2 Faction MMOs are an outdated concept

[Appelgren]

Alliance is better at PVP horde at PVE.. Ppl seems to not get that :| but yeah, each with their own judgement and opinions. That is my opinion on this.

Yeah... No... That's not true. Horde is on top win/lose ratio for pretty much all the bgs except for Isle of Conquest and Alterac Valley.

Same with world PvP. There's a reason Alliance is getting special treatment war mode buffs in 8.1

[prwraith]

Not really. Doesn't matter how many factions there are. Alliances will be formed to play vs someone else together. So in the end there will always be two teams. Doesnt matter if one of the teams have 5 factions and the second has 1.

Lack of imagination on writers and developers makes the above statement true.

[Appelgren]

Lack of imagination on writers and developers makes the above statement true.

Not really. Human nature and natural law makes my statement true. But sure. If its total fantasy with no sort of logic at all then sure.
I guess there could be 20 different factions with no alliances at all and everyone hates all the other ones exacty the same amount.

Yeah.. sounds fun :P

[Soon-TM]

Battle of Dazar'alor("faction change" for bosses) is just the start of the big change that is coming in 9.0.

Just wait and see.

And what could that change be about? Honest question

[Splenda]

I would personally like to see the factions split into 4 instead of 2, but I'd put real money on that never happening.

[roboscorcher]

The biggest problem with factions is that it splits the community. If you're a new player, you basically have to choose some friends over others at the start screen.

If BfA wants to do something right, they'll add some sort of faction truce that will allow all players to PvE together. Sure, PvP will make less sense, but who cares?

[bufferunderrun]

Blizzard decided to go with a PvP expansion this time around, which is fine and all, but it highlights some of the fundamental issues with Blizzard's 14 year old game. Namely, their 2 faction system.

2 Factions will almost never be balanced. Especially when they have different races with different bonuses on each side. One side will invariably get the upper hand, and this will cause a snowball effect where people who actually want to enjoy the game mostly all switch to that faction.

WoW has been Horde dominated in PvP since Vanilla. This didn't matter as much because Alliance had a slight upper hand in PvE. But once BC hit and gave the Alliance's PvE bonus to the Horde, it had a landslide effect with the Horde population massively outweighing the Alliance. Horde has dominated both PvP and PvE ever since.

In a Faction War expansion, that basically means 1 side gets to dominate, and the other ends up opting out. Thus, less fun for both sides.

All the other PvP focused MMOs have realized this, and either gone with a no faction system (Guild Wars, FFXI) or gone with a 3 faction system (ESO, Camelot Unchained) to help balance this issue. 3 factions isn't perfect, but it does make it less likely one faction will completely dominate, and if they do, the other two factions can make truces to help balance this. Personally, I believe the no-faction system is the best. That way, all PvP is done between guilds and communities.

Blizzard needs to reassess what their game is supposed to be. If they want it to become a PvP centric game, they need to do something about their lopsided, 2-faction system.

to me faction should exist only for npc, a la EVE, players especially pvp and pve should be totally out of faction and considered as mercenaries; mixed guilds, mixed battlegrounds, mixed raids etc. would be a boon for the game even introducing guild vs guild environment would be exceptional and also the storytelling would have less burden.
Factions could remain but players shouldn't be tied to them beyond the quest contract.

[Deleted]

I agree that the Alliance vs. Horde faction system is completely outdated and should be replaced.

However this will never happen, because this is one of the few iconic features of warcraft that has existed since the beginning of th franchise. And this has been consistent throughout the entire WoW MMO. I doubt Blizzard will ever do something so radical as eliminating the two faction system. If they ever consider that, it might be for a future warcraft franchise.

Wasn't this iconic feature just orcs vs humans? And even then much has changed since then, they fought at first but some of them could show a lot of respect to each other.

Blizzard wouldn't even have to get rid of Horde and Alliance. Let them stay, let them have small conflicts (as in battlegrounds and such). But on several occasions those two factions stood together against common foe and yet players still have no option to play together. It would be enough to allow players to group up if they wanted, to get rid of the stupid mob tagging, give people an option to heal each other too.
Bolvar and Saurfang stood side by side against the Lich King. Characters like Brann or Thrall regularly help anyone. We had common class halls. There are many small factions which cooperate with both Horde and Alliance so you can both be part of Argent Dawn or Cenarion Circle but you can't heal your pal? It just doesn't make sense anymore to not allow players to work togheter.

Of course if someone wants to fight they could. PvP will still be there too.

[snackfeat]

More like the whole MMO genre is an outdated concept.

[Fahrenheit]

I wouldn't be shocked that if after BFA runs it's course factions are largely done away with for all practical purposes. Subs numbers are only going to continue to dwindle as it's a 15 year old game without much mass appeal to younger fresh players. I doubt faction balance is going to improve, meaning one faction (the Alliance) is going to continue to fade to irrelevance in end game areas as the remaining players continue to coalesce to the faction with the most players.

From a lore perspective, I suspect they're going through all this trouble to villainize Sylvanas and build up Saurfang as working with the Alliance to get the "honorable Horde" back for this purpose. I think come the end of BfA the Horde will be led by Saurfang, Baine, Calia Menthil and Lor'Themar and it'll pave the way for opening up the factions to one another. I think Sylvanas, Blightcaller, Genn, Gallywix are all gone or dead, come the end of the expansion.

[Raelbo]

I love how the fanboys will use warcraftrealms when it suits their argument.

But if I was to say that based on the data you just showed me that WoW is down to a million subs your fucking head would explode and you'd be screeching.

The census data is basically a sample of the total player base. If you assume that the sample is random in nature (ie not biased towards one faction or the other - for which there is no reason to believe that it would be) then it is perfectly valid for estimating horde:alliance ratios. Given the significant sample size it's going to be pretty accurate too.

That doesn't mean that it will be useful for making estimates of total population size.

So your complaint is invalid. The data is relevant to his argument. It is not relevant to discussions about sub numbers.

[Doffen]

And what could that change be about? Honest question

Not that they will scrap the factions, but that a Horde player can raid with his Alliance friends and vica versa.

Just wait and see!!!! :P

[Deleted]

The biggest problem with factions is that it splits the community. If you're a new player, you basically have to choose some friends over others at the start screen.

If BfA wants to do something right, they'll add some sort of faction truce that will allow all players to PvE together. Sure, PvP will make less sense, but who cares?

That would work out just fine.

Imagine Class Orders returning to save Azeroth from the war by the factions again, lead by Khadgar, Magni and some other promiment figures from both factions who are connected with the peace-making or not overly aggressive attitude (Baine, Anduin, Lor'Themar, Dwarven council, Pandaren; Saurfang and Zekhan would probably also be on board here, who knows), and the leaders of some neutral factions like Argent Crusade or Cenarion Circle. They come together and win the fight for the life on Azeroth, and then put ot the ultimatum for everyone to join forces permanently or suffer the consequences.

We would then get an "Azeroth United" faction for all PvE purposes, where all playable races are included. Some things would have to be sorted out, like the enmity between Forsaken and Gilneans, or Blood Elves and Void Elves, or Orcs and Nightelves, whatever, but let's assume that all people joining this big faction would emphasize on forgiving the past and turning to the future, with some big, evil things looming on the horizon (Old Gods, Void Lords, whatever else there might be).

But on both sides, we would have radical extremists who cannot let go of the past. These groups would keep on going into fights with each other, and probably also attack the members of the new faction who have been enemies before, and extend their hatred to the people of their own former faction who would be "traitors" to their cause. These conflicts would keep all PvP in the world and in BGs alive. Players who participate in such activities, would either identify with the extremists (even their PvE activities are handled via the big new faction), or act like mercenaries. Arena does not need factions, anyway.

[Daevied]

0.2% of wow population race change due to racials.

[bigbleach]

Are you actually saying Alliance outweighs the Horde in any sort of PvE or PvP ranking?

Wooow, seems desperate. So now its better players play horde? I'd agree, alliance skum :P

[Pandragon]

Horde has dominated both PvP and PvE ever since.

Wow, I'd like to play on the server you're on. Out of 20 horde pvp games in a day, horde wins maybe 3 of them. All I ever see in bgs is afkers, bots, or people just fighting and ignoring objectives to get the most kills, then they call everyone else noobs when we lose.

[Rhlor]

I like the lineage 2 pvp system all can stick against everyone and everyone can interact with everyone.

the war within the game is not prefended. the clans (guilds) declare wars and fight among themselves

[therealstegblob]

He's right. You're wrong. http://warcraftrealms.com/census.php

Warcraftrealms is hugely inaccurate, for the record.

[Halicia]

No I didn’t. I made Blizzard sound like a company that would realize that dividing your player base even further is stupid. And we aren't even separated by servers anymore for the most part, unless you're raiding Mythic but even that is temporary.

You say no, but then you agree with me that dividing the player base is stupid. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me ?

Even if WoW only had 100,000 players, that's more than enough to populate a dozen or so factions if there's no arbitrary paywall dividing them and incentives are distributed properly to the least populated of the factions.

[Nomads]

You say no, but then you agree with me that dividing the player base is stupid. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me ?

Even if WoW only had 100,000 players, that's more than enough to populate a dozen or so factions if there's no arbitrary paywall dividing them and incentives are distributed properly to the least populated of the factions.

The problem with that is that the more walls you have between you and who you can play with, your chances of finding skilled/enjoyable people doing the same thing you want to do continually shrink.

Think about it. You're divided by faction, level, item level, content you want to consume, etc already ...

Timewalking and battle grounds show level divides aren't as important as people used to think they were. Faction divides are a bit outdated, unless you want a PvP centric game.