WOW faction changes live in the US

By Oli Welsh Published 4 September, 2009

$30 a pop. Race change coming soon.

Blizzard has made it possible to move characters between the Horde and Alliance factions in World of Warcraft for the first time. The service is only available in North America at present, and there's no word on when it will be available in Europe yet.

Making the change costs $30, twice what Blizzard charges for other paid services such as server transfers or character re-customisation. Name change and re-customisation (necessarily, since you'll be changing race) are thrown in, but a server transfer does not come as part of the deal.

Blizzard also announced that it will be introducing a race-change service for those who don't want to change faction in the future. "Based on further community feedback, we have also decided to offer a race change service in the future. Players who choose to switch races will be able to change their race within their same faction and class. Additional details will be released at a future date," it said on the official US WOW site.

There are many ramifications to changing your character's faction, particularly concerning quests and faction-specific items. These are covered in detail in the FAQ.

It's expensive - but if you do it, you're a traitor, so see if we care.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Azazel #1 2 years ago

    Just from a technical perspective - is there a good reason why this costs $30 to do?

    Genuinely curious.

  • sneetch #2 2 years ago

    No, I can't think of a good technical reason why it costs anything really. I think the charges are there to dissuade people from race, name, server and faction swapping willy-nilly. If you really want it, you can pay for it but they'd prefer if the servers were more consistent.

  • sneetch #3 2 years ago

    @lord

    Ok, I couldn't think of anything but you thought of a lot of things. I blame lack of sleep. ;)

    Hmmm... I wonder how they'll handle things like the Alliance or Horde only special mounts from say the Argent Tournament.

  • Shikasama #4 2 years ago

    *sigh*

    The gullible Hordes (see what I did there?) of the WoW userbase will eat this up and lizzard will make a fortune.

    Although at least this provides more value than the upcoming paid race changes. I can't believe how excited people are about paying to change a graphical model

  • butler` #5 2 years ago

    biggest casuality will be the already floundering sense of community on your average wow server (thanks to paid migrations).

  • shamblemonkee #6 2 years ago

    @ lord - they have preset flight paths that they say are appropriate for the level you xfer at, so obviously some analysis and then popping in the relevant batch of fps

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #7 2 years ago

    The inter-faction race change is more to most players liking considering cata adds more race classes in - theres a lot of wannabe gnome priests and 'holy cows' out there, I'm eyeing it up for a dwarf shammy and a worgen druid at least

  • actionfitz #8 2 years ago

    "Making the change costs $30".

    You know when you've been Activisioned!
    (or tangoed).

  • curtlikesmeat #9 2 years ago

    Does the server transfer cost $15? Because I think it also costs £15, which in the world of online gaming makes perfect sense.

  • sneetch #10 2 years ago

    @Kremlik
    theres a lot of wannabe gnome priests

    /e raises his hand guiltily

    I have a 40ish night elf priest that I play with some friends once or twice a week, I'd make her a gnome in a second and $15 fee be damned. :)

  • JahB #11 2 years ago

    Just from a technical perspective - is there a good reason why this costs $30 to do?

    yes - if it was free, people would do it constantly (and sooner or later find a way to exploit it).

  • Canyarion #12 2 years ago

    @JahB
    That's not a technical perspective, is it?

    And Gnome priest is for me a possible reason to restart playing WoW vanilla. And Worgen. Worgen... yum.

  • Red-Moose #13 2 years ago

    @sneetch: they are not there to "dissuade" anything. It's a positive action to make "money" from people!

  • Nephirion #14 2 years ago

    The service is only available in North America at present, and there's no word on when it will be available in Europe yet.

    So relevant to European Players then :o

  • cobaltfram #15 2 years ago

    Wait, we're incensed that Blizzard's charging an arm and a leg for a service they're providing? Like, we expect them to change their ways for some reason? It's a MMORPG: the endless taking of your money is the point.