$25 to flip a few 1’s and 0’s around? This is some EA level of pricing.
Faction change I can see. A little more work into that but the same faction?
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i don’t think you should have ever been able to buy a faction/race change
obviously - i know i just broke the forum law by saying that 
shadowmelds
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its $25 because thats the price you pay for 2nd guessing your original choice of a race to play.
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Races, names and classes are meant to be very significant impactful choices when making a character. Something that sticks down. So it’s naturally going to be harder to change it. 
The services and their prices are additive with each other. A race change also includes a name change ($10) and a gender swap (formerly $15), though that was discontinued, on top of the race one. Faction is one level of change higher so that’s set at $30. The more stuff you add in the package the pricier it gets.
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Why would you race change when you can just level a new character?
In any case, if it were free, people would be asking for it all the time, which would really be inconvenient. It’s priced so that people don’t flood the system with change requests every time the FOTM changes.
Grind the gold for it then.
I had something longer written out, but I decided others said it better than me. So I’ll just quote:
And…
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it’s a cosmetic change, save your $25
buh mah deeps gains
they’re less than 1%, don’t take my word go ahead and sim it.
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People who’re desperate to chase the FOTM aren’t going to be stopped (let alone slowed down) by a hiked-up fee. All it really means is more money for Blizzard.
People are going to use these services regardless, no other game seems to have an issue with their systems being routinely ‘flooded’ with requests every time the meta changes. Yet Blizzard sticks to their high prices and backs them up with the (apparently very well recieved) idea that it’s to “deter overuse”.
There is literally nothing preventing someone from overusing the system, however, given enough money. All the hefty price does is punish the people who would like to reasonably use them.
It’s all automated database stuff dude, don’t have any illusions here that any of it is any kind of work (other than support, when something goes wrong).
Luxury service, luxury prices.
For some of us however, it was less a matter of second guessing our race and more a matter of “I’d rather be X” as more races were added to the game.
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Then level a new one if you don’t want to pay the money. You’ll get heritage armor and it’s quick to level.
No
$25 to discourage the feature. If it was $5, there would be half a million players a month doing it.
Blizzard has publicly stated (years ago) that some of their “change” features are intentionally priced high to discourage their use.
But it is still dirt cheap for anyone who really wants to do it. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t pay $25 if they really wanted it. That’s one large pizza for three.
It’s an absurd and outdated system. The cost should be like $5 and everyone knows it.
No justifiable reason for it.
It really shouldn’t cost anything. It should just be on a cooldown.
While I don’t disagree, it’s a matter of intent.
EA: It’s a money grab.
Blizz: It’s meant to be a barrier to behavior.
Actually, it’s priced to make them a profit. Before that, you were forced to re-roll.
Yeaaaah idk why people are defending blizzard greed lol. Just polluting the gaming industry some more.
Or just use tokens to buy it with gold. That’s what I did with my DK when they unlocked all the races for those. Cost like 200k, which is pocket change.
A game is a balance between restriction and freedom. Too much freedom, then you don’t have a game anymore it’s just a movie or assets sitting there. Too much restriction and the game becomes unplayable.
There must always be restrictions in place that fundamentally create the gameplay. You’re restricted to something for 2 reasons. 1- To create an interesting situation or 2- To have something for you to overcome.
Games need problems and things that push back at you so that you can have fun with it. That’s why people enjoy survival games. The fact your starving, don’t have a shelter, and need to survive the night is the fun of the game. While in WoW you don’t have hunger, there are plenty of safe spaces, and you don’t need to survive or die.
When it comes to restrictions it’s meant to convey immersion to some degree. Say, why a race cannot be a certain class or not. That’s interesting. You might be unhappy by it but literally that’s always the case. LITERALLY everything will have people being unhappy by it so that’s not a driving factor.
Keeping things interesting is the driving factor, at the cost of other’s disdain for it. WoW in it’s current state needs more restriction in some areas and to give us more freedom in others. We will just disagree about which needs restricted or freedom. I for one think race changes should be deterred with a higher price like $25. It’s available but it’s a deterrent. Which is good.
A character’s race is their identity. It should be something not changed likely. If they gave free character race changes, it should be no less than once a year, which is how important it is. Realistically I’d say never. Although I see no real harm in giving the service. See. Here we are. Now we’re discussing whether or not we should give the Barbershop the option to just give us race change whenever we want vs having none at all. It would be a different experience in the game either way. Something interesting and more important. It would become something special ONLY BECAUSE of that restriction. A character’s race is sacred under a system of “no race changes” and it’s something people will talk about for hours and how it’s meaningful to our experience. If there was free changes at the Barbershop it would be like the Hardcore community in that there are meme races to play and meta races to play. I prefer the meaningful route.