Faction and Race changes, can we have fun with it?

On behalf of the Shared Topic proposed on Blog Azeroth, I have been giving some thought to the concept of Faction and even Race changes (as the latter seems to be in the works as well) and determine whether we can have some fun with these, and perhaps even give us an advantage. Players seem to fall into two categories, generally: those who are enticed by the exciting and fun, and those who like reward and gains. Time to toss up some ideas that may be liked by both categories of players.

Faction Changes

Roleplaying an undead convert

First thing on many roleplayers’ minds, and an interesting wager. If you wish to reroll Horde from the Alliance, why not turn your Human into a Forsaken? Lorewise this would fit perfectly, and it would give you an established background to go with it. Simply log out at the location where you’d want your character’s “death” to occur, and when you wake up immediately head for the Forsaken starting zone. Simply follow the storyline (even though it is most likely you are high level, making this very easy) and immerse yourself in a new (un)life.

Bringing out the inner Goblin

Not necessarily rerolling a Goblin, but most likely you will retain all your items when you switch faction. While this costs real world money, it can be an opportunity to make a large amount of ingame gold by loading up your toon with Alliance- or Horde-only pets and rare items that the Auction House on the other side does not have. I don’t know how many people would do this, but in lieu of a friend to help you at playing the NeutralAuction House, it may be worth a (one) shot.

Human to Worgen

When you mostly PvE, rolling a Human may seem like a bad deal. Their racials, while nice in PvE, are still a little more suited to PvP. When the expansion hits, why not switch your Human into a Worgen? In terms of appearance you will not change a great deal, but you will gain a damage bonus and a bonus to skinning. Simply head for Gilneas and make sure whatever quests and rep that are appropriate to you are done, and your new life starts. With the damage and skinning bonus, this will most likely be the route for a Human Rogue, since they have a greater chance at skinning generally. For Roleplaying, a Warlock will also be an excellent choice.

Night Elf to Troll

With Elune’s blessing I will perform this ritual to get into contact with the most primal source of nature….*poof*…mon. A devolution of Night Elf into their (supposed) Troll ancestry provides some interesting avenues if you happen to be tired of your Night Elf form. It also allows you to fully immerse into the new Druid lore provided.

General Faction change benefits

Let’s face it, sometimes you just chose the wrong faction. You rolled Horde but after your first Alliance character cemented your place on the other side or vice versa…why not bring your high-level toons over as well, to bring you a benefit in tradeskills, money and equipment? It’s no fun having level 80 characters rot on the other side while you have fun with your level 10 toon. Share the love.

With the ability to change your appearance, name, server, race and faction, you can start a new life anywhere you want, anytime. While this is also an avenue for people who have bad rep or who are scammers/thieves to escape, it provides people with enormous freedom. And freedom is good, especially when you have played the same game on the same faction for years.

Even for PvP it will be a godsend. Hard-core PvPers will have the chance to switch sides to improve their odds, or to lessen their waiting times by joining the side with historically less participants. Such things will remain speculative and rare, but it is an option. More appealing is the race change, within a faction, where you’d be able to get rid of a race so changed by patches, that it is no longer viable in your opinion. The Troll mage not cutting it? Reroll Blood Elf. Blood Elf hunter useless? Get an Orc. The possibilities are quite expanded.

Raiding guilds will now also be able to recruit good people not just cross-server, but now also cross-faction! Think about it, if you happen to be scouted by the number 3 raiding guild in Europe as a good player they’d like to have, even being a different faction would not stop you from joining.  More freedom.

Speculation

This is all made with the assumptions you get to keep your pets and mounts (unless faction-specific) when you switch, and that your reputations and achievements are changed to match. If they are not, mount and achievement junkies will be able to expand their list simply by now completing it again on the other side! I doubt this will happen, but it would be easier on Blizz’s software than having to recaclulate and evaluate everything.

Conclusion

The only negative impact I would see on this might be that a person switching factions has to learn new racial abilities…race-specific priest spells were already removed (*mourns the death of Shadowguard once more while guzzling some scotch*) and the difference between classes is nil, which means it’s only one or two abilities; considerably less impact than discovering that you joined a pug full of Ebayers.

Would I reroll?

Not likely. Natarumah’s identity is pretty much set as Draenei, and I feel no reason to change whether for looks or the raiding climate. Nazhtarune would be a hard call – but I like Druids enough I might just roll a Troll Druid from scratch anyway. Of my other alts, the most likely would be my Hunter (Draenei -> Troll) or my Warlock (Human->Worgen [yes she's a skinner]).

But there’s little reason for it at the moment save for the aestethic…such as a Troll Hunter with a raptor hatchling, Devilsaur pet, riding a Venom Ravasaur mount tossing bombs at passers-by…hmmm.

Anyway.

The ideas are many, but I think few people will actually go this far unless they really, really want to change faction or race. They want to play with friends, raid at a higher level, or discovered they simply made the wrong choice. For them, that is awesome. For all others, probably a last resort.

Diary: Anchorites of the Void

“For thousands of years, my brethren were among the Eredar. Children who grew up with whispers in their minds, allowing them to see the intents of others, to read and control their minds. They had insight beyond renown, yet were quiet and withdrawn. Then came Sargeras. He corrupted two of my people’s great leaders, making them generals in his infernal army. And yet, some remained, with hope in their hearts and the future in their minds.

Now known as the Draenei, fugitives, we fled the world in shining ships aided by the luminous Naaru. And the whispering children would be the guides across this great black Void, to places where we could hide for short periods at a time. No one questioned how we knew the Void so well. No one questioned where we took us. We were oracles, navigators, and caretakers.

Yes, caretakers.

For even the Naaru have their dark secrets, that which they do not wish to share with their allies. And we knew. They claim that they do not wish to burden their allies needlessly, but in doing so they have allowed openings in the armor of truth and honor they wear, for us to use. For you see, when the Naaru grow weak and their light dims, they become of the Void. Their mind devolves and turns to destruction by shadow, causing pain and suffering. They go into exile willingly, entombing themselves alive until their light burns bright once again. And in their tombs, it is only we that hold them company.

Like mothers tending to their sick children we read them stories, whispered tales to them we heard whispered to us before. We shared with them our darkness, knowing it would be safe with them forever. Then the Blood Elves found us. No one questioned how. They boarded the vessel we had arrived in, near the distant world of Azeroth, and sabotaged it beyond repair. No one questioned how they knew how to do it. No one perceived our hand in this, the whispers of intuition we shared.

For you see, we had arrived at our final destination. There was no longer a need for a vessel to travel in. We had come home.“

This is the first installment of a series of diary entries detailing the Anchorites of the Void. While originally meant as a background story for my character during RP, I found that it nicely fills in a number of gaps in the story that is told during the Burning Crusade. In sharing it with you, I will also continue this story on into the events of Wrath of the Lich King, and perhaps even the next expansion if I get enough hints and inspiration. ^_^

The Argent Tournament

With patch 3.1 deployed this week, it seemed like the perfect time to shed some light on the newest quest-hub and fluff-central of Northrend: The Argent Tournament. Like with the island of Quel’Danas, this is a permanent quest hub offering daily quests that progress you into a new side part of the story, and is meant to entertain you while you get ready for a big raid (Ulduar in this case). More detailed info can be found on MMO-Champion.

What is it?

The Argent Tournament is located in Sindrigosa’s Fall in Icecrown. Now securely in the hands of the Argent Crusade, they have begun the building of a large arena meant for the training and selection of the champions that will stride forth to confront Arthas. It is long from finished however, as Goblin constructors are known to be expensive and slow in getting things done. In come the players, who are asked to assist in the building’s supplies.

Tournament? What tournament?

Once you have passed a health check and file your insurance papers, you get to be an aspirant. You will be able to mount a tournament horse, and after some practice runs, can use it for honest-to-god jousting. The vehicle interface has been specifically adapted for this (make sure your bar addon can handle it, else you may have to disable it until they have been updated).

By doing all of these quests, you can champion your home city. This means Stormwind for humans, Exodar for Draenei, and so on. Your goal is to become a champion of this city, and earn Champion Tokens to hand in for rewards. Once you have become a champion for your home city, you may start becoming a champion of other cities, and access their rewards as well.

One of the rewards is a token that offers rep with one of the home cities (the one you are championing), which is a nice way of becoming exalted with them without doing a lot of arduous quests. However, should you become a champion and exalted with a city as well, you will gain the “Of …” title, with that city. For instance, Natarumah is exalted with Exodar, and once she becomes a champion of the Exodar she will be known as Natarumah of Exodar.

Finishing the quest line also gives you a squire pet to carry your heavy loads and generally fawn on you. Imagine little timmy with an Argent Crusade tabard and you get the drift. The Horde gets an Argent Gruntling, which is basically a spiky Orc kid with the same intention.

Rewards

While there are items as a reward, they are not the latest and greatest. Depending on your state of gear and what stats you need, some may be better itemized, but it’s not likely. Of interest is the Jouster’s Fury, a trinket which gives +73 resilience rating and has a chance on hit to increase your crit rating by 328 for 10 seconds.  This may be a welcome addition in PvP, assuming it works on spells as well as melee.

Each city has a small collection of mounts and pets, as well as a new tabard and a nifty banner which you can set up, like the old Argent Dawn banner from the invasion event.

All factions can get the Argent Hyppogryph mount, which is a 280% speed mount (and costs a whopping 250 seals).

Exodar – Ammen Vale Lashling – Great Azuremyst Elekk mount
Darnassus – Teldrassil Sproutling – Swift Darnassian Mistsaber mount
Gnomeregan – Mechanopeep – Turbostrider mount
Stormwind – Elwynn Lamb – Swift Elwynn Steed mount
Ironforge – Dun Morogh Cub – Swift Ironforge Ram mount
Silvermoon – Enchanted Broom – Swift Silvermoon Hawkstrider mount
Thunder Bluff – Mulgore Hatchling – Great Mulgore Kodo mount
Undercity – Tirisfal Batling – Forsaken Warhorse
Sen’Jin Village – Sen’Jin Fetish – Swift Darkspear Raptor
Orgrimmar – Durotar Scorpion – Swift Orgrimmar Wolf mount

In terms of pets I am most impressed with the Fetish, Enchanted Broom and the Sproutling, since they are definitely not obtainable in any other way. Sure, a lamb is not either, but…it’s still just a lamb. I also like the idea of the Squire/Gruntling, because I know some RPers on my server who will be rushing off to invent new storylines…good and bad.

So while Ulduar holds the real rewards, and the patch cleans up classes, bugs and professions (whether people are cheering or crying about it), the Tournament offers what players really want in their hearts – toys.

Behold: Anathema!

Between raiding, leveling, and improving my tradeskills, I actually never had the time to focus on some of the older content I had skipped (being a Draenei means that this character was created long after the MC era). Luckily, during a Molten Core run for a friendly hunter’s Petrified Leaf, the Eye of Divinity dropped instead…and I was the only priest.

I already had the Eye of Shadow in the bank, and quickly marched off to the Eastern Plaguelands to get the quest done…and failed miserably. Back then I had no mouseover macros, no healing spec, no grid, no experience in healing, no nothing. There were so many little health bars, dropping so fast, and I had no overview of the situation. Annoyed, I put the trinkets in my bank and vowed that if I had some spare time, I would get around to it.

Zoom to the day before yesterday.

In the knowledge of not having a raid for the coming three days and with some healing experience under my belt, I set off again. And I can tell you that even though this is a level 60 quest, it is still pretty hard. Like the Epic Hunter quest, it’s one of those quests that measure skil rather than overpowering gear. To go in style, I specced Holy and put on the few healing pieces I had to get rid of some Hit.

The next four or five minutes were a blur of cleansing, renewing and Flash Healing. After the second wave I was almost OoM so I resorted to sticking to Cure Disease and Renew, killing the skeletons with my wand. As my last drops of mana were spent and I had 5k health left (I did not heal myself so I would have the mana left for the peasants) I saw the liberating message “quest complete”.

I completed the quest, created Benediction and went straight to the trainer to get back into my Shadowy self. I had done it. I was giggly for an hour or so, as I actually had a difficult time with the quest.

Benediction/Anathema is still an icon of dedication to the Priest class, and I think our server only has a handful of people who actually have it (Mostly people with Classic accounts who cannot really access TBC gear) and now I was one of the happy few. ^_^

Anathema looks awesome when matched with a Merciless Gladiator outfit.

I know people say “This quest is easy” and “I did it in the MC era without Tier 1 gear” as well as “It is a quest 20 levels lower, who cares?”. It is still and achievement, and I did not find the quest easy at all. It requires sound judgement, wise decisions, without being able to rely on Downranking as before patch 3.0 – my Renew might do 2-3k overhealing, but I have no choice to downrank and be cheapass.

Anyway! Life is good. *cuddles staff*

Dark Tasks

You may have noticed it when roleplaying as a Shade, that the reception you get at other roleplayers is only slightly short of that given to Warlocks and Death Knights. Indeed, a disturbing tendency for Death Knights on my server is to go for a set of goggles, hiding the tell-tale blue glow, and start roleplaying as grim Paladins. No, my friends, they are not the same. No matter how hard you try, you cannot hide the stench of the grave, the weight of the evil deeds on your soul, and the blue chill of the grave bleeding out of your eyesockets.

That said, there are a lot of ways in which you can captivate people with your presence, your story and your way of acting.

Let’s review a few possibilities…

The role of a priest in a traditional community is that of healer, keeper of lore and mediator. Like tribal shamans, they are the memory and conscience of the people whose needs they serve. And be aware,  priest is a profession of servitude. Not only to the power that is worshiped, but also the people that join in this worship.

Even a Shadowpriest serves this need, even though the audience is a darker one. Perhaps you give advice to the local thugs on which kind of vengeance is appropriate for a particular slight, hoping to elevate them to greater wickedness and subtility. You may be the strong arm of the cathedral in Stormwind, bringing their message across with undeniable faith (but please, no Scarlets. That has been done to death now).

In Darnassus, the temple holds many open spaces that may be used for an oratory for a small audience. Make an invitation on the realm forums for a sermon, and hold on here on the values of protection, vengeance and strength of conviction. Or, find an other group of roleplayers that often scout/patrol an area and be standing by for healing and empowerment should they be assaulted (Mountaineer, a Dwarf/Gnome guild on my server, often patrols Arathi and the Dwarven district in Stormwind, for instance).

You may also be a hunter of corrupt thoughts and dark minds; Death Knights and Warlocks make easy targets this way. Stalk them as they walk, or hire some rogues to do the job (trust me, they like this sort of thing). Investigate the areas where warlocks are in abundance (The Slaughtered Lamb in Stormwind, the Warlock trainers in Ratchet, and the like) and start asking them questions. Slowly make the questions more pointed, make them question if they made the right choice. Make sure that when you leave, they know that becoming corrupted is a fate worse than death, a separation from all you stand for.

Shadowpriests also make great inquisitors, having experience with mind control, seeing through other’s eyes and bolstering others’ resistance to the influence of Shadow magic. Dark you may be, you are not corrupted. You are an avenger of the Light, hiding in the shadows. Let’s face it, you catch fish in the water, not on land. Why should you operate any differently?

What also may make the difference in roleplaying is faith. Say prayers on occasion, wish people well in your power’s name, and use (and reuse!) a common phrase or two.

“The Darkness provides”, “Humbled through Shadows, walking the Light” and “May the veil protect me” are but a few of many options. Be sure to be bombastic. Be grand, you have a destiny! Be wise and just, but stern. You are not a fool, or a martyr. You are a righteous force of vengeance, cleansing corruption with decisive force.

Keep this sort of thing in mind, and people remember you. And when they do, stories gather around you.

Have fun roleplaying, and make sure to involve others, and share the spotlight!