With BFA over, is it time to end the faction war for good?

[CaptainV]

BFA is, for the most part universally agreed to be a pretty shallow, poorly done and heavily rushed expansion with some interesting story idea's and utterly abysmal executions of them.

In terms of gameplay, lore, and storytelling we have all but reached a point where besides the likes of Tyrande and Genn there are no faction specific characters who have some kinda grudge against the other.

With that in mind... is it time, to consider cross-faction and the removal of said factions, now that there is basically almost no reason at all for another war again?

Or would you truly feel that wow needs more faction divergance still?

What would your reasons be?

Or do you agree with the statement, that the time has come, for factions, to die.

[Thestrawman]

BFA is, for the most part universally agreed to be a pretty shallow, poorly done and heavily rushed expansion with some interesting story idea's and utterly abysmal executions of them.

In terms of gameplay, lore, and storytelling we have all but reached a point where besides the likes of Tyrande and Genn there are no faction specific characters who have some kinda grudge against the other.

With that in mind... is it time, to consider cross-faction and the removal of said factions, now that there is basically almost no reason at all for another war again?

Or would you truly feel that wow needs more faction divergance still?

What would your reasons be?

Or do you agree with the statement, that the time has come, for factions, to die.

It should be dead and buried but sadly it'll be trotted out again in an expansion or two after SL so the developers can "bring the war back to Warcraft"

[CaptainV]

I agree, thats the problem I have with it, its a done story, they tried in WOTLK and Cata and MoP where it worked, but then they decided for some unlogical reason that after it ended in MoP we needed it again in Legion onwards.

[Itisamuh]

The faction war stopped making sense in Wrath, at the absolute latest in my opinion. Even ignoring everything before it though, it definitely should have ended with Legion, especially given the premise of the class order halls. Blizzard is determined to milk the faction war no matter what though, believing that without it it is impossible to be Warcraft, despite the endless enemies the factions end up uniting against, so it will never end permanently, despite how stupid it has been for years.

[Lahis]

Even the Breaking The Cycle -theme the Warchampaing ended on wasn't enough to stop the faction war for good. It is never going away at this point.

Give two expansions, and I'm sure Tyrande and Genn will burn Silvermoon or Thunderbluff to begin new faction war expansion.

[Zyrinx]

Yes but they won't.

Tyrande is going to reignite it, is my guess.

[Biomega]

It's the whole "but WarCraft is about Orcs vs. Humansssss!" whine all over again, as if a franchise was unable to evolve after two decades.

[Jimson]

No. I find the faction war fascinating and hope it lasts forever.

[Aresk]

End it for good? No. End it for a while? Yes. Locking out an entire narrative style just because we just saw one expression of it seems a bit hasty. There can be good faction war stories. The issue is that thus far they've sparked it with an act that generally is morally reprehensible. They'd have to establish a code of ethical warfare within the game and abide by that to avoid making one side the "villain," and they have to maintain support of the people for those managing the war. Until they tell a story with those elements, and given us time to reset our tolerances for a faction war, then they should continue to avoid that plot.

[Luxeley]

Most definitely. But the infinite wisdom that is Blizzard says no. Once again, they're playing the "you think you want it, but you really don't" card.

[MoanaLisa]

Developers say it's core to the game. I think it should have been ended years ago but it doesn't look like that's an option.

Personally I think there's a ton of great stories that could be told if races/tribes were substituted for factions. Multiple parallel plot lines even. There are writers there on staff that could handle that but not at the story management level which insists on stupidly obvious "shock" stuff at the expense of good plotting.

[Gaidax]

The biggest problem is that this is a one way ticket.

If you merge factions, then you can no longer unmerge it and much of the future potential for good stories with strong faction identity contained in Azeroth will be lost right there. We had great many good stories thanks to the faction divide and we can have more in the future too.

I do agree with devs stating it's a core to the game, but on top of that the above consideration is strong too.

[Atriel]

Making a statement like this is quite frankly like taking the space out of starcraft, the orcs out of the lord of the rings, its so entrenched and tied into what Warcraft is at its foundation that removing it would be absolutely gutting the entire franchise. Just because they did a faction expansion war poorly dosent mean you can just delete what Warcraft.

If you dont agree thats your opinion, but ive been arguing this for a few years on this forum and Ion literally came out and said this exact thing in an interview at the previous Blizzcon.

So before people quote me and tell me how its not part of WoW, you're quite literally wrong, Blizzard themselves see it as part of the IP and they own it so.

What people dont seem to be able to wrap their heads around with all these silly comments accusing Blizzard of 'infinite wisdom' and 'it not being relevant anymore' 'failing to evolve' and all this crap is that, part of the evolving story involves different levels of war, some expansions its very heated and tense, some expansions its pretty calm and theres cooperation, but what you guys seem to want to do is just say fuck the spine of the story, lets just remove it, what you would be left with would just be a boring plain world where we just wait for the next bad guy from space to turn up and fight them off.

Its not being unable to evolve, or not being relevant, its a case of them doing a few poor stories and suddenly everyone wants to rip out the backbone of the game which is quite frankly utterly silly.

We go to war against a big baddie every expansion, we don't need a faction side-war anymore. It's further compounded when the factions work together to take down the big bad threat together. It's old, it's stale. Factions can still exist, but it would be much more interesting to have the races intermingle and spread their ideas together.

Stating Ion said anything is paltry evidence as he frequently says one thing and the team does another, Ion doesn't have complete control over the game.

[CalamityHeart]

At the very least, I hope it's a very long time before it takes a spotlight again. The entire war campaign was just a bad circus from start to finish and it's really soured my view on the faction war. I wouldn't want to see it completely removed from the story, but at best, I'd prefer if it was only tangent to the rest of an expansion's story and not the driving motivation.

[Powerogue]

I figured that's exactly what they did. We have just enough justification for war mode to continue being a mechanic since it proved popular enough, while the factions at large are done fighting.

For better or worse I expect the night elves and worgen to take Sylvanas's head on a platter as sufficient to chill out and shift focus towards rebuilding. Really hoping Tyrande doesn't die in the process. That or we come back post shadowlands and the factions have destroyed each other in our absence to a degree that the factions no longer exist. Either way, I think the faction war is over.

Also I think it's ridiculous to call an expansion with 5 cinematics dedicated to the faction war story "shallow" or "rushed." By Blizzard standards, this expansion has had the most nuance to break down and digest out of any other expansion. You can dislike the story told all you want, but it wasn't shallow. Shallow stories don't get talked about nonstop for years with people constantly on edge for what happens next.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

You should never start a thread off by assuming your opinion is "universally agreed".

[shadowmatrix]

Is the war over for good? Nope.
Why not merge factions? Peace doesn't mean the two sides like each other, that takes several generations to achieve.
Will war come again? Sure, as long as one group wants something another group has war is a possibility.

War has rarely ever made sense, no matter how much suffering goes on there is always a new war waiting in the future.

[Highelf]

I've been saying for years that the TWO hard factions need to be splintered off, with lands and properties divided off.

[Lex Icon]

like it or not the game is built around it. if they ever do a wow 2 sure go ahead idc.

[Accendor]

It is not possible to end the faction war anymore. In fact, there can never be peace anymore. The reason is simple: the horde has shown yet again, in just a few years, that they revel in violence and bloodshet. They are enjoying war and celebrate genocide. However, this time around, the horde did not try to clean itself like during MoP, the vast majority stood with Sylvanas till the end. They not only accepted the atrocities of the fourth war, they supported them. There is no real closure here either - all blame is put on Sylvanas, everybody else is portrayed as innocent. They are not.
There was a chance for peace after legion - its over now forever. The horde and the alliance can not co exist, because the horde does not want peace. They want carnage and destruction and that will never change.
I am sorry for all horde players who have seen themself as a honorable band of outcasts or something like that before BfA.