no... not 'possibly'. This doesn't make any sense at all, and Blizzard would never do it that way.

They're already doing it this way for the other items ( though they are BoP so the item can still be bound) depending on the way they have their item code - what I suggested may not even be technically possible - meaning it's either staying soulbound completely or not.

I don't see how my idea is flawed per se - it is something new, sure, but I can see how Blizzard might want to discourage the idea of farming up a bunch of mats and then selling them all.

That'd only work if characters would "equip" those relics like it's a piece of gear or a weapon, which isn't the case because it's only an item like food/mats/anything.

If the remove the "bind on pick-up" part, then it's free for all (they wouldn't bind at all in any way), so if you already have them in your bags or pick up new ones, it makes no difference.

The item is still already bound to you, so it would 'work' that way. They're doing that with the bell, they're not unbinding the bell from those who got it before - so it could work this way.

Though, since it's not an equippable item, and won't be able to bind in the future, I will assume that's what you mean - then yes, but there's no reason they couldn't leave the ones farmed before the patch as soulbound.

I was thinking the same thing, that maybe it's impossible for something to go from soulbound from un-soulbound, but I'm pretty sure back when they changed Primal Nethers the existing ones became tradeable. So it's likely that the devs just haven't concretely decided yet that they're making the change.

Every item has a name, stats, a description, and an effect that can be added in the form of a script. It would actually be MORE work to have 2 versions of the item, one soulbound and one not bound at all, then to simply remove the BoP effect and alter the description. To make two, they'd need to make a second item with a new ID and give it the same name, description, and find some way that both can be used for currency without displaying two separate tokens.

The best way to do this is simple: edit the item to remove the BoP, which will then make it a normal, tradable item. BoP items display as BoP when not in your inventory, and will be changed to Soulbound when you actually have them in your inventory, it's not a matter of unbinding old items, it's a matter of should they. Would that be something they want on the AH? If so, removing the BoP marker and editing the description to reflect that will automatically unbind all Relics.

"If the remove the "bind on pick-up" part, then it's free for all (they wouldn't bind at all in any way), so if you already have them in your bags or pick up new ones, it makes no difference."

They can still bind items to you even if they weren't BOP to begin with.

Back when they made plain letters BOP, if you had any in your bank, you logged back in to find them in your inventory, bound. People later complained about making them BOP, and that some people traded them around, so they removed the binding on them, lol.