Warcraft in psedo 4 faction that works

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Sylvanas' Forsaken are not varied and cool enough to stand on their own as a faction unto themselves. They'd really need an infusion of Scourge aesthetics and units like Cryptlord Nerubians, Liches, Abominations, Vyrkul, death knights, floating Necropolises, etc, and that point you have to ask why aren't you just having the Scourge be a playable faction. Maybe combine the Forsaken and the Ebon Blade.

I would be wary of inserting the Pandaren into an "ancients" faction. The Pandaren are 1. universal, and there is room for an oriental faction of Pandaren, Jinyu, Mogu, etc. They don't really jive with the ancient forest dweller aesthetic of Nelves/Worgen/Haranir/etc.

[Enrif]

Thats a rly weird non sequitur, what YOU do means nothing to me neither for the overall game and it doesnt disprove the point made.


I didn't even said they were, but it doesn't matter, the point literally still stands: factions help people to get more actively invested in the game due to tribalism, is literally the same phenomenon with sports

Or by another example hogwarts houses, everybody who enjoy HP to a degree know which house they are, even as silly as it sounds, because its the same thing with identity, affinity and rivalry with the other houses.

This helps A LOT, to grow popularity and to grow a loyal fanbase.

If you dont partake in it, thats perfectly fine, but dont pretend its not a thing.

Missing the forest for the trees.

The houses are the equivalent of the races, as you don't choose your house, you are sorted into it. Like, where in birth you don't choose to be a dwarf or an orc. The houses are like they are, because the people sorted into it are like they are, like the races of WoW. Meanwhile Hogwarts is a choice you can make, like the races can make the choice to join either alliance or horde.

Your tribalism would ring true on the more granular level of races, rather than faction. And we see that with WoW. People are fans of trolls, of elves, of orcs, of dwarves. Far more than they are fans of the horde or alliance.

[Amnasty]

Going to add this criteria when I run my m+ keys.

Please dont, I already dont get invited into m+, but I cant wait to see the I.O logs

[Enrif]

I think that was one of the options they planned to go with but scrapped... i know that initially Orgrimmar was going to be the horde starting point and Theramore the alliance, with exactly those races, but it was later switched to regional race area starting oints.

It was at least in the TTRPG. And the TTRPG was so much better than a lot of stuff that happened in the MMO. Heck, they go back to the TTRPG again and again to leverage stuff.

[Kilpi]

That while desirable was always not as good as making expansionsin brand new places. have you playedMMOs where they only do that? Trust me they just aren't as exciting as wow, nor do they have that feel of a new place even in their "new" areas.


What ideally would have been good would have been both a new expansion and an update to the normal zones to carry on the stories there


They shouldhave also have been looking at ways to make doing such things really easy for the developers to do - for example if you could implement your own questline as a dev, you wouldn't need everything to be programmed hin all the time, which means that the bulk of the work is on new conteinent/content, but far less is needed or a far smaller team can handle updates to existing zones. that could work


Another alternative was doing race quests or zone/regional quests as part o a continuous Order hall -type quest progression.. so that every patch, your races or the regionyour race is par tof has new developements and quests that explore things thatare happening.

ultiamtely you want to keep telling stories and doing interesting things. the new continent provides the bulk of new things to do, but you have established areas and peoples that poeple want to know or tell the stories of what happens there, so you want to provide that as often as possible.


however, ultiamtely i want these to be good, so if they were going to give rubbish stories and lame developemtns, it's just as well they haven't done it

Sure, add new areas. But have them single zones here and there. But it would be unrealistic to continue developing EK/Kalimdor constantly in a meaningful way if expansion areas are the size they've been. Outland, Northrend, Pandaria and Broken Isles could've all been one, two medium sized zones. Kul Tiras and Zandalar could've been single zone.

[Syegfryed]

Missing the forest for the trees.

You are missing the forest, the trees and every animal that lives there my guy.

The houses are the equivalent of the races

ITs not, and again, this is not the point.

as you don't choose your house, you are sorted into it.

you literally do. Harry chooses Grifyndor, and again, its not the point.

you, the person reading, choose what house they want to be.

Like, where in birth you don't choose to be a dwarf or an orc.

My guy, we are all humans playing a videogame

We all chose what race we want to play and, by the matter of it, we chose what faction we play. Just like we chose what Hogwarts house we can be.

Your tribalism would ring true on the more granular level of races, rather than faction.

No, it still works with factions

It worked since the game creation and it keeps doing so.

ITs less now, but ask anyone in the gaming community, they know what is horde and alliance, they know the rivalry and even would pick sides just for fun. Same thing happens, by example, imperial and stormcloaks from skyrim

[casecase89]

I want it, back to when the factions made sense, but in a way that keeps the current factions for your character -

Basically, each faction is split in 2, but those two factions remain loosely allied - allowing more interesting things to happen within the groups, and some races can now be part of other factions, allowing a degree of movement for players and also ensuring no one is forcibly moved - yes blood elves will awlays be a part of the Horde bracket.


4 factions. But ultimately two sides.


Undead brings Ghouls (undead humans), Vampires (undead elves/half elves), Human Worgen, Drust, Kvaldir, Necromancers and later shadowlands races and the new void race.
Horde is the same but without blood elves. Alliance is the same but with high elves instead of night elves.
Night elves have Worgen, Nightborne, Haranir, Cenarians , Draenei , Naga (good ones) and Illidari (also including Satyr fighting back)

Players start off in the horde and alliance of the current set up, and can freely move to the new faction their races is or remain where they are.

Players can ultimately choose any faction they want to be a part off, but their races are in the factions determined by the story - In the aftermath of the Last titan, these are the factions that emerge in the time reset.

And yes, players can visit any capital around , however their reputation with the faction or specific race that owns/lives there can influence the degree of access.



Alliance -
Humans (Kul’tiran customisations,
High elves (blood and void elf variations)
Dwarves (with Dark iron and Earthen variations
Gnomes with mechagnome variations
Ethereals
High Arrakoa
Kyrian

[Worgen, Night elf, Dracthyr, Pandas and Haranir players can remain here - but their races are in their new factions]

Ancients
Night elves (with Illidari and Nightborne factions)
Naga - rebels against Azshara
Worgen
Haranir
Draenei (with Lightforged and Manari factions)
Pandaren
Dracthyr
Sylvar

Horde:
Orcs (with Mag’har clan and factions )
Trolls (with Zandalari , Amani, Drakkari and Firskki variations
Tauren ( with Highmountain, Taunka and Yangon factions)
Goblins ( with gilgoblins) - bring tech
Ogres (with Mok’nathal variationd
Mogu - bring arcane magic
Vulpera

[Undead, Blood elves, Nightborne, Dracthyr, Pandas, Earthern and Haranir players can be a part of this faction]

Forsaken [Undead]
Undead (Ghouls. Ie undead humans )
San’layn Vampires
Gilnean Werewolves (different models to Worgen)
Kvaldir
Drustvar
Dathronir
Venthyr

The cursed and rejected - no one wants to be with them (ish) Splinter factions of Illidari, Man'ari, Blood elves, Dark Irons, Grimtotems, Gurubashi trolls etc are also found here. Splinter factions a simply sub-factions of a race or faction that are in another faction from the main group or the hero group as the story dictates.

7 races in each faction. 14 each - now many races have sub-race factions, not always in perfect unity, this just makes sthings interesting.. I don't expect Dark Irons to always play ball with dwarves, or blood elves and high elves or void elves to always get along etc. Some have more beef than others, some retain old friendships despite moving to a new faction to join their kin. e.g. blood elves may consider themselves part of the alliance, but have remembers that can often be found friendly with most horde races.

Void elves are very intersted in Elune and the dark side of the moon and so are often found hanging around night elves though they are part of the alliance faction. You get to know each race with its peculiarities as sometimes it isn't straightforward. Nightborne are still quite friendly with blood elves but are focused on restoring kaldorei civilization with thier kin. Bottom line is that Thalassians are far more invested in Quel'thalas regionally and the sunwell, outweighing other factors and the Nightborne are far more focused on kaldorei restoration and defending against global threats like a psosible new Legion , void lords etc - which is what the Ancients faction is mainly about.

The horde is still about territorial security for its races and just cannot suppot being split in two locations to properly secure and establish homes and security for it's main raes,

Finally the undead have a prevarious balance between both friendship and enmity with humans, there are enough humans wanting to make it work, but not enough to actually make it work - so Lordaeron has become the sort of conflux of living and dead , while the seat of power of the undead faction returns to Northrend

so what does faction mean? Faction returns to being a story element and more interesting things can happen with this fluidity..

twilight fanfic right here lol.

[Rhlor]

I want it, back to when the factions made sense, but in a way that keeps the current factions for your character -

Basically, each faction is split in 2, but those two factions remain loosely allied - allowing more interesting things to happen within the groups, and some races can now be part of other factions, allowing a degree of movement for players and also ensuring no one is forcibly moved - yes blood elves will awlays be a part of the Horde bracket.


4 factions. But ultimately two sides.


Undead brings Ghouls (undead humans), Vampires (undead elves/half elves), Human Worgen, Drust, Kvaldir, Necromancers and later shadowlands races and the new void race.
Horde is the same but without blood elves. Alliance is the same but with high elves instead of night elves.
Night elves have Worgen, Nightborne, Haranir, Cenarians , Draenei , Naga (good ones) and Illidari (also including Satyr fighting back)

Players start off in the horde and alliance of the current set up, and can freely move to the new faction their races is or remain where they are.

Players can ultimately choose any faction they want to be a part off, but their races are in the factions determined by the story - In the aftermath of the Last titan, these are the factions that emerge in the time reset.

And yes, players can visit any capital around , however their reputation with the faction or specific race that owns/lives there can influence the degree of access.



Alliance -
Humans (Kul’tiran customisations,
High elves (blood and void elf variations)
Dwarves (with Dark iron and Earthen variations
Gnomes with mechagnome variations
Ethereals
High Arrakoa
Kyrian

[Worgen, Night elf, Dracthyr, Pandas and Haranir players can remain here - but their races are in their new factions]

Ancients
Night elves (with Illidari and Nightborne factions)
Naga - rebels against Azshara
Worgen
Haranir
Draenei (with Lightforged and Manari factions)
Pandaren
Dracthyr
Sylvar

Horde:
Orcs (with Mag’har clan and factions )
Trolls (with Zandalari , Amani, Drakkari and Firskki variations
Tauren ( with Highmountain, Taunka and Yangon factions)
Goblins ( with gilgoblins) - bring tech
Ogres (with Mok’nathal variationd
Mogu - bring arcane magic
Vulpera

[Undead, Blood elves, Nightborne, Dracthyr, Pandas, Earthern and Haranir players can be a part of this faction]

Forsaken [Undead]
Undead (Ghouls. Ie undead humans )
San’layn Vampires
Gilnean Werewolves (different models to Worgen)
Kvaldir
Drustvar
Dathronir
Venthyr

The cursed and rejected - no one wants to be with them (ish) Splinter factions of Illidari, Man'ari, Blood elves, Dark Irons, Grimtotems, Gurubashi trolls etc are also found here. Splinter factions a simply sub-factions of a race or faction that are in another faction from the main group or the hero group as the story dictates.

7 races in each faction. 14 each - now many races have sub-race factions, not always in perfect unity, this just makes sthings interesting.. I don't expect Dark Irons to always play ball with dwarves, or blood elves and high elves or void elves to always get along etc. Some have more beef than others, some retain old friendships despite moving to a new faction to join their kin. e.g. blood elves may consider themselves part of the alliance, but have remembers that can often be found friendly with most horde races.

Void elves are very intersted in Elune and the dark side of the moon and so are often found hanging around night elves though they are part of the alliance faction. You get to know each race with its peculiarities as sometimes it isn't straightforward. Nightborne are still quite friendly with blood elves but are focused on restoring kaldorei civilization with thier kin. Bottom line is that Thalassians are far more invested in Quel'thalas regionally and the sunwell, outweighing other factors and the Nightborne are far more focused on kaldorei restoration and defending against global threats like a psosible new Legion , void lords etc - which is what the Ancients faction is mainly about.

The horde is still about territorial security for its races and just cannot suppot being split in two locations to properly secure and establish homes and security for it's main raes,

Finally the undead have a prevarious balance between both friendship and enmity with humans, there are enough humans wanting to make it work, but not enough to actually make it work - so Lordaeron has become the sort of conflux of living and dead , while the seat of power of the undead faction returns to Northrend

so what does faction mean? Faction returns to being a story element and more interesting things can happen with this fluidity..

I think in the lore we could have an elven faction like the Illidari; in the lore, they are their own independent faction that aids the Horde and Alliance. The Harranir could be part of the elven faction.

[Al Gorefiend]

I think in the lore we could have an elven faction like the Illidari; in the lore, they are their own independent faction that aids the Horde and Alliance. The Harranir could be part of the elven faction.

Segregating elf players from the rest of the playerbase sounds like a good first step to a grander solution

[username993720]

I would be wary of inserting the Pandaren into an "ancients" faction. The Pandaren are 1. universal, and there is room for an oriental faction of Pandaren, Jinyu, Mogu, etc. They don't really jive with the ancient forest dweller aesthetic of Nelves/Worgen/Haranir/etc.

The Pandaren were close allies of the Night elves before the sundering, to the point of living with them.

I think in the lore we could have an elven faction like the Illidari; in the lore, they are their own independent faction that aids the Horde and Alliance. The Harranir could be part of the elven faction.

Harranir aren't Illidari. More like Ancients or Horde.
Naga, on the other hand, fit perfectly.

[Mace]

The Pandaren were close allies of the Night elves before the sundering, to the point of living with them.



Harranir aren't Illidari. More like Ancients or Horde.
Naga, on the other hand, fit perfectly.

Agreed.

Most people don’t know thebPandaren were allies with the night elf empire - and like Draenei there is desire to protect and live the natural world even while they develop themselves.

If they did make an Illidari faction, the landscape would change. But yes. Nags would fit perfectly,


Illidari faction would have:
Illidari elves,
Fel elves
Naga
Satyr
Man’ari Eredar
Broken
Venthyr


But with this configuration. The racial harmony I. The 4 factions would fragment now.


High elves would remain alliance, but blood elves go to the Illidari resembling their TFT/TBC incarnation and void elves would join the Ancients - their too noble for the Illidari and void too suspicious to the Alliance. Meanwhile the ancients have the night elves and Draenei, Highborne kin, Elune black sect void users as well as Auchindouin death priest void users.
This elevates them above the horde too who may have offered an attraction via the shadow moon Orcs or the Undead faction. However most important of all is that Ancients are focused on world protection, and this is the motivation for the void elves wielding the void - anyway, while Thalassian elves are often paired with humans, let’s not forget they’re quite old so can also fit the Ancients term.

Anyway like this is fine, every faction has their primary void users. Ethereals in the Alliance, Void elves in the Ancients, Shadowmoon orcs in the horde, Undead in the forsaken and Naga in the Illidari


Lightforged Draenei would switch from the Ancients to the Alliance, due to the high light affinity, but Draenei would remain with the Ancients. They’re stilll friends and kin despite being in different factions for those unable to imagine it without a game event.

I’d move Highmountain Tauren to the Ancients

Harangue would be present on both the Ancients and Horde

[username993720]

Agreed.

Most people don’t know thebPandaren were allies with the night elf empire - and like Draenei there is desire to protect and live the natural world even while they develop themselves.

The Draenei are too light-obsessed and, therefore, fit within the alliance.

If they did make an Illidari faction, the landscape would change. But yes. Nags would fit perfectly,


Illidari faction would have:
Illidari elves,
Fel elves
Naga
Satyr
Man’ari Eredar
Broken
Venthyr

Venthyr would go to the Forsaken, as they are undead vampires.

But with this configuration. The racial harmony I. The 4 factions would fragment now.


High elves would remain alliance, but blood elves go to the Illidari resembling their TFT/TBC incarnation and void elves would join the Ancients - their too noble for the Illidari and void too suspicious to the Alliance. Meanwhile the ancients have the night elves and Draenei, Highborne kin, Elune black sect void users as well as Auchindouin death priest void users.
This elevates them above the horde too who may have offered an attraction via the shadow moon Orcs or the Undead faction. However most important of all is that Ancients are focused on world protection, and this is the motivation for the void elves wielding the void - anyway, while Thalassian elves are often paired with humans, let’s not forget they’re quite old so can also fit the Ancients term.

Void elves do not fit within the Ancients factions. They don't care about nature. I would put them in the Forsaken. Ethereals would go to whatever faction the Void elves are in.

[Triceron]

I mean let's face it, what every multi faction thread is thinly veiled towards is going back to WC3 and
either shoehorning or scrapping the extra new races, or have all extra races be neutral.

There's no sensible progression for any faction in WoW today since they exist only for the purpose of PVP, and the lore has given no real purpose to having faction identity any more since lines have been absolutely blurred.

Every race could practically become neutral. No real reason why Nightborne are Horde and can't be Alliance, no reason why Earthen are neutral, no reason why Pandaren even bother picking sides. It's all haphazard to the point where factions should just be a choosable flavour like Aldor and Scryer.

[Ghostile]

I mean let's face it, what every multi faction thread is thinly veiled towards is going back to WC3 and
either shoehorning or scrapping the extra new races, or have all extra races be neutral.

There's no sensible progression for any faction in WoW today since they exist only for the purpose of PVP, and the lore has given no real purpose to having faction identity any more since lines have been absolutely blurred.

Every race could practically become neutral. No real reason why Nightborne are Horde and can't be Alliance, no reason why Earthen are neutral, no reason why Pandaren even bother picking sides. It's all haphazard to the point where factions should just be a choosable flavour like Aldor and Scryer.

Tbf. Thats the best way for factions.
Horde and alliance war hasnt made sense since wc3.
They should just give both sides subfactions that want to punch eachothers faces in again and call it a day.

[DatToffer]

I want it, back to when the factions made sense, but in a way that keeps the current factions for your character -

Basically, each faction is split in 2, but those two factions remain loosely allied - allowing more interesting things to happen within the groups, and some races can now be part of other factions, allowing a degree of movement for players and also ensuring no one is forcibly moved - yes blood elves will awlays be a part of the Horde bracket.

--- snip---

I think there are cool ideas, like the rebel nagas and including races from the Shadowlands, but I don't know what you mean by Dathronir ? Funny thing is when I was thinking of the idea of wow with 5 factions, I explicitly put the draenei in the Alliance. Why ? Because after their crash in the isles, the night elves would kindly ask them to gtfo with their natural disaster of a wreckage and adopt the sporelings instead.

Also I can see you're working on vibe -why else would you put worgen in the forsaken?- but to me that begs the question : Why allow people visiting each other capitals ? There's nothing more vibe killing than a bunch of humans hanging out in Orgrimmar.

Also this is something you think could be implemented in the future ? Because blood elves in the Alliance is a ship that has long sinked. Even with your idea of allowing people to join any faction they want, you really should take things the other way around and put Blood elves in the Horde, with high elves variations (well the way it currently is in game)

[Mace]

The Draenei are too light-obsessed and, therefore, fit within the alliance.



Venthyr would go to the Forsaken, as they are undead vampires.



Void elves do not fit within the Ancients factions. They don't care about nature. I would put them in the Forsaken. Ethereals would go to whatever faction the Void elves are in.

The alliance isn’t based on Light obsession, it’s based on the original bonds forged in wc1-3 , dwarves aren’t light obsessed and are innit. Nor are Gnomes

Ancients have a large nature contingent. But they are marked primarily by their long existence and world protectors, existential crisis heavy weights - so great ancient civilizations also are a core component. But it doesn’t mean everyone has to have that.

Furthermore void elves are high elf inclined. Live if the void does not preclude nature at all and according to the purpose of the reasons they are studying the void , frankly it’s an oversight we don’t have a heavier void elf nature and elements wing - this is an oversight. Blizzard sometimes does that. However Thalassian elves do
Love nature and they want to study the voids effect on all magic. These people love whatever their friends were and apply the void to it. This does not disqualify them from the Ancients.

Ancients have void wielding sects amongst them, and the purple theme fits right in with them. Also tracks ancients using volatiles power ms for good. Aka the Illidari, the night elves when they first started using the arcane etc.

Nature live however is not a fundamental requirement for the Ancuents , and void elves aren’t nature lives. The Illidari are in the ancients. And they care about power above all else. But they have been shown to not care about ruining an environment to stop demons. However they have also been shown to care about protecting the Forests and their people who do not accept them.


What faction would you put the void elves in ?

- - - Updated - - -

I think there are cool ideas, like the rebel nagas and including races from the Shadowlands

Thank you. I think so to. Naga playable would mean a faction in rebellion of the traitor queen which lines well with the night elf faction that seems to be gathering night elves of all walks, not just nature ones - the people in that faction are good people. They worked with criminals and people who committed great crimes as long as they turned away from that life and started working towards the right end. They even took back a Satyr whom Elune herself fixed back.

I can’t imagine a naga faction wanting to do right is not feasible. Another option is Azshara herself temporarily joining forces wi th us because we need each other and goals align. And the naga getting in that way. This approach favours the horde that has many more races use to uneasy alliances. Revelations about Azshara who has a lot of unknown history could also completely change how we regard her. What if her power grab had a goal not aimed at destruction? WotA told us that while she was enhh th talked by Sargeras her plan was not to leave Azeroth destroyed but rebuild it more perfect than before - what if some of the flaws she had seen she felt required that razing and to her Sargeras’ promise was means to that end - altho he duped her. There is so much extra stuff they could add that influences this.

but I don't know what you mean by Dathronir ? Funny thing is when I was thinking of the idea of wow with 5 factions, I explicitly put the draenei in the Alliance. Why ? Because after their crash in the isles, the night elves would kindly ask them to gtfo with their natural disaster of a wreckage and adopt the sporelings instead.

But the crash was an accident. And the Draenei were seen trying everything to restore nature and eliminate the damage of their crash on their environment as much as they also cared about their people regathering - this is identical to the night elves’ goodly nature. As great arcane users the elves always loved their environment and as great light users the Draenei showed care.


Also they developed a keen night elf friendship. The problem is blizzard just ignored everything about non human races mostly after their introduction and starting zones. Do you not notice that in game you only ever see Humans with X alliance race but never the non human races with each ither?


That’s because for the main story. Blizzard was more interested in writing horde stories and the Alliance was just essentially the humans with random NPC swaps to show other races who were basically acting as humans or human buddies with no context or depth or with anything to do about them. All their activity was about human alliance interests and from that perspective.


What this means is that the underlying Nelf / Deaney friendship is still a core not just hasn’t been fleshed out in the quest chains we got. But we can trust it is there because of the lore established.

Draenei could join the Alliance, it feels natural but this largely because we almost always see them with humans and only when it comes to light matters.

But they originally fit the night elves better being also an ancient advanced civilization, super good at magic like the night elves, lots of advanced knowledge, extremely benevolent nature and really focused on protecting the world or life - chiefly against the legion which they both hate.

Sometimes wow quest lines haven’t properly focused on some core aspects of races that are there. We know this because blizzard who introduced them sometimes just leaves them for a long time before developing them. Take bloodnelves. They left their Light mastery for a long time but later started developing it. But it was there in the lore and in wc2, the high elves were both great mages and great priests. Another aspect they haven’t focused on yet are the nature forest loving rangers but a Darstrider leads the blood elves and the most famous Thalassian characters are all forest loving rangers.

Chances are one day they will shine a light on that there. Like they did for the night elf mages which is a huge part of their lore, but it took them till Cataclysm remake and then Legion for you to see the extent of how the night elves are involved with arcane magic. However in the lore it is the reason they exist, arcane magic is the centre of their golden age and the greatest heights they reached which you can see what that looks like on Suramar, but also read about in the lore. It is also at the heart of how the burning legion invaded Azeroth, the reasons the night elves groups were all in isolation, the reason they have Moonwells and Nordeassil, the Eason for a ban and why it was lifted.

But unless you read the lore and played the previous games you would never know this from the quests. Unless you saw Darnassuad visited the ruins or went to a suramar you’d have no idea about this side. Because the quests only go on about the events troubling a group now. Only lore and previous games or opening areas give you more info.

But you have to base your guesses on the entire information , not just the impression from quests to get an accurate picture that can make a better prediction or a better fitting model.

Also I can see you're working on vibe -why else would you put worgen in the forsaken?- but to me that begs the question : Why allow people visiting each other capitals ? There's nothing more vibe killing than a bunch of humans hanging out in Orgrimmar.

Yes. There is definitely a vibe aspect to it that aligns. Worgen are cursed supernatural beings after all belonging to the vampire/supernatural world.

Also lore wise. People forget the Gillian’s as humans left the Alliance. They could just as easily have joined the horde. Why would the alliance trust them? Blizzard could have written a. Story for horde membership. They went Alliance as Worgen because blizzard wanted to give the Alkiance more bestial races. lol. Which they never really used them as such, except again, in the intro and in the lore books like Wolfheart where you see how deadly and savage they can be. But in game? Woah. Might as well be fully human.

Anyway. They could just as easily been friends or allies with the forsaken. An aggressive selfish and self centred ally, full of fighting and quarrelling and tenuous even which fits werewolves. But they could fit.

By nature they that. So there is a case. Meanwhile the Ancients would have the original night elf Worgen who we haven’t seen much off. Last we heard of was in Legion when the Scythe of Elune, the artifact weapon s able to restore those who get there from the dream back to night elves.

Also this is something you think could be implemented in the future ? Because blood elves in the Alliance is a ship that has long sinked. Even with your idea of allowing people to join any faction they want, you really should take things the other way around and put Blood elves in the Horde, with high elves variations (well the way it currently is in game)

It is possible if they wanted. Lore wise there is nonissue game wise for any race to go anywhere.

The only issue is with the player character. However. Machine wise the player character only needs to be created on horse or alliance. In game you can then enter any number of factions and modify how the character interacts with it even if it is initially set only as horde or alliance.

So in a sense you create 4 factions. Ancients, Forsaken, new Alliance (called Alkiance), new Horde called Horde


You set a new set of rules for being tagged to those factions based on how you want to react. The fact they hard coded to the original game horde or alliance is irrelevant.

Alternatively
It’s just like allowing blood elves to also exist on the Alliance. Can we not have Earthen on both factions, we can easily have blood elves and every race on both factions, then allow you to choose the pseudo split. So alliance blood elf players can now be created.

That blood elf character would be Alliance hard coded. Your original horde blood elf character remember can continue on the horde even though the race itself is now on the Alliance. For you the player to switch to the Alliance, you just do the quest requirement or
Option. What the game will actually do is faction switch your character behind the scenes. And bingo you are in the alliance.

As for the race going Alliance. That isn’t a problem at all, the game system doesn’t depend on the NPCs being Ina faction, you change their tag. Or you replace them with a copy that is now Allianfe, Horde territory can be relabelled a Forsaken territory or Alliance territory.


How does a night elf character become part
If the ancients? That’s even easier because the Ancients are just the Alluance split in two. The in game character needs no secret faction change. It’s just tagged Alluance Ancients which is functionally a sub set faction. Like a race.


This is how you do it. As for story wise, you just tell the story of how the races get back to those configurations and why.

Example after the events of Last Titan. To save Azeroth we get a time reset that sends all the players back to just after Warcraft 3, and history changes where the races congregate in a more natural way that possibly ends up that ways as we endeavour to stop all the events that happened - that is one example

[username993720]

The alliance isn’t based on Light obsession, it’s based on the original bonds forged in wc1-3 , dwarves aren’t light obsessed and are innit. Nor are Gnomes

Ancients have a large nature contingent. But they are marked primarily by their long existence and world protectors, existential crisis heavy weights - so great ancient civilizations also are a core component. But it doesn’t mean everyone has to have that.

Furthermore void elves are high elf inclined. Live if the void does not preclude nature at all and according to the purpose of the reasons they are studying the void , frankly it’s an oversight we don’t have a heavier void elf nature and elements wing - this is an oversight. Blizzard sometimes does that. However Thalassian elves do
Love nature and they want to study the voids effect on all magic. These people love whatever their friends were and apply the void to it. This does not disqualify them from the Ancients.

Ancients have void wielding sects amongst them, and the purple theme fits right in with them. Also tracks ancients using volatiles power ms for good. Aka the Illidari, the night elves when they first started using the arcane etc.

Nature live however is not a fundamental requirement for the Ancuents , and void elves aren’t nature lives. The Illidari are in the ancients. And they care about power above all else. But they have been shown to not care about ruining an environment to stop demons. However they have also been shown to care about protecting the Forests and their people who do not accept them.


What faction would you put the void elves in ?

Blood elves are in the Alliance in WC3, even though they leave it. Fel Orcs are part of the Horde, even though they shun them. Demons are part of the Scourge even though we know they are rivals.

I'd put Void elves in either the Illidari or Forsaken.

[Mace]

I mean let's face it, what every multi faction thread is thinly veiled towards is going back to WC3 and
either shoehorning or scrapping the extra new races, or have all extra races be neutral.

There's no sensible progression for any faction in WoW today since they exist only for the purpose of PVP, and the lore has given no real purpose to having faction identity any more since lines have been absolutely blurred.

Every race could practically become neutral. No real reason why Nightborne are Horde and can't be Alliance, no reason why Earthen are neutral, no reason why Pandaren even bother picking sides. It's all haphazard to the point where factions should just be a choosable flavour like Aldor and Scryer.

Pretty much this. It’s hard to care about this when they don’t. It’s a bit sad as these things were once important to wow.

I guess it’s just a game. Though perhaps our love for it wanted to enshrine it and make it become more. Like a cult fiction following similar to Star Wars, LotR etc.

Sadly the lack of effort on their part to tidy it up and relax these things to bend them solely to enhance gameplay rather than make them both work is what led us here.


So as much as I like the ambience and environment or the fantasy, the inconsistencies, lack of tidying up and the haphazard advice way of handling what use to be really important is such a strong deterrent from getting me into this more.


I guess this is good for us bits just a game, nothing more, and the lore and everything is to seeeten the environment for playing.


It’s still hard not to crave for better. For what could have been or what could be if they decided to really do this properly.


But the lore team is well behind all the others and senior development never prioritised it sorting this properly. Basically the lore team has largely been the quest writing team. And for a project like this to be on par you need so much more.


A proper effort would have had full stories for every expansion that had a lot more detail

It would have guided the races and character properly. Never sacrificing key characters like they did in TBC for example , never favouring popular character La over relevant ones. Like inserting Jaina and Gen for a Sin’Azshri/Nazjatsr patch over Tyrande and Farondis or Mirdsnt Evenshade and Malfurion.
Life team would have lore for how magic worked in incredible detail of each type
It would have far more detailed fleshing out of cultures and customs and history of the races
Even the vsrious weapons and armor sets we acquire would have lore for them, legion expansion came closest to this when it had lore for professions. But what should have been expanded on was instead a one off


All this stuff is just a matter of writing. Not actually designing when you think the time it takes to design an effect or a weapon, can a description or lore not be written? Can you imagine if staffs with Crystal had a lore to them, coming from a culture or craft vs those from wood branches. Every item designed had categories the lore would sort out and describe.

Imagine if NOCs you met all had relevant things to say and information that expanded the history of the place, the current politics, the land info , bestiary info etc. how much richer it could be.


If only they took more time to consider more exciting implications of their settings. This is a lore team task. The lore team should have realised that Tyrande, for example would have been much cooler carrying out an Elune crusade against the Legion in her ancient home of Suramar - becoming quite the menace to Elisande and especially the legion, carrying sneak attacks, disrupting activities, liberating chained citizens, foiling plots, radiance of Elune allowing those under her light to temporarily not be affected by the addiction craving the control of the Nightwell arcane had on them, and then seeing a few scenes in action as she called down the stars and arcane powers of Elune against the enemies hunting her down as she hunted them and pulverised them in some epic battles. Gaining quite the following as the Order of Elune returned to Suramar to save and rescue. With Vereesa instead doing the Alliance elf army quests as Reslly The High Oriest of Elune returning to the capital of the Order of Elune would not be handing out alliance quests.


Yet they totally missed this. This is just one example of things and opportunities the lore team should catch. Remember when they did an entire Tyrande quest line for the Briken shire that involved the Temple? But scrapped it for have more Legik stuff? The lore teams job would be to find a way to keep the quest chain which was built in to the story line of the entire expansion while creating what we got. Why couldn’t we have had the quests we got and also the Tyrande story one? The class orders could have still had the eir brokenshore role but the Order of Elune be the ones to call them and inform them on the tasks while we also helped Tyrande get the Night warrior ritual and Ollie her.

The lore team should have recognised Illidan, Malfurion and Tyrande are reg tied for the first time since Wc3 and the War of the Ancients story and done something epic for them against a powerful foe that would require their immense powers to finally be on display.


But no, never happened. - in the expansion that was a retelling of the War of the Ancients having the major and original players against the Legiin all there. All having roles but never together? What an oversight! And this was from the best and most detailed Warcraft expansion.


Shows the lack of effort in the lore. The fact that nearly every system in the game has had several iterations of improvement since ckasssic. But the quest given system still only contains the same looking quest window. True, later they added some voiced moments with the little voice box reminiscent to wc1-3 quests. But you don’t realise that room till WoD, expansion. 6 to happen.

And for all the story and narrative improvements they still severely lack expression and depth like the Secret Workd MMo or SWTOr ‘s story telling in their MMO.

A serious effort would have long since devoted resources to the lore team to give class and race quests alongside the main expansion story cos they recognised how hungry people are for more stories concerning their favourite race.


None of this is paid atttention too. I see the world class level of art design, systems detail, programming and tool upgrades, music etc. and yet the one thing that gives our activity purpose and meaning. The story has a quality that is so likely taken and Shanil’s invested.

You can’t have the quest design team do that. You gotta hire people who can write great eoiisodes and plots and then those that give depth and flesh out. Those that design the magic system, lore of the cultures and make up great stories for crafts and weapons and items - these also have to be talented world class professionals cos you need th em to give you great quality. Not shoddy half arsed measures.


They are the ones that should have made gameplay changes to lore make proper sense and ensure the developments from wc3 into wow were smooth. Even in a two faction system they could have actively kept races like the night elves separate from the alliance almost as if it was two factions ally g together and done the same for the Hirde and Firsaken. Maintaining the original authenticity of the lore and fantasy to flesh out.


Alas, they had people who were great business making lore decision when they had no place doing that and then failed to see the value.


Warcraft could have become as big as Star Wars and Lotro if this was stewarded properly and expanded into media at the height of the games popularity amongst our generation. If they had taken the lore seriously enough without all the terrible decisions made I. Wow and expanded it into tv shows and movies at that time, doing it well because they hired great people to write these things, it would have ballooned.

This is because they got the hardest thing to get, popularity movement at a scale and momentum that creates new IPs, the level of popularity Warcraft gained with game was unprecedented and could have taken the franchise so much further.

Also, this was never the vision nor ambition, and so they never elevated

- - - Updated - - -

Blood elves are in the Alliance in WC3, even though they leave it. Fel Orcs are part of the Horde, even though they shun them. Demons are part of the Scourge even though we know they are rivals.

I'd put Void elves in either the Illidari or Forsaken.

Cases can be made for the void elves in the forsaken or Illidari. But they have very Alliance high elven views. Magister Umbria shows this abundantly in BFA.

Void elves were meant to be your Alliance high elves with a twist. Doesn’t this make them more suited to the Alkiance? Not more suited, but suited enough.

The alliance is def an option for them. However the Alliance has strong light affinity in this scenario which is not ideal. It is manageable. They’d be periphery, possibly outcast types but they work there.

Also work with the Ancients since the main premise is world defense, ancient race and legacy, ancient advaned civilization and great ancient and mystical powers. Also Ancients have that benevolent nature While the care for nature isn’t as strong in the void elves shown so far, it has a basis for being there and reasonable developments with regards to nature aren’t contrary to the void elf purpose - so they can work there and can have a nature live. It doesn’t have to be as deep as some of the Ancient factions like the Darnassian Druids or the Nelf Worgen types. So it’s nowhere near as big an issue with the Ancients as being a void user would be with the Alliance.

With the Forsaken, dealing with undead is a serious issue for void elves, while that can mend, it’s a bigger hurdle. Then there all the cultural and ethical conflicts. Void elves wield dark powers but they aren’t dark minded. But that could also change. The void concept suggest the darker tinge but the void elf punchline is that they weren’t. So it depends if you want to lose that and in my opinion if you change that about the void elves it’s too much of a fundamental change. They would be void elves but not the void sides we know and not having that foundation (night elves having arcane was never a deal breaker because they are made from it and have an entire era of supremacy in it for example including some factions still steeped greatly in it). But you can generate it or create it in the void elves. So it is possible for them to be there, def not a deal breaker I just don’t think it’s as good a case as the Ancients and its bigger bridge to cross because if that

Illidari can work well. If it was a faction it would work well with Void elves. Even the nobility of the void elves is not an issue with the Illidari as much as it is with the hordes. Because there is a nobility evident in the Illidari although power and ruthlessness aren’t a trouble for them. But the Illidari goal is noble and we have seen nobility in all the demon hunters we’ve quested with. So it is not odd for them to have a high elf disposition and they can’t criticise the Illidari for wielding fel. The void elves also have the dark power commonality with the Illidari. And it’s a strong one so it works. But the void elves are more like the night elves handling the night warrior ritual, noble good guys handling a dark corrupting power but doing it for good and retaining their goodness. While the Illidari aren’t that concerned about their morality. Still it’s clear void elves can work there well.

So yes, they would work well with the Illidari I would also favour them more in the Ancients because of the higher void affinity there - which is a bigger attraction for them, the celestial and space theme stronger there. The night elves have their star theme ancient basis Warcraft states boldly but only managed to show us little of in places like Suramar and the Order of Elune, the Draenei are off course themselves space faring and both night elves and Draenei have void wielding wings. The benevolence and nobility is stronger too. A void elf would want to be with the Ancients over the Illidari. Though if the Illidari weren’t in the Ancients and their own faction, I think the void elves would be good friends with them and the blood elves even if at a higher moral standard than either.

Also purple has a strong theme in the Ancients. So it’s a good compliment. Just like the Alliance are the peachy skinned faction and the Horde the green skins faction, Illidari more the red skins and Forsaken the grey skins.

[Al Gorefiend]

I mean let's face it, what every multi faction thread is thinly veiled towards is going back to WC3 and
either shoehorning or scrapping the extra new races, or have all extra races be neutral.

There's no sensible progression for any faction in WoW today since they exist only for the purpose of PVP, and the lore has given no real purpose to having faction identity any more since lines have been absolutely blurred.

Every race could practically become neutral. No real reason why Nightborne are Horde and can't be Alliance, no reason why Earthen are neutral, no reason why Pandaren even bother picking sides. It's all haphazard to the point where factions should just be a choosable flavour like Aldor and Scryer.

Ultimately for the majority of posters here, it comes down to having all 4 elves, human, dwarf and draenei on the same faction, versus "the others".

They want a VERY Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark, Beauty vs. Ugly Tolkien-esque fantasy as much as possible.

Ask these people, if they had achieved their perfected faction alignments and got their wish, they could write you up all the stories and fanfics in the world for the faction they "wanted", none of them have any plans, story beats, lore hooks or ideas for the mongrel faction that gets left with all their unfavorite races.

[Mace]

Ultimately for the majority of posters here, it comes down to having all 4 elves, human, dwarf and draenei on the same faction, versus "the others".

They want a VERY Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark, Beauty vs. Ugly Tolkien-esque fantasy as much as possible.

Ask these people, if they had achieved their perfected faction alignments and got their wish, they could write you up all the stories and fanfics in the world for the faction they "wanted", none of them have any plans, story beats, lore hooks or ideas for the mongrel faction that gets left with all their unfavorite races.

It’s how the world and the races are designed.

Warcraft mixed up opposing themes that weren’t built to work that way by themselves.

If you are built on a theme. Keep it going. Sure you can create evil pretty elves or good monster races- they did a measure of that way back too.

However ultimately the races they are using in this hodge hodge don’t work that way because they weren’t originally designed or framed for that. So when you start putting them wherever because whatever you destroy the original faction theme you hailed was so precious, it was why WoW reverted to 2 factions instead of the quite sensible 4/5 WC3 had left it in. Then used the same races. If they really wanted that Night elves and Forsaken should either not have been playable or neutral to horde alliance as races that were faction esque in and off themselves - we would have understood either being too powerful for the power balance inside both horde and alliance or between them.

I think they should have instead created kept the Forsaken faction. Its own self and also made gorgeous beautiful race or at least attractive for the Horde than just stick blood elves in it after the shift to WoW.

They designed the original factions. They gave them the cohesion and built this as the foundation. People harp on about the fact that the Horde and Alkiance are a core part of Warcraft. But so are the identity of the Horde and the Alliance because those initial race had a design cohesion to them to fit in those spots.


Even in taking blood elves over the wrong thing they did was to keep them as high elven as possible, rather than the more bad boy antihero type of the Illidari, a better than High elves who totally doesn’t mesh with your horde. And what were they thinking trying to make the Forsaken serious horde member race. They do not fit the Horde of Wc3 though they hearken closer to the Wc1-2 orcs - still, they really do feel too distinct for that. The forsaken just weren’t built for combining with the horde. What a beautiful adaptation of the zombie world to be wasted and trashed by faction cohesion failure in anproduct that chose to centre itself around that. In hindsight, neutral Forsaken and Night elves would have been better.

They wanted to keep the core of Warcraft but had no problems breaking it