This is what I see when I read these paid services:

"Hey Ninja Looters! Just got kicked from your guild from stealing that epic? Do all your so called 'Friends' despise you after accidently looting? Try our paid Identity change now! This includes a one-time change to your character's Name, Race, and Faction for the low price of 50$! No need to level up another avatar when you can just give us more money so you can legaly cheat your way out of the community."

Just my opinion. I never once thought these services could be useful.

So, I guess the only thing that is missing now is some class change service, because Joe only wants to be a Priest during the afternoon and Joe is too lazy to make alts...

Originally posted by EricDanie

So, I guess the only thing that is missing now is some class change service, because I only want to be a Priest during the afternoon.

 

 lol, give them 3 more months....

   This will be helpful for people who enjoy different races content at different levels. Maybe play a draenei up to a point and switch to a worgen. From a RP standpoint I can use it a few ways in the guild Im in. All in all this will open opportunities for good and bad. Lol just the way I like it.

Originally posted by Techleo

   This will be helpful for people who enjoy different races content at different levels. Maybe play a draenei up to a point and switch to a worgen. From a RP standpoint I can use it a few ways in the guild Im in. All in all this will open opportunities for good and bad. Lol just the way I like it.

Or someone like me, that's had an undead warlock for 3+ years now, with tons of one-time crap tied to that toon, but sorta wishes he could have been an Orc.  But hey, all that is irrelivent, since the only reason I'd pay $30 to switch my toon to a different race every few months is so I can ninja loot. 

Back on topic, while the flexibility can be good, it also kills some of the static features or a persistent character... but I guess no one cares anymore.

Originally posted by Techleo

   This will be helpful for people who enjoy different races content at different levels. Maybe play a draenei up to a point and switch to a worgen. From a RP standpoint I can use it a few ways in the guild Im in. All in all this will open opportunities for good and bad. Lol just the way I like it.

I dont know what RP you could do with a draenei becoming a worgen, because, i dont know if you know, but worgens are not always in worgen form, many times they walk around in human form, probably out of combat.....

You could explain a draenei becoming a worgen alright, what you coulodnt explain is why the guy transformed to a human during daylight =P

Originally posted by tryklon

 Yep, you are completely right, theres no lore like World Of Warcraft, i mean, really, what took them so long to bring to the game that paramount of righteousness that is the Tauren Paladin... those guys were around since the formation of the universe.... mooing while defending the week

ROFL

 In all seriousness though, I wonder if this will make min/maxers flock to the racial FOTM.  You have to assume that given this, they will eventually offer a class change service as well..

Then all they gotta do is rotate the racial and class FOTM wheel and reap the profits.

This is quite sad and expensive.  My hubby has a Paladin on another server, that he wanted to switch-over to the PvP server he was on.  He wanted to switch the race and the gender.  It was quite pricey.  I understand that it takes a bit of effort to do this, but 25$ to change races, 15$ for gender, and $25 for a realm switch.  Some people say that WoW doesn't have an RMT, I must disagree. He decided against it.  He couldn't justify spending 65$ on one character on an online game. (I may have had something to do with that)  I can understand the charge, but why so much.  Don't they have millions of subs?

Ok now they have them all, name, race and faction change, wonders what would be next for Blizzard, i'd guess paid insta level X character.

Originally posted by Aguitha

Ok now they have them all, name, race and faction change, wonders what would be next for Blizzard, i'd guess paid insta level X character.

Eh, they have the Chinese to do that. They are working together. They have secret underground camps lined along the borders of Blizzard headquarters and.....

*loud rustling and knocking*

Oh yikes they found my hiding......*clubbed*

Originally posted by junzo316

This is quite sad and expensive.  My hubby has a Paladin on another server, that he wanted to switch-over to the PvP server he was on.  He wanted to switch the race and the gender.  It was quite pricey.  I understand that it takes a bit of effort to do this, but 25$ to change races, 15$ for gender, and $25 for a realm switch.  Some people say that WoW doesn't have an RMT, I must disagree. He decided against it.  He couldn't justify spending 65$ on one character on an online game. (I may have had something to do with that)  I can understand the charge, but why so much.  Don't they have millions of subs?

And people bitch about $12.50 for a Retcon in Champions (which lets you change every single power effectivly going from preist to deathknight)

I disagree totally. I was fed up of playin a Male human Mage, I used to be female a year ago but I did the gender change a while back. yesterday i changed to a gnome, was a great feeling to be able to play a different Race without having to level a new one, and I LOVE the mecostrider :D, much better than my boring horse :P Ok so i could have spent hours and hours getting exalted with gnomergan, but the humans just dont look right on mecostriders :D OK some people will think £15 is a bit expensive but if you have the cash and are bored with your current character i do reccomend it :)

Originally posted by nekollx

Originally posted by junzo316

This is quite sad and expensive.  My hubby has a Paladin on another server, that he wanted to switch-over to the PvP server he was on.  He wanted to switch the race and the gender.  It was quite pricey.  I understand that it takes a bit of effort to do this, but 25$ to change races, 15$ for gender, and $25 for a realm switch.  Some people say that WoW doesn't have an RMT, I must disagree. He decided against it.  He couldn't justify spending 65$ on one character on an online game. (I may have had something to do with that)  I can understand the charge, but why so much.  Don't they have millions of subs?

 

And people bitch about $12.50 for a Retcon in Champions (which lets you change every single power effectivly going from preist to deathknight)

It's different to a point. Yes, it's a paid service. Is it a necessity? Of course not. The interesting thing Champions is doing is the ability to retcon all the way back without spending a dime. Not to mention the character slots you will recieve from leveling a character to 40 which will be implemented in the future. If WoW was to do things like that, more power to them. But in the meantime, Blizzard is still a money hungry, rabid beast just scrounging up new ways to rip subscribers off.
 

I'm figuring an upcoming $10/rep bracket buyout soon, choose your faction, select your current rep, select desired rep, enter cc info, click confirm.  Instant faction gear.

 About time they got this done. Been looking forward to it!

They just need a complete package for faction+race+server transfer.

Sweet!

I have 2 toons right now I want to change and there will be several more when Cataclysm comes out.

;)

i got tired of looking at knees and tushes with my gnome warlock. she's about to become human. i don't care if faction percentage is still based on being a gnome or not. i'm tired of a pet that won't heel.

It would not suprise me in the least if they start selling an auto level system. For $50 you can automatically level up to level 80, for $50 more you can start with entry level epics, as in a tier below the current top raiding gear.  Watch it happen within a year or two.

Man, so many conspiracy theories.

Let me break out my tinfoil hat first, so that Blizzard can't use their brain wave machines to subvert me!

Argh!  Too late... feel myself... slipping...

No, wait.  That's just a headache.  Must have been from slamming my head repeatedly into my desk from reading some of the crazy things on this here interwebs.

Seriously, though.  Some of what I've read in this thread alone smacks either of insanity, or demogogy.  Calm down.  Take a breath.  The world hasn't stopped spinning despite all the other "mistakes" Blizzard made with WOW thus far (and trust me, there has been a litany of game-breaking errors according to previous years' doomsayers), and I doubt it's going to stop now.

When it's time to worry, then just quit the game and feel good that you'll be doing your part to hurt Blizzard where it actually hurts most: their bank account.

Otherwise, I suspect they aren't much hurt by anonymous criticisms on a message board when those same critics keep shelling out money each month to play.  If you pay to be offended, you forfeit the right to complain about it.

It is good if you have chosen a little gnome for a tank and find that it is a huge mistake after obtaining level 80 and you can't see what you should. To change to a bit larger race that makes it better for you to be a tank.  /shrug  or you could just eat deviate fish and save your money. ;)

Many reasons peeps would want to change race I suppose but $25 is rather steep IMO to pay to change your race. Many want to give Horde/Alliance a try and can do so then go back after a given period if they don't like it. There is a cost other than the money though in changing so I caution you too look at the whole picture before leaping.

The thing that worries me about the faction change is that in the past many times Blizzard insisted on "it'll never happen". Now we see that the mighty $ made it happen (i see absolutely NO other reason than that) and i'm wondering what other "services" their RMT-programm will offer in the future.

-25$ instant level 50

-10$ 3 factions exhalted

-10$ armor set XY

or similar.

Blizzard seems to have set the game on total sellout-status.

I am such an old man at the age of 29. This is just silly to me, it takes away from earning for your character and making an identity on a server. Name change is one thing, the server change was another, and now race too? Blizzard is making a killing on selling these services to their players. I enjoyed WoW at first, but it's become so huge, mainstream, and commercialized. Gah, why did I read this... I'll stop complaining and let people enjoy their "You don't need to make a new character, just spend more money!" all they need now is to sell the gold themselves.

If memory serves me correctly EQ started selling Plat to eliminate the farmers. So yea anything is possible. My big question there is though doesn't that effect the economy they all seem to scream about?

I mean if you log on one day and find you are missing a large amount of the hard earned gold you have earned and put in a ticket and they say we see you had and earned and did not spend it. We don't know what happened to it but we can't give it back because it would hurt the economy. Then doesn't selling gold or plat do the same thing? Oh wait I think I have it "if we sell it it does not hurt the economy because we are making money (RL) off it". 

So yea if it puts money in their pockets then I would say we can expect about anything as being possible. So for anyone who thinks it is unfair or doesn't have the funds to get it oh well tuff.

Blizzard meeting:

Hey guys what do you think about letting players change from 1 race to a different race.

that makes no sense, you can't just change from a gnome to a elf, that's stupid!

what if we chage $25 for it?

I like it!!  lets do it!!  ca-ching!