They are seeking to remove faction borders

[czarek]

I don't know if it really makes sense to be at war forever no matter what events or nuances there are. it seems a bit forced.

So as u assume pvp also have no sense. No factions = no war no pvp

[Forteofgray]

So as u assume pvp also have no sense. No factions = no war no pvp

yeah I never said that and that's not how I feel. PVP could just be done under the guise of friendly competition.

[GreenJesus]

No, I saw that. But previous Blizzcons had a ton of For the Alliance/For the Horde moments, not to mention a lot of ribbing by the devs towards other factions. This year, it really just didn't feel like the factions were all that important, aside from Ion's comments during the Q&A. That doesn't mean that they are 100% removing or keeping them, but it does IMO speak to the faction conflict not being as ingrained today as it was in WoW's past.

My guess is some sort of half mercenary mode that allows for cross-faction guilds and PvE groups, but not a full removal of the factions themselves.

They didnt have a live audience so what's the point? Its sort of like watching someone dancing without any music on.

[Rusken]

So as u assume pvp also have no sense. No factions = no war no pvp

This has been a dumb argument since TBC. You've ALWAYS faced your own faction in Arenas.

OT; Yes I firmly believe that one day they'll do away with separate factions. If only to save the game from stagnation. It's an easy way to effectively double the pool of potential party/raid/guild members and revive some of the dead servers. It might not be until 11.0 or 12.0 or even later, but I'm sure they'll do it at some point.

[Syegfryed]

covenant pride is the lamest thing i ever heard, its just don't have the same ring and feel

it makes totally sense that the game still is, and always be, about two different factions at war

[Twdft]

On the other, they believe Horde vs Alliance is the core of the fantasy to Blizzard. No matter who the villain of the day is, it's still Orcs vs Humans. They can't just make peace and let gnomes get their stink all up in Orgrimmar.

They don't have to. All that's needed is cross faction grouping via dungeon tool, readable chat and other interactions only if you are inside the dungeon/raid. They could even make a similar checkbox dungeon tool has for languages for factions so you don't have to play with orcs if you don't want to.

[Overlordd]

stating my agenda is legit.
you can disagree, that's ok, but i will also continue with my words and btw there is no vision or paranoid whatever you gaslighting into my regular words

lol so you outright say you have an agenda to follow within a game...? I think we're done here.

[sam86]

I saw the interview, yes it is clear they considering it
At first I was supporting that, remove faction, I'm horde but i can see the obvious INSANE difference between alliance/horde end-game (I think of top 100, 17 only alliance guild)
BUT
According to blizz too, faction is almost 50-50 balanced, that means that the extreme minority only (like 1% minority) are the elitists who go for raids and so on, so now i wonder what do most wow players actually do? Are the majority - and i talk about 80% or something - of playerbase just login daily to do a call and done, play 1-2 char at most?
I was always under impression that most ppl raid, not hardcore raid but at least still raid and/or pvp, seems the vast majority just do solo content
In that case blizz should focus on them, yeah the game 'appeal' is mainly the hardcore content, but if it is only for 1%, waste ur resources on what 80% do, if 50% of wow players idle afk, then make new afk idle animations

[Doffen]

Imo two factions should exist enyway its fcuking WAR CRAFT. May it be to cooperate on the side in convenant for example or other expansion determined faction. No gnome allowed in Orgrimmar plz.

No gnomes allowed anywhere!

If it was up to me, change the factions to Gnomes in one, then the rest in the second faction. The second faction will be named The Good Ones, the gnome one will be known as Leprechauns.

[AngerFork]

They didnt have a live audience so what's the point? Its sort of like watching someone dancing without any music on.

For sure, but it would've had at least as much of a point as that weird "For the Kyrian! For the Night Fae!" thing they did.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

You guys expect employees/presenters of Blizzard to be robots? They have their own personalities. Who cares if you didn't find their presentations to be "funny" when they try to add their own little flavor in.


I bet half of you hated it when Metzen used to come out for the opening ceremonies and try to get the audience hyped with this Alliance/Horde pride declarations.


They are people too. Let them have their fun.


They aren't all mindless, armchair developers who are slaves to the first negative thought that bounces around inside of their skulls.

[GreenJesus]

Personally I think keeping youtube comments on was a mistake. Way too many people saying "cringe". I honestly felt bad for the presenters that are probably forced by blizzard to go out there and then be cringed by a chat of 200k people say "cringe".

[Accendor]

Not only was the whole greeting the playerbase at Blizzconline with factions lame, they later tried to greet the playerbase with their whole covenant persona stick.

That's the first time they're trying to create something else out of faction pride, maybe covenant pride now?
Anyway, I found it cringe because the guy doesn't have the enthusiasm of Chris Metzen.

But it did make me think, what was the point of making the covenants represent the people who were watching, alongside the usual faction greeting (players of the Horde, players of the Alliance!) etc.

They're obviously testing waters for the future. I think they're going to delete the faction barrier at some point and they're doing this with covenants. Which would make sense why covenants are such a dreg to change.

Its to late now. We could have had cross faction play before BfA because it would have made sense. Only crazy people were Sylvanas and Greymane (and perhaps Galliwix, but lets be honest, he was mostly just greedy before BfA and not plain evil). If we would have gotten rid of them, cross faction would not have been an issue.

After BfA and Teldrassil thats not really possible anymore, since the Horde PCs are now complicit in genocide / were working on all different sort of gruesome warcrimes (or defended those who committed them) during the BfA storyline.

We would need a massive, MASSIVE timeskip (as in multiple thousand of years) to make it possible again a way that makes any sense.

Ofc Blizzard can always just say "fuck it" und simply yolo it tho.

[TickTickTick]

It already is, to some extend, with that Mercenaries mode.

Which if funny, in a bad way.

"FOR THE HORDE! KILL HUMANS! WARRRRCRAFT! NO I WONT BE KILLING DRAGONS WITH SOME PUNY HUMANS!"

Also

"I'm an orc, but umm... for the alliance baka, I'll work with some humans to kill my faction friends for "honor" hehe..".

I don't even know why pvp mercenary came BEFORE pve mercenary (or something similar).

[Mic_128]

I don't even know why pvp mercenary came BEFORE pve mercenary (or something similar).

Because faction imbalance messes with PVP. You've never had to wait outside a dungeon for half an hour to enter because there's too many Alliance inside an instance, or not enough Horde raiding today.

[Twdft]

We would need a massive, MASSIVE timeskip (as in multiple thousand of years) to make it possible again a way that makes any sense.

Ofc Blizzard can always just say "fuck it" und simply yolo it tho.

I don't think many people want lore compatible cross faction play, all I want is a gameplay solution similar to mercenary mode in pvp.

[TickTickTick]

Because faction imbalance messes with PVP. You've never had to wait outside a dungeon for half an hour to enter because there's too many Alliance inside an instance, or not enough Horde raiding today.

You're right. You're waiting in a city looking for groups which are severely lacking for higher end content though. So basically same as waiting in a queue for PVP, although it requires you to actively look for groups.

[Dagul]

You guys seems to be extreme about the idea that cross faction gameplay = end of 2 faction

I prefer to see it like this

Adventurer do the cross faction thing, as an Adventures we seek to kill things, team with strong other adventurer

All the faction storyline, history and futur,can continue as adventurer don't represent faction, they are lone wolf and hunting pack that go where the action is needed, and those actions may need to be grouped with other that are not same faction

I want line blurred, not totally erased, well I hope haha

I think covenant represent that idea quite good

[justandulas]

Good, it should've happened after MOP. Horde vs. Alliance is very much Xavier vs Magneto, after like 4 or 5 frienemy xpacs/movies - enough already, move on. If players want the faction in full throttle Warmode then that'll be a big part of the Classic server lure. After teaming up to defeat strong foes then breaking off into war mode again 4 or 5 times, its getting harder and harder to sell me or anyone with a brain on the Horde vs. Alliance war or even cold war.

Or, they could do something even more big brained and have a real war. Not the wod or bfa type, a real war with major characters dying, a faction really winning or losing, hand checking sides, the next war set up, etc

The reason WoW “wars” feel so laughable is there are no consequences, hell small tribal wars in ark carry more in game consequences than any “war” in WARcraft. The writers are too afraid to take chances, and have a winner or loser so we stay in this perpetually boring and predictable state.

Grow some balls blizzard and write a story worthy of feeling like old WARcraft 2 did

- - - Updated - - -

Ps - as for the faction playing cross faction for pve, a very low budget solution exists.. the orb of deception. Take that trinket, and make another that legit turns you into the other faction as a toy until clicked off.

[rowaasr13]

I believe they'll eventually remove faction-"borders" and allow horde and alliance to do PvE together.

I have my doubt on PvP, but it's not impossible.

What? Unlike PvE, PvP is ALREADY possible. Go check that masked opposing faction guy in your PvP hub and ask him about mercenary mode.