Blizzard releases WoW race changer

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 29th October 2009
Comments (30) Stumble
Blizzard releases WoW race changer

Blizzard's new race changing tool for World of Warcraft allows you to change your race for a small fee.

Blizzard has today launched a new service for World of Warcraft that allows players to change the race of their characters and unlock all the various bonuses and abilities of that other race.

The switch can only be done on an inter-faction basis however - so there's no switching from Alliance to Horde. Also, a racial switch will cost you $25 per character. Realm transfers will remain a separate transaction.

The introduction of the service has proven a tad controversial with fans, who are claiming that Blizzard is selling out functionality of the game to whoever has the most money, though Blizzard obviously refutes such claims.

There are plenty of restrictions laid down on racial swaps too, the full list of which is below.
  • Under normal conditions, a race change should be ready immediately after rendering payment and completing the steps in this process.
  • You can select a new character race only from those in the same faction that have the character's class available. You cannot change a character's class.
  • A character's current home city reputation level will switch values with their new home city, and their home city racial mounts will convert to those of their new race. Refer to the Race Change Translation Table for more details.
  • A realm transfer is not included in a race change.
  • A character can change races once every 3 days.
Blizzard is also hosting a race swap FAQ for fans who have any specific questions.

Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
Quote UrbanMarine 29th October 2009, 11:55
This would of been nice years ago.
Quote Neat69 29th October 2009, 11:59
Ahh.. good old Blizzard, now there part of the activision family they will be coming up with all kinds of way to make more $$. I wouldn't be surprised if they added "micro" transactions next, though there idea of Micro is probably $20. They need to come up with some way to hit there $500 spend per user targets....
Quote adam_bagpuss 29th October 2009, 12:00
really sapping every little bit of cash out of this crappy game arent they
Quote ChaosDefinesOrder 29th October 2009, 12:09
shame they didn't time this to coincide with MJ's death - "In honour of Michael Jackson, we're now allowing people to change their race!"
Quote Neat69 29th October 2009, 12:14
oh i forgot about the new expansion..

"You get the old game world, re-skinned, and a 5 level cap increase, as we said we'd stop at 100 and we want to release 4 more expansions instead of 2. That will be £30 please"
Quote kosch 29th October 2009, 12:17
They did this a few weeks ago in EverQuest 2. Seems a bit stupid really!
Quote DriftCarl 29th October 2009, 12:26
the faction change service is a seperate service, so within a week you can change faction and race if you have something like $50
Quote docodine 29th October 2009, 13:14
How is this not selling out, It's not like providing this service costs Blizzard money..
Quote deltaworld 29th October 2009, 14:16
2 words: RIPOFF MERCHANTS!
Quote micha80 29th October 2009, 15:05
I don't know what to say, Blizzard must have realized that they need to permanently make changes in order to keep the player base. They can't let their cash cow die just yet.
Quote HourBeforeDawn 29th October 2009, 16:35
lol this is why I dont like Bizzard and Hate WOW, they dont let their customer have anything for free talk about some hardcore greedy as people, they want to charge everything for that game ~_~
Quote dyzophoria 29th October 2009, 16:35
i think there would be more fuzz with a faction change than a race change imho, race change is ok for me, but faction change? err..
Quote dr-strangelove 29th October 2009, 16:48
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Article
The switch can only be done on an inter-faction basis however - so there's no switching from Alliance to Horde.

Shouldn't that be - 'The switch can only be done on an IN-faction basis' ?

Nitpicking aside, I think $25 or €20 is too much for the small benefits that this service provides. €10 would have been a lot more reasonable.
Quote wafflesomd 29th October 2009, 17:20
Whoa, they charge you for this kind of dumb crap? What a rip-off.
Quote alpaca 29th October 2009, 17:29
haha (points finger at WOW players)
Quote Star*Dagger 29th October 2009, 17:34
Complain about capitalism then, this company is at least not destroying the environment or abusing 3rd world work forces. If you invest your money or even buy clothes you are doing something much worse than Blizzard, who are just selling a GAME to you.

Reality check has bounced! Insufficient thought is stamped on it.

Yours in get a grip,
Star*Dagger
Quote wafflesomd 29th October 2009, 18:08
Quote:
Originally Posted by Star*Dagger
Complain about capitalism then, this company is at least not destroying the environment or abusing 3rd world work forces. If you invest your money or even buy clothes you are doing something much worse than Blizzard, who are just selling a GAME to you.

Reality check has bounced! Insufficient thought is stamped on it.

Yours in get a grip,
Star*Dagger

Haha what? Really?
Quote i7lova 29th October 2009, 18:34
What he is trying to say is don't buy any clothes and don't invest your money in anything. That way a few years down the road you will be homeless and naked! but hey at least you didn't contribute to destroying the environment and abuse any 3rd world workers!

Yours in sarcastic splendor,
i7lova
Quote HourBeforeDawn 29th October 2009, 18:37
no but a company that makes billions off of WoW players could be a bit more considerate to their loyal players by I dont know not charging for EVERYTHING...
Quote dire_wolf 29th October 2009, 19:02
Quote:
Originally Posted by i7lova
Yours in sarcastic splendor,
i7lova

Bwahaha, fantastic. Seriously Star*dagger, drop that nonsense it makes you look like a fool.
Quote Aterius Gmork 29th October 2009, 19:12
Uhm.. why would you even want to change your race/class in an MMO? Wouldn't it be better / cheaper just creating a new char?
Quote dire_wolf 29th October 2009, 19:25
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aterius Gmork
Uhm.. why would you even want to change your race/class in an MMO? Wouldn't it be better / cheaper just creating a new char?

Not if you've already poured a ridiculous amount of time into getting it to Lvl 80 and gearing it up. Tbh someone would only do it if they fancied a change or wanted better racials.
Quote javaman 29th October 2009, 19:33
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aterius Gmork
Uhm.. why would you even want to change your race/class in an MMO? Wouldn't it be better / cheaper just creating a new char?

If you hardcore you probally have every race/class/spec combination over multiple accounts. If your like me and grind to 70 very slowly cause theres only 6 ppl your level in the enire world and being aloner isnt fun, the thought of wanting to change race by starting over again makes me cry. theres only so many times you can wipe out the boar population of westfall before you start to wonder if Blizz had wonderful childhood on their happy farm.
TBH Id rather pay just to play endgame since thats where all my friends are but since I pay so much to play each month I dont understand why blizz should charge me for the remaining part of my life. Really the games dies at level 30, The thought of grinding to 80 alone is boring, By the time I get there theyve raised the level cap. Yea I could pvp at level 30 but whats the point? So many shiny buttons that I wont have access too.......yay!!!
Quote Krazeh 29th October 2009, 20:13
So why exactly should Blizzard offer this optional service for free? Noone needs to change their race, it's an optional extra and Blizz are perfectly entitled to charge what they like for it. If you don't like it then don't change race, or start a new character from scratch.
Quote Fozzy 29th October 2009, 20:30
Quote:
Originally Posted by Star*Dagger
Complain about capitalism then, this company is at least not destroying the environment or abusing 3rd world work forces. If you invest your money or even buy clothes you are doing something much worse than Blizzard, who are just selling a GAME to you.

Reality check has bounced! Insufficient thought is stamped on it.

Yours in get a grip,
Star*Dagger

YOu do realize that you're talking about something completely unrelated don't you? Nobody said that blizzard is ruining the world or harming the environment....so why do you bring up companies that do? We are simply astonished that the $15 a month spent on this game isn't enough for blizzard. WoW is probably the most profitable game ever created and blizzard still finds ways to screw everyone. A while ago the allowed players to do pre-bc instances to get tokens or something but they didn't change the cap on how many people could be doing an instance at once. So players under lvl 60 had to wait up to an hour just to get into an instance. They also messed up PVP so badly that nobody ever wants to play. There are many things that Blizzard has messed up with wow all for the sake of increasing their income. Half the reason I'm so frustrated is because I'm worried about what's going to happen with Diablo 3.
Quote ZERO <ibis> 29th October 2009, 23:13
I was waiting for the part where it is also $25 extra per month...
Quote Krazeh 30th October 2009, 02:23
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fozzy
We are simply astonished that the $15 a month spent on this game isn't enough for blizzard. WoW is probably the most profitable game ever created and blizzard still finds ways to screw everyone.

How is charging for race changes "screwing" you or anyone else? What makes you think that the ability to change your race should be something that's included in your monthly subscription?
Quote javaman 30th October 2009, 10:23
At the end of the day your getting 2months play time for around the price of most other pc games. Take Oblivion or MOH4 Main game for £15-£20 and Ive got as much play time on it as 2years of WOW. The amount of money Ive spent on wow something as simple as character transfer or being able to change race should be free. I understand the high cost for server maintainace, staff etc but its starting to go the way of the sims.
Quote sub routine 30th October 2009, 11:18
if it was free everyone would do it all the time causing havoc. if you want to do it for a modest fee you can. Who cares really? Night elves FTW :P
Quote antiHero 2nd November 2009, 10:00
I dont understand what everybody is crying about. Nobody forces you to change server/race/underwear! If people have too much money and think its a good idea to spend 20€ on a server change only because they dont like the server they started at thats their problem. Changing race because they didnt read the manual in the beginning and choose a bad race/class combo thats their problem also.
Of course Blizzard wants to make money, they are a company and thats what they do. If there is a market for it why wouldnt they.
The money they make with WoW goes back into development of other games and imho thats only good.
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