I've seen a number of threads here in the forums suggesting the introduction of paid faction changes. Let me go ahead and suggest adding a FREE faction change.

The reason why I'd like to be able to change factions is that after half a year of playing I've developed a much greater affinity for one of the factions than the other two. I've joined faction-specific PvP guilds and invest all of my PvP in that faction.

I propose a free system because I believe there should be no additional costs in a subscription-based game. My gut feeling is that if that door is opened, soon there will be other non-essential, paid goodies for players to spend their hard-earned cash in, and I sincerely wouldn't like to see TESO turned into yet another in-app-purchase cash cow.

That said, I don't think people should just freely change factions whenever they please, not least because that would lend itself to abuse (think spying/sabotaging other factions).

What I propose, then, is the following:

1. After a character reaches a minimum level/alliance war level, they can pick up a quest at a Cyrodiil quest hub near an opposing faction's scroll gates. For instance, if you wished to change your allegiance to the Daggerfall Covenant, you'd go to Chorrol. The quest would be given by a "recruiting officer" of the opposing faction and would imply spying on/sabotaging your current faction. A whole questline could be involved, making the change that more difficult and serious.
2. Having completed the quest/questline, you would be given the option to pledge allegiance to the desired faction (e.g. travelling to that faction's zone and meeting the leader).
3. You would not get another chance to swap factions after this (who would trust an unrepentant turncoat anyway?).

I think this proposal would address the issue of having characters "stranded" in a faction you no longer feel connected to, especially for those people who, like me, played around with each faction at the start. Cadwell's Silver and Gold quests basically removed any reason to create a new character in another faction - unless you don't have the Imperial Edition and thus cannot create a character of your chosen race in your chosen faction - since you can experience all three factions' PvE content in one character.

Moreover, because there are many people who bought the Imperial Edition, there wouldn't be an issue with certain races being represented in a faction that is different from their race leader's chosen faction because that is already the case.

In short, I think faction change is necessary at this moment and also think that my proposed system would be completely in line with the game (i.e. make sense from a role-playing perspective, not break any lore, not allow exploits, etc.).

This is my two cents. What say you?