I've been thinking about this ever since the faction changes went live: obviously, Blizzard will never actually release the numbers on how many server transfers or faction changes they do, just because they are notoriously guarded about the information they release, not least because riots are pretty easy to incite on the forums (imagine the reaction if Blizzard officially said that Alliance was the more popular faction). But I wonder nevertheless: how many players have transferred their characters over from one faction to another already? And lots of people seem to think that the vast majority of transfers are Alliance to Horde (not to mention I've heard many anecdotal stories of people flooding back to the Horde), but is that true?

Obviously, we don't have access to all of Blizzard's audience, and our polls are definitely much less scientific than the data Blizzard gets to look at (you better believe they're tracking transfers and faction and race choices with a close eye, just as they're tracking server populations 24/7), but just for the heck of it, we'll ask. After the break, we've got a few polls designed to give us a very general look at how transfers are playing out so far. There's a lot of anecdotal experiences flying around since transfers went live, but I'd like to know, a little more objectively, just how things are panning out.

The first poll is simple: it's designed to let us know just how many players (in this case, readers of WoW.com, so at least a good sample of NA and EU players) have actually used the transfer service. Everyone should answer this.



The second poll, to be answered only by people who have transferred factions already, should show us which way the transfers are going: from Alliance to Horde, from Horde to Alliance, or even:



These next two polls are only for people who have transferred, and please only answer the poll that fits your faction transfer. While race choice on the faction transfers is limited by class, it should be interesting to see what people who are transferring factions are choosing in terms of races. And Blizzard will definitely be watching their versions of these numbers in their calculations, as they update racial bonuses and experiences in Cataclysm.




Finally, for those of you who didn't transfer factions yet, the last poll asks if we'll see another big burst of faction transfers when Cataclysm releases, or at least when the Cataclysm races are available for transfer (Blizzard stated at BlizzCon that while they hadn't decided yet, transfers to the new races probably wouldn't be available right at release).



Thanks for answering! If the results are surprising enough, we'll take a look at what they might mean in a future post.

Tags: alliance, alliance-to-horde, blizzard, classes, faction-transfer, faction-transfers, horde, numbers, polls, population, questions, races, survey

Filed under: Horde, Alliance, Polls, Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, Blizzard, Factions, Cataclysm