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

[Triceron]

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.

You keep the factions, you can just play cross faction raids. I don't see that equating to humans being rolled more often.

[CharlieIrwin]

When it gets to a point you CANNOT do the same things, or the experience is so shot (Think multi-hour queues for everything), is when they'll decide it's time. Not before.

[Ragnarohk]

I would be happy if they allowed cross faction PvE

And for PvP, make warmode free for all. Factionless frenzy

[Kauko]

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...

It was an example... faction won't die. But it is on the way to become totally uncompetitive with horde...

And regarding this 50-50. This is one big BS. Just ask Raiders, M+, PVPers... We already know that majority of Mythic raiders and M+ grinders moved to Horde. But why are then queues on Ally side instant and on horde you can cook a freakin meal while waiting for a BG? If this 50-50 ratio is true, what the ***k is Alliance playing then? Roleplaying? Or are they World quest grinders?

The only balance that should matter is the faction balance of Raiders, M+ and PVPers.

[Echocho]

Are we entitled to a factionless game?

[FarmerEd]

Eh, I thought that the faction divide was getting bridged in RoC. I think 20ish years is a long enough wait that we can allow gameplay to take priority for those that want it, and leave the factions separated in warmode.

I don't like my guildies feeling forced to not be their favorite races because we're horde, and I don't see how there being random humans in a group would affect anyone's immersion the 20th time that they kill Denathrius tbh.

[Thepersona]

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.

And even then, in 40k the imperium and Ynnari, are "allies" because killing chaos is more important than inter species war

[FarmerEd]

edit: oopsie.

[Lolites]

But why are then queues on Ally side instant and on horde you can cook a freakin meal while waiting for a BG?

bcs its roughly 50-50 WORLDWIDE, obviously some servers/groups are more horde or alliance populated...
on my ally alts (i have them on different realm) i have longer queues for bgs... or to be fair, at least i had in bfa, havent realy played ally since

[catseye543]

Not sure why everyone is focused on the "never say never", when there's a lot more direct evidence in the real quotes.

Ion Hazzikostas: "Alliance and Horde are - those are pillars of the Warcraft franchise, those are pillars of what make Warcraft 'Warcraft,' and that's not something that we can just brush away. But we have begun to ask ourselves where the edges of that tension lie. You know, we have something like mercenary mode in battlegrounds that allow players to effectively, you know, disguise themselves as a member of the opposite faction and play there to solve what were major battleground queue imbalances back in the day.

It's essential to us that identity and faction matter in Warcraft, and that years from now, no matter what we do, when we're all together in Anaheim at Blizzcon, and someone - whether that's the successor of Chris Metzen, whether it's John, whoever - is up on the stage rallying "Where's the Horde at?" "For the Alliance!" that there are roars coming from the crowd for each faction. If we lose hold of that, we will have lost hold of something precious. And so that's the thing that we need to preserve at all costs...

But.

Not the cost of peoples' enjoyment, and feeling at home, like they can form and maintain friendships in WoW, and do the content they wanna do. So that's what we're trying to navigate. We don't have any specific answer to announce right now, but, that's the problem that faces us and how we're thinking about it.

Scott Johnson: "Well - and I know the answer to this already - and it's eternal to the Q&A of Blizzcon every year, I swear, but - you're never gonna let Horde and Alliance raid or mythic dungeon together, are you? That's just not gonna happen. That's just never gonna be a way to help this, or the population issues we talked about before - like, we're never getting that.

Ion Hazzikostas: Uhm. Ah, ah, in all s-, I honestly would not say never. I think that's kind of what I was getting at with my answer earlier. There are a ton of reasons why it's essential to retain faction identity. But. You know, for the sake of rated arena, from day one, Alliance could fight Alliance and Horde could fight Horde, right? When Burning Crusade launches - Burning Crusade classic comes out later this year, that will be a thing and that will be a competitive activity, and that was one of those areas where the gameplay and the need for matchmaking was what was the top priority and had to be. And so, in an ideal world, all these priorities would coexist, but at the end of the day, you know, an MMO like World of Warcraft is about being able to play with your friends, being able to play where you want to be, and arguably there's greater strength in the faction identity if you feel you can truly choose the faction that you identify with, that you feel like most a part of, and not have to sacrifice that because you need to be with your group, or you want to join a higher rated guild."

From a flat out "not in the cards" in 2019 to this? Yeah, there's been tons of movement. Anyone that wants cross-faction play that feels 'insulted' by his answer either isn't paying attention or didn't read the actual quote.

[Argorwal]

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

Mercenary mode is different though because it’s from a queue only and you are only on the other faction during the BG.

Queue BG as normal except with mercenary mode.

Zone into BG and have your race changed to opposite faction, making it invisible to your team you are actually the other faction unless you talk about it.

Once the game is over you immediately are in the game world as your same faction.

None of the complications of open would grouping, tagging mobs, talking, suddenly becoming friendly if you invite somehow mid fight, etc. Not saying these hurdles can’t be solved, but it’s very different than mercenary mode. The PvP equivalent would be if heroic dungeons allowed you to queue cross faction and when you zone in you are a different faction race.

[Amnaught]

Because they don't NEED to do it yet. Should they? Of course. But do they NEED to? No.

Despite it being harder to recruit and raid alliance side, you can still recruit and raid alliance side. You can still do M+, you can do everything you can do on Horde side, just with more effort required. I did BFA on Alliance, and all of Legion/SL on Horde. The difference is definitely there.

When it gets to a point you CANNOT do the same things, or the experience is so shot (Think multi-hour queues for everything), is when they'll decide it's time. Not before.

It's an inevitability likely reserved for the final WoW expansion, where we become "Azerothians" or something and fight the biggest of the big bads. It works on 2 fronts. Population is perfectly balanced for matchmaking because there's only 1 population. You will absorb the Tanks/Healers from the other faction, so those will be OK too. You can tie it into the story as well as stated above.

Boss dies. Roll cutscene about a united Azeroth, show both factions thriving in cities, roll credits.

Remind me of any MMORPG that got a proper finale. They either endlessly keep pushing out expansions like Everquest, or get shut down midway through one, like City of Heroes.

[Adamas102]

No. The factions are the core of WoW's identity.

I don't need my groups full of Humans.

Yeah that's total bullshit. Having two factions stuck in a never ending, never progressing war stopped being a thing in Warcraft since before WoW. WC3 was all about how most of the hostilities were a result of misunderstandings and outside forces, culminating in unification against a bigger, common enemy. WoW continued that from the very start, with the faction divide being a sad afterthought in order to facilitate some poorly implemented PVP.

90% of the game is Alliance and Horde fighting the exact same enemy factions in dungeons, raids, and the outdoor world. Every expansion involves our faction leaders working together. Factions don't matter in WoW. They're essentially just a cosmetic difference that also serves is to keep half the player base from playing with the other half. You don't need factions for PVP (see arenas), and you certainly don't need them for PVE. The last line of your post makes it pretty clear that this is just a personal hangup of yours and has nothing to do with the actual game. Just an example of the toxic "us vs them" bullshit that this game doesn't need.

[exochaft]

How would pvp work if everyone is friendly

Blizz already has an answer for this: FFA zones. Legion had PvP WQ areas where everyone, including your own faction, was flagged as an enemy. If you get rid of the factional barrier, the easiest (but not the only or potentially the best) fix is to turn things like War Mode into FFA instead of based upon faction. If we're talking instanced PvP, we already have mercenary mode where you can choose to queue with the opposing faction for bonus honor if they need help balancing the queues. Ironically enough, the PvP aspects of WoW are the least concerning parts of the game when it comes to removing factional barriers from a technical/in-game lore aspect. PvE is probably the harder aspect to work with, but I always figured that the BoD raid (where you change factions based upon what section of the raid you were in) was to test the removal or altering of how how factional barriers work.

From the lore perspective, removing the factional barriers is not a hard thing to fix or change. As someone has already mentioned, the Horde and Alliance have teamed up a LOT. Even when factional war has been at its peak, there are certain Horde/Alliance teaming up moments or neutrality going on in the ranks; the members of the Horde and Alliance have never been monoliths in WoW. While this going on in the story, typically the players themselves don't have a choice in this regard. People tend to view the factional barrier from a utility aspect, but there's also the RP aspect for players, and both are important. When mentioning FFA zones earlier, that typically falls in line with designating areas that align with RP in ways that the players typically cannot indulge under the current game design, and it would make more sense from a lore perspective.

On the opposite side of things, how often do the Alliance or Horde end up fighting against their own faction? Quite a bit on the NPC/lore side of things, but players generally never get this option. The best we can do (aside from the extremely limited FFA zones and instanced PvP) is opt for passive-aggressive means, not a PvP solution. I'm certain we've all been there in WM or PvP servers, where your own faction was way worse or more annoying than the opposing faction, or the opposing faction is way more helpful. Creating and dissolving alliances is a interesting and social exercise, but the current WoW is pretty limited based upon the current factional barrier.

Of the things I've mentioned thus far, this is the very bare minimum that could be done (such as moving WM to be FFA instead of HvA). Sky's the limit as to what could be done, but it does take effort and motivation to do so. I think it'd be disingenuous to think that the high price of server/factional changes doesn't affect the decision by Blizz as a company would not want to remove the factional barrier. However, if other aspects of the game hurt the player's enjoyment of the game to where the juice isn't worth the squeeze and money starts declining or is lost, things will change. However, the smarter action would be to get ahead of this eventual outcome, and there will be growing pains that come with it.

The big overarching issue is that the original pillars of the game have been mostly destroyed or mutated into a form that isn't recognizable anymore, such as Blizz still claiming "server identity" as a reason to not have cross-realm mythic raiding at all times... when server identity was basically destroyed with the LFG/LFD system, paid server transfers, and servers restrictions only mattering in just one activity that an extreme minority of the population plays. In similar ways, the factional barrier has been distorted by the systems of the game and decisions made by Blizz to where its existence either doesn't make sense anymore and/or it hurts the player experience, whether from in-game lore or system mechanics/design or paid services. All this being said, it doesn't mean that the factional barrier can't exist in another form, I just think that it needs to be redefined to work with the current state of the game that works with the game, not against it.

[Kelduril]

Yeah that's total bullshit. Having two factions stuck in a never ending, never progressing war

Who said war? I just don't want them to be buddy buddies.

- - - Updated - - -

You keep the factions, you can just play cross faction raids.

Which makes the factions redundant. No thanks.

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Warcraft III on also had Horde & Alliance working together sooo much.

And by ''so much'' you mean in the final 2 missions out of 40.

- - - Updated - - -

Adventurers working together does not preclude the factions skirmishing.

Yes it does. Those adventurers are champions of their faction. They're enemies. They caused untold losses in the other side. Teaming up makes no sense.

[Triceron]

Which makes the factions redundant. No thanks.

They've been redundant for years now.

The whole faction war has been meaningless and had been pushed by 'Villains' more than any legitimate Horde vs Alliance conflict.

[arkanon]

How would pvp work if everyone is friendly

PvP would remain unchanged, the only exception being Wpvp, which could be as simple as flagging for warmode working exactly how it does now, and with warmode off you can play with the other faction. Without some changes it would mean you would have to turn off warmode before forming your raid, and would eliminate pvp battles at stones etc.

Personally, i have always thought of the BGs and Arenas as "training" vs the other faction, so i dont see a reason to change that. I would also be quite happy for Alliance Vs Alliance and Horde Vs Horde bgs, maybe with the exception of the "epic" bgs.

- - - Updated - - -

They've been redundant for years now.

The whole faction war has been meaningless and had been pushed by 'Villains' more than any legitimate Horde vs Alliance conflict.

Agree 100% - the factions have been watered down to the point they are basically non-existent now. We Spend FAR more time working together than working against each other due to the whole "greater evil" bullshit - The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

[Thage]

How would pvp work if everyone is friendly

Border skirmishes, adventurers settling old grudges, occasional fights over resources--things the leadership has shown before they're willing to overlook as the cost of sharing the planet, as back in the pre-WotLK days. Rated PvP could actually be migrated into the lore as high-risk live-fire exercises (where they're not intentionally trying to get people killed but accidents and "accidents" happen: the same justification for lethal PvP in FFXIV despite the three main nations all being close-knit allies), especially since PvP right now has just as much a chance of fighting your own faction as the other in rated/matchmade play.

War Mode requires no changes in a relaxed PvE barrier, see above re: adventurers settling grudges.

[ReVnX]

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

As someone who has had his entire friend list migrate to the Horde to keep raiding: No, it is fucking not.

[huth]

PvP would remain unchanged, the only exception being Wpvp, which could be as simple as flagging for warmode working exactly how it does now, and with warmode off you can play with the other faction. Without some changes it would mean you would have to turn off warmode before forming your raid, and would eliminate pvp battles at stones etc.

WPvP is barely even existent anyway. How many people are actually using Warmode for PvP rather than just as bonus reward mode?

For BGs you could just have a preferred side selector on queueing, and for Arena there is no problem in the first place since it is group vs group anyway with no regard to faction. Having mixed groups would actually be more accurate to lore.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.

More like "the enemy of my enemy is a world destroying abomination and i kinda like this planet". Horde and Alliance may not be best friends, but they generally both want to have a world left to live on.