Post Shadowlands, time for 3rd Faction?

[thrillhoose]

In the original Warcraft series the Horde where the bad guys. WC3 turned them into the noble savages, but only because of Thrall and the inclusion of the peaceful yet strong Tauren. The undead where most definately the bad guys.

WoW comes around and for some reason the forsaken were included the Horde faction. IMO alot of players chose the horde to play as the more evil faction compared to Stormwind. Not all obviously as lot of players also appreciate that noble savage aspect, honour etc.

With WoWs story now pushing Sylvanas as a big bad, why not steer into it? Give us a 3rd faction, the Forsaken made up of undead version of each race currently in the game with racials that undeady versions of the current. Current characters could take a quest to "die" and be risen in this new faction as a permanent change, unless opted for a paid faction change that is. And all those who took the support Sylvanas quests instead of Varok would have this happen automatically.

Thoughts?

[Cathfaern]

In the original Warcraft series the Horde where the bad guys. WC3 turned them into the noble savages, but only because of Thrall and the inclusion of the peaceful yet strong Tauren. The undead where most definately the bad guys.

WoW comes around and for some reason the forsaken were included the Horde faction. IMO alot of players chose the horde to play as the more evil faction compared to Stormwind. Not all obviously as lot of players also appreciate that noble savage aspect, honour etc.

With WoWs story now pushing Sylvanas as a big bad, why not steer into it? Give us a 3rd faction, the Forsaken made up of undead version of each race currently in the game with racials that undeady versions of the current. Current characters could take a quest to "die" and be risen in this new faction as a permanent change, unless opted for a paid faction change that is. And all those who took the support Sylvanas quests instead of Varok would have this happen automatically.

Thoughts?

I would vote for 0 player faction, not three. Which essentially would allow infinite faction, which could have dynamics. Currently if some (playable) group is added to the horde will stay with the horde forever, because of player characters. But if there would be no faction, or the player characters would be in an "adventurer" faction then we could have dynamics: for example in BfA the night elf faction could leave the Alliance. Or the Horde would be able to make the forsaken leave. Also it would allow to really use factions like Cenarion Circle. This whole "1 race - 1 faction" has to go, the race should not determine your faction.

[Nyel]

It's not coming. The same as the infamous world revamp we are expecting for quite some time now. It's something that won't come as neither.

[VinceVega]

In the original Warcraft series the Horde where the bad guys. WC3 turned them into the noble savages, but only because of Thrall and the inclusion of the peaceful yet strong Tauren. The undead where most definately the bad guys.

WoW comes around and for some reason the forsaken were included the Horde faction. IMO alot of players chose the horde to play as the more evil faction compared to Stormwind. Not all obviously as lot of players also appreciate that noble savage aspect, honour etc.

With WoWs story now pushing Sylvanas as a big bad, why not steer into it? Give us a 3rd faction, the Forsaken made up of undead version of each race currently in the game with racials that undeady versions of the current. Current characters could take a quest to "die" and be risen in this new faction as a permanent change, unless opted for a paid faction change that is. And all those who took the support Sylvanas quests instead of Varok would have this happen automatically.

Thoughts?

No. Simply because a new faction can have two effects:

1. It will never take off, because no one wants to change away from their current
2. EVERYONE wants to change depleting alliance into oblivion.

Also, what do you do with the horde forsaken players? Forced change? I am sure that will go well...
The amount of needed developmenttime for the leveling experience is HUGE!

And your automatic change for the poeple with the quest. Really... a huge change for a quest could have never known beforehand?

No i am 100% sure that a third faction will NEVER happen. Even horde and alliance will stay as own entities.
The biggest change i can see is that you can run dungeons together but that should be it.

The game is way to focused on the whole factions. If you change that half the stories would not make sense anymore in any way. You could scrap half of the content. Or you phase the whole world after a quest... which also is bad.

[Varodoc]

Unlikely. Sylvanas' story will finally end at some point in Shadowlands, when she will finally be defeated. She is not the main villain, Jailer is.

Furthermore, they already said they are not continuing the loyalist questline in Shadowlands, as Sylvanas never gave a shit about you loyalist player.

[LemonDemonGirl]

ESO has a 'Any race, any Alliance' option that you can buy to... well, create a character on any faction you choose, regardless of race. There could be something like this in WoW too, but it would most likely function similar to the faction change service

[TragedyAnn]

They're not going to do a splinter faction, or split any of the existing races off into new factions. I don't know why in god's name anyone thinks that idea would work.

One day every Forsaken player wakes up and they all discover that they can no longer group and play with the same people they've potentially known for 15 years at this point. How can so many people not contemplate what a ridiculously BAD idea that is?

On the other side of the argument - If it weren't a splinter faction, and were instead a completely new entity - Still extremely unlikely to work - Because at this point there's too big a deficit to make up. The existing factions each have 12 playable races, 15 years of lore, 15 years of mounts, pets, cities, attention. 15 years of characters. A completely new faction would in essence be starting 15 years behind the curve, and Blizzard would NOT be able to produce an equivalent amount of content to bring them up to a level playing field with the existing factions. They're not going to create 12 new flipping races and everything that goes with those races in a 1-Shot release. And if they did manage to drop that many races in 1 release - prior new additions have taught us anything - There's no way they could sustain the attention players demand for them. How many times have you heard Draenai players complain they weren't getting enough attention? Gnomes? Worgen? Goblins? Blizzard can't even give enough constant attention to the children it has without occasional complaining... they're sure as hell not going to decide to adopt 12 more all at once. 3rd faction players would just complain forever about how they started at a disadvantage and Blizzard wasn't doing/hadn't done enough to help them catch up.

[Logwyn]

They're not going to do a splinter faction, or split any of the existing races off into new factions. I don't know why in god's name anyone thinks that idea would work.

One day every Forsaken player wakes up and they all discover that they can no longer group and play with the same people they've potentially known for 15 years at this point. How can so many people not contemplate what a ridiculously BAD idea that is?

On the other side of the argument - If it weren't a splinter faction, and were instead a completely new entity - Still extremely unlikely to work - Because at this point there's too big a deficit to make up. The existing factions each have 12 playable races, 15 years of lore, 15 years of mounts, pets, cities, attention. 15 years of characters. A completely new faction would in essence be starting 15 years behind the curve, and Blizzard would NOT be able to produce an equivalent amount of content to bring them up to a level playing field with the existing factions. They're not going to create 12 new flipping races and everything that goes with those races in a 1-Shot release. And if they did manage to drop that many races in 1 release - prior new additions have taught us anything - There's no way they could sustain the attention players demand for them. How many times have you heard Draenai players complain they weren't getting enough attention? Gnomes? Worgen? Goblins? Blizzard can't even give enough constant attention to the children it has without occasional complaining... they're sure as hell not going to decide to adopt 12 more all at once. 3rd faction players would just complain forever about how they started at a disadvantage and Blizzard wasn't doing/hadn't done enough to help them catch up.

They could just do what amounts to a 0/3(or more factions) type set up. Where for the story and what that NPCs are concerned there are 3 or more factions. But as for the players they are free to play with, guild with, raid with, etc regardless of factions.

Like the Secret World did. There are three factions as far as the story goes but you can play and guild with whoever you want.

[MrLachyG]

In the original Warcraft series the Horde where the bad guys. WC3 turned them into the noble savages, but only because of Thrall and the inclusion of the peaceful yet strong Tauren. The undead where most definately the bad guys.

WoW comes around and for some reason the forsaken were included the Horde faction. IMO alot of players chose the horde to play as the more evil faction compared to Stormwind. Not all obviously as lot of players also appreciate that noble savage aspect, honour etc.

With WoWs story now pushing Sylvanas as a big bad, why not steer into it? Give us a 3rd faction, the Forsaken made up of undead version of each race currently in the game with racials that undeady versions of the current. Current characters could take a quest to "die" and be risen in this new faction as a permanent change, unless opted for a paid faction change that is. And all those who took the support Sylvanas quests instead of Varok would have this happen automatically.

Thoughts?

I would like to see a Light vs Void expansion where we can choose whether to support the Void or the Light.... so it's like a sub faction but is also cross faction if that makes any sense

[Divinex]

Just dissolve factions please

[Notshauna]

Without trying to sound harsh that is an absolutely horrible idea. WoW's faction system has lead to the most successful server being EXTREMELY heavily waited to one faction over another. Any introduction would further exacerbate this issue or essentially just be a dead faction. I think the removal of factions outright is far, far, far more likely then them ever adding another.

[Mirishka]

I'd prefer zero factions personally.

[Razion]

I think a four-way faction split of Horde/Alliance/Legion/Scourge would be cool. (Current races, of course, staying where they are.)

In WC3, two factions could fight against the other two, and it could be random which side teamed with another each match. I think that's pretty cool - sometimes being allies, sometimes being enemies.

Legion and Scourge would need new races, but considering Allied Races allow them to make lots of additions, maybe it's not all that unfeasible?

I also think that, just as an aside, I would probably be more willing to see factions working together in PvE content if there's precedent to that kind of four-way "sometimes allies, sometimes enemies," set-up in other forms of content like in BGs where two randomly on one side and two are on the other. I'm not much a fan of a third neutral faction... but if all four are in this four-way push and pull of sometimes being allies and sometimes enemies like they were in WC3, I think that's a lot more believable for the setting as it has already been done in WC3 before.

[deenman]

In the original Warcraft series the Horde where the bad guys. WC3 turned them into the noble savages, but only because of Thrall and the inclusion of the peaceful yet strong Tauren. The undead where most definately the bad guys.

WoW comes around and for some reason the forsaken were included the Horde faction. IMO alot of players chose the horde to play as the more evil faction compared to Stormwind. Not all obviously as lot of players also appreciate that noble savage aspect, honour etc.

With WoWs story now pushing Sylvanas as a big bad, why not steer into it? Give us a 3rd faction, the Forsaken made up of undead version of each race currently in the game with racials that undeady versions of the current. Current characters could take a quest to "die" and be risen in this new faction as a permanent change, unless opted for a paid faction change that is. And all those who took the support Sylvanas quests instead of Varok would have this happen automatically.

Thoughts?

a third faction is never going to be a thing in current wow,other people have presented plenty fo reasons why thats completly unreasonable from a gameplay point,who would switch?to many?to few?force change undead?no,not happening,the only way third faction works is if game launches with it,or if we ever get a wow sequal mmo

[Dantos]

Do you realize if there's a third faction, Blizzard will have to rework completely all battlegrounds?

[CrossNgen]

I think it would be better if we just didn't have factions at all. Just let everybody play with whoever they want.

[zlygork]

I would vote for 0 player faction, not three. Which essentially would allow infinite faction, which could have dynamics. Currently if some (playable) group is added to the horde will stay with the horde forever, because of player characters. But if there would be no faction, or the player characters would be in an "adventurer" faction then we could have dynamics: for example in BfA the night elf faction could leave the Alliance. Or the Horde would be able to make the forsaken leave. Also it would allow to really use factions like Cenarion Circle. This whole "1 race - 1 faction" has to go, the race should not determine your faction.

This. Forced factions are a terrible plague on the lore

[Lodreh]

I would vote for 0 player faction, not three. Which essentially would allow infinite faction, which could have dynamics. Currently if some (playable) group is added to the horde will stay with the horde forever, because of player characters. But if there would be no faction, or the player characters would be in an "adventurer" faction then we could have dynamics: for example in BfA the night elf faction could leave the Alliance. Or the Horde would be able to make the forsaken leave. Also it would allow to really use factions like Cenarion Circle. This whole "1 race - 1 faction" has to go, the race should not determine your faction.

^^^QFT

Factions should be a PvP mechanic nothing more. Queue to take orders from an Orc or a Dwarf... choose who you fight for... otherwise it shouldn't matter.

[Maljinwo]

"Please for the love of god, let me be stomped on by Sylvanas": The thread

Factions are stupid at this point and they only fragment the playerbase

[Kyphael]

Should happen but won't, Blizzard whines about having to balance between two factions, and write stories between two sides, imagine if they had to juggle three. We can't even get a new playable class, let alone a new faction which would require much more work.