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

[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.

[bowlink]

the fact they are changing the paladin seals for Burnign crusade speaks volumes. because the faction inbalance started way back then, if not earlier

ill be glad to see the faction deviced go. it makes no sense after Nyalotha, Legion, Wod, the later parts of Cata, the early parts of wrath. and most of Burning Crusade.

The fact its called world of warcraft is irrivant, because the war part doesn't have to mean the war between the horde and alliance. hell it hasn't been about the war btween the horde and alliance since Warcraft 2. in warcraft 3 the main threat is the legion and scourge and some old grudges, and the orcs cutting the nelf forest down. nelves weren't even alliance back then.

as for pvp, that could be a cordent of section with arerna and battlegrounds aka blood sport.
Warmode: change it to a bounty system where you get rewards based on how high you can stack your bountry with a timer that counts down and each time you get a kill the timer resets to full. stack it high enouth and you get the outlaw debuff that flagges you free for all. and if you manage to run out the clock on your debuff, you get pvp based rewards like cosmetics, mounts, titles and maby even loot.

you could even make warmode not have flying.

[burek]

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

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.

These quotes should have been in the OP instead of some idiotic rambling. Ion also said his coworkers (so I guess actual Blizzard employees) had to transfer to horde to be able to raid.

I was pleasantly surprised by Ion's answers on this subject, he acknowledged the issues and explained the situation rather well, but I doubt anything will happen soon, it was just one tiny step in the right direction.

[huth]

These quotes should have been in the OP instead of some idiotic rambling. Ion also said his coworkers (so I guess actual Blizzard employees) had to transfer to horde to be able to raid.

I was pleasantly surprised by Ion's answers on this subject, he acknowledged the issues and explained the situation rather well, but I doubt anything will happen soon, it was just one tiny step in the right direction.

I wouldn't expect anything before 10.0 at the earliest unless the situation deteriorates at an accelerated pace. This is the kind of change that they generally reserve for expansion releases, where everybody gets a chance to rebuild and switch characters anyway.

[trapmaster]

it has been 16-17 years. I don't mind temporary faction crossplay event. I bet this gonna cause alot toxics and hates and stuff. I would love seeing this shitstorm happening for once.

[Adamas102]

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

So you don't care about the war, you just don't want to be around people who look a certain way. Oooookaaaay...

It doesn't have anything to do with making everyone friendly carebears. I'm not buddy buddies with most people in my own faction. But on occasion we can group up and work together for a common goal.

There's a lot more gameplay and story depth that could be explored if the game wasn't locked in this red team/blue team crap. In its current state, the faction divide 1. makes little sense story wise, 2. hampers players' ability to find groups, and 3. limits game development since there always needs to be balance.

[Kelduril]

They've been redundant for years now.

That's factually wrong considering we had 2 expansions built around faction war.

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

Then do the same if you want to play with them.

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So you don't care about the war, you just don't want to be around people who look a certain way. Oooookaaaay...

Yeah. I don't want to group up with gnomes. They're annoying. You got a problem with that?

[Frolk]

"borderline insulting" over this?

Looks like twitter fake outrage is leaking again.

[razorpax]

The interviews posted on Wowhead can be summarized in 3 possible answers
Nothing to announce
Might come sometime
We are discussing it

[AwkwardSquirtle]

That's factually wrong considering we had 2 expansions built around faction war.

Both of which ended in the factions banding together to take down an Old God.

[Triceron]

That's factually wrong considering we had 2 expansions built around faction war.

I literally covered that in the line you left out.

That 'Faction War' ended up being manipulations by a villain we're united in fighting today. The faction war was a complete fabrication of villainous Warchiefs over the years. Faction war hasn't been a real issue in many years, and every time we 'go to war' it's over some absolutely pointless reasons that aren't even core to the differences between the factions.

Garrosh and Sylvanas can be pointed directly as the main reasons the faction wars ever really continued. It goes as far back as Wrath and Sylvanas' absolute incompetence, again in Legion with her pulling forces back when they were crucially needed, and again in BFA when she pre-empted the whole war using Azerite on the basis that 'the Alliance can't be trusted' even though she's been the one manipulating it all from the beginning.

Faction wars has all been a product of supervillain meddling.

Everything in between has been the Factions joining forces to fight other Supervillains, or the villainous Warchiefs who persisted with Faction wars.

Yeah. I don't want to group up with gnomes. They're annoying. You got a problem with that?

Classic is that way ->

[Xath]

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



Citation needed. Not that it would prove anything, maybe the raid's just too hard.



No. The factions are the core of WoW's identity. Go play ESO if you want factions to mean nothing.

I don't need my groups full of Humans.

Alliance population massively disagrees with claims that the current system is doing just fine.

[Mysterymask]

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.

Unrated BG's dont even have to change honestly maybe make a psuedo mercenary mode if 2 horde guys want to que with their alliance friend and make it random which side they go on or go by the leaders side easy peasy. Arena and Rated BG are barely faction based anyway and one of the most famous arena teams in lore was A human, A Night Elf, and a Blood Elf so cross faction arena isn't a stretch and Cross Faction Rated BGs wouldn't be a problem lore wise.

As for Warmode just keep it the way it is end of the day who cares.

[Wheeler]

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.

I don't know, none of them have been this successful with such a large playerbase.

But you're right, they'll probably just churn out expansion after expansion like EQ until no one cares anymore.

[Kelduril]

Alliance population massively disagrees with claims that the current system is doing just fine.

Prove to me that the Alliance population is so much lower?

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Classic is that way ->

Funny you should say that because both Classic and Retail stop you from grouping with the enemy faction.

ESO is that way ->

Faction wars has all been a product of supervillain meddling.

No, lol. The Cata/MoP faction war was started by Varian in Wrath.

- - - Updated - - -

Both of which ended in the factions banding together to take down an Old God.

Banding together how exactly. I don't recall seeing Alliance player characters in my Horde cinematic. Just because we're not actively killing each other doesn't mean we're ''banding together''.

[Angelica Angelus]

Not before they milk the last drop of "Horde Vs. Alliance" one last time with another shitty expansion.

[cparle87]

Funny how mercenary mode needed zero explanation - and from lore standpoint, it has even less sense to fight against your former allies than cooperating to defeat a common enemy that threatens everyone.

In the RPG book there was a Horde-allied human who attacked her own people in an operation, was fleeing from them, saw some orcs and called for help, and got killed by them cause they were Alliance-aligned. In lore factions are a lot less cut and dried. We got crossovers on both sides. Hell, the late human king had a blood elf as a close friend.

[burek]

Prove to me that the Alliance population is so much lower?

We don't have to prove anything to you. Blizzard is well aware of our issues, as explained and acknowledged by Ion in the Q&A.