Nethaera said... (Source)
We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.

Q. Will we be able to switch between the races on our own faction?
A.. No. Players will only be able to switch to a race of the opposite faction.

Q. Will I be able to choose the race on the opposite faction that I want to change to?
A.. Yes, but you will only be able to switch to a race that has your class type available to it. So if you play a human paladin, you’d only be able to change to a blood elf paladin.

Q.How much will it cost?
A.. We do not have further information on this at this point in time.

Q.Will I be able to switch back to my original faction but a different race?
A.. No. You will only be able to switch back to your originally chosen race.

Q.. How will the switch between reputation, gear, mounts, etc be handled?
A.. We’ll have more details for you at a later point in time, though we plan to keep these as close to a reflection of the other faction as much as possible.

Q.How often can you change your faction?
A..We do not have any information to share on this at this point in time, however we will have restrictions on the frequency by which players can change their faction.

Q. How will this affect the balance of Horde and Alliance on the realms?
A.. We are taking great care in how we implement this new service in order to maintain balance between the factions on the realms but do not have any further details to share.

Bad news for Greane:

Q.Will I be able to switch back to my original faction but a different race?
A.. No. You will only be able to switch back to your originally chosen race.

bah, the decision to not allow race changes seems a bit hackish.... i really cant see the problem it might cause.

I can't seem to find the blue post at the moment, but about a month or so ago, they chimed in on the discussion and basically said something to the effect that they didn't want to see a "Race of the Month" type setup where people were "re-racing" simply for racials.

2yrs ago I think that argument would stand up pretty well, but now adays, we're so homogenized I don't think the racial's really make all that much of a difference. It's mostly aesthetic.

None the less, that is their stance for some reason.



EDIT: Found the blue post regarding why you can't change your race (Source)

Crygil said...
Why no race changes? It seems like a reasonable question. I mean, we allow character re-customization where you can change your sex, right? We sure do, but we have good reasons for not supporting race changes, at this point in time.

Here are just a few of the reasons:

1) Critical Mass: People may decided that any given class/race combo is superior to other combination of that same class. Or people may decide that any given race is no longer worth sticking with due to some change we make to some racial abilities. This naturally leads to flavor of the month races. This is something we want to avoid.

2) Race Restrictions: All races are given a certain set of restrictions for both lore and balance purposes. There would be some serious investment involved in making certain that this system didn't allow any exploitation of that system.

3) Future Content: Things change, some would say the only thing that stays the same is change and that is certainly true for World of Warcraft. If we allowed race changes it could negatively/adversely impact things we haven't even thought of yet.

That said, it's not in the cards right now. Maybe someday we'll reverse our opinion on this, but it's likely to be a while.

BULLSHIT
I wanna be a BE

Q. Will we be able to switch between the races on our own faction?
A.. No. Players will only be able to switch to a race of the opposite faction

...SHIT

OK a Female BE

that can be accomplished with the new gender reassignment surgery service.