A little backstory: part of the downside of leveling a fresh alt on a brand new realm, new experience or not, is the lack of support. Previously, when I leveled an alt, I could count at least an heirloom or two or three being passed around. When I made Anschlag on Kael’thas, his only real form of support was other people – a couple runes from Lady Jess and a boatload of green stuff for the teens and 20s from Dechion – and as much as I love those guys, I wanted to be able to help myself where necessary. So, since Zulfon was just kind of wasting away over there on Feathermoon, where I didn’t particularly want to raid with her… Well, say hello to Rajaat up there.
Race (troll -> draenei), faction (Horde -> Alliance), sex (female -> male), name (Zulfon -> Rajaat), and server (Feathermoon -> Kael’thas) – I think I pretty much changed everything I could. Oh, and guild too (The Aftermath -> Sidhe Devils). So, here’s a few tips from me to you, just in case you’re thinking about doing the same thing, or something similar, as well as a few things to think about before you switch sides from Alliance to Horde or vice versa.
Order of operations
If you’re thinking about doing both of these things (a faction change and a server change) I recommend doing the server change first. No real in-depth reason; it’s just that it takes longer. Of course, longer is a relative term: my server transfer took 20 minutes, whereas my faction change was actually instant – I just had to go home and customize her. Also – don’t forget that you can’t server transfer while there’s things in your mailbox, so if you’ve got anything you want to take with you, like heirlooms or bind to account items, make sure they’re in your bags or your bank before you go.
The process is not infallible
Be ready to call a GM if necessary. I suspect the process has gotten most of the kinks worked out of it by now (yet another reason I held off), but you may get bitten like Runy did – some of her faction pets converted, but others didn’t, leaving her with 2 Mulgore Hatchlings and no Mechanopeep or Ammen Vale Lashling. I don’t seem to have had anything go missing; the only thing I’d bought from the tournament was the White Skeletal Warhorse, and it converted properly into a Swift Moonsaber. Still, before you switch, you may want to keep track of what pets and mounts you have, so you can compare when you get done with the transfer (might I suggest Warcraft Mounts and Warcraft Pets for tracking your collections?).
Do-overs
I sure hope you like questing. You’re going to lose some things when you switch factions; specifically, pretty much everything you did in Icecrown. If you finished Loremaster of Northrend, you’ll keep that and its sub-achievements, but the actual quests are available for you to do again (and some you’ll probably definitely want to redo). Here’s just a short list of the things I have actually noticed.
- The questline that starts on the airship for your faction to open the Shadow Vault has to be redone. This means that after a faction change, the Shadow Vault is once again occupied by the forces of the Lich King, and you’ll need to help Baron Sliver clean them out. Again. For the newly-Allied, you’ll want to head to the Skybreaker to pick up It’s All Fun And Games from Thassarian; the new Horde will be going to Orgrim’s Hammer to get the same quest from Koltira Deathweaver. Luckily, this doesn’t take terribly long to do – it’s actually back to full functionality after The Shadow Vault – but you may want to go ahead and do the rest anyway, because you’ll lose quite a few quests from your total quests completed, and if you’re going for Loremaster, this will help.
- Similarly, while I haven’t been down to verify it myself (and if someone else can, I’d appreciate it), you will probably have to help the Argent Crusade retake Crusader’s Pinnacle. Go to Dalaran and talk to Officer Van Rossem (for the Alliance) or Sky-Reaver Klum (for the Horde) to start it off.
- Did you like the Argent Tournament? Specifically, did you like the first week or two of the tournament? I hope so, because you’re about to relive it. Just as Runy warns, Silver Covenant and Sunreaver reputations, unlike almost every other reputation, do not swap, and you will lose all your standing with the tournament. If you were a Champion with every city, you’re about to be bumped back down to Aspirant. Hell, not even an Aspirant – you have to go talk to the Argent Crusaders in their tent, just like you’re starting off fresh. The one good piece of news in all this is that the city reputation you may have gained does transfer, and remains at the level it was, so it’ll make it a lot quicker to become a Crusader.
- Questlines that started in neutral towns don’t seem to have to be done over, so you won’t have to redo They Took Our Men! and its subsequent quests to unlock the Sons of Hodir or anything like that. Icecrown seems to have caught the brunt of all the quest-reversal, simply because of the split-faction quests in that area. Essentially, if a questline that led to something phasing in or out actually started with a questmaster from your specific faction, you can count on having to do it over again.
Your turn
Have any of you faction-changed recently? Got any more caveats, warnings, slip-ups, or tips? Leave ‘em in the comments!
That point about losing quests is a big hangup, especially if you’re at all interested in Loremaster. I ended up on record as having completed about 50 quests total in all of Northrend, including only 1 quest in Dragonblight, but I was level 75 and had the Wrathgate Achievement.
One of the few things that didn’t transfer, though, was my Wrathgate quest reward – Wrynn’s Leggings of… something (i’d have to look it up). I’m planning on making that into an RP joke for Anzefi!
Another reminder about transfers – cash, heirloom items, BoE items for level 80 (if you’re close), and flying training are all likely easier to come by on the server/faction with all of your other characters, so take the time to get everything all set up before you push the button!
Huh. That is a little surprising, because that's a set of quest items that actually does have a direct equivalent Hordeside – they're all "Warchief's Legsomethings of Noun." Might be that you'd have to go do the Wrathgate again.
Your experience and mine is starting to make me think that the decision of what quests transfer and what quests don't is utterly random (or else just completely differs when going Alliance -> Horde instead of vice versa). Like I was telling Triz below, I kept all of my Northrend and Outland quest achievements, but completely lost just about everything I did in the old world outside of quests for the Bloodsail Pirates and the DK starting quests. However, on top of that, the Armory is convinced I didn't start questing until Zangarmarsh, but then cleared everything.)
Good point on being prepared! It would suck to get faction-transferred then discover you'd left anything important behind. Thanks Anna.
Could you possibly test (if you don't have it yet) if the old world Loremaster achievement quest numbers are still somewhat correct and, if so, if they increase when you do quests for your new faction? If they do, that would be quite an easy way to get the Azeroth Loremaster achievements… which actually would be something I might start playing WoW again for…
I checked last night. While I retained the two Loremaster achievements I had already earned – Loremaster of Northrend and Loremaster of Outland – I lost about 400 quests total (I was past 1500 and close to 2000 before; now I'm back to 1110). However, here's the weird part: what the Armory is reporting, and what the in-game achievements panel, is not just slightly but completely different. It's reporting me on the Armory as having done no quests anywhere in the old world, and in apparently the first half of Outland, yet I remember from checking in-game last night that I have all the Outland quest achievements except the bombing speed-run in Skettis. As for the old world… I know I have numbers, but they're low.
In short, no, this is not a shortcut to completing the old-world Loremaster achievements, because all of your side-specific quests will be eliminated when you switch. I can't check the exact numbers because the Armory is being dumb, but I know I went from 200 or 300 quests in Kalimdor down to something like 14 (I had been grinding through the starting areas to build quicker rep than the tournament could give me). Same case in the Eastern Kingdoms.
I checked last night. While I retained the two Loremaster achievements I had already earned – Loremaster of Northrend and Loremaster of Outland – I lost about 400 quests total (I was past 1500 and close to 2000 before; now I'm back to 1110). However, here's the weird part: what the Armory is reporting, and what the in-game achievements panel is reporting, is not just slightly but completely different. It's reporting me on the Armory as having done no quests anywhere in the old world, and in apparently the first half of Outland, yet I remember from checking in-game last night that I have all the Outland quest achievements except the bombing speed-run in Skettis. As for the old world… I know I have numbers, but they're low.
In short, no, this is not a shortcut to completing the old-world Loremaster achievements, because all of your side-specific quests will be eliminated when you switch. I can't check the exact numbers because the Armory is being dumb, but I know I went from 200 or 300 quests in Kalimdor down to something like 14 (I had been grinding through the starting areas to build quicker rep than the tournament could give me). Same case in the Eastern Kingdoms.
Mystery solved: the Statistics and Achievements pages in the Armory still think I'm a Horde character.
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