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

[Thage]

Nobody's forcing me to bring gnome, undead or worgen Paladins if they're ever introduced either, but it would still break the lore and take me out of it immersion wise.

The factions are at the core of Warcraft's identity, literally every WoW and Warcraft game has had Horde vs Alliance warfare on some level and it simply shouldn't happen. It would be a sign of defeat and going the same way as games that abandoned their faction identity, like ESO.

Adventurers working together does not preclude the factions skirmishing.

Speak for yourself with the 'no good'. I have always enjoyed the conflict between the 2 factions.

And the PvE story does not suffer at all. Alliance players not being able to group with Horde players does not impact the story at all.

The PvE story in BFA was a direct result of bringing the faction war back to the main focus. I am willing to put actual currency on the table that you'll be hard-pressed to make the argument more people thought BFA's faction war story was good rather than just another recycle of the same plot thread we already went over in Mists of Pandaria, just with a different coat of paint on it, and unlike the BBEG plot recycles, BFA's faction war story left both factions demoralized and disillusioned.

The PvE story suffers when everyone involved has to be written as stupidly as possible to make the war plot function, which has been the case every time they "bring the war back to Warcraft." Northrend? The Alliance and Horde provide the Scourge with last-minute reinforcements and progress is made in spite of the factions' involvement, only because the Argents are babysitting. Cataclysm? The Alliance and Horde do Deathwing's work for him, with Garrosh nearly getting the Horde detachment to the Twilight Highlands killed by sending off his air guard to get wiped out by the Alliance on the Twilight Hammer's doorstep and known peace advocate Jaina Proudmoore paints a target on Theramore's back by mobilizing Northwatch and creating a route to easily move siege weapons and troops into the Barrens. Mists of Pandaria? An entire continent is destabilized and sacred ground is desecrated, with a promising launch storyline totally ignored until the very last patch in favor of another generic cycle of revenge storyline culminating in a player faction being subjected to a civil war it never fully recovered from. Legion? The Order Halls have to do all the heavy lifting in the first place because the Alliance and Horde go full retard fighting each other mid-apocalypse, as is their way when the writers run out of ideas.

And then there's Battle for Azeroth, where everyone is either a hand-wringing bystander or a blood-hungry psychopath for half the expansion's life cycle, until Thrall and Anduin remind everyone there's an apocalypse going on and the factions get their annual Flowers for Algernon moment. The faction war is 100% a millstone on the PvE storyline, especially when the whole point behind Warcraft 3 was about the Alliance and Horde getting the hell over themselves after realizing that everything else in the universe wants them dead and Superman isn't going to keep saving the day.

[GringoD]

The factions are at the core of Warcraft's identity, literally every WoW and Warcraft game has had Horde vs Alliance warfare on some level and it simply shouldn't happen. It would be a sign of defeat and going the same way as games that abandoned their faction identity, like ESO.

Warcraft III on also had Horde & Alliance working together sooo much. That teamwork is the core of warcrafts identity! We need to get that in there asap.

You sound like someone that cried and raged back when belfs were introduced. ELFS?! In MY HORDE?! Now with space goats and little-not-green-people all over again haha. Is just gaem friend, let's all play together <3

[Nize]

The faction imbalance is almost entirely legacy. There is no benefit to raiding as Horde due to racials as it currently stands.

The only case you can make is in M+, where Alliance has the advantage due to Shadowmeld.

The imbalance is more among the skill-level end. Population-wise, Horde and Alliance are about even. Racials-wise, it's about even with the slight advantage that you've noted. But what remains now is skill disparity.

Skill is gained by competition and opportunity. Your peers naturally drive you to become a better player. As a whole, Alliance will have a hard time growing in that department because they aren't surrounded by players of a greater skill level. And those who strive to become better will eventually find themselves faction changing to Horde. Higher end guilds will swap over for the greater pool of players. This is the same concept as server population and why the servers with the best guilds also just happen to become more and more populated. It's one of those things that over time, we get the landscape we have now AND it gradually gets worse.

Having all the players play together will have drawbacks beyond just what Ion noted, and I'm sure they realize that. Toxicity might increase and hostility will insue due to a player being of a particular faction. But the gains far outweigh that.

[Kallisto]

The faction imbalance is almost entirely legacy. There is no benefit to raiding as Horde due to racials as it currently stands.

The only case you can make is in M+, where Alliance has the advantage due to Shadowmeld.

Hell the Alliance even has right now if you're super min maxing on racials alone better racials for raids . The top guilds eve spoke about it. It's just the costs to swap and missing out on potential recruits for essentially a non guarantee just isn't worth it to the limits/echo of the world.

[Daronokk]

Warcraft was, is, and always will be the story of Horde and Alliance, deal with it or go play some other Friendship is Magic simulator

Well said.

What are some of you smoking for thinking otherwise?

- - - Updated - - -

You sound like someone that cried and raged back when belfs were introduced. ELFS?! In MY HORDE?!

When Blood Elves were introduced they were pretty evil. Enslaving a Naaru to force the power of the Light for Blood Knights. Addiction to mana siphoning and fel magic. That fit the Horde at the time.

The whole Elf thing on Horde only got bad with the Nightborne.

[VinceVega]

If the make it lorewise why a nightelf would ever do anything with an undead... fine by me.

But don't shoehorn it in just cause.

Half the races are now in a state where they hate the other faction to a degree where it is just no realistic to do anything together

[KaPe]

If the make it lorewise why a nightelf would ever do anything with an undead... fine by me.

But don't shoehorn it in just cause.

Half the races are now in a state where they hate the other faction to a degree where it is just no realistic to do anything together

Funny how mercenary mode needed zero explanation - and from lore standpoint, it has even less sense to fight against your former allies than cooperating to defeat a common enemy that threatens everyone.

[VinceVega]

Funny how mercenary mode needed zero explanation - and from lore standpoint, it has even less sense to fight against your former allies than cooperating to defeat a common enemy that threatens everyone.

PvP.... never makes sense. We are still fighting in arathi there. An over Azerite on that shore for some reason. And Alterac no one gives a f about...

Also Mercenary mode.... well... that is juts player convience. I would argue that most people don't even know it exists and it has nothing to do with lore... cause well... a big tauren with a gnome paper mask not gonna foll anyone

[Temp name]

If the make it lorewise why a nightelf would ever do anything with an undead... fine by me.

Let's take the current expansion then: If we don't stop the jailer, the entire universe (multiverse?) is fucked.
Or maybe the one before that, where if we didn't stop Aszhara/N'zoth we'd be fucked
Or the one before that where we had to stop the Legion
Or the previous one where we had to stop the Iron Horde and Legion
Or the one before that where we had to stop Mantids/Sha/Thunder King/Garrosh
Or Deathwing
Or the Lich King
Or Illidan/The legion
There, that's your lore justifications. We always end up working together in lore at the end of expansions, and sometimes even during them. Hell, Legion was us throwing out factions entirely with the exception of a tiny minority, which only played a part in Stormheim, with the rest of the game and story being everyone working together.


But no, it's never happening. We'll never get it, or if we do, it'll be in who knows how long when the game is basically dead and they need to combine the playerbases so we can actually do dungeons without waiting forever.

- - - Updated - - -

Also Mercenary mode.... well... that is juts player convience. I would argue that most people don't even know it exists and it has nothing to do with lore... cause well... a big tauren with a gnome paper mask not gonna foll anyone

And why can't we just have "player convenience" for PvE too, if we can have it in PvP? Doesn't need a lore justification if the pvp one doesn't

[Th3Scourge]

Hell the Alliance even has right now if you're super min maxing on racials alone better racials for raids . The top guilds eve spoke about it. It's just the costs to swap and missing out on potential recruits for essentially a non guarantee just isn't worth it to the limits/echo of the world.

Yeah it's almost entirely the cost of transfers + people playing with their friends/social reasons. I would swap to Ally if my friends played there. That would even be ideal since Frostmourne Alliance is the largest in Oceanic

[sam86]

unless bobby kodick is willing to lose sh8tload of money on faction transfer, they won't do it until the last rich alliance player (and idiot) pay an entire AAA game value of price to faction change to horde
the difference is already comical and insane, i expcted they do it already in SL, i'm not sure what they waiting, the difference is insane between my alt alliance hunter (which i logged only for rocket mount) and any other horde toon i have

[varren]

didn't the answer to this used to be "not happening", and now it's "maybe" ? Should be a sign that things are probably changing soonish (next expac probably)

[Lolites]

If one faction dies

why would one faction die? he literaly said across the whole playerbase its pretty close to 50-50, its high end where its out of balance...

[doodle90]

Do what ESO did you can quest and everything with the opposing faction and only in pvp zones does faction matter (so warmode) Boom problem solved easy peasy. You can raid with anyone, dungeon with anyone. And people still have faction pride in ESO and no one kicks non-faction people or w/e because thats just weird.

Doing it this way would also shut the alliance high elf people up. Since they can just roll blood elf and play alliance zones. It would open up a huge world for leveling alts. And for npcs who are friendly for a certain faction just make them neutral and targetable so if you have a quest to kill them you can.

[Soon-TM]

the show and tell for them is opposites.

Tell: Alliance vs horde is the root of the game.

Show: Faction war is stupid. we need to make peace. we need to band together to fight greater evils.

It basically boils down to this imo. Ion & co. can yell "AvH is the core tenet of Warcraft" until they are blue in the face, but in practical terms, both factions have stood together more often than not. Furthermore, as of the end of BfA there isn't any difference in customs or values between Horde and Alliance - we're all one in the God King.

Just drop the charade off, and let us former Hordies tag along the all inclusive Alliance, that way there will be at least gameplay benefits coming out of this otherwise awful story.

[Tiwack]

You can already pvp as the opposing faction, I imagine they'll do something similar for pve, a buff that last for a couple hours.

[LiPiNo]

Well, how about we start with your claim that everybody would change to human. You're just justifying that with some nebulous affirmation that "their racial" is "so overpowered".

Or for that matter your claim that there is no problem when Alliance provably takes several times longer to fill the Hall of Fame now than it did during Legion.



And you previously claimed they prefer Horde because they like it more, rather than due to the practical benefits. So you're already moving goalposts.

Here you go, both of you.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...cters-by-race/

Now, kith!

On serious note, i would prefer to play alliance. Horde used to appeal when i was teen in classic/tbc and i just found out later on it no longer does. Especially recently with Sylvanas etc. I played as Alliance for 2-3 expansions but to not be horde means , as casual, you QoL is simply worse. All groups, every bit of content is just more comfortable to do as horde. Anybody who says otherwise is in my opinion in denial to rationalize staying Alliance or havent tried it (and i been there done that).
To a certain degree i agree that with merging there would be a lot of humans, you can also see this from elven % on horde side. You get faction of monsters but highest % is bloodelf simply due to aesthetic. And if orc racial was not so good as it is, it would be even more.
I for one refuse to play human in MMO as long as there is choice..

[LedZeppelin]

How would pvp work if everyone is friendly

[Easo]

Warcraft was, is, and always will be the story of Horde and Alliance, deal with it or go play some other Friendship is Magic simulator

Starting with WC3 it became - unite in the end cause that is better for everyone and allows beating the big bad ones.
This is not W40k with it's grimdark, this is at worst nobledark (lately), was noblebright before.

[huth]

Here you go, both of you.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...cters-by-race/

Now, kith!

I wasn't talking to you. Not that it helps his point, since it clearly shows that while there is a plurality of humans, a 2/3 majority of Alliance characters is in fact not human.