The whole WoW community has been buzzing with talk of the latest idea from Blizzard: Paid Faction Changes.

 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.

Let me begin by saying that I’ve played this game for some time now. I’ve also played both factions before with multiple characters. What I’ve discovered throughout my time in WoW is that different people choose different factions for a reason. Personalities and playstyles on Horde side differ greatly from personalities and playstyles of the Alliance. Attitudes are different, socialization is different, PvP opinion is different…we’re different. The Horde is not the Alliance, the Alliance not the Horde.

This is a game of war. There are two opposing factions, and both factions stand for different things. Even if you aren’t into roleplay, you can at least appreciate what side of the story you’re on.

My first character was an Orc, and I belonged in the Horde. My second character was a Night Elf, and no matter what I did or who I met, I found that I did not enjoy the Alliance side. I didn’t like the mentality, the social aspects, or the PvP attitudes. Needless to say, I ran to the Horde and didn’t look back. I’ve been on four different servers with my horde characters and three with Alliance, and I stand with the firm belief that Horde people are different from Alliance people, plain and simple. From server to server, it never fails.

To suddenly have a flood of Alliance players into my Horde world would, in my humble opinion, be disasterous. To choose a race simply because you like the look isn’t wrong, but once you begin to play with that character, you gain a better understanding of who and what you represent, and usually if you find you don’t like it, you change it. Even though not all of us are considered Roleplayers, this is called a Massively Multiplayer Online ROLE PLAYING Game. You choose a role, or many roles, and you feel and see and act through that role.

I feel that many people will swap factions simply for a change of scenery. In some ways, I can understand that, but think about all the time you spent leveling your Horde character, maxing it out, doing achievements and earning reputation, raiding…if all of that goes with you to the other side, suddenly your history is out of place. Who are you? You are still Horde, but now you look like a Draenei and spam in Ironforge instead of Orgrimmar. You grew up, so to speak, as Horde. Now you know next to nothing about your new character, and know nothing of how they behave, how they play, what kind of jokes they spam in /2.

I represent the Horde. I am the underdog, the fighter for rights and freedom, for family and honor. I love Thrall with a fiery passion and love to be immersed in Horde culture. My humble Taurens stand by my side, and my crazy Highborne cousins twitch from withdrawl. My Orc brothers are simple, but honest, and the Trolls give their fierce grins and fight like beasts. And of course, my lovely, bitter, spiteful Undead reek of revenge. We are not bad. We are not evil. We are simply people, driven by needs and desires as any other.

The players, the real people who are drawn to the Horde, are people who believe in certain things in their real lives, or who wish they could be similar to the Horde in some way, see through those eyes. This is exactly the same of Alliance players, but the beliefs differ, the desires differ.

Sometimes, you don’t realize you’re on the wrong side until it’s too late. Those are certainly the folks who begged Blizzard for the change option to be implemented. I feel for you, but how will you fit in once you get there? You’ve spent all your time with your faction, and suddenly you want to be someone entirely different, someone on the opposite side of an ongoing war. Talk about culture shock!

I truly believe that if you want to represent the Alliance, you must level as Alliance and learn what they’re about, who the people are and how they play. You should become one of them. Same goes for the Horde. Transferring a fully-epic level 80 character seems…wrong. Didn’t you grow up with those people? Didn’t you make friends there? Didn’t you learn how to play from them? Didn’t you spend hours and hours with a certain mentality? Certain prejudices against certain races? Certain inside jokes?

If you want to be a part of that, just level a new character. With all of the changes to leveling making things much faster and easily soloable, there’s no reason not to. Learn the new quests, the quests that everyone completed when they leveled their character. Understand your role in the game and in your faction. Learn to play with this new type of person you’ll be meeting along the way. THEN tackle end-game content.

I don’t want Alliance in my Horde. Where will the contention go? Where will the fun in-game biases go? The game will change, in my opinion, in a way I’d rather it didn’t. I don’t want someone to say, “Hey, I was a Gnome, lay off the punting jokes!” What a buzzkill.

However, I do believe that it stands true; we’re different, and when someone who has played Alliance for 4 years decides to suddenly become Horde, he’ll see that and quickly decide that he misses his brothers.

Love you all,