Faction-switching Mercenary Mode coming to World of Warcraft

A new game feature designed to reduce the queue times in World of Warcraft's player-versus-player battlegrounds is currently in development, according to a post on Blizzard's official site yesterday.

Titled Mercenary Mode, it will introduce a shadowy figure to the game, one who'll appear in each faction base in the Ashran region during times of high queues. If you're struggling to get into the battleground action, you'll be able to simply approach this character and fight for the opposing faction... as if both factions hadn't been ramming their heads into each other hour after hour, day after day for ten, long years.

When you eventually join the battleground, you'll also automatically be assigned an entirely new race from the opposing faction.

Blizzard has played a little fast and loose with the wall that separates Alliance and Horde players in the past, usually to no small amount of outcry from the community. The ability to pay a fee to switch factions was introduced in 2009, but cross-faction chat remains restricted and players can't team up with the enemy to tackle dungeons and raids. Maybe next year we'll all be able to have a nice cupcake party where everyone wins a prize instead.

A release date for the feature has yet to be revealed.