I do not understand the poll choices at all. I am opposed to any further cross-faction fraternization than already exists. I think cross-faction groups and guilds was a mistake, but it is one that cannot be undone now.
As for races, hell no, we do not need Horde Gnomes and Draenei, or Alliance Forsaken and Goblins. That would devalue what little meaning factions have left. At that point you may as well just get rid of factions entirely, which I do not support because the factions have been a core part of the lore of WoW. It would be immersion-breaking. Your faction choice is supposed to be a meaningful choice that comes with some sacrifices.
As for new races moving forward, I'm fine with playable races being available to both sides, if it makes sense from a lore perspective. I don't think every race moving forward should be neutral, though. The last two have. Next time playable races are added, each faction should get a unique one.
Counterpoint to everything I just said, I am sooooo happy they finally gave Alliance some form of High Elf. I'm fine with the Elf trade. More Elves in wow is a good thing.
Fantasy doesn't mean low tech. Warcraft is Rennaisance/Age of Sail, circa around the 16th century. That's after the invention of the printing press in 1440. You cannot be telling me you think the printing press, given the sheer change it did to the world, is low tech
A hode podge of random crap is just how every other fantasy setting works. The fantasy genre's biggest 'its free real estate' grab-bag of concepts, Dungeons and Dragons, something folks would unequiviably consider 'fantasy', not only started off with flat out John Carter expies and encounter information for Desert (Mars), but had a famous and well received dungeon that's a crashed alien space craft complete with laser guns, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Fantasy's groundwork is just a hodge podge of random crap the authors found interesting, and it included what we now consider sci-fi for the longest time as that wasn't coded as a seperate thing until like, the 80s
5 factions:
Alliance - noble and just. Civilized and advanced. A lawful faction that wants to see the world at peace, adhere to their laws most of all, but struggles to keep condescension and prejudice in check.
Horde - tribal and primitive. Barbaric and chaotic. This faction is more spiritual and savage in nature. They accept most of the rejects of the world but struggles to keep unity.
Sentinels - nature-loving and serene. Altruistic and ferocious. These people care about the natural world and its inhabitants and, therefore, recruits anyone who has interest in seeing an harmonic and balanced world.
Scourge - evil and crude. Sadistic in nature. This is the faction that wants to see the world destroyed, to inflict pain and suffering to all living things and plunge the world into a reality of misery.
Illidari - this is your, somewhat, neutral faction. This is the faction that suits most of the races that don't fit within the other four factions. A conglomerate of different races brought together by Illidan to take care of the Legion.
What races would be in each of these factions?
I certainly think that these factions won’t have all of one race in them.
For example , Thalassians will have several factions across this.
High elves in alliance
Blood elves in horde or Illidari
Void elves can be in either alliance or Illidari
For night elves.
Darnassians in Sentinels
Highborne in Alliance or Illidari
Nightborne in Alliance or Illidari
For humans
Gilneans would join the sentinels
Do whatever you want with the lore/story, as long as functional gameplay allows (and expands) crossfaction play. If they want to keep having factions? Fine. If they want to make it so any race can be any faction? Fine. If they want to keep it so an orc is hard-locked to Horde, also fine. If they want the factions to be, in the story, back to warring? Boring and tired, but whatever, fine.
Personally, I don't care if my troll can go to Stormwind or do Alliance questlines but I do care if me, the player, can do social and group content with my friends who might play alliance races. I am not a roleplayer, I don't give a fuck whether the story says we're enemies or friends, just let us guild/queue/raid/etc together. Anything else is just minor details.
Just compensate the Alliance for the atrocity of design of Mechagnomes, and give us Red Draenei (Eredar). Otherwise, I think we're fine pretty much as is though.
I do think the game is desperately struggling to make the Horde and Alliance relevant more generally, I don't think which race goes where is a part of that. Though the ideas of more fragmentation rather than less is a bad idea.
If WoW removes the 2 faction system gameplay-wise completely, they could create new factions lore-wise which would be interesting, as long as they keep being mostly allied to each other.
Keep the factions for PvP and that's it. Everything else cross faction and remove city/communication restrictions as well (unless in War Mode).