End to the faction conflict

[Pyreo]

In an interview with PCGamer Alex Afrasiabi said this:

PC Gamer: For a long time the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde has been ignored in favor of dealing with external threats, like the Burning Legion. Why is now the right time to respark the animosity that started it all?

Alex Afrasiabi: We feel the Alliance-Horde divide is foundational and fundamental to World of Warcraft as a franchise and as a story, but we danced around it for a very long time. We've had run-ins, we've had close calls, but we've never been able to finish it—to have that resolution. We're coming out of this expansion, Legion, and the world is not in a great place—the players and the factions themselves are not in a great place because there is all of this old animosity that hasn't been resolved. It's time to resolve it.

(Emphasis mine.)

My personal theory is that after this expansion in 9.0 we will no longer have factions. Or at the very least Alliance and Horde characters will be able to party/guild with each other. This is further backed up with the inclusion of the Elixer of Tongues. To me, adding this item after having a zero cross faction communication policy for so long feels like Blizzard allowing us to get used to the idea of talking cross faction before they remove the barrier entirely. What are your thoughts?

[mikepic]

Oh god, I hope so! It's about damn time

Now, I say that with the hope there is still an option for world PvP.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I really REALLY would love to be able to play Alliance races but still be in my Horde home guild and raid with them.

The cities being no-go zones depending on race could be explained by how the general population of citizens feels. We, players, are meant to be above the commoners anyway.

[DarkAmbient]

Removing factions = no more money from faction changes. Can't see it happening, unless anyone can come up with a solution that still makes the faction change service viable.

[Pyreo]

I really REALLY would love to be able to play Alliance races but still be in my Horde home guild and raid with them.

The cities being no-go zones depending on race could be explained by how the general population of citizens feels. We, players, are meant to be above the commoners anyway.

Sure, there's a bunch of ways you could do it. Maybe everyone in the city is flagged Unfriendly and you can't interact with them. Honestly, I just want to play my Lightforged Protection Paladin on Horde.

[yetgdhfgh]

We are just gonna go back to Cold war with minor skirmishes here and there just to create a bit of blood letting.

[Directionalk9]

God I hope not.

[Army Dreamer]

World of peacecraft is coming.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

i don 't see an end to factions , just faction conflict inside of the story AND out in the in-game world (warmode)

[micwini]

There doesn't need to be peace. It can be something like: No all out war, but skirmishes will happen still.

[Soon-TM]

We are just gonna go back to Cold war with minor skirmishes here and there just to create a bit of blood letting.

In other words, we'd be back to Vanilla's statu quo. Not that it'd be a bad idea, quite the opposite imo. You could even cement the notion lorewise, by stating that Horde and Alliance sign a peace treaty come the end of BfA, but the treaty is fiercely contested by a few but important figureheads in both factions.

[Pangalactic]

The conflict is entirely made up with zero reasons for it happening. So this whole expansions doesn't make ANY sense. But considering we already had massive time travel in WoD with resurrection of old characters just for more $$$, that doesn't surprise me at all.

[Yunaqt]

Removing factions = no more money from faction changes. Can't see it happening, unless anyone can come up with a solution that still makes the faction change service viable.

They already did, they called them Allied races

[Seylene]

Would love it to be true, but I don't know if the Blizz team has the finesse to make it actually work in a way that won't just flat out piss off even more people.

[yetgdhfgh]

In other words, we'd be back to Vanilla's statu quo. Not that it'd be a bad idea, quite the opposite imo. You could even cement the notion lorewise, by stating that Horde and Alliance sign a peace treaty come the end of BfA, but the treaty is fiercely contested by a few but important figureheads in both factions.

We pretty much had this after MoP and the Siege of Orgrimmar. After that we pretty much worked together (except for Ashran but that was neither here nor there) and we never really saw a major conflict until Stormheim.

I expect what happened after Siege is what will happen again but there will still be bad blood between the sides but there will just be another uneasy 'peace'

[Eapoe]

As interesting as this could be for the future of the game, and there are things that might point to the possibility (A.I. Pvp instances and the choices Horde make to follow or go against Syl), I don’t think Blizz will do this.

[valax]

There doesn't need to be peace. It can be something like: No all out war, but skirmishes will happen still.

This, break up the factions but let races still have rivalries so that neutrals can be neutrals and warmongers be warmongers. Having a more dynamic world in the process instead of 2 blocks clashing which got old already

[Katchii]

I just hope the story doesn't revolve around it anymore. I'm fine with the factions being separated and at odds with each other and having skirmishes every now and then because we're not exactly allies, but the full out war we're in now just seems stupid when our planet is literally dying and we have huge world ending threats to deal with.

[Hitei]

This, break up the factions but let races still have rivalries so that neutrals can be neutrals and warmongers be warmongers. Having a more dynamic world in the process instead of 2 blocks clashing which got old already

Been saying this for a while.

You remove the actual dual factions and just let characters deal with reps on an individual basis, where helping some racial factions makes other racial factions dislike you. This keeps lore perfectly fine, means no one has to forgive or cooperate with anyone they'd be unlikely to, and still allows for anyone to group with anyone for instanced content.

Quest with Forsaken? Lose Darnassus rep.
Quest with the Tauren? Lose no rep.
Quest with Gilneas? Lose Undercity rep.

[Oneirophobia]

This, break up the factions but let races still have rivalries so that neutrals can be neutrals and warmongers be warmongers. Having a more dynamic world in the process instead of 2 blocks clashing which got old already

With the way things seem to be going, that may very well be the case.

The Forsaken went from "Are they evil or are they just bitter because they're dead and acting out for being treated like monsters" to "oh heck yeah definitely evil", and the Tauren are fed the fuck up with it.


Tyrande had a bit of an altercation with Anduin for not dumping all the allied military into Darkshore so you could argue the Night Elves are feeling a little alienated. The Dwarven Clans are closer and more powerful than ever, they could nearly support their own faction if the Gnomes and coming Mechagnomes decided to join them.

I'd personally like to see the Zandalari go about rallying the disenfranchised offshoot tribes like the Gurubashi, Amani, Farraki and Drakari (again, but successfully) and spin off into their own faction.


We will just have to see!