What Do You Want For The Factions?

[Malikath]

end them, it's caused nothing but problems since they added faction transfers and never bothered to balance racial traits.
i'd rather have allies who happen to hate each-other openly due to politics but have to fight along-side each other or they'll both end-up taking 27ft long thorned demon-dick up the ass no-lube.

[Faroth]

Something is probably going to happen given the signs we are seeing. I wonder what it might be. But the Alliance and Horde won't be going away.

Agreed, that's why I said the Class Order Halls allowing players to be separate but impacted by the factions, with options for being a loyal soldier with Warmode and a toggle for allowing cross faction PvE groupings in dungeons/ raids, being the way I'd personally have gone.

The well is running dry on well developed plotlines reigniting the war. At the very least they need to have a Classic/TBC 2-expansion run of cold war like hostilities while exploring new lands and dealing with more contained adversaries to let things boil rather than explosion after explosion of conflict.

[Mahmeya]

Going back to war with each other after every super bad guy gets tiresome and old.

Yeah. More so when it means making fools of many characters just to set it up. Considering on what tone SoO ended... letting Sylvanas go on with battle for Lordaeron meant all the other leaders - and especially Baine - pretty much betrayed their character for the purpose of advancing the plot.

Totally agreed.

This is the Horde war campaign. You support humans in order to make your warchief lose faster. This is fighting for peace, assuming that Alliance will not make use of the advantage they get.

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Some people are just stuck in Warcraft 1. On their defence, "big baddies" are usually so incompetent that they die faster than average player learns to write his name properly. Enemy faction, however, due to its plot armor, can be fought forever and thus get better developed.

We've seen the way they 'used' the advantage in MoP. The problem is that using the advantage would severely disrupt the status quo (or, as you say, plot armor of one faction). You are also right on some of 'big baddies' though some of them are usually pawns of the really big bads - KJ and Archimonde were around since W3 but they have another problem: the nether revival retcons/schenanigans. But yes, the first bosses in raids, leading to those guys, are often immemorable.

[Gyrotex]

I'm just putting a poll up to see what you guys want for the whole Faction Speculation thing. Do you think that Races should be able to interchange with the two Factions, do you think Factions should be abolished, should there be a third Faction or do you it should stay the way it is? To clarify, this is based on what you WANT to happen, not what will most likely happen based on recent events. This is purely what you want.

Personally, I think being to interchange between the Factions would be cool. You can stay in the Race's traditional Faction if you want or you change shake things up. I really like the idea of it all.

My biggest fear is that "no factions" would just make the world EVEN MORE boring.

I get it - they are simplifying everything. Storytelling, separation of faction mechanics like 2 different auction house instances, etc. But 2 factions at least gave that feeling of extra "volume" to the game. Now it's gonna be all flat as a pancake.

I voted for 3 factions. But that's too hard for Blizzard.

[SaneOstrich]

Voted 'no factions' but there is a caveat. I feel that two things keep getting conflated in this discussion. On one hand you have the two big playable factions Horde and Alliance that split the playerbase. And on the other you have all the organizational lore factions within those two that feature a playable option. Darkspear, Stormwind, Kul-tiran, Blood-Elf, etc.

Where I hope most of the stuff surrounding H/A will dissolve, I hope the other factions remain in play. And will continue to form alliances, have conflict, work together, grow apart, etc. The PC would be an independent operator most of the time, helping out with external threats, or more basic adventurer style, and even team up with factions when conflict arises, aldor/scryer style. The Orcs and Nelves get into a conflict over ashenvale? Choose your side and have at it.

- - - Updated - - -

reading OP again I think I was ment to go for 'interchangable' ah well

[Astranea]

Hmmm how about just more flexibility. It could even be very simply connected to war mode.

For Unity! - PVP OFF and access to a shared language to chat with the other faction, ability to group for content, shared targeting on mobs.

For the Horde! and For the Alliance! - PVP ON, pretty much the same as now with war mode on.

Edit: although adding a proper ‘hidden’ faction for the multitude of hidden eyes of N’Zoth would be cool...

[Accendor]

Ok, so here is the problem: At the end of legion I was completely for unified factions. Then Teldrassil happened and unified factions are just never possible again, so it has to stay the way it was.

[CaptainV]

Id say the best compramise with the factions is the option to swap to horde as alliance or alliance as horde.

This offers blizzard a way to do the least amount of effort design wise, gives them an excuse to keep faction transfer services or even add new ones if your talking about profit margins.

In terms of PVE, open world, removing factions entirley, players can enter every capital, language barrier removed, join any guild.

In terms of warmode, turning warmode on basically locks you to which ever faction at the time you have chosen to align with, so your cut off from going into cities of the other faction or their territory.

This would be "the" best compramise for everyone.

[Theodarzna]

Honestly, PvP BG's could be solved by just having these be local conflicts.

The Warsong Clan versus the Cenarion Circle, or the Defilers versus the Sons of Arathor.

[Gavll]

Eternal war!

[tromage2]

Ok, so here is the problem: At the end of legion I was completely for unified factions. Then Teldrassil happened and unified factions are just never possible again, so it has to stay the way it was.

In Legion it alrdy was a big issue, all order halls where Alliance focused out of the shaman order hall. And this is going to happen without the factions the Horde will be destroyed to push the crappy boy King and his army of light plot. And do Horde players really want that? To become just pions and slaves for the Alliance to be controled...

Just check Argus we had 1-2 NPCs there it is like the Horde never got any involvement at all of the Argus plot and this would then happen all the time.

[Soon-TM]

I voted "no factions", provided that it isn't read as a byword for "Unifaction", but rather as "every race for themselves". Sure, there will certainly be racial affinities, e.g. an Orc is much more likely to befriend a Tauren rather than a Gnome, but that's it.

[KayRule]

I think the factions will continue exist, but there will be a loosening of restrictions. Horde and Alliance players will be able to communicate and group together outside of Warmode, but that in the lore there will still be Horde and Alliance, and when they add races they will still add Horde or Alliance races. I think in the lore, the Horde and Alliance will enter a more roundtable type of council where they co-exist and try to deliberate on stuff, while faction conflicts will still exist in small areas over smaller issues.

Based on some curious strings, they may potentially add a "Mercenary" factionless mode. Maybe they'll let us quit our factions due to the actions done in the war, or they'll let us make new factionless characters, but at the end of the day, Horde and Alliance will still exist.

That's my speculation, my guess for the future.