<Edit: putting an amendment here as it is something people gloss over>
Faction change should not work for moving to a bigger population on a server with an imbalance, it should stop working for moving to the bigger faction when it reaches 60-65% of the population at the very most.
That should refute any point about faction change making the bigger faction stronger, which is the argument that forms the basis to most objections to faction change coming in.
The point I made about nochanges being over is due to Blizzard already making changes like AV premades and changing reckoning. Therefore the stance of Blizzard not making changes is over.
To start, I think we can all agree that nochanges is over - so arbitrarily clinging onto it, so services that don’t already directly alter gameplay won’t change the experience of WoW Classic. The rule should be microtransactions don’t offer direct impact or visibility in gameplay, but function on a service level, so no vanity pets, tabards, mounts, etc, but transfers, faction changes etc, yes.
I’m going to clearly summarise my argument in bullet point form because this is the internet.
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Factions are separate communities, just as realms are. A precedent for players to move from one community to another already existed in classic via transfer, so this impact on gameplay won’t be altered.
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A faction change should still not work on a PvP server with another character on unless coupled with a realm transfer.
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The WoW Classic launch was scrappy, and this split communities, guilds, and friend groups who were initially planning on a single faction/server got split by this. This is actually the main issue here. There were only two PvP servers at launch, which was woefully inadequate. The response to add servers was not fast enough, and this caused people who were initially planning on playing together to split up and go with other people they know, etc.
2What should have happened from the start would to have had more servers for release, with the team ready to add new ones quicker if needed. Rather than having lots of groups of people you know going on the same server, -
The further point is compounded by the initial population dying down a bit, resulting in situations where groups you initially played with not being around anymore, yet you may still have other people you know on different servers/factions.
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The Classic experience will never be the same as 2005, although it can be similar. Tying into this, a lot of us are older, in our 20s, 30s, and even 40s and above, with jobs, or families now. As a result, we don’t have as much time as we did to reroll the same class on a new faction.
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The money is a no brainer for Blizzard. I’d happily pay £250 for a faction + server change on my undead mage.
In summary, faction change should be introduced as the precedent of realm transfers is similar, it does not directly effect gameplay, and it makes it easier for people to play with friends. Just because it didn’t exist in 2005, it shouldn’t arbitrarily be written off, as we clearly have had changes from original Classic (reckoning, walljumping, different interface options, and graphics spring to mind). Furthermore, the financial benefit to Blizzard is pretty clear. There will be resistance from a Luddite, highly vocal minority, but this would be healthier for Classic in the long run. I’m not asking for quality of life changes within the game, such as faster levelling, alteration of honor calculation curve, transmog, etc, but the introduction of a service that no one will notice as they play the game. Much as you don’t notice realm transfers from random players you don’t know.
