Faction Swaps, New Games, and Old Experiences
So recently both writers here faction swapped, from Horde to Alliance. We’ve both raided as both sides and have no misconceptions that problems exist on both sides nor do we think that “the grass is greener.” We did it for personal reasons and because we enjoyed the characters we swapped. With that aside, we’ve heard a lot of issues with faction swaps. We had our fair share, but all were contributable to something that was done by the user. Once the listed problems on the FAQ on the official site were dealt with, there were no problems and the whole process took just over 30 minutes, including the “Character must be logged out for 20 minutes” catch.
Having the same character, but having it look totally different and actually play different is a great thing. It adds new life to your character, new aspects to the game, and I must say, if you have nothing tying you down to a faction and want to make a good bit of gold, swap and redo all the quests you’ve already done. I lost about 1k or so completed quests in all areas, so that is a lot of free and easy gold that I don’t need to do anything to get back. I must say it is rather funny to see in the Feats of Strength tab you earned a PvP title years after the system was removed too.
In the server downtime today, for WoW, I’m sure a lot of people are going to be bored. I’d recommend checking out Aion personally. It’s not the same as WoW, that’s for certain, but it’s a welcome change. Right now the game is in open beta, and having played most of the closed beta of Aion there are a lot of good things that have come about for the game. Not to mention the cool aspects of flying that are built into the game. It plays a lot like AoC in that it has a semi-reactive system, but it doesn’t require constant input like AoC does. It is a great game with a lot of fun, I just hope that it will continue and have some lasting power once the “end game” phase comes out, the Wintergrap-esk concept of a raiding instance is not really that much fun when it’s the only option; that type of system works fine in a Warcraft like game where there are multiple instances and raids to do so that you aren’t required to control a certain PvPvE zone just to enjoy the game. Also, the crafting system is truely involving in Aion, it grants you experience, has some neat animations, and has a ton of quests to focus around leveling your professions; though sadly they are a bit overwhelming at first once you catch on it’s not bad at all.
