A couple of my friends are playing on the Horde, and I’ve considered the possibility of doing a faction-change – even though I DESPISE how the Forsaken look, I actually really dig their Lore; I wish they looked more like this:
But I’ve also had this character since Wrath launched, and while he might seem pretty sad NOW, he’s completely quite a lot of content over the years. I’ve even considered trying to complete all of the Loremaster achievements with him.
It got me wondering, what exactly happens ON THE TECHNICAL SIDE to all your Completed quests when you do a Faction change?
Are those quests still “marked as completed”, even if they’re no longer actually accessible to you? Do they “convert to the Horde-equivalent” versions of those quests (or vice-versa)?
If I went for Loremaster in every continent on the Alliance, then went to the Horde, would all those quests on the Horde side be uncompleted? If I completed those, would I be acquiring additional achievements?
And what would happen if I switch BACK to the Alliance; would all those previously completed quests be incomplete and available again?
The answer itself doesn’t really matter, I’d just really like to know, and it might influence the way I go about doing things (ie. rush to do Loremaster now, wait until after I change, wait until I change BACK in theory, etc).
Any chance one of the Devs might be able to answer that, just to sate my own curiosity? Or if anyone else happens to know?
Faction specific quests don’t transfer, non faction specific quests do IIRC from the last time I transferred.
So all the Horde quests will be available to you, but stuff like your Legion Order Hall quests will still be completed. The game tracks all quests regardless of your faction, so if you transfer back all the quests you already did as Alliance will still be completed.
My guess as someone who doesn’t program at all, is that each quest has a unique ID and the game just checks it off a list when you complete it. So when you change factions all the quests you have already done stay checked.
Neutral quests, or quests that can be done by either faction regardless stay “marked as completed”. Faction specific quests (i.e. quests that you can only get as an Alliance character or a Horde character) stay marked as completed ONLY with respect to that faction. Meaning you can do horde quests even if you did the Alliance equivalents.
This caused a bit of an annoyance during Cata with the portals to the proper Cata zones. Mainly Vashj’ir and Twilight Highlands. As those portals are locked behind faction specific quests. Meaning you had to redo those zones storylines up until the portal was reopened.
As for achievements related to things like loremaster. They will still be regarded as completed.
No. Those quests will remain as “marked as completed” regardless.
This is why you can track if you have completed a quest or note using an in game macro. Each quest as their own quest ID and a true or false outcome. If you haven’t done the quest, it will come up as false. If you have it will come up as true. Just be aware that breadcrumbs will come up as false even if you fail to pick them up before doing the first proper quests of their respective chain. Since most breadcrumbs disappear if you have already started on the quest chain that they direct you to.
