Blizzard Entertainment, the creator of the massively-multiplayer role playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, announced in September 2009 the release of its Faction Change service. This service allows a player to change the faction that a character belongs to, from Alliance to Horde, or vice versa, while maintaining the same class type.
Is there an advantage to changing factions? Each faction and race has a variety of unique traits and abilities, and for some players, changing factions may open up new possibilities for game play.
Factions in World of Warcraft
Players can create characters belonging to one of two factions:
- The Alliance - The Alliance faction is headed by the Human race under the leadership of King Varian Wrynn in Stormwind City. The other races of the Alliance faction include the Dwarves and Gnomes of Ironforge, the Night Elves of Darnassus, and the Draenei of the Exodar. The starting zones for the Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes are located on the Eastern Kingdoms continent, and those for the Night Elves and Draenei are located on islands to the northwest of the continent of Kalimdor.
- The Horde - The Horde faction is headed by the Orc race under the leadership of Warchief Thrall in Orgrimmar. The other races of the Horde faction include the Trolls, also in Orgrimmar, the Tauren of Thunder Bluff, the Undead of the Undercity, and the Blood Elves of Silvermoon City. The starting zones for the Orcs, Trolls, and Tauren are located on the continent of Kalimdor, while those of the Undead and Blood Elves are located in the northern portion of the Eastern Kingdoms continent.
Differences Between the Alliance and Horde Factions
Prior to the release of the Burning Crusade expansion, the class of Paladin could only be chosen by members of certain Alliance races (Human, Dwarf), and the class of Shaman could only be chosen by members of certain Horde races (Orc, Troll, Tauren).
However, the introduction of the Blood Elf race allowed Horde players to choose the Paladin class, and the Draenei race allowed Alliance players to choose the Shaman class. However, the Alliance faction still allows for racial choice when creating a Paladin class character, and the Horde faction still allows for racial choice when creating a Shaman class character.
Two of the main Alliance cities (Darnassus, the Exodar) are located on islands, and can be difficult to reach for some Horde players. This provides some difficulty for Horde players to launch attacks on these cities or to complete achievement quests that involve traveling into those cities.
On a vast majority of servers, the Alliance faction is more highly populated than the Horde faction. This can provide some advantage in terms of numbers in player-versus-player combat, but can also create competition for end-game raiding guilds and auction house purchases.
In general, there is no overall difference in the two factions. Each faction has equivalent options for quests, mounts, achievements, and other in-game rewards. For most players, choosing a faction is based on racial aesthetics, or based on which faction they have friends in on a server.
BNC101
 |
