There are alot of details that remain about the campaigns, world map, and tech but it should be possible in most scenarios. It would take some of that technical hoodoo I am sure Patrick Balthazar and the team can whip up but I would imagine it is plausible in a technical sense.

If there are several continents you lock the player to that continent or islands for that faction for the duration of the mission...or you just grey out their other character selections if they try to relog in after selecting the faction to rep throughout that specific mission.

The time-mission based faction lock is more to prevent people from reinforcing the winning team on the battlefield to prevent snowballing victories not so much to guard against spies...IMO I am ok with spies, it adds a great meta game and strategic layer so its ok in my book.

I do even think a no XP and RP penalty would work too perhaps, very harsh penalty but still lets people really play their faction of choice...both the time lock and penalty should be alternated and tested imo to see which is least painful for players and beneficial to the factions. Although I read frequently on Gamasutra that player penalties are not as strong as player incentive so the reverse may be true.

Perhaps a time lock and bonus XP that accrues over time for repping a faction for X amount of time continuously would work to bolster faction loyalty...a tangible incentive for being faithful.

Good stuff though. Lots of things to consider.

why can i vote both yes and no? thats something that needs to be fixed. i am 100% sure that there are people who voted for both, or that there will be people.

i actually love the idea of a small amount of bonus multiplier for staying in the same faction for an extended amount of time and completing battles to the end rather than simply not allowing faction switching/penalizing it.

It's not that the game "needs" faction lockout to "force" faction loyalty or immersion, it's that faction lockout helps generate faction loyalty. You can't justify judging a game based on something that is neither a game mechanic nor metagame relevant to the game; faction loyalty is a matter of preference and attitude of the player, and that cannot be used as an argument about the quality of the game, however it can instigate a hypothesis centered around the quality of the game (but cannot substantiate it). It could still be a really good game and players may not be "loyal" to their factions at all. Your "not so humble" opinion is, in fact, invalid.

However, discussing how such a thing as faction locking would affect the quality of the game is a perfectly legitimate discussion as that is a game mechanic. It is in my opinion that not having faction locking of some sort could only have a negative affect on the general game experience.

I think 12/24hrs of the faction you choose. after 24hrs you can switch, and the counter starts again for that faction. That will allow you to change, but not willy-nilly switching every 5 mins, just to sway one battle one way, and another the other way...

*also* can anyone point me to the "multiple accounts/toons/characters" topic if there is one?

If a lock comes this amount of time is simply way too long, the cool down needs to be short enough that people can switch once during a single play session and still have time left to play.

The idea is not to prevent switching but abusive switching and lots of people will not play for longer than about 5-6 hours in a single session, some even find that a long period.

Well im not saying you should play for 24hrs and then switch .

But i personally like the idea of being committed to that "toon" for a full day.
Then you wait till' tomorrow if you want to play another, like eve online, you have a separate account for a secondary toon that you pay more for and are able to then play all sides at once/switch. or you have one account with multiple but you can only "use" one at a time (learning skills in eve terms).

I wouldn't like to be winning a battle with a group of decent guys, and then half of them go to the other team and win. I think a "few hours" is not enough to achieve this, as battles will last a long time (week/month/etc). so after 4 hours of pushing and winning, the team decides to switch to the other side because there "4 hours" are up... 24 hours makes you really consider the consequence of your choice. "do you help out the weaker team and hope for a great reward, or go for the easy win on the stronger side?"

(PS i want, no, DEMAND 10% of all revenue for coming up with the multi-account (more cash for devs) idea Behaviour , thanks best mate, best pal, buddy old friend )

I disagree on quite a few of your points.

Faction lockout I believe won't generate faction loyalty, quite the opposite I believe it will run people away from the game. Especially if it is over more than about 90 minutes.

A persons opinions can not be 'invalid' it's an opinion, not a fact. In my opinion I think we do not need any type of lock out as WH40K tends to have a fan base that is more loyal to their chosen faction. See those are all my opinions, they are not facts, yet they are relevant to the discussion. Saying his opinion about the game failing is irrelevant is simply not true. If in his opinion that one mechanic makes it a fail in his mind then it is, it doesn't make it a fact, to any one but him, but it is still a valid opinion.

If I am forced to play a certain faction for 24 hours, I will definitely not be playing. I know heaps of people will disagree with me at this point, but I am willing to let time tell. The only solution I see is the one I think...I can't remember who suggested it, but a lock out for the duration of an operation, with a warning would be sufficient.

You will never force faction loyalty, it can't be done. Just like the War council being able to force players to do their bidding, it can't be done, what you can do is reward players for sticking with their team for the long run. That is about all you can do. Carrot on a stick.

Good ideas, but I stand on the I do not think this particular mechanic will be necessary platform.

I would go even further: One faction per server. Like DAoC did it back then.
That would mean no winnig team joining and no faction lock for x hours