Factional "Never say never" is borderline insulting at this point.

[Santti]

I don't think it's ever going to be something that happens. Or if it is, it's going to be very limited. Or maybe when Blizzard announces that WoW's dev team is going to be cut, à la Starcraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm. And merge the factions to reduce the amount of work it takes to make separate quests for both factions.

The Alliance and Horde split is one of the core identities of World of Warcraft. While there have certainly been moments where banding together makes sense, like with the Burning Legion banging Azeroth, there have also been lore explanations where being separate factions is more desirable.

Anyone remember this from Mists of Pandaria? (relevant part starts at 1:30)

[Tumble]

I see it being a main feature in the next expansion. With Alliance helping horde leaders and horde helping Alliance leaders in torghast, I think factions as they are now will be a thing of the past. Open world pvp will just be anyone not in your group or guild. I think it would be good for the game overall. People with true real world hatred for imaginary factions are just going to have to get over it fir the sake of the game.

[Argorwal]

the current WoW playerbase isn't big enough to support the faction divide, region divides, and the different ways people play the game, especially the raiding population which is at the lowest now that it has ever been, and has been consistently getting lower and lower since the end of WoD, in the current tier of mythic raiding less than 3000 guilds WORLDWIDE have cleared HALF the raid bosses in the raid, that's never happened before at this point in the lifespan of the instance, it's 3 months old at this point and to have such a low progress rate shows that there simply isn't enough people anymore to fill that gap, and even after the 'tuning' done to the place kills on 9th/10th bosses haven't really improved much if at all, and right now there's a large drop off of players and guilds who were once the guilds that would always clear content either step down their schedule and not worry about clearing content anymore, or straight up quitting the game with no indication of whether they will return or not.

the faction divide has been long overdue for removal after having so many 'we must team up or face oblivion' moments it's pathetic and petty at this point the storylines they are trying to force feed people to make this 'faction war' still make sense 20 years later.

They’ve pretty much confirmed the actual player split is almost exactly 50/50 and the issues alliance faces are only in high end content the vast majority never do like deep mythic, keys over +15, and gladiator PvP.

Basically the small, hardcore, segment has a faction problem while most are fine.

[Puupi]

If only we had 10 man mythic raids and cross faction raiding the raiding scene in the game would surge to a renaissance. From 3000 mythic raiding guilds to 30000.

[Razion]

People can't even be trusted to talk to the opposite faction in a sophisticated manner. How can we expect players not to grief each other in gameplay?

For certain groups, sure, they can probably get along. But for normal PuG environments there would probably be a lot of toxicity for a while. M+ and Raiding would be a new site for griefing by faction loyals, and while these people can be kicked and replaced the sheer abundance of it would probably turn a lot of people off of PuG content entirely for a while. "Just join a guild," would be the mantra, and people would just isolate themselves more and more into their own guilds and solo play. It leads down a path where the game becomes more and more of a solo game -- and while that's appealing to some, even me, and while I'd say I think in an ideal world the faction barrier dropping would be great it would also bring with it a lot of growing pains. And quite frankly I don't trust the community to not abuse it if it ever dropped.

[rogoth]

They’ve pretty much confirmed the actual player split is almost exactly 50/50 and the issues alliance faces are only in high end content the vast majority never do like deep mythic, keys over +15, and gladiator PvP.

Basically the small, hardcore, segment has a faction problem while most are fine.

and that just reinforces my point, if the players aren't there for that content, then the players that want to participate in that content will just faction change to the faction with the players that do that content, leaving a hole which at this point in the games life cycle will never be filled because the players just aren't there anymore, even the 'hall of fame' is a joke, alliance hasn't even half filled yet on horde side it was filled over 2 weeks ago, assuming the same pace of clears on the alliance side you could get 'hall of fame' and be a guild that's world rank 500ish maybe more, and that's just a piss take really, and the imbalance issue has a trickle down effect so it's going to be interesting to see if blizzard bother to try and fix the issues or just leave it alone to burn away into nothing like they have been doing for years now.

[Relapses]

The only thing that's borderline insulting is the disgusting level of entitlement players have over any controversial topic Blizzard ever discusses. Blizzard doesn't owe any of us shit and your pathetic emotional outburst isn't going to miraculously change anybody's mind.

[Saltysquidoon]

They’ve pretty much confirmed the actual player split is almost exactly 50/50 and the issues alliance faces are only in high end content the vast majority never do like deep mythic, keys over +15, and gladiator PvP.

Basically the small, hardcore, segment has a faction problem while most are fine.

Yeah you mean the actual content where it matters.
Turns out faction is irrelevant for herb picking and pet battles, I for one am shocked.

[Mestalis]

Patch 10.0 has been screaming faction revamp for years. Why else would they add faction icons to the character select screen?

[bdmxd]

Let them mix factions for PVE but when they mix factions for PVP I'm done with WOW. I'll look at mercenaries as a Traitor to his on kind I love killing horde that's what I do best, you take that from me and I'm done.

[Omedon]

Let them mix factions for PVE but when they mix factions for PVP I'm done with WOW. I'll look at mercenaries as a Traitor to his on kind I love killing horde that's what I do best, you take that from me and I'm done.

You must love mercenary mode...

[huth]

Yes it is. The current WoW playerbase has thousands of guilds working on Mythic Nathria. It's doing quite fine.

The problem is that the vast majority of them is Horde. Horde Hall of Fame is already full. Alliance isn't even halfway.

[dwarven]

I'd bet they're working on it for the next expansion.

[Argorwal]

Yeah you mean the actual content where it matters.
Turns out faction is irrelevant for herb picking and pet battles, I for one am shocked.

That’s quite a leap from normal, heroic, early mythic raiding, mythic+ at 15 or below, and sub glad PvP to herbing and pet battles.

Spoiler - the very bleeding edge doesn’t matter to Blizz, which is why it’s just more lip service and they haven’t even attempted changes in the last 10 years. Too small a demographic to care. MMO-Champaign echo chamber is a small slice of the population.

[arandomuser]

they should let ally queu up for horde lfg like the mercenary system for pvp, thats an easy solution that dosent require them overhauling the lore or anything some gameplay mechanics can exist outside the lore

[deenman]

They absolutely shouldn't. When they remove the barrier they become the same as the other failed MMOs like ESO who had to break down the factions because their playerbase wasn't big enough.

Warcraft is built on the Alliance vs Horde conflict, it's its identity. If they bring down the walls EVERYONE will just roll Human.

No thanks.

the divide makes zero sense,the entire faction conflict is somepltly nonsensical and they keep trying to find ways for the conflict to keep going somehow,we even have mercenary mode in pvp...we worked for the same goals in the past,you can still justify pvp and unite the factions at the same time...i mean in arenas and bgs you dont just face the oposite faction

warcraft is in no way built on the aly vs horde,its actualy built around aly and horde beating enemies as alies more often,even in cutscenes you see this all the time

initialy the game wasnt even going to have this faction divide,because guess what?it didnt make sense after warcraft 3 either

also how the heck will everyone roll human?wtf???what is this?wotlk pvp? no...people chose races based on racials,how transmog looks etc etc

[Kelduril]

The problem is that the vast majority of them is Horde. Horde Hall of Fame is already full. Alliance isn't even halfway.

And? Why is that an issue? Horde has always had better players.

- - - Updated - - -

warcraft is in no way built on the aly vs horde

No? Who were they fighting in Warcraft 1 and 2?

To say the faction divine makes no sense is to be utterly ignorant of the game's lore.

[deenman]

And? Why is that an issue? Horde has always had better players.

- - - Updated - - -



No? Who were they fighting in Warcraft 1 and 2?

some orcs that have nothing to do with current horde and 99% of the races in it?

[Kelduril]

some orcs that have nothing to do with current horde and 99% of the races in it?

You mean the same clans that are in the current Horde?

[deenman]

You mean the same clans that are in the current Horde?

name ONE dude that was in the original horde leadership and is in ogrimmar today,there are a few old veteran soldiers like eitrigg,and guess what?he has human friends and is against the conflict