“Race≠Faction” hopes aren’t dead yet

[Xath]

If you wish to play a Horde race, you have to play Horde. That is not an unreasonable requirement in a game with two diverse factions. It is in fact the logical consequence of having a two faction system.

Ah yes so it's justifiable to give the horde an alliance race so that they have a pretty race due to faction disparities but it's not justifiable to allow cross faction grouping since the alliance should just die already.

[Obelisk Kai]

Ah yes so it's justifiable to give the horde an alliance race so that they have a pretty race due to faction disparities but it's not justifiable to allow cross faction grouping since the alliance should just die already.

Given that cross faction grouping renders the faction redundant as a gameplay concept, your solution seems to be to kill the patient in order to cure it.

The Alliance is not dying. That is hyperbole. That there are issues in the mythic raiding scene is problematic, but destroying both factions to facilitate a tiny group of players is not the answer. The Alliance and Horde are fundamental to the franchise, that their existence irritates you is unfortunate but I fail to see why a feature of the game I think most people are happy with, and have been happy with for the past 15 years, should be discarded for that tiny group.

[Xath]

Given that cross faction grouping renders the faction redundant as a gameplay concept, your solution seems to be to kill the patient in order to cure it.

The Alliance is not dying. That is hyperbole. That there are issues in the mythic raiding scene is problematic, but destroying both factions to facilitate a tiny group of players is not the answer. The Alliance and Horde are fundamental to the franchise, that their existence irritates you is unfortunate but I fail to see why a feature of the game I think most people are happy with, and have been happy with for the past 15 years, should be discarded for that tiny group.

The alliance is dying this is not hyperbole. It's the entire pug scene for everything pvp pve etc all are dying. Also I notice you avoided that blizz gave blood elves to the horde because of faction disparity not because of lore.

[Obelisk Kai]

The alliance is dying this is not hyperbole. It's the entire pug scene for everything pvp pve etc all are dying. Also I notice you avoided that blizz gave blood elves to the horde because of faction disparity not because of lore.

The Alliance constitutes about 45% of max level characters in the US and the EU. Roughly nine out of every twenty max level characters is Alliance. Given precise parity is impossible, this is not a bad ratio and is proof that the Alliance is not dying. It is possible there is a different mindset among Alliance players as to what they want out of the game, which might mean high end raiding is suffering as a result. It might be more precise to say certain activities are more difficult to do on the Alliance side than on the Horde because of this mindset, but these activities are not impossible, nor do they require the wholesale destruction of the factions to resolve.

As for Blizzard giving the Blood Elves to the Horde, the faction disparity at that time was far greater. Nor was the Blood Elves the sole part of the solution, Blood Elves also came with Paladins which at the time were pretty indispensable for PVE.

[Faroth]

They could simply put in a system that is the antithesis of warmode called "truce" that lets players call a truce to run a dungeon/raid together.

I always liken it back to EverQuest.
The high elves and dark elves hate each other. If you walk into the opposite race's city, their guards will kill you on sight.
But there were zero race restrictions in forming parties because when you're out in the wilderness looking to kill a monster or get a treasure, those racial conflicts don't carry the same weight. If it means your life or death, you look past it for the time being, you call a truce.

The logic always made sense.

Eitrigg and Tirion formed a friendship despite the Horde and Alliance being enemies. Baine and Anduin have a friendship despite the faction conflict. There are plenty of examples in lore of individuals calling a personal truce between one another despite the grander conflict of their respective nations. And these races are able to cross communicate all the time. There is no "Horde language" and "Alliance language" and nobody can understand one another. Lorewise, everything fits fine.

That way players can decide if they're willing to play a mixed group or not, faction relations can remain strained, you won't see dwarves in Orgrimmar or trolls in Stormwind, etc, etc, etc.

The only challenge is the potential for trolling with cross faction communication.

[Syegfryed]

Didn't care about faction conflict in vanilla...don't care now

then why the faction conflict should end?you would not care anyway, just ignore

[Xath]

The Alliance constitutes about 45% of max level characters in the US and the EU. Roughly nine out of every twenty max level characters is Alliance. Given precise parity is impossible, this is not a bad ratio and is proof that the Alliance is not dying. It is possible there is a different mindset among Alliance players as to what they want out of the game, which might mean high end raiding is suffering as a result. It might be more precise to say certain activities are more difficult to do on the Alliance side than on the Horde because of this mindset, but these activities are not impossible, nor do they require the wholesale destruction of the factions to resolve.

As for Blizzard giving the Blood Elves to the Horde, the faction disparity at that time was far greater. Nor was the Blood Elves the sole part of the solution, Blood Elves also came with Paladins which at the time were pretty indispensable for PVE.

The first 3 bosses of mythic right now are easily puggable if you have heroic gear the first boss achieve is 65% horde chars to 35% alliance which is much closer to the actual population still playing.

[Selinde]

Given that cross faction grouping renders the faction redundant as a gameplay concept, your solution seems to be to kill the patient in order to cure it.

The Alliance is not dying. That is hyperbole. That there are issues in the mythic raiding scene is problematic, but destroying both factions to facilitate a tiny group of players is not the answer. The Alliance and Horde are fundamental to the franchise, that their existence irritates you is unfortunate but I fail to see why a feature of the game I think most people are happy with, and have been happy with for the past 15 years, should be discarded for that tiny group.

*Are* fundamental to the franchise? More like were fundamental to the franchise, maybe. In WoW they are a hindrance to cohesive storytelling and gameplay, and a plot device used to stir up conflicts in filler expansions that always follows the same basic principles of "horde starts a fight, alliance takes shit, we realize we are stronger together, we end the conflict". You can only reuse this trope so much before the playerbase finds it shallow and stale, and I think they reached that point with the war in BfA.

[JohnyCge]

The Alliance constitutes about 45% of max level characters in the US and the EU. Roughly nine out of every twenty max level characters is Alliance. Given precise parity is impossible, this is not a bad ratio and is proof that the Alliance is not dying. It is possible there is a different mindset among Alliance players as to what they want out of the game, which might mean high end raiding is suffering as a result. It might be more precise to say certain activities are more difficult to do on the Alliance side than on the Horde because of this mindset, but these activities are not impossible, nor do they require the wholesale destruction of the factions to resolve.

As for Blizzard giving the Blood Elves to the Horde, the faction disparity at that time was far greater. Nor was the Blood Elves the sole part of the solution, Blood Elves also came with Paladins which at the time were pretty indispensable for PVE.

Actually, EU aliance suffer great both for myth and casual crowd. In fact, there's 500k difference between aliance and horde(in favor of horde) in 120 chars, which translates to roughly 20% more horde players, which is alot(2,5 mil to 2 mil). Situation is joke, to the point when top5-top20 aliance guilds transfer to horde for various reasons and population is one of them.(To become top ~110, but still)

On us side it's only 200k, which is 10%, and honesty it's fine, at least in my view.

[prwraith]

then why the faction conflict should end?you would not care anyway, just ignore

I didn't care about it because it didn't make any sense. It still doesn't make sense. It didn't make any sense in Warcraft 3 which is why (shocker) we worked together in WC3.

So basically since WC3 everyone except the undead should be allies. But because people like you still believe in this completely arbitrary red v blue mentality, no progress is made.

[Weatherwax]

Furthermore, they could simply uncouple faction change from race change, and the whole “they won’t do cross faction because microtransactions” angle is addressed.

It's not.

Faction change is a factor because race is a factor. That's the reason Blizzard will never take Berserk off troll racials. Same reason why they'll never give trolls to the Alliance.

[Benitora]

It's not.

Faction change is a factor because race is a factor. That's the reason Blizzard will never take Berserk off troll racials. Same reason why they'll never give trolls to the Alliance.

Not quite true.
Faction change is not because of races anymore.
It used to be, but not anymore. Now it's because if you want a viable raiding guild that is active, you have far more options on Horde side than alliance.
The faction imbalance have snowballed to the point where certain Mythic raids are not unlocked for cross-realm play, due to there not being enough alliance guilds to bother doing them.

People are not joining the horde now to have a spesific racial, they are joining the horde so that they can play the endgame.

[lummiuster]

Ok so, ding-dong, unfortunately cross faction gameplay is dead, but I couldn’t help but notice that every answer about cross-factionisms at Blizzcon only addressed the idea of “I am alliance, my friend is horde, don’t want to roll alts, what do?” They did not fully address “I like dwarves, buddy likes trolls, want to play on the same side, don’t like playing alts, what do?”

Looking past the fact for a moment that the idea of the alt-less player is pretty much no longer supported in WoW, there is one angle that could still happen within what Ion has said, while still representing a significant change in regards to factional limitations.

Unless something was said that I did not catch, nothing that Ion said to gun down faction mechanical change killed the idea of uncoupling factions from races. In leaning into “agency,” and in confirming that Calia isn’t going horde, as well as basically ending allied races (lightforge undead) tied to BFA stories... there’s still an opening there.

There’s enough room for individual dissension, especially if Tyrande gets louder and Genn respectfully supports her right to her opinion, that “the singular champion of Azeroth” might be put in a position to “declare allegiance” (again, the tag line of BFA) regardless of race... once and for all.

Furthermore, they could simply uncouple faction change from race change, and the whole “they won’t do cross faction because microtransactions” angle is addressed.

I started BFA with a hunch that stories of dissention would lead to faction mechanical change, and while free flowing cross factional mechanics have been shot dead for now, permanent decisions to swap sides, with those sides fully seperated could still be in the cards.

After all... there are still those grey’ed out faction symbols at character select, and patch 8.3.5 to be accounted for.

No very bad idea. Your ideas are very bad for the game, stop spreading them.

[Obelisk Kai]

Actually, EU aliance suffer great both for myth and casual crowd. In fact, there's 500k difference between aliance and horde(in favor of horde) in 120 chars, which translates to roughly 20% more horde players, which is alot(2,5 mil to 2 mil). Situation is joke, to the point when top5-top20 aliance guilds transfer to horde for various reasons and population is one of them.(To become top ~110, but still)

On us side it's only 200k, which is 10%, and honesty it's fine, at least in my view.

The first 3 bosses of mythic right now are easily puggable if you have heroic gear the first boss achieve is 65% horde chars to 35% alliance which is much closer to the actual population still playing.

In reality, the reason the Horde mythic scene is more viable than the Alliance mythic scene is that the scene itself is relatively small. As such, mythic raiders who prioritise the world first race seemingly tend to congregate on the Horde side. That is a quirk within the mythic raiding community, rather than one that is unique to the Alliance. Were the Alliance somehow judged to be the better choice for mythic raiding, then the mythic raiders would begin transferring over to the Alliance to get that edge.

Personally, I think the mythic raiding scene argument is a red herring. Given the nature of the game and the relatively small size of that community, one faction or the other will be in the ascendant. It is not worth designing around.

The faction system itself has worth in providing a superstructure to the gameplay experience, providing a sense of 'us' versus 'them' and it has been a way of propelling the narrative forward. In terms of branding, the Alliance and Horde inspire considerable affection from Warcraft players and are probably among the best known fictional sides in gaming history. Those in favour of demolishing the factions tend to be the loudest, in that players who are content with the status quo rarely feel the need to go on to forums and vent about it. Yet we see them time and again expressing their faction pride when required. Nor is that imaginary, one of the stand out moments at the Q and A was when the crowd divided along faction lines and began bickering with each other.

Does the faction system have drawbacks? Sure it does, you've both mentioned several of them. But that it has drawbacks does not mean it has no worth, or that the solution to those drawbacks necessitates the end of the faction system. Rather they are the acceptable cost of having a faction system in the first place. That sucks for the people who feel the drawbacks most keenly, but it has been this way for fifteen years and I find it unlikely Blizzard is going to change their minds now. Particularly given how vehement they have been since April that this was not on the card, is not on the cards, and likely never will be on the cards given how much importance they place on the Horde-Alliance divide.

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They could simply put in a system that is the antithesis of warmode called "truce" that lets players call a truce to run a dungeon/raid together.

I always liken it back to EverQuest.
The high elves and dark elves hate each other. If you walk into the opposite race's city, their guards will kill you on sight.
But there were zero race restrictions in forming parties because when you're out in the wilderness looking to kill a monster or get a treasure, those racial conflicts don't carry the same weight. If it means your life or death, you look past it for the time being, you call a truce.

The logic always made sense.

Eitrigg and Tirion formed a friendship despite the Horde and Alliance being enemies. Baine and Anduin have a friendship despite the faction conflict. There are plenty of examples in lore of individuals calling a personal truce between one another despite the grander conflict of their respective nations. And these races are able to cross communicate all the time. There is no "Horde language" and "Alliance language" and nobody can understand one another. Lorewise, everything fits fine.

That way players can decide if they're willing to play a mixed group or not, faction relations can remain strained, you won't see dwarves in Orgrimmar or trolls in Stormwind, etc, etc, etc.

The only challenge is the potential for trolling with cross faction communication.

Funnily enough, I believe an Everquest style system was how WoW was initially conceived. The Undead and Night Elves wouldn't have been part of the Alliance and the Horde (which wouldn't really have existed as the overarching pillar of the game they currently are) but would have stood apart as their own factions.

The Warcraft diary reveals that the decision to implement the Alliance and Horde as the sole two factions was taken in October 2001 and was in response to the success of Dark Age of Camelot. They wanted a sense of camaraderie amongst players and the best way to achieve that was to give them an enemy among other players. They thought RvR was cool and I agree that it is.

[Eosia]

Threads like these are how we ended up with the "New Game Enhancements" for Star Wars Galaxies. No thank you.

[Zyrinx]

People hanging on to this faction conflict legit concern me. Not even joking.

Do you really need a group in a video game as a lens for you to hate through?

As to the OP, yes its utterly ridiculous that Red v Blue is continuing into the afterlife, whose denizens don't give a flying fuck about it. Which is also why none of the Big 4 from the Covenants make any sense whatsoever as Allied Races, for whatever that's worth.

[sam86]

let's be clear here, the problem of faction insane imbalance is obvious to even blind by now, the only reason blizz - who literally rolled back on every statement they ever said beside faction cross over - isn't allowing it is to milk players even more with faction transfer, only when faction transfer stops they will allow the 5 left alliance player to raid with horde since they can't form even a dungeon party

It's just an excuse from a development team incapable or unwilling to do anything that might disrupt their abitrary line which is just causing one side to slowly die off.

u are hinting that alliance pve/pvp still exist, while outside of oceanic servers alliance is dead, balance between factions is dead already, just oceanic is alliance dominated while rest of world is horde rulez
it isn't 'slowly dying', it is dead, they just want to milk the leftovers of their sweet transfer cash

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People hanging on to this faction conflict legit concern me. Not even joking.

I used to give a f8ck about lore, but after see how blizz literally sh8t on it and enjoy sh8tting on it and throw sh8t at us, i stopped caring
the faction imbalance has only 2 solutions
1- give free faction transfer to alliance, it is a slow recover system but will happen, but no way in egypt (since egypt is worse than hell) that the greediest ceo who increased his already most overpayed paycheck by 15% while firing 10% of the company staff in same year that they achieved profit record will give something for free
2- remove faction barrier, a more realistic approach but he still wants to milk the last penny from idiots who still play alliance and will pay for faction transfer, only when last ally who had money pay for transfer they will remove faction barrier for the 4 alliance players left in entire world (or in case of oceanic servers, 4 horde left)

[ThiagoTorres]

blizzard destroyed my dream of a tauren rogue with stone saved in stormwind

[Mikazukinoyaiba]

Alliance is doing fine, total population is actually really close, Alliance is a roleplayer faction, and the game isn't balanced around raiding, where are those LFR hero that kept saying "Mythic raiding is just 1%" when you need them.

If a Horde player is asking "Why doesn't Horde have ERP zone like Goldshire?" i'll tell them to roll Alliance instead as well.

[Syegfryed]

I didn't care about it because it didn't make any sense. It still doesn't make sense. It didn't make any sense in Warcraft 3 which is why (shocker) we worked together in WC3.

there s a big difference between you not understanding and not making sense

So basically since WC3 everyone except the undead should be allies.

no, not in this universe,ter eis no way they would be allies, especially w knowing the guys who fought in the third war are not the only ones in this world.

But because people like you still believe in this completely arbitrary red v blue mentality, no progress is made.

we don't "believe"it exist, if you cared about the story you would understand

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People hanging on to this faction conflict legit concern me. Not even joking.

Do you really need a group in a video game as a lens for you to hate through?

what concern me more is people who can't make a difference from the game and real world, its a video o game let people "hate" fictional and non existent races who will not affect you lmao