End of BFA = Possible faction unification?

[Airwaves]

I suspect it is. One last war before doing away with factions for good. They have always talked about their dislike for the divide in player base. I am guessing both factions will be obliterated after years of fighting with the return of the old gods. Leaving a single faction.

[melzas]

only rp servers, people don't take ganking lightly.

There will be no ganking in BfA, since only people who sign up for pvp can be attacked.

[Katsutomai]

Kinda wish they would finally at least allow something like Cross-Faction races. We've helped each other enough by now that I KNOW some Alliance and Horde have to be friends.

[Kieldon]

I think there will be a point (possibly the end of BFA) where some faction barriers will be broken. Maybe a possibility of cross-faction PvE.

[Combatbutler]

Nah, it will be another heavy handed moral ending just like MoP had. But in the end nothing will come out of it.

And we have a winner

[Rend Blackhand]

There will never be any faction unification.

[Cedon]

No, simply because of the fact that some folks in certain stations are incapable of letting things go. Even after both the Horde and the Alliance banded together with the Night Elves to defeat Archimonde and the Legion/Scourge on Mt. Hyjal, it didn't last just like it didn't last after banding together to defeat Arthas and now Kil'jaeden/Sargeras. As the WoW cinematic says: "... and even though Azeroth was saved, the tenuous pact between the Horde and the Alliance has all but evaporated. The drums of war thunder once again."

The problem is both sides expect everyone on the other side to be 100% perfect and anything done by an individual, regardless of motive, is reflective of the other side. The Wrath Gate is a perfect example. Varimathras betrayed the Foresaken and openly resumed his allegiance to the Burning Legion and, with the help of Grand Apothecary Putress, seized control of the Undercity. Putress launched an attack on Arthas, the Horde, and the Alliance by launching a barrage of the Blight on all three forces. Yet in Varion's mind, Thrall, Sylvanas, and the rest of the Horde were behind it because Bolvar was believed to have died in the attack. And thus his hunger for revenge was his dominating drive to the point he'd let Yogg-Saron loose if he killed the Horde. "I'm done with your Horde. May this 'death god' take you all."

We saw it again in MoP where Jaina went psycho. Even after witnessing that the Horde is not opposed to the Alliance as one over and over and over and over again, she starts treating it as such after Garrosh attacked Theramore. Even though she knew that Baine, Sylvanas, Lor'themar, and Vol'jin all opposed Garrosh and were plotting to depose him she wanted Varion to kill them all after the Seige of Orgimmar.

Genn keeps that fire going now. The Foresaken attacked Gilneas because they were ordered to by Garrosh. But Sylvanas was just as much of a victim of Garrosh as was the Gilneans. The Foresaken were order to attack because Garrosh wanted the Foresaken wiped out. If they failed her could have them destroyed as traitors to the Horde or at the very lease expel them and leave them to the rest of the Alliance. If they succeded, the Gilneans would be wiped out and the Foresaken weakened to where Garrosh or the rest of the Alliance would finish the job. Either way he would get what he wanted. Why do you think he distinctly ordered Sylvanas NOT to use the Blight even though it would mean an easy victory for the Horde with little casualties? Why do you think he was shocked that Sylvanas found a way to raise more Foresaken?

But, getting back to Genn, he's carried that hatred with him and at the initial strike on the Broken Shore, he didn't stop to think that maybe the Horde was getting overrun on the ledge just as much as the Alliance was at the foot of the Tomb of Sargeras? He just immediately jumped to the conclusion "Sylvanas is betraying us!" even though such a move would have meant that the Horde would surely be defeated by the Legion as well and she would probably have something extra special waiting for her care of Kil'jaeden because she was once a creation of the Legion herself. Even after being made aware of the fact the Vol'jin was mortally wounded in the battle. Never mind the fact the battle itself was a trap set by Detheroc who captured SI:7 agent Mathias Shaw and took his place and lead both sides to that disastrous battle. None of that matters in Genn's mind even though his own daughter knows the truth.

[Mirishka]

The title of Battle for Azeroth implies two things; 1) that it will be the biggest faction war we've ever seen and that 2) it won't just be a battle between the Horde and Alliance.

I ultimately think the ending of BfA should involve some sort of faction unification between the factions. Why? Well, because for this expansion to work it can't just be a battle for Azeroth, it has to be the battle for Azeroth and once the battle's over, where do you go with the factions from there?

The only direction to go that isn't redundant would be unification, through peace or conquest/vassalage.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want conflict to end in WoW, but faction war like with the big villian of the week has ultimately become redundant and pretty predictable. We know that nothing big will happen, sure Teldrassil is burned down and Undercity is abandoned, but they're not major player hubs to begin with.

They actually implied this at Blizzcon, very vaguely. They basically said that the Alliance/Horde stuff had reached a boiling point and that BFA was about 'finding a resolution' for that.

Resolution = closure. So it'll likely end with peace or a truce or something.

[Deleted]

Factions should exist but they can change the rules a bit. Cross faction grouping would be nice. Cross faction bgs wouldn't make sense but sure would cut down queue times and reduce win ratio imbalance I.E. Alliance winning AV, IOC, Horde winning AB, Strands of Ancients.

[Aucald]

I've said it before and I maintain it today - although I often feel like the faction conflict is redundant or wholly unnecessary, without its presence and its continual pressure on events Warcraft just wouldn't be Warcraft anymore. Horde vs. Alliance, red vs. blue, however you relate to the concept it's a vital underpinning of what makes the game what it is. Perhaps that's really what's at the heart of the issue when it comes to players dissatisfied from the game's story - a sense that it has strayed from its point of origin a bit too much, and that has undermined what is essentially at its core.

For me the faction conflict is at its best in the micro sense, I don't want it to come to the fore in the manner it seems to be doing in BfA, but rather as a background element that sparks drama and acts as a motivator for actions within the story. Cooperation between the major factions should be an outlier - something that happens only very rarely and only for world-threatening events or circumstances, and even then it should be teeth-clenched cooperation with a high degree of infighting. I think that kind of storytelling was the goal for the various WoW expansions, too; but we got lost somewhere along the way and the lines between the factions go through a too frequent cycle of blurring then re-affirming themselves.

[Mehrunes]

I'd assume it's too ingrained into game systems to do that.

And we have a winner

He forgot to mention that the Pandaren will suffer more than any other in this war. Ignore that sound of Tyrande's eye twitching in the distance, it's nothing.

[Arrashi]

BFA ending = Sylvannas Dies, that is all.

And then you wake up, teary eyed, realising it was just a dream and all that awaits you is grim, gray and unchanging reality.

[Deleted]

BFA ending = Sylvannas Dies, that is all.

There's a reason their building up Blightcaller. His going to be the fall guy.

[Alex86el]

maybe there will be a new horde faction, only even more "bad".

like.. Bolvar, Sylvanas, N'zoth, Twilight Hammer.

and the rest will join into a new alliance.

[Deleted]

and after that happy ending it will be renamed world of craft.

Becomes an mmo Minecraft game

[Arrashi]

maybe there will be a new horde faction, only even more "bad".

like.. Bolvar, Sylvanas, N'zoth, Twilight Hammer.

and the rest will join into a new alliance.

And who would be its leader ? Dark Mudmug ?

[Shampro]

maybe there will be a new horde faction, only even more "bad".

like.. Bolvar, Sylvanas, N'zoth, Twilight Hammer.

and the rest will join into a new alliance.

I laughed.

[Sangris]

Nah. While the story always will go into the direction of both factions having to work together to defeat the annual world-ending threat, with both factions learning that they can only overcome them by cooperating, Blizzard will always pull some retarded reason out of their asses why Horde and Alliance will keep murdering each other.
Blizzard have clearly no interest in letting the Horde and Alliance play together, as the theme of the upcoming expansion has shown.

[Destinas]

They've already stated at Blizzcon and in interviews that BfA starts with the faction conflict, but moves on to other things in time. It was also stated many times that there are Old God shenanigans in BfA - Uldir has an Old God-Titan experiment, and we know Azshara shows up.

I feel like, from that info, the faction conflict will hit hard in the first patch, and die down over the patches. By the last patch, we'll have to put aside our differences in order to beat the final baddie, whoever it may be. That way, the majority of the expansion's story can split between the huge evil threat, and the faction conflict seamlessly. It'll give us time to be able to do Warfronts justifiably, and we won't soon forget the reason why the Allied Races join, as well as the events for Teldrassil and Undercity.

Problem is, in my opinion, that it will probably wind up like every other expansion. We have to unite to fight the big bad, with a big speech about how we're better when we're united. Then, immediately in the next expansion, we'll find some random remote island with a resource on it, and we hate each other. That's the story for Pandaria, Vashj'ir, Ashran, Tol Barad, and other places. It's so abrupt, and it almost never seems justified.

[Thrif]

No, Blizzard has a hardon for this fabricated faction war that honestly hasn't been a thing since War2. It'll probably stay around for a while.