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

[Argorwal]

Failed miserably? Rofl.

Mythic raiding was at its' peak popularity when 10 man mythics were around. Literally tens of thousands of guilds raiding mythic.

It has only been downhill since.

EDIT: Just some numbers from wowprogress: during Siege of Orgrimmar, there were ~24000 10 man guilds raiding mythic and ~4000 25 man guilds raiding mythic.

You should Google “path of least resistance.”

Organizing 10 people is way easier than organizing 25.

Just like 5 people in mythic+ vs 20 in a raid.

Just like how 2s is the most popular bracket, then 3s, then RBGs.

Cata crippled the entire feel of raiding being a large scale group effort.

[Kelduril]

No, it hasn't. Originally, they were mostly Alliance even.

Besides, the good players don't like the Horde. They're on the Horde because it's easier to build functioning raid groups there, not because it is the Horde. Which causes even more players to switch to Horde, which then reinforces the effect even more. At this rate, in 1-2 expansions there won't be any functioning Alliance Mythic raids anymore.

Your precious faction divide will become irrelevant at that point.

Besides, you're not making much of an argument for why it would even be needed. Lore certainly isn't a good one, as the factions have proven perfectly capable of working together when need be. The faction divide is nowhere near as integral to the game as you pretend it to be.

The Alliance and the Horde have fought in literally every expansion so far.

[Omedon]

The Alliance and the Horde have fought in literally every expansion so far.

This is true. But it's not true in shadowlands, and we currently have a mechanic that acknowledges what "the past" is. That's important, bear with me here.

IF no actual canon faction skirmish breaks out in Shadowlands, and the last expansion that did have an actual war (BFA) gets devoured by Chromie time with Shadowlands becoming the default "new player 10-50 game" as BFA is now (https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...t-level-60-cap)... The faction war is no longer part of the initial impression of WoW. It's all part of the past with all the past eras, which also happen to be where all the battlegrounds are set. The factions are part of Exile's reach, but war between them is not. The impression of the faction divide in this potential future begins and ends with exile's reach, which is not conflict, just a divide.

IF, and yes that's a big IF, shadowlands is the beginning of replacing the "War in Warcraft" with the planar, cosmological conflict, that creates the perfect moment to address faction mechanical change.

Now, if we start warring before the end of this expansion, this theory dies. But that hasn't happened yet.

[DeltrusDisc]

Look, we know they want us all playing together. We also know that they don't want the new player to "choose which half of the community to hit you with fantasy racism" upon arrival in the game. If or whenever they ever lift faction restrictions, yes, it's going to be a tribalistic mess until the feature is trivialized. Whether they do it now or later, there will be a period where LFX is full of "dirty [faction]" vote kicks and insults, so either say NO when asked pointedly (good on Scott Johnson BTW for point blank asking: "this isn't happening, right?") or tear the bandaid off.

I for one don't see them ever doing it unless they can completely "community proof" raids and dungeon access with some kind of NPC party, but in the meantime, "never say never" just feels wrong to say. They created this toxic tribalism, and now it's their major hurtle to overcome. It's got nothing to do with "the soul of the game" and everything to do with "welcome to world warcraft... half the community hates you by the way, look forward to them in chat!"

Clutch your pearls, my dear OP. Players are fake-being toxic towards you because you aren't on their side in a literal war.

Come ON. Are you kidding? Toxic tribalism? Give me a break, grow up. It's a video game. You know how many Horde players I, an Alliance player, have met in real life, who would gladly kill me in game and I'd call them Horde dogs? I still love to meet them. We talk about the game like friends. We laugh at each others' wrong faction choice and discuss what we like in the game.

No one is as honestly toxic as you think they are about WoW factions. Stop this madness. Oh, a Horde laughed at me, oh a Horde guy called me an Alliance dog on the forums. WHO CARES?! It's all in fun. No one would give a crap IRL. It's all about enjoying forgetting the real world. You are at war with the opposing faction. Stop making everything bunnies.

Or, go play something else. Damn.

[JusticeGlory]

Kinda hoping we one day get rid of the faction system. Feels a bit outdated, seems pointless splitting the playerbase and it'd be nice just to play whatever race you want while still being able to play with your friends.

[TheWorkingTitle]

Look, we know they want us all playing together.

Not me. I like the faction war because that is Warcraft at its core. No matter how many times we team up to fight greater forces, we're still going to revert back to conflict. Don't speak for me, thanks.

[huth]

The Alliance and the Horde have fought in literally every expansion so far.

Your point being? I didn't say they haven't. I said they can cooperate when a need arises.

[Squigglyo]

There is basically no difference between

Alliance grouping with Horde

Alliance logging onto a Horde alt and playing Horde.

Its just extra steps.


Removing the extra steps opens things up to everyone.

I main alliance, always have. I just paid for a faction transfer because there were just not enough guilds on my faction/server and not enough pugs on my faction.
Day 1 of being horde, I saw litteraly 10 times the pugs in LFG and found a guild almost immediatly.
That there is a problem.

I (and a HUGE majority of the playerbase) could not care less what color someones skin/scales/fur is underneather the armor that I can see through . On Discord everyone sounds the same regardless of faction. In groups everyone talks the same. During fights everyone plays the same.


The ONLY reason to cling to the Alliance/Horde split is because your stuck hoping the game fixes itself and becomes something it currently isnt and hasnt been for a long time.

[Berndorf]

not overreacting much huh? why do i have the feeling that the phrase "the worst (insert thing here) ever" is a phrased you throw around a lot.

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people are going to be toxic regardless of what happens. because they sit anonymously behind a compter monitor. most internet toughguys wouldnt say a damn thing to anyone if it meant having to back it up.

Accusing someone of using hyperbole on the internet? Bold move there Cotton.

[Stealthyjake]

Please just do it, I've been horde since mid cata and I've never really liked it, I prefer alliance but my friends all moved over so I had to aswell (eventually). It's weird to me that alot of people think this is also a lore issue, it doesn't have to be, just let ally/horde do pve content with horde/ally, that's it. We don't need some weird lore reason why we're all finally raiding together, it's a gameplay issue, not a lore issue.

[hulkgor]

Maybe less over-reacting, 'uh?

I just don't take this discussions seriously anymore, everyone is insulted by everything. It's like the 3rd topic where someone is insulted by something Ion said, in the past week.

Give it a rest, geez.

Just stop playing, move along, save yourself from all the insults!

[Krakan]

I mean I think the issue is more on the technical end... wow just isn't coded to let the two sides intermingle well with issues large and small (there was a server that tried it before).

Certain items are hard coded to only be usable by a specific faction, how does pvp work ( is war mode the only mode your not combining the factions?)

It isnt a quick then to implement and I have to imagine would take a lot of dev time.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Yes they would. The racial's busted.

The only people who care enough about that to roll human are already playing human. So once again, no most people wouldn't reroll to human.

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I mean I think the issue is more on the technical end... wow just isn't coded to let the two sides intermingle well with issues large and small (there was a server that tried it before).

Certain items are hard coded to only be usable by a specific faction, how does pvp work ( is war mode the only mode your not combining the factions?)

It isnt a quick then to implement and I have to imagine would take a lot of dev time.

WM sounds pretty simple to me, just have the faction-flag turn on when you have WM enabled. Blizzard can already flag players for FFA PvP, I don't see why they couldn't use that type of system to flag WM-players for ordinary faction-based PvP. Items that are faction specific are almost exclusively limited to PvP sets from specific expansion and mounts.

Having WM disable cross-faction play while it is enabled would also make sense from a lore perspective.

[Kelduril]

The only people who care enough about that to roll human are already playing human. So once again, no most people wouldn't reroll to human.

Wrong. They're Horde cause it's easier to raid. If cross faction becomes a thing everyone goes Human because of how busted the racial is.

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Why care which races other people pick? Just play the game with other (real) humans and have fun.

Because it's an MMO and it's bad when everyone plays the same race.

[GreenJesus]

I'm going to laugh when 9.1 comes out and there aren't 100 guilds alliance side to kill Denathrius yet, but blizzard still thinks faction balance is perfectly fine.

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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.

So all the solo players that farm old transmogs and mounts are on alliance, but the players actually playing the game are on Horde.. in other words, the community is on Horde. Who cares what side solo players that don't progress in the game are on if they won't interact with you anyway? And you are delusional if you think its only keys above 15, gladiator pvp, or "deep mythic".

[Baroclinic]

I don't think many people realize, but we kinda were playing together during the Legion startup.

Not that the little scenario even mattered, but our little ugly neighbors were on the other side on one of the boss fights.

[WowIsDead64]

Look, we know they want us all playing together. We also know that they don't want the new player to "choose which half of the community to hit you with fantasy racism" upon arrival in the game. If or whenever they ever lift faction restrictions, yes, it's going to be a tribalistic mess until the feature is trivialized. Whether they do it now or later, there will be a period where LFX is full of "dirty [faction]" vote kicks and insults, so either say NO when asked pointedly (good on Scott Johnson BTW for point blank asking: "this isn't happening, right?") or tear the bandaid off.

I for one don't see them ever doing it unless they can completely "community proof" raids and dungeon access with some kind of NPC party, but in the meantime, "never say never" just feels wrong to say. They created this toxic tribalism, and now it's their major hurtle to overcome. It's got nothing to do with "the soul of the game" and everything to do with "welcome to world warcraft... half the community hates you by the way, look forward to them in chat!"

Dunno. I guess, racism - is their primary motivation to do PVP in this game. That's why they don't want to remove it, despite of PVP being secondary content in Wow for ages.

For me factions are one of major problems. Because they bring PVP into PVE. I've got tired of repeating, that PVP isn't just "kill other player". It's literally "play against other player". And this obviously can happen even outside killing other players. I talk about artificial competition now. That's when existence of other players around punish you instead of being reward. There 3 levels of interaction with other players in this game: 1) You don't care about them 2) You compete with your own faction players, but in this case you can group with them and help them instead 3) You compete with other faction and you can't do anything with it. And my opinion is - #3 is exceeding. If other faction players choose to be toxic, then you don't have any defense against it.

No other games have such design. In all other games PVP is dedicated optional content. PVP is toxic. Some players get fun via scoffing and humiliating. Not all players can bear it. And it's just strange, that whole world fights against racism and toxicity while Wow tries to be popular exactly via catering to toxic racists. They literally say, that if you're toxic player, then Wow is your game.

[loras]

Look, we know they want us all playing together. We also know that they don't want the new player to "choose which half of the community to hit you with fantasy racism" upon arrival in the game. If or whenever they ever lift faction restrictions, yes, it's going to be a tribalistic mess until the feature is trivialized. Whether they do it now or later, there will be a period where LFX is full of "dirty [faction]" vote kicks and insults, so either say NO when asked pointedly (good on Scott Johnson BTW for point blank asking: "this isn't happening, right?") or tear the bandaid off.

I for one don't see them ever doing it unless they can completely "community proof" raids and dungeon access with some kind of NPC party, but in the meantime, "never say never" just feels wrong to say. They created this toxic tribalism, and now it's their major hurtle to overcome. It's got nothing to do with "the soul of the game" and everything to do with "welcome to world warcraft... half the community hates you by the way, look forward to them in chat!"

Either that or, y'know, the faction thing might really just be a core tenet of the game even if people want to subvert it for gameplay reasons.

Personally i'd think that if they'd really wanted to balance the factions they'd start actively stimulating it by i.e. offering free server transfers, faction/race changes and that both in batch and per character and/or increasing the cost of any such action that would make the imbalance worse.

Thing is that this would obviously cost them money, so i do not expect them to ever do it.

[Difuid]

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.

I would still give the community a chance, yes there are absurdly rabid and vocal faction loyalists on both sides. No doubt extra GM attention would be required at first but I think the community would slowly mend itself and become less toxic in that regard.

Even if random PuGs would not be popular at the beginning, the guilds getting members to do organized content would be a boon.

[intenz]

Factions are fantasy racism. MMO-champ reaches new lows of SJW mental illness.