Whither Mania?
I am a bad blogger. I left you guys for almost two weeks with no posts. Now many of you kept the conversation going in the comments — which I suppose just goes to show that I myself am rather extraneous to this whole process — but I did promise you some hefty Cataclysm summaries and analysis when I got back.
Unfortunately, you’re not getting any of that today.
Instead, I wanted to talk about a question that’s been looming large in my mind the past two weeks, and especially since Blizzard announced the launch of their Faction Change service yesterday.
In brief: Should Mania — my orc hunter, my main character, my only (at this point) level 80, and incidentally the eponym of this blog — should Mania change her race?
Now I admit this pondering is a bit premature. Although Blizzard has mentioned that they will eventually support a race change within the same faction, right now you can only change races as you change factions. I play characters on both sides, but I consider Mania to be Horde and I’d be pretty uncomfortable changing that.
(Technically you can switch factions and then switch back again to change races within a faction, but there’s a 60 day cooldown on faction changes so I’d be stuck as Alliance for two months. Better to wait, I think, and see how fast they can get the Race Change service done. And there’s a better reason to wait, which I’ll get to in a second.)
But why would I want to change Mania’s race? Don’t I like being an orc? And hey, don’t I roleplay? Isn’t race a rather important part of a roleplayed character’s personality and history?
(Somewhat off-topic, but I was curious what Too Many Annas, one of my favorite RP blogs, would have to say about faction changes. And indeed, I was not disappointed — she is already discussing it.)
It’s true that the majority of my characters have carefully-planned RP histories and personalities. And yes, these are usually deeply entangled with their race. But Mania, oddly, is the biggest exception to this self-imposed rule.
Mania was my first character (well, the first one I didn’t delete two days later) and at the time I was more interested in finding a class that I liked than I was with building a character. I picked Horde because I prefer misunderstood evil and underdogs both, and I chose orc because I couldn’t see myself furry (Tauren) and I didn’t like the female troll voice. Female orcs did look a bit vapid and tusky, but at least they have gorgeous athletic bodies — very appropriate for adventurers. I really wanted to be undead, but of course there are no undead hunters (yet!).
Mania does have an in-character history that I can whip out when it’s appropriate, but her personality is straight me. I don’t have to work out her motivations or reactions because they are mine. And truthfully I’ve never been fully satisfied with her backstory. It helps frame some of her (my) personal eccentricities, and explains her fascination with Thunder Bluff, but it doesn’t quite feel natural to me. Honestly, I’m just not a very good orc.
Now, of course, I have other choices for Mania. Through the (eventual) Race Change service she could become a blood elf hunter … and I actually rather like blood elves, for all that they’re common as dirt and the females are so thin they can’t wear properly protective armor. Or, if I wait long enough — until after the Cataclysm expansion adds new race/class combos, and long enough after that that Blizzard allows changes to the new combos — she could become undead. An undead hunter just like I always wanted.
I don’t really know if it’s worth it, though. I could just start a new undead hunter, and that hunter might end up as a new main for me, at least for awhile. (I’d lose my pets and mounts and achievements that way, though.)
On the other hand, if I still have my slime by then … well, just imagine: an undead hunter with a slime. Can anything be cooler?
[edit] I’ve just realized that I used ‘Mania’ in the title of the last two posts, once referring to me and once to my character. Sorry about that –that’s got to be confusing for you guys!
79 Comments
Ehehe. Male Blood Elf hunters for me. But we all know about my, uhh… taste ;]
Myself, while Night Elf is not exactly my favorite race, it is too ingrained into my character’s history at this point to change it. I do have tons of hunters of my more favorite races (Tauren, Troll), and I fully intend on making a Goblin Hunter come the expansion. ^_^ I am still crestfallen that Gnome Hunters don’t exist yet though… I guess I can keep dreaming…
I .. err .. share your taste for male blood elf hunters. :> But I can’t very well make Mania male. That would be worse than Alliance.
I do wonder why they didn’t add gnome hunters. I am guessing that goblins will be a bit taller than gnomes, but considering that a level 60 crab is already taller than my dwarf, I’m not sure that there’s any reason to be sizeist about this.
I plan to change my main from a Night Elf to a Worgen when the time comes. I rolled her right after Vanilla came out, and at the time, the Nelves were the only race that really appealed to me.
Since then, the Draenei came alone, and I was really sad I couldn’t be one. But I’ve never gotten a second character to cap, so I wasn’t going to try to reroll from scratch. So I mostly admire from afar.
Then came Kara, and one of the coolest procs out there, when hunters could briefly turn into worgen. It was awesome, and I loved it! I have always had a soft spot for the fuzzy wolves, and that was just really fun. When I heard Worgen would be playable, I resolved my main would be one.
But the thought of completely losing 5 years of work and achievement and pets and mounts is… Hard. So it was a double bonus to think that I can change from Nelf to Worgen on my main, and not lose anything in the process. I’ll still have my Winterspring mount, my drake and raptor collections, and everything else. Yay! Win/win, and very much worth the likely $30 they are going to charge for the privledge. :)
I’ve been thinking about changing my Night Elf hunter to a Troll for a while now (she is fascinated by them, after all) but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Not because she’s particularly Night Elfy, but because it would just feel strange, and I already have a Troll hunter I’ve leveled up past 70 now and one of them would end up neglected. Also Shadowmeld is just too fun. ;)
If Goblins are as fun as they look to be, though, I might make a change in that direction when it becomes available…
i cant wait till cataclysm. When i can switch my draenei hunter to a worgen one. It’s going kick ass
I’d say don’t change, but that’s my opinion. Certainly I won’t be race changing Rikaku even when Race change to Worgens becomes available. Instead I’ve dedicated myself to leveling a new Hunter (in fact Im leveling a baby drae one as we speak “testing” out my heirloom plan). I’m no RP’r, but I’ve become way too attached to Rikaku as a NE to race change her to anything, not even the future race that will undoubtedly be my favorite.
I really wish I had the mindset to race change my main, I really really do (5 years of work!) but it’ll be nice to have a fresh hunter who doesn’t have a stable filled with retired pets I can never get rid of so I can enjoy a stable slot of pets I don’t have to hoard.
Plus with the revamped world, I dont think I’ll mind leveling again so much. But that all depends on the expansion I suppose.
well, it seems to make more sense to me mania, to wait until race change and undead hunters are available before you start changing mania around, that and it’d save you the money and time :)
I wasn’t really looking forward to leveling a worgen hunter from 1-80, but hey, if I can change Makoes from a night elf to a worgen, that’d be awsome. It would also fit with the rp-ish-ness that I do with makoes as she is BM, and very savage in nature, to be worgen would be like finally being able to release her inner beast. Plus Nanaki would love to have a partner who smiles while ripping something apart as much as he does lol.
although…I really will miss the shadowmeld…but meh, I dont pvp, I can always feign death, lol.
My NE druid on the other hand, needs shadowmeld, if only to survive a boss fight wipe, and rez everyone :P
Nah don’t change her, you’ll regret it.
Besides, it’d be better to start a whole one now that the world will be different. New quests etc. That and Horde is a million times more interesting. :)
These two quotes tell me enough, I am the same with Tsani. She was a NE in Vanilla WoW and I ended up rerolling her as Draenei. Of course back then we didn’t have achievements yet, so rerolling was a lot simpler to choose but with the long list of Achievements we now have (esp Feats of Strength) a race change is looking a lot better.
1. You have no RP limits on Mania the Orc,
2. You really want to play an Undead Hunter,
3. You don’t want to loose any achievements that Mania has, nor any ingame perks that are no longer available (in your case that Slime pet),
4. You have the Cash.
1 + 2 + 3 = take the race change when it becomes available and be happy with your toon’s looks, after all you’re the one playing and looking at the toon. ;)
I also fell in love with the Worgen before they became a new playable race. I’ve always loved the Worgen quests in Alliance and went giddy with glee when I finally did the Horde side quests. Then came Kara’s lovely little book and now we get to -BE- worgen. I probably won’t do a race change on my main, but a little puppy rogue will grow from alt number 9 to the top alt spot passing 5 L80s as she grows. (altoholic me? nah!)
As for gnome hunters, if we could tame mechanicals I’m sure Blizz would have added them, but I think the priest class is because of what we found out about the Gnome’s origins in the Northrend Titan questlines. Blizzard did say they wanted to seed new classes/races first and boy did they give the Gnomes a seed for priests! Perhaps we’ll see them in the future, after this feature has proven not to be too unbalancing with it’s current options.
grrr, at the top of my post it was supposed to quote “Mania does have an in-character history that I can whip out when it’s appropriate, but her personality is straight me. I don’t have to work out her motivations or reactions because they are mine. [...] An undead hunter just like I always wanted.”
wtb preview options. ;)
When I started playing WoW, I thought, a mighty Tauren Warrior would be, what I like to play. This guy still ist there, he’s level 80 and wearing some epics, alright. (Regash on Die Nachtwache [EU], german realm)
Around Level 50, I somehow lost some interest and, as BC was in Stores then, I decided to try an alt. Sure, I was about to test the new race and alliance ist always out of question for me, ’cause alliance seems to be the side chosen mostly by idiots, at least on german realms. ;o)
So I found “my” class! I don’t like spellcasters, I despise magic when it’s me who hast to use it. Bloodelf + noncaster = hunter. I just loved my hunter. He leveld past the warrior, is the one who took to 80 first and shines with all the epics dangling from his body. And yes, he still has his first pet. I’m a roleplayer. Although he’s got a wolf for going on dungeons or raids.
Do I like him to be bloodelf? Somehow I don’t. Will I be using the race change service when available? Definitely not!
Why? Easy answered! Am I willing to pay 30 bucks (or whatever price they will agree on) to have some change a number in my charakters data entry? Am I OK to shove so much money up Blizz butt for having someone switch the number 6 in the race data field to number 7? No F**king Way! But that is just my way of seeing it, I guess.
I think you should go undead after Cataclysm comes out, lots of roleplaying you can get out of that and you won’t have to be like every BE hunter out there and still be Horde.
I’ve been considering switching over my paladin to male BE (I have a taste for them too :D), BUT human racials are so amazing I can’t bring myself to do it. Also thought about switching my hunter to a troll,…but kelwina IS a night elf, she’s my first character and I can’t bring myself to change her. Can’t change my shaman either, I’m pretty sure my guild wouldn’t appreciate that.
@Regash: Do you really want every man and his dog rushing to change their faction (or race when it becomes available)? I know I don’t, and from things Blizzard have said in the past, they don’t either. The easiest way for them to prevent a flood of people going “Ah, might as well give it a shot!” is to keep the price for faction and race changes fairly high. This is the point that most people forget when they complain about the price: if Blizzard drop the price low enough that switching instead of rerolling becomes a no-brainer and faction and race balance goes even more out the window than it already is. If the price is a problem, then people can reroll or keep their current race and faction. If they really want to be a different race or on the other faction, then they can hand over the cash and wait for the magic to happen. For people that don’t RP and don’t have any strong ties to their current server or faction, the price is the main deterrent against doing this on a whim – having it too low (especially initially) would be unwise. Heck, just avoiding an insane rush that clogs the system is a solid reason to launch the service with a fairly high price point.
As far as the difficulty of implementation goes – I *really* suggest taking a look through all of the faction-specific things that need to be converted in order to translate an Alliance character into a Horde character and vice-versa. They also had to set up a storage mechanism that allows them to retain your old faction-specific quest details for proper restoration in the event you change your mind after the 60 day cooldown and switch back. And even with the effort they put in to setting this up, they still haven’t go it completely right at this stage (i.e. the Argent Tournament quests currently get reset completely instead of converting into the appropriate equivalents for the other faction). Then they had to go over everything with a fine tooth comb to make sure the process wasn’t going to corrupt any character records and make them unplayable or open up any in-game exploits (e.g. imagine a bug whereby a shaman could end up with both Heroism and Bloodlust in their spellbooks, or even if a shaman ended up with the wrong version of the spell for their new faction – since the debuffs they apply are different, you would get into a situation where bugged shaman could chain the haste buff in a way that is no longer meant to be possible).
@Tzivya: Don’t get to attached to the idea of race changing to a Worgen when Cat launches – while Blizzard have been clear that they haven’t made up their minds yet, they’ve also implied fairly heavily that their current thoughts are that faction and race changes to the new Cataclysm races and race/class combinations will be disallowed for a while after Cataclysm launches (if that does end up happening, it will be interesting to see if there is a similar restriction on creating Worgen and Goblin DKs)
@Mania: Firstly, definitely don’t go the faction change route if all you actually want to do is change your race. I suspect the only reason faction change came out first is because they originally weren’t going to allow race changes, so even though a race change is a simpler thing to do overall, there was still work left to be done in setting up the mappings for race specific details within a faction (which would mainly be things like pairing up faction mounts, but also sorting out things like the Argent Crusade quests – e.g. I’m currently an Ironforge Valiant because I pretty much detest jousting and rarely do any of the tournament dailies. If I switched to being a Nelf, would my Darnassus and IF rep switch around and I become a Darnassus valiant instead?).
I’d probably be interested in changing a hunter to a worgen, however… um.. do female worgen even exist? In the beta demos, and all the pictures online, I have yet to see a worgen form that looks remotely female. Have any of you? O_o
many of you may find this FAQ informative.
@kaedinfrost: you may or may not already know that they are most likely NOT allowing worgen/goblin race changes immediately after release of Cataclysm.
See:
source 1 and source 2
I am waiting patiently for the ability to change my Nelf hunter to a Worgen… my hunter’s name is Fenrisulfr, so it just feels right.
IMO take the change to undead. You’re absolutely right that slime + undead = coolness, and if you end up not liking it for whatever reason, you can always pay a bit more to change back.
I know as soon as Cat. and race changes hit, I will be converting Znodis to a Worgen. I’m pretty sure that slime + worgen will also be great looking.
(yes I’m still alive, just busy…)
I would like to change my Troll to an Orc. I have grown tied of the stooped look of the Troll. The Orc has possibly the worst animations of the Horde, but at least stands upright.
Btw, drink enough of the pygmy oil, and you change to a gnome. The gnome has wonderful animations!
Noba:
There will be female worgen. There’s concept art of them at MMO champion. However at Blizzcon, only Male Gobs and Worgen were playable due to availability options at the time. That’s why you don’t see any ;)
Nimizar:
Is completely right. Worgen and Goblin race changes will not be avilable right at launch. It isn’t 100% oficially confirmed yet, but quite a few blues have heavily implied that they probably won’t be available at Cata. release. In fact, Gob & Worgen DK might even be off the table at launch day as well.
Yeah, I’m a female dwarf, and I really toyed with idea since I get so much flac about being short, and stout. But you know what? If I race-changed, I wouldn’t be ME anymore, I’d be any other hunter who rerolled into a Nelf or Belf or Draenei or any other super attractive race. I think if you go this way, you lose part of who your character IS.
Noba: Not sure if this is a female, but I think it looks like one ^^ (that’s just my opinion, though)
And about the immediate change to Worgen / Goblin, there’s achievements for Realms First , so, I think they’re going to restrict changing your character to the new races on your realm until someone has earned that achievement (Realms First Worgen! \ Realms First Goblin!). However, I’m unsure about the DK thing, seeing as they start at level 55 :/
Woops, just bnoticed I put Realms First xD
I meant “Realms First Level 85 !”
Sorry for the third post O.O
Because the posting here allows some HTML coding, it’s gone and editted out where I’ve put “Race” in tags.
where it has a space after the Realms First parts, there should be Race :P
(again, sory about tripple posting :S)
Telepathic Indian:
No that is not female. That’s a male worgen =) Female have a more fox-like look. I suck at HTML stuff but I have a picture of the female worgen concept art on my blog and as does MMO-champion.
As for the DK thing, I got that from what I read on the forums about last week. Someone asked about DK and race-changing and a blue stated that it was a major concern but most likely “there will be some restrictions but there are not hammered out yet”.
I’d be happy if they turned of DK’s forever honestly ;)
And for those still not wanting to just click the blog link, bam concept art of female worgen.
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/august/cataclysmpreviewpanel_009.jpg
ooohhhh, I like that concept art :3 thx Rikaku :)
And another reason to not race/faction change.
“All achievements and quest lines relating to the Argent Tournament are reset when a characters uses the Faction Change service. (Source)”
After all that work? Screw that….
@ Nimnizar:
Oh, now I see! It’s expensive because Blizzard doesn’t want us to do it!
Are you serious?!? If Blizzard doesn’t want us to do it then they just won’t let us! No, Blizzard is readinig every feedback very carefully. And they look out for what people want. And then they try to find a way to get money out of that. Fair enough, Blizz is a company and their first reason of existence is to earn money by selling us entertainment. They were not founded to entertain us and then try to get some cash to keep up the work.
But I think, some stuff is incredibly expensive compared to the effort on their part. I know only prices for germany, but here it is: I have to pay 13 Euro for one month of playing. Not cheap, but I buy it, it is worth it in my point of view. Now compare it with this: Change the name of a character (change one field in characters database) = 8 Euro, Change look, name and gender of a charakter (change three fields in character database) = 15 Euro, move character from one realm to another (copy character database or change on field in its database) = 20 Euro.
Compared to the effort, these prices are very expensive. I thought about switching a no longer played alt to my “native realm” because I could use his 1500 gold and then delete him. But think of how many gold I could (illegally) buy with the same amount of money! It just doesn’t make sense.
I had a gnome warlock in BC, but lost interest last summer and ended up leveling a Draeni hunter who hit 70 3 days before WotLK and has been my main ever since. The warlock has meandered her way up to 75 in the 10 months since, but yesteray I switcher her to a Blood Elf and have found new interest in her – like a completely new toon, but yet, some history.
I wouldn’t change a main, like your Mania, but go for it with a high level alt.
Personally I wouldnt or couldnt do it!!!
Hell when i moved my 80 pally to another server and mania as you know how it feels to just even lose that Characters name still bugs me but its happens! I feel though at times he’s not the same toon i leveled.. So My Main and old Man of the bunch so to speak will stay where and what he is the hunter i spent all these times to improve and try to make him better all I can!!! If i want another toon like a Worgen Hunter which is gonna happen I will be happy to start at level 1 and go with it
So IMO best just to save your money cause if your like me My Main is my favorite and all that i went thru with him it just would not feel right to change what he is.
To much fun and cool memories to change that
I am disappointed that this post was not pet-related.
a giant green ooze is one of the pets i wanted for my undead hunter.i still hold out hope that theyll make them into a pet family…
I have a female orc hunter as my main also. It is interesting that we are both having trouble coming up with back stories for our hunters. I say keep working on it and I am sure something will come up. I could never change my hunter’s race, I really like the orc race and like you I love the non stick thin athletic body that the female orc have.
In my opinion I think you should wait until they add the new race-class combinations and the race change. Firstly it will give you time to decide if you really want to leave behind your Orc and secondly, if you do switch I think it should be to Undead as you’d always wanted.
You could make a Undead hunter from scratch, but you could make another Orc hunter just as easily – I think it’s down to what you’d prefer to consider your main and if you want to start your main from the beginning or already have most of the work done.
You know, I wouldn’t risk changing factions/races/etc. with Mania, because while I understand that they are going to let hunters who have tamed some of the ‘accidental’ creatures (like your Crocoslime) keep them, I’m not so sure that’s going to apply with the actual change. If all they do is just toggle a bit of code on your character (say, from race_orc to race_bloodelf), there will likely be no problems. But if they do it as a wholesale redo — i.e., they create a new character with your identical gear, data history, possessions, etc. — then that Crocoslime may very well end up turning into a ‘corrected’ crocodile upon switching.
I suspect it’s the former method for same-server changes, but the latter for different-server changes, but either way, I wouldn’t want to risk it… at least not without some guarantees first from someone at Blizzard.
Steve M
Hi there. This is my first post here, but I read every day. This topic is one that I’ve been pondering for a while now. I’m a dwarf hunter currently, and have always wanted to play a human hunter. But when they announced worgen as a new race, and that they were going to allow a paid race change, I couldn’t have been more excited. But it kind of makes me afraid that there will be a massive influx of worgen race changes. And I may, but unlikely, go ahead and change to human, just depends on the new human racial they implement. But I do have a question about undead hunters. How is that going to fit, lore-wise? Wouldn’t any normal animal run in fear, or attack their now undead partner on sight? I would think so. I feel they would need to add a lot of undead pets to make it work satisfactorily…..for me anyway. Or maybe limit it to carrion birds. Not fair, but I think it could work.
My whole take on this is that if you want to be the misunderstood evil and still a little sexy roll a worgen hunter. Out of combat you can choose to be human but you still have your whole misunderstood/trying to control your rage when your in combat worgen form. I play both horde and ally altho most my friends play horde but to be honest if those spoilers about garrosh killing cairne and taking over the horde are true from a rp stand point i would defect from the horde in a heartbeat. All his victories in Northrend were due to Saurfang intervening, and if the horde are stupid enough to want him as a leader they are not worth being around.
Worgens will give you everything you want(except being furry sometimes) Plus wouldnt it be funny to be a wolf like creature with a wolf pet?
Eh, that’s a difficult one. I personally couldn’t do it. My main, Illidius, doesn’t have any particular ties to night elves, but I could just never see him being anything else. It is just Illi. But I do understand the sentiment, and your not a min/maxer, so it won’t be like losing that 5% to pet damage will kill you. I say wait it out, Mania. Race changes will get here eventually, and within a year we’ll probably have Cataclysm, and you can be an undead hunter.
But then I’ll have to redo one of my main storylines with my paladin. He’ll have to hate all undead….EXCEPT Mania. *laughs*
@Regash: I didn’t say Blizzard don’t want us to change factions (as you rightly point out, they wouldn’t provide the feature if they didn’t want us to use it). I said that they don’t want players to change factions on a whim. A lot of the restrictions on the paid services (most notably the prices and the cooldowns on changing back) are almost certainly there specifically to reduce the demand. Could Blizzard make more money in the short term by reducing the price of some of these features? Almost certainly – when the demand is there (as it appears to be in the case of many of these features), a lower percentage profit on a higher turnover volume is generally going to give you a higher absolute profit. However, if they did that (especially if the price reduction was significant), you can bet that an awful lot of problems with server population imbalances would get drastically worse, fast.
Even making the less major alterations (like names and other character features) too cheap could do serious harm to the personal investment players have in their characters and the general sense of persistence in the game world. Neither of which is particularly conducive to encouraging players to continue to front up for their monthly subscription fees.
Blizzard’s approach is a good one from a business perspective: players that are sufficiently irritated by something that it is enough to cause them to consider quitting are exactly the kind of players that are likely to be willing to pay to have the cause of their irritation removed while still getting to play the game. On the other hand, someone that goes “Eh, not at that price” probably doesn’t care enough to quit over it.
So the volume of transactions stays low enough that the perception of a persistent game world isn’t harmed, more players stay subscribed than otherwise would have and Blizzard continues to make money hand over fist.
I’m really not seeing where the problem is.
The possibility of the slime not surviving a faction or realm change may be a legit concern.
You went through a server transfer not all that long ago didn’t you? Did the slime make that trip or did you acquire it afterwards?
@Nimizar & Regash: The high cost is also to keep the Flavour of the Month syndrom to a minimum. Imagine if it was just $1 to change your race, then add a patch that (seemingly) nerfs one racial and buffs another. End result: mass exodus from race A to race B. Patch 2: Race C gets a buff and there goes the bandwagon again to flood the servers with Race 3. Sure Blizz could get a bit more cash from cheap race-changes, but the players (especially those NOT on RP servers) would go completely nuts! Remember that min/maxers have no attachment to their toon aside from “what gives me the best stats/dps”, and there are a lot of min/maxers out there.
We’ve seen it all before with both BC an Wrath. Everyone rolled a BE, Draenei and Deathknight. It reminds me of the old FotM Pet days. Back then you couldn’t spit in IF without hitting Broken Tooth, now there are more Draenei/BE living in IF/Org that any other race and you trip over DKs all over Northrend (not counting NPCs).
With Cataclysm I already see a whole new class coming on Hordeside… the Goblin Bankalt! But if that will make all the BE haters any happier? Doubt it. ;)
It’s probably worth 30 bucks just to stop wondering about it on a daily basis, heh.
As for becoming Undead, that may not be an option for a year and a half… maybe two years. That’s an awfully long time to keep your spirits up over something.
As for becoming a Blood Elf, do so if it would be fun. But it sounds like you’re not sure… that maybe you’re thinking about it too much and confusing yourself about an answer that you already knew when you first learned of the race change possibilities.
Why not visit the Barbershoppe, get Mania a whole new ‘do, and see what her outlook is like after a total makeover? *^_^*
Hm, maybe you got me wrong.
I did complain about the prices, that’s right. Because, for the reasons I would use those services (like realizing that an orc warlock is, in my opinion, against the lore and not wanting to go through 30 levels again), they are much to expensive.
But what I really think is, there should be no such services at all!
Those guys not “caring” for their toon would not care about name, gender, race. Maybe they would love to switch factions, especially on realms where one side is weak.
Those who do “care” for their toon will have spent some thought on him before hitting that “crate character” button, right? And if you have a character on level 80 and only then you realise you don’t like it… Hm, what have you done the last couple of days online?
Or maybe it’s just me, liking to stick with a decision I already made.
For the Orc WL not being in/following lore, all I have to say is Gul’Dan… just fyi… =D
The answer to the question about why gnomes cannot be hunters is…..they have 4 fingers. What everyone doesn’t know is along time ago gnomes had 5 fingers and were hunters. One day a little gnome named Bob was hunting lava spiders. He found the biggest spider he had ever seen, took careful aim and…..POW. Unfortunately Bob missed and shot Ragnaros in the butt. Until this point Rag was just a friendly god. However upon the bullet striking Rag in the butt it sparked unfortunately at the same time Rag passed gas. Being that old gods pass hydrogen gas this of course caught Rag on fire. Upsetting the old god brought the most horrible wrath down upon gnomes. They were cursed never to grow a 5th finger and therefore could never shoot again.
Now some of you are thinking they are the great engineers so they could make guns and bows that could accommodate their digital appendage loss, and you would be right. However the Gnome King banned the use of ranged weapons as a tribute to Bob, who after all was behind Rag when the flame up occurred and died the foulest death known to gnome
Rofl! :D
On a serious note :P I REALLY want to change my Night Elf Druid (my main, my hunter is my second main, hope you guys don’ mind :) ) to a Worgen, but I use my Shadowmeld way too often to go to any race but Night Elf.
If they don’t nerf Shadowmeld back to not being able to use it in combat (I don’t want them to :P) then I guess my hunter is going Worgen :D Seeing as I don’t use the racial that much and Female Worgen Artwork looks cool! :D
(Btw, this is Telepathic Indian, I just changed to my hunter name ;) )
Rikaku thats just for swiching sides not races lol
…. how do i have a avatar?
Google Gravatar and set up an account to the email you put in the field on this site, then add an image on Gravatar and set it all up :)
I have 2 lvl 80 chars and working on a third before Cata comes out. My hunter is a dranei, which I chose mostly for the racial abilities, although I must admit I find female dranei very cute :) My DK is a female N elf who I picked because imo they look awesome as they fight with a 2 handed weapon. My lvlng pala is a human female, again I chose this because of the way she fights with sword and shield (she actually keeps the shield in front of her, which seems to be the sensible place to keep it in a fight ^^)
I don’t think I will ever change the race/faction of these 3 chars. I didnt have a very expansive backstory as i made them, but during their questing the way they fought (and on occasion, died) formed their personality for me, and now I can’t imagine them being anything else then what they are.
As cata comes out I will certainly make a worgen char, but a fresh sparkly lvl 1. I was thinking male warrior, though after seeing the female concept art perhaps a rogue would be cool as well (they look very graceful).
I’m rambling, apologies :P the point I’m trying to make is that you should play the character which you find fitting for whatever role you envision him/her in. Racial abilities are all well and good, but not all that significant. If you really wanted a Forsaken hunter from the start then by all means make Mania a walking corpse, hell if you want to roleplay it you could just pretend Mania the Orc actually died somewhere in Icecrown but did not stay dead… ^^
When i started playing WoW i picked tauren for my hunter because i liked they way they looked, now that i raid alot ive become somewhat of a min/maxer so as soon as race change comes out my tauren hunter is gonna become an orc (because they have better racials for hunters).
Nimizar: The slime did come with me on my realm transfer. I figured since he copies to the PTR fine a realm transfer would work out, and indeed it seems to have. A race transfer is probably more complicated, though, so I might try it with another character with a retired pet first.
Trowa Barton: I turned on random avatars for people who don’t have their own — largely just to see what they look like. :> If you really hate yours, you can ask me to turn them off, or set up a custom avatar for yourself at http://www.Gravatar.com.
I agree with Tsani, i could see if it were easy to switch faction, then if player A rolled need on fancy-such-and-such epic, player B would switch factions just to beat the snot out of player A! As it is i’m waiting to hear tells from lvl 1 players that I stole their drop/kicked their lvl XX ass, etc.
And i was thinking of switching my Nelf, but i see about 10 comments saying the same thing. i think i will try out a Worgen druid first, i already have the name saved, well, i have a toon, that i never play, so i shall use “Rebirth” and find myself transformed :P i have three spaces on my main server, 1 for a Worgen druid, 1 for an undead hunter, and the last is undecided. (but lets not kid ourselves, it will probably a hunter!)
I say dont stick with what u like and for all those ppl gonna change there ppl to worgen you have no originality dont u think everyone is gonna reroll worgen (DEATH OF GNOMES)
Love the tallstrider
Since I will be old enough to work when cata comes out ill probly change ivanator to a goblin id love to see my core hound look at me and say ” finally I can fit him in my mouthes wonder if he will still taste like hamburegers” I am a tuaren u see.
I’ve been contemplating the same thing, Mania, although I have some RP-ishness to throw into my change.
I’m alliance; always will be. As such, like everyone else, I fully plan on changing about 90% of my characters to Worgen :) Although I kinda had a story behind it for my hunter.
I’ve spent MONTHS camping rares, as I’m sure a lot of hunters have. However, in the RP fashion, since my character has been away from society for so long, she’s starting to go feral :) I actually have a planned-out skit that I and some guildies are going to do involving her getting turned into a Worgen! I really can’t wait for it :)
However, what I AM going to miss, is Gift of the Naaru. (I’m obviously a draenei.) Having a second HOT to toss on my pet is definitely not something to just mildly throw away. However, my need to become a Worgen is slowly inching its way higher on my priorities than GotN…really sucks in a way, but I guess I can deal :)
@Regash: ok, I can definitely understand someone not liking the existence of the services at all. Adding this kind of thing really is a purely mercenary decision on Blizzard’s part (i.e. helping them to retain subscribers that may otherwise quit). We’re at least fortunate that Blizzard realise the potential downsides and price things high enough that choosing to use them instead of just rerolling can still be a difficult decision.
@Tsani: yep, avoiding flavour of the month races is something the blues have brought up explicitly on the forums when discussing the possible downsides to offering race changes
These services aren’t something I’m ever likely to use (all of my high level toons are safely ensconced in a casual Alliance guild and have been since before TBC came out) but I do think it is smart of Blizzard to offer the option.
Trowa:
Yes, but Races will largely work the same way. keep in Mind that when you race change, even on the same faction, it’s not as simple as changing your race. There is still a “reset factor” that can come into play. Such as if you are a Draenei and you are exalted with Exodar (as you start off with some Draenei-only quests and rep (ie Tabard of the Hand]), if you change to NE, some things will be reset. Obviously you would most likely lose that tabard as it is draenei only and they’d have to reset/take away the quest chain you did as it was Drae only and now you’re a NE. This same quest-issue is why teh AT reset is in place.
Thus I would assume Race Changes will bring about the same “problem”.
Mania: If you feel strongly by the time race change is available I say go for it! She can still be named Mania and you can always change her back (for a fee) if you decide Undeadness is not for you.
I have been lurking around this site for awhile and I love your posts and I believe you have at least lamented not being able to get an undead hunter before. Not to mention your obsession with Skeletal Warhorses.
This Race/Faction change thing doesn’t affect me though. The toons I actually play are pretty much set in cement…the ones I don’t I have no problem deleting and starting over. I will be re-birthing a favorite (but not ever used anymore) Undead female as a Hunter. I am an alt-aholic and can’t find a good Horde Hunter for me. From my experiences at the launch of BC I’m expecting Worgen and Goblin starting areas to be nutlog crazy, even with the phasing. (I didn’t roll a dk until at least a month or two after Wrath and it wasn’t so busy. I have no idea how it was at launch) but I’m hoping that means I can roll an Undead Huntress without much bother. Then when that mess has at least subsided I can experience leveling a Goblin (Huntress if my Undead Lady does not work out). /excited
Orc -> Undead could be explained in a rp manner too.
How many plague ridden zombies and similar has Mania killed so far. Aparently the plague is infectious…
My suggestion:
Wait till race change to undead is available.
It is what you want. It does not require you to give up all the work and love you have put into Mania (as opposed to just rerolling an undead hunter).
I, myself, will have to reroll undead hunter because I couldn’t afford a race change. I will loose my ghost wolf and my hydradile, and that’s sad, but I have no choice due to me being a poor bastard and undead hunters is what I have ALWAYS wanted since I started playing.
Sho:
I don’t wanna lose my ghost wolf, gezz or my spirit beasties when I re-roll Worgen hunter, but I look at it this way. At least you still have those pets regardless and now you can have the stable slots to fill with something else.
But my big concern is that I will give in and race change my NE to Worgen Hunter and then have wasted my time getting heirloom…..oi.
I think that Blizz should put in an account bound stable slot, so thn when any of your hunters log in they can use the same pet. But if you tamed the beast on a lower level hunter, then it becomes that level when you use it on a higher elvel hunter. If you tame it on a higher level hunter, then It becomes the level of the hunter who is currently using it.
Doesn anyone else agree that this would be a good idea?
Rottingham:
I like the idea of account-bound pets, I dunno though, maybe it could work though if it were like a 500g heirloom stable. Then it could be like you could choose 1-5 pets to “stable” in the heirloom stable and send to a baby hunter?
Rottingham, that idea would simply rule.
@Rikaku
That’s what I’m thinking :D
nah i dont think it will be as bad as that for just a race change
Trowa:
Well it certainly wouldn’t be as simple as “Race_Nightelf” to type in “Race_Draenei”. It is well known that some things are racial. Take another example, humans. Their racial passive is 10% extra reputation. That’ll definitely come into play when you race change in the future. Blizz won’t just let someone have all that free rep unless you’re human.
And again, somethings are racially exclusive, such as the draenei tabard. That quest chain isn’t even available to non-draenei. So if you had a tabard, I don’t think Blizz will let you keep it. Most likely if all you have are an Elekk mount, don’t think when you race change that your new NE (that isn’t exalted with Exodar) is gonna have an Elekk mount. They’ll be some Nightsaber (this I eblieve was even covered by a blue).
Blizz will review race changes with just as much scrutiny as faction changes. There’s alot that goes into it, for the examples I just listed are just a few. Blizzard won’t let it be so desirable that people will just “Oh I’ll level as a human mage, get rep all over the place, and then switch to NE and enjoy my hardly-earned 40 exalted reputations!”.
And obviously they’re not going to let race-changers keep items that were for “race only” if they’re not longer that race. Otherwise we all might as well change race over the course of a year, obtain every mount and item that we normally can’t enjoy and well…you get the idea XD
To get an idea of what race change will likely involve, consider what would happen if someone did two faction changes and ended up as a different race on their original faction (e.g. Dwarf Hunter -> Troll Hunter -> NE Hunter). (Note that Blizz changed their mind about allowing you to switch back to a different race when they decided they were going to implement same faction race changes)
The main things that would change in that case:
1. Racial mount swaps (ram -> raptor -> cat, cat -> skeletal -> ram)
2. Reputation swaps (IF -> Darkspear -> Darn, Darn -> UC -> IF)
For a same faction race change, just skip the troll step:
1. Racial mount swaps (ram -> nightsabre, nightsabre -> ram)
2. Reputation swaps (IF -> Darn, Darn -> IF)
(Yes, I deliberately chose a troll hunter for the example rather than orc or tauren because trolls are the default counterpart race for dwarves when switching factions so the mapping ends up being fairly neat)
Also note that humans don’t lose their 10% rep for existing reputations when they switch factions, so it is unlikely that that will happen for race changes either. There also isn’t any adjustment for the “more closely allied” reputation differences that apply within a faction for new characters (i.e. NE and draenei being more closely allied with each other than with the other 3 alliance races is reflected in the starting rep for alliance characters, as is the case for the Forsaken and Blood Elves on the Horde side). The rep cap for each faction makes it somewhat impractical for Blizzard to switch that kind of thing around so they just haven’t bothered.
My boyfriend and I got faction changes on two of our toons the day the faction changes came out. It was quite an expensive move, but 100% worth it. We both enjoy raiding, and we both have good DPS classes (and our mains) on Alliance; mine is of course a hunter, his is a mage. I also have a high level warlock, and he has a tank pally. On the Horde side, I had a tank/heal druid, and he had a healing/dps priest. So we were both looking forward to the faction change.
It’s been the best choice I’ve ever made WoW-wise. Despite the general (and reasonably accurate) stigma Alliance has in the maturity of its players, my main, Whocat, has always been Alliance, she has always had her pet cat from Teldrassil, and she’s a fond follower of the laws that govern her race. She likes trees and she tends to stay away from magic (being a hunter and all, she follows the “laws of the land” over the “rules of magic”). As with you, Mania, she represents me, although she has her own in-game history.
My warlock, meh, I really wouldn’t mind whether I transferred her or not, I only play her for kicks and gold. She’s quite fun to play but she doesn’t hold the same enthusiasm over me as my hunter does.
My druid, on the other hand… I love my druid. It’s so wonderful finally being able to log over to a tank/healer when a group or raid needs it, and it’s great being able to share her herbing and alchemy skills around my other toons 83 I did prefer her old Tauren self, I love the Tauren as a race and Tibs makes a very skinny night elf, but I figure that she’s in bear/tree form most of the time anyway so it doesn’t matter :)
As for you Mania, I would suggest you wait for race changes to be out. ^_^ What happened with my druid was that her reputation stayed the same (but the equivalent for Alliance), as did her mounts, pets, etc. However it appears that all of her quests have been reset… well, at least, I’m theoretically able to do the Alliance quests in Northrend. I haven’t tested this though, it’s bad enough questing on my warlock. And I’m not sure if you’d gain money for the quests you “repeat”.
Yes the quests get reset. But everything else, other then mounts and titles stay the same.
My brother and I transferred 2 different toons (He did a 80 Dwarf Hunter who had I think been black listed from all the raiding guilds on my server, to a Tauan hunter, and I took a 37 Human Rogue to a Belf Rogue, hoping that by changing and getting new quests, I’d finally get another 80; which of course didn’t happen, but its fun being on a hawkstrider for once)
So basically everything stays the same minus mounts, and titles. So in theory its actually an easier way to get to 75 pets, because the alliance pets stay the same, so basically for $60 you get free pets.
Theres a list someplace in the FAQ or where ever where it will show your title changes and mount changes.
ya but just for the race change and tourny aspect i dont see them makeing them reset since u chose wich faction to champion its much diffrent going ally to horde
obviously ur nightelf couldnt chose to do orgrimar but ur nightelf could chose gnomergane exador ironforge exct i think it will end up being more work for them to reset it just for race changes and as proof i give you the cower bug… a simple fix but it would take more work lol work theyd rather not deal with
all of the other obvious stuff ya but i meen just the Race change and tourny lol
now the real question is can u turn ur formerly twinks ( now fancybank toon) exp off grind him a sprite pet and factiontransfer with it :D
obviously lower then required quest but technically available to bolth sides
Test … my last post didn’t seem to have made it to the comments :(
I am considering changing my tauren hunter to an undead one … but we’ll see :)
Silvart on Proudmoore
♠ For now I just plan on turning my old hunter to goblin soon as it’s possible. Male BE’s get annoying to play after awhile. I’ll prolly do the same with my warrior, though going from huge to tiny might piss off healers. After all, how do you click something 3 feet tall in a crowd of enemies???
² I hope that eventually they make it possible to have races not bind you to a faction. I mean after all, it’s not like they can’t decide that the gnomes DO LOOK LIKE golf tees after all… I’m horde all the way, but a worgen would be cool. Ah well, maybe eventually.
I really don’t see a RP issue with going undead (old raceRace + plague barrel = undead). All one needs to do is add how one transformed into undead to the back story.
you’d think for the tournement, they’d just make the faction things the equivalent of one-another, for example: Darnasus=silverymoon, Irongorge=Thunderbluff, etc. soo, what ever factions you’ve chosen, they’d have a set equivalents, when changing factions.
@Ethgri: that’s what unit frames are for (Alliance healers have had to deal with this for gnomes for years).
@Makoes: I expect they will fix the AT quest line mappings eventually, but in the meantime the service doesn’t pose any problems for those that haven’t started AT yet.
Ok that’s it. I’m sick of all these BM nerfs. I’m super PO’D.
” * The Beast Within now lasts 10 sec (Down from 18 sec) but now also increases all damage you deal by 10%. (Apparently at all time … Would have to check in-game)
* Bestial Wrath now lasts 10 sec. (Down from 18 sec)”
Doubtful about that “all the time” as the Beast within is the Hunter-only buff when you cast “Beastial Wrath”.
So once again, BM’s are nerfed for no freaking reason. We’re barely competitive in the best of gear, this is just getting stupid.
Ok I’m more calm now. Sorry. Bad day and I don’t like the obvious PvP nerf to BW. Nerfing PvE for PvP reasons, just what Blizz does i suppose.
They need to fix up the BM tree already. I don’t care if they make it more complicated than SV (and I think that tree is ridiculous), if I want to raid with my spirit beast, I should be able to without getting shunned by every raid group out there. And right after they say they want to make us less cooldown dependant, they make this cooldown even more important to use at the ‘perfect’ time.
/end rant
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