Blog Archives
Race Change Goes Live
What is the Race Change service?
Our Race Change service is designed to allow existing characters the opportunity to change their designated race while staying in their existing faction (Alliance or Horde).
Can I use the Race Change service to change factions?
No, faction changes are handled separately through our Faction Change service. For more information, visit the Faction Change FAQ.
How do I begin the Race Change process?
To begin the Race Change process, please visit the Account Management page, select the Race Change option, and carefully follow the instructions provided.
How much does this service cost?
Each Race Change costs $25.00 USD (not including applicable taxes). This covers a single Race 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 Race Change service. This list includes, but is not limited to:
– New Mexico
– Texas
Can I change multiple characters’ races at once?
No. The Race Change service only allows one change per transaction. If you would like to change multiple characters’ races, you will need to pay for each one separately.
At what level can I change a character’s race?
Characters level 10 and above are eligible for a Race Change. Death Knights will be unable to change their race until level 60.
Will this service allow me to customize a character and select a different name once its race has been changed?
Yes. Each Race Change purchase will also provide the target character with an included re-customization and optional name change.
Am I allowed to choose any race regardless of what class I play?
No, the new race you choose must be compatible with your current class.
Can I use this service to change the character back to its original race?
Absolutely; however, this will require purchasing another Race Change.
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 race?
You may change a character’s race every three days.
What happens after I initiate a Race 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 race, as well as customize the character’s look and name. These steps will greatly resemble the character creation process.
To complete the Race Change, press the button labeled “Click to change your character’s race” and confirm your selections. If you do not wish to change the character’s race 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 Race Change.
What will happen to the character’s equipment when I change its race?
Equipment will be unaffected by the Race Change.
What will happen to the character’s mounts when I change its race?
Mounts which are not considered race-specific will remain unchanged by this process. Race-specific mounts will be exchanged for a cross-race equivalent. You can view a full list of race-specific mounts and their equivalents here.
What will happen to the character’s non-combat pets when I change its race?
Non-combat pets will not be affected by this process and will be available once the character’s Race Change completes.
What will happen to the character’s achievements when I change its race?
Achievements will remain unchanged by this process.
What will happen to the character’s titles when I change its race?
Titles will remain unchanged by this process.
What will happen to the character’s reputation levels when I change its race?
Upon changing races, the reputation level associated with the character’s previous race will be switched with that of the character’s new race.
All other reputations will be unaffected by the change.
What will happen to the character’s quests when I change its race?
Quests which are active in the character’s log at the time of the Race Change will be cleared and all quest items associated with these quests will be destroyed.
What will happen to the character’s flight paths when I change its race?
All flight points are unaffected by the change.
What will happen to the character’s “Friends” and “Ignore” lists when I change its race?
The character’s “Friends” and “Ignore” lists will be unaffected by the change.
What will happen to the character’s Guild and Arena team(s)?
A character’s Guild and Arena team will be unaffected by the change.
Can I use the Race Change service if I am a Guild leader or Arena team leader?
Yes. The character’s Guild and Arena teams will be unaffected by the 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 Race Change is initiated may be lost.
Where will the character be located after the Race Change is complete?
Once the Race 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 Race Change process, the character’s Armory profile will be updated to reflect any 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 Race Change service will not share its cooldown with any of these services.
Will this service share a cooldown with the Faction Change service?
Yes. If you perform a Race Change, you will not be able to perform a Faction Change for three days.
Can I purchase a Race Change for a character that has a pending Name Change or Re-Customization or is in the process of being transferred?
No. Before you can initiate a Race Change for a character, please complete any pending Name Changes, Re-Customizations, or Transfers. These pending transactions will prevent you from initiating a Race Change.
When will I be charged for the character’s Race Change?
You will be charged immediately upon pressing the confirmation button on the Race Change page.
Is there any way to cancel a Race 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 Race Change process is underway.
Is there any way to reverse a Race Change once it’s completed?
No. Once a Race Change is done, it is permanent. You may, however, purchase another Race Change to switch back to the original race once the service cooldown time has elapsed.
Patch 3.3 PTR Notes
Patch 3.3.0 – Icecrown Citadel.
Or as I like to call it, “Nothing that affects me in the slightest.” I guess it’s different if you’re running the content. Someday maybe. Someday.
Less crying, more updating!
As far as Death Knights go, there’s not a whole lot coming down the pipe in 3.3 so far.
* Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: There is now a 1-handed version of this rune in addition to the current 2-handed rune.
* Talents (Unholy) – Night of the Dead: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 45/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
Hey, Rokk runs primarily as Blood! Naturally you can see how the upcoming patch, at first glance, simply has me anxiously awaiting its arrival!
/sarcasm.
Scanning, scanning… oh hey glyphs.
# Glyphs
* Death Knights – Glyph of Icy Touch: Instead of granting additional runic power, this glyph now causes Frost Fever to deal 20% additional damage.
Wow. Patch 3.3, huh? Think I’ll go fishing.
More "Inspiration" for Blizzard
Mayong Mistmoore will pwnzor ur face!
A couple of days ago, while on “Modified Duties” at work (stupid fractured elbow), I decided to make the most of the computer usage and started looking at Everquest. I mentioned in a previous post that I played EQ for years before coming to World of Warcraft, and I suppose I was feeling a little nostalgic.
Of course, since the computers are for “corporate use only”, most of the sites I found were blocked. However, I did come across two rather interesting tidbits that had been added to EQ since I left. Like the Guild Hall, I predict that it is only a matter of time before these tidbits become incorporated, in some form, into WoW.
I’ll pause for a moment and explain the Guild Hall concept for those who have not played EQ. Essentially, the Guild Hall in EQ is a phased zone, accessible only by your guildmates, that looks like a big Inn. There are vendors there, as well as profession aids like forges and tailoring looms. There is a pool that accellerates HP and Mana regen. Most importantly, IMO, there is the Guild Portal. Beside the portal is a Gnome that you buy Porting Shards from. Those shards are for various zones in the game. You buy the shard, hand it back to the Gnome, and it sets the Teleporter beside him for that zone. That Teleporter remains active for several minutes, or until someone else comes along and changes the Teleporter destination by handing the Gnome a new shard. Great for when you have to get a whole raid moving, or if you just want to get somewhere in a hurry and you don’t have a pocket Mage to send you on your merry.
I don’t know what the Guild Leveling process involves in Cataclysm, but don’t be surprised if something like this comes down the pipe.
Now back to fuctions that EQ currently has, that Blizzard should steal for their own game.
The Mayong Server – This server in Everquest is what has been called the “51/50” server. Characters created on that server start at Level 51, with 50AAs (Alternate Advancement – see “Titans, Path of the” in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion). They also start out with a full spellbook (as applicable) as well as Flawed Defias Armor.
What does this mean for WoW? Well, they could create “Veteran” servers which could start much the same way. Characters created on these servers would start at, say, level 58 (much like DK’s exiting their own starting zone). They would have standard gear, maybe blues, and would spawn in the newbie zone. It would be a short run to a capital city, where they would have preset flight paths (like Death Knights) that they could use to continue their adventures in higher zones like the Plaguelands, or take the portal to the Badlands to hop into the Outlands.
To keep things from getting out of hand, or to allow for all of the content to be used, perhaps only one Veteran character would be allowed per account. Once that Veteran character has been created, all subsequent characters would be level 1.
Would Blizzard go for this? Sure, why not. Players would get to try different classes at a higher starting level, but only on these select servers. If they liked them, they could pay to transfer the character to another server (Blizz ❤ $$). The mechanics are in place with the DKs. This is one of those things that I’m fairly confident will come to pass at some point. After Faction Changes went live, I wouldn’t put anything past Blizzard.
There was another function that I noticed, and this one I would bet cash money dollars that it will be in the game, probably sometime after Cataclysm drops. But I’ll save that idea for another post, because content is fun.
Cataclysm – For All The Wrong Reasons
Well it’s official – Blizzard has announced their new expansion. But I don’t think they chose the right title. I think a more accurate name would be something like “Cash-aclysm” or “Cat-Alt-clism”.
“Cash-aclysm” comes from the fact that they increased the race/class matrix to be more all-emcompassing.
This change simply encourages those people who want to do the upcoming “Paid Faction Change” to do so, by giving them more options, lore be damned. I don’t care about lore myself, but I’m pretty sure the Night Elf Mage kinda goes against that sort of thing. Blood Elf Warrior? Really?
So for all you Hunters who want to switch to Alliance, you can pull out your wolf pet and be a wolf-man yourself! All you Pallies that didn’t want to be a froofy Blood Elf, well saddle up with a slab of Tauren awesomeness! Just give Blizzard your monies and you have more selection of cute or crass, whatever floats your boat.
Now for the “Cat-Alt-clysm” name, I think that one has some legs. First, most of the changes coming in this expansion encourages people to play alts. They introduce two new races, with phased starter zones like the DK’s starter zones. A nice gimmick, mentioned in their FAQ:
Yes, we are creating all-new level 1 to 15 starting zones for both races. Players will start their adventures with the worgen in Gilneas, which was sealed off behind the Greymane Wall. Goblin players will start on the Isle of Kezan and then head to the Lost Isles in the South Seas before joining the mainland. Each starting experience will be presented in a fashion similar to the death knight starting area in Wrath of the Lich King, and these starting zones will make extensive use of our new phased-terrain technology.
Next, the revamp the 1-60 zones. Why, when they’ve spent so much time and effort to get people to blitz through that content in the past to reach the level cap? Again, from their FAQ:
As we developed new content and expansions, we learned a lot of techniques to provide players with a better game experience–but the majority of the new content we were creating was for high-level characters only. We felt we could apply the lessons of Outland and Northrend to improve the gameplay experience while leveling in the original two continents. Imagine revisiting a familiar zone like Darkshore only to find Auberdine destroyed by the cataclysm–and then discovering entirely new towns and quests in other parts of the zone.
Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms are central to World of Warcraft lore, and we want those areas to remain an important part of the game, not just a place to train or auction. Our goal is to make questing, leveling, and the overall story more fun for new, returning, and existing players. By redesigning areas of the original continents and introducing new content that matches or exceeds the quality of Wrath of the Lich King, we can revitalize the nostalgia and coolness of Azeroth.
So they want you to make alts. They introduce the new races, hook you with the gimmicked phasing intro, then show you all the pretty new zones they’ve made. Know what would help the leveling process even more? Flying.
Yes. While the original Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor weren’t designed for flying mounts, we’re redesigning the continents with flying mounts in mind. However, we’re still determining whether there will be any restrictions on where you will be able to fly, at what level flying will become available, or whether you’ll need to do anything to unlock it. We’ll share more details about this in the future.
Changing flying levels again? Guess if it helped getting those DK’s through the Outlands, it’ll help the new number of Alts that will be starting out in the old leveling zones.
Now granted, many of these changes will affect players whether they get the expansion or not – old content changes will happen regardless. Buying the expansion unlocks the new races, new zones, and new level cap. Doesn’t seem like all that much, does it? In fact, given all the changes that will be happening game-wide, the expansion itself only provides what seems like a fraction of the new content that is coming.
Rest assured, whether you buy the expansion or not, one thing will be certain: you will be a victim of the upcoming CatALTclysm whether you like it or not.
Whose Side Are You On?
A Blue post came down the tubes a few days ago from Nethaera, and in it he/she discussed their upcoming money-grab service.
http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/18031079410-factionchange-service-in-the-works.html
We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. 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.
As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.
Updated* 7/1- Due to the many questions that have come up with the announcement of this new service, we wanted to take the time to answer the ones we can at this point in time.
Q. Will we be able to switch between the races on our own faction?
A.. No. Players will only be able to switch to a race of the opposite faction.Q. Will I be able to choose the race on the opposite faction that I want to change to?
A.. Yes, but you will only be able to switch to a race that has your class type available to it. So if you play a human paladin, you’d only be able to change to a blood elf paladin.Q.How much will it cost?
A.. We do not have further information on this at this point in time.Q.Will I be able to switch back to my original faction but a different race?
A.. No. You will only be able to switch back to your originally chosen race.Q.. How will the switch between reputation, gear, mounts, etc be handled?
A.. We’ll have more details for you at a later point in time, though we plan to keep these as close to a reflection of the other faction as much as possible.Q.How often can you change your faction?
A..We do not have any information to share on this at this point in time, however we will have restrictions on the frequency by which players can change their faction.Q. How will this affect the balance of Horde and Alliance on the realms?
A.. We are taking great care in how we implement this new service in order to maintain balance between the factions on the realms but do not have any further details to share.
Didn’t Blizzard say this would never happen? Oh wait, it doesn’t matter. After all, people went to their cesspool-like forum and cried (or QQ as the kids say these days). What else could they do? Game too hard? Cry and Blizz will nerf it. Think a class is more powerful than your own? It isn’t that you’re a terrible player. Heavens no! You’re a precious little snowflake! Just bitch and complain and Blizz will take care of it.
*urgle*
Sorry, had to choke back a rant there.
Actually, maybe there is a benefit to being a switcher. After all, it’s a great way to lose weight!
Rokk Talk 