who don’t mind carrying you a little bit, grab a couple of pieces of T8, some almost Ulduar gear and THEN transfer to Horde – which is what you wanted all along.

There just won’t be any need to really grind a toon out from the basement up through all the crap.  You can just level your new Ally toon on the Horde server with your power toons and then transfer once the guy (or gal) is ready to rock on the other side.  Beyond that, a few other thoughts spring to mind.

Tired of barrens chat?  Just switch to Ally – but beware that Ally trade chat tends to be a little barrens-ish.  AH on your server blows?  Switch sides and servers and go pwn.  Want to join the Dominate guild because your guild is sucking wind but don’t have a horde toon?  No problem, flip over and come see us.  Just tired of the same old same old and need a change?  Join the dark side (whichever one you think that may be) and inject a little new content into you play time.

All in all, these two changes are pretty big.  And although the faction change service is probably some time away, you could easily use that time to develop your new power Alliance toon on your horde server for a while without having to worry about doing the grind all over again fresh on a new server.  It’s not here yet, but when it is it will be pretty Dominating.

11 Comments » ~ ~ Random Post