BfA Patch Speculation thread (8.3 and later).

[3vyan]

Is PTR offline? Can't go online.

[Nagawithlegs]

I love the Bilgewater Cartel, they are a great example of "grey morality" done well in the Warcraft universe, and even if the execution was off their backstory is pretty interesting and Gallywix is fun.

I like Gazlowe and the Steamwheedle as well, but they shouldn't get rid of the morallyambiguous, for-profit nature of the Bilgewater, unless they do a cartel merger of both and the player character can be from either (I know a lot of Goblins on RP servers are Steamwheedle).

[Sondrelk]

I love the Bilgewater Cartel, they are a great example of "grey morality" done well in the Warcraft universe, and even if the execution was off their backstory is pretty interesting and Gallywix is fun.

I like Gazlowe and the Steamwheedle as well, but they shouldn't get rid of the morallyambiguous, for-profit nature of the Bilgewater, unless they do a cartel merger of both and the player character can be from either (I know a lot of Goblins on RP servers are Steamwheedle).

While i would agree in general (Gazlowes banter in Mechagon is a thing of beauty) Gallywix is just too far an extreme. He started his reign as faction leader by attempting to enslave his people, before spending the rest of the game jumping from one tyrant ot the next.
Having Gazlowe as a faction leader for the Goblins would be a nice breath of fresh air.

Besides, Gazlowe has that ever fun quality that i kill him on the regular in Island expeditions.

[Nagawithlegs]

Is PTR offline? Can't go online.

I don't know if it's down, but I can't log in either.

[Alanar]

This is more or less my guess at the moment too. Some story/feature is happening in 8.2.5 that is going to heavily spoil a story/feature coming in 9.0, and the 8.2.5 part will be timegated to release after the blizzcon expansion announcement.

They could be even more ambitious and make the faction merge/cooperation/whatever start in 8.3.

This 1 ingame cinematic doesnt mean the factions are just going to merge for ever or something.

If it happens? its for the time being( nzoth) why would they even call it world of warcraft if they do this..
I find this whole topic to be sjper vague. I mean I understand the cinematic and I see where this goes.. but I dont see it as something that happends and never changes for 2 to 3 years.. peace is boring ( in games I mean)

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While i would agree in general (Gazlowes banter in Mechagon is a thing of beauty) Gallywix is just too far an extreme. He started his reign as faction leader by attempting to enslave his people, before spending the rest of the game jumping from one tyrant ot the next.
Having Gazlowe as a faction leader for the Goblins would be a nice breath of fresh air.

Besides, Gazlowe has that ever fun quality that i kill him on the regular in Island expeditions.

Gazlowe is cool, but trade princes are cooler imo.
What if we would go back to kezan, to find undermines secret entrance and get this whole storyline with differnt trade princes. What if galkywix needs to prove himself worthy against hes people. Maybe hes a nobody in the trade prince world and hes about to lose hes people if he doesnt change.

Idk I just though of this.. I always wondered how many trade princes are around still and how would gallywix interact with them.

[Nagawithlegs]

This 1 ingame cinematic doesnt mean the factions are just going to merge for ever or something.

If it happens? its for the time being( nzoth) why would they even call it world of warcraft if they do this..
I find this whole topic to be sjper vague. I mean I understand the cinematic and I see where this goes.. but I dont see it as something that happends and never changes for 2 to 3 years.. peace is boring ( in games I mean)

I think "faction merging" is an overreaction by most people, as I agree with people like Ion that Alliance and Horde are integral to Warcraft. But that doesn't mean that the WAR in Warcraft has to be between Alliance and Horde: it can be war with the Legion (TBC, Legion), Scourge (Wrath), Old Gods (Cata, second half of BFA), etc.

I don't think the factions will ever merge, but I think factions will be able to group and communicate together.

[Alanar]

What do you all have against Baine and Saurfang, representatives of the Horde of Warcraft III, Vanilla, BC, WotLK and WoD?
Next to Warchief "Burn it. BURN IT!" Sylvanas, everyone looks like a pacifist.

Honor bullshit is killig the fun realy.
Personally? I am done with baine and saurfang. These brave honor heroes dont even ask sylvanas what her plan is.. I mean they are just angry teenager right now kicking against the wall, because we dont like her opinion.

Baines whining throughout the expansion has been realy annoying to me. Go use that damn totem instead of whining prick( thats what I am thinking this whole expansion)

Sylvanas is warcraft 3 as well.. doesnt matter in the end... I mean thry could introduce a new character with a cool bavkround and I would instantly ditch baine.

I dont like tauren in general, but I liked cairne. Baine has never been cool or interesting.

[FlubberPuddy]

I mean I understand the cinematic and I see where this goes.. but I dont see it as something that happends and never changes for 2 to 3 years.. peace is boring ( in games I mean)

There doesn't need to be peace in order for it to also still be "world of warcraft" and not having to be beholden to Alliance and Horde. The strain and tiredness of "wow another dumb reason to fight each other again when we just teamed up for the umpteenth time to end a world threat" happens because "factions" are relegated entirely to Alliance or Horde.

Imagine if WoW could let go of those constraints and instead you started to have faction stories based on say the Night Elves vs the Forsaken, the Nightborne and Blood Elves vs the Night Elves, the schism between Night Elves vs Humans, the issues between honorable Orcs vs Forsaken, etc etc.

We already see that it's much more interesting having Horde infighting amongst themselves between "loyalist vs rebel" , but the reasons for it are just contrived because Blizzard are trying to hold onto 1 "Horde faction" and 1 "Alliance faction".

Truthfully it gets more complex and interesting to start seeing sub-factions within the larger factions and mayhaps some frenemy formations (Thalyssra expressed how Horde / Alliance worked together before -> Nightborne attempt to patch up relations with Humans but this angers the Night Elves, etc etc).

Way more freedom opens up to have an actual "World of Warcraft" with multiple faction stories rather than just "yeah Horde has infighting, now Alliance needs contrived infighting too" and needing to keep it equal for both sides.

And you'll have all the "warcraft" you want because realistically there's no possible way to keep all sub-factions happy. Befriending one group makes enemies with another.

[Alanar]

I think "faction merging" is an overreaction by most people, as I agree with people like Ion that Alliance and Horde are integral to Warcraft. But that doesn't mean that the WAR in Warcraft has to be between Alliance and Horde: it can be war with the Legion (TBC, Legion), Scourge (Wrath), Old Gods (Cata, second half of BFA), etc.

I don't think the factions will ever merge, but I think factions will be able to group and communicate together.

Yea I agree, it doesnt have to be alliance versus horde..
I understand its frustrating everytime when we have a horde vs alliance fight it always ends up being a even fight or no one wins.

[Nagawithlegs]

I understand its frustrating everytime when we have a horde vs alliance fight it always ends up being a even fight or no one wins.

That's why I think both sides will lose somewhat at the end of BFA and there will never be a real HvA fight again after this expansion. They're just letting the faction war theme go out with a bang (and an excuse to add subraces/faction and racial armor).

[huth]

Not accourding to her in the 8.2 note. The ''War'' is going just as she wants, including the ''rebellion''.

Maybe, or maybe she just wants to keep morale up.

As long as we don't know what her plan actually is, we have no way of judging how it is going.

[Shampro]

Maybe, or maybe she just wants to keep morale up.

As long as we don't know what her plan actually is, we have no way of judging how it is going.

Hmm? Morale to whom? Herself and Nathanos? she literally hasn't said what her goal is & she still feels comfortable in that letter. My point is that the people saying that she's ''trapped'' or that ''she's in huuuuge trouble'' or something seems inaccurate from what little the narrative is trying present right now.

[Axaron]

Why not just let people switch to horde or alliance when they login and customize two characters during creation and have gear carry over? It would let me play with friends considering I have way less time at this age.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Why not just let people switch to horde or alliance when they login and customize two characters during creation and have gear carry over? It would let me play with friends considering I have way less time at this age.

I mean in that case why not just... let you group cross-faction? Why continue having hoops to jump through? WoW is the only major MMO left that has an arbitrary community split.

[Axaron]

I mean in that case why not just... let you group cross-faction? Why continue having hoops to jump through? WoW is the only major MMO left that has an arbitrary community split.

Because nerds are mad about that.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Because nerds are mad about that.

Are they though? Or is this a minority that let's be honest would be happier in Classic anyway because "it's harder?"

[Axaron]

Are they though? Or is this a minority that let's be honest would be happier in Classic anyway because "it's harder?"

I know it sounds sad but I've read this nearly this entire thread, and they are. They don't want 'integrated' dungeon, raid or quest environments.

[Nagawithlegs]

I know it sounds sad but I've read this nearly this entire thread, and they are. They don't want 'integrated' dungeon, raid or quest environments.

So what? Blizzard will do whatever makes them money, and cross-faction grouping will do that.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Honor bullshit is killig the fun realy.
Personally? I am done with baine and saurfang. These brave honor heroes dont even ask sylvanas what her plan is.. I mean they are just angry teenager right now kicking against the wall, because we dont like her opinion.

Baines whining throughout the expansion has been realy annoying to me. Go use that damn totem instead of whining prick( thats what I am thinking this whole expansion)

Sylvanas is warcraft 3 as well.. doesnt matter in the end... I mean thry could introduce a new character with a cool bavkround and I would instantly ditch baine.

I dont like tauren in general, but I liked cairne. Baine has never been cool or interesting.

Cairine wouldn't even tolerate What SYlvie was doing.

[FlubberPuddy]

So what? Blizzard will do whatever makes them money, and cross-faction grouping will do that.

Sometimes I think they hold onto certain design decisions out of pride, only when the climate changes enough that they feel "forced to" do they concede. For instance, the decision in BFA to do away completely with PVP/PVE servers and utilizing WarMode instead and making every server PVE.

They utilized the arguments that people were saying for very long time of "why PVP Servers SUCK" and isn't meaningful in this day and age (lopsided populations, people who didn't want to be in them picking them because of their friends, etc).

We know that cross-faction grouping would be better for the overall "health" of the game; just as the shift to all PVE servers and getting rid of PVP servers, making more things account-wide, including more single-player adventures (and/or queueable activities) have led to keeping players invested among the playerbase.

Anyone notice the pattern of how obvious it is when there are less restrictions to how much more investment occurs with most of the playerbase?

But it remains to be seen if the developers feel this pressure with the "faction wall" because I think at this point it's more a matter of pride than anything. It's obvious enough to see with the Mythic guild leaderboards that if players could group together then we wouldn't have something like the high tier raiding scene be so lopsided.