Faction imbalance a social issue? Requiring a social solution?

[huth]

I mean, Alliance players can still go to Suramar in-game...it's not as though the whole city has been changed and Alliance players are attacked on first sight.

Actually, they will be. But so will a Horde player. Specificially because it hasn't changed.

[Grazrug]

You still mad that both Silvermoon and Suramar are Horde controlled is it? Stay salty. You will never get them. Take youe dwarf and human cities and leave the cool elves alone. Stop being greedy OP.

[ravenmoon]

It's quite silly to demand Horde assets like Silvermoon and Suramar and think that giving the Horde rubbish versions of Orgrimmar and Atal'Dazar is enough. No, Silvermoon and the Nighthold (because that's all the Horde players have) should remain with Horde aligned races. I mean, Alliance players can still go to Suramar in-game...it's not as though the whole city has been changed and Alliance players are attacked on first sight. Suramar was designed to be a quest hub, not a city like Orgrimmar or Silvermoon.

It really shows a disconnect between these minority Alliance Elf fans and what the Horde is. Lor'themar is basically leading the Horde at the moment. He is "Warchief" in all but name.
If anything happens to Silvermoon, it will be an updated version of Quel'Thalas that is for the Horde players to enjoy.

Alliance fans can look forward to an updated Draenei Isles.

I'm not campaigning for anything

Faction imbalance is not due to social issues, social issues are a factor, but they are more symptoms as a result of a more root causality.

If you want to:
1. Maintain the faction divide and distinction that the original Warcraft was based on, you have to strip the high elf aspects of the blood elf away from them, and the Nightborne too, if you want these guys to be more than periphery, they cannot be like the high elves or night elves. Furthermore, the alliance needs it's elves showcased, because high elf are core to the alliance, and while the kaldorei are not, their pre-sundering civilization is the utopia of such culture, it's basically the highest form of the things the alliance is all about -

The alliance can't be prominent and distinct from the horde and thus start drawing people back without this sort of thing happening.

It most likely means Silvermoon and Suramar should leave the horde to be replaced by future blood elf and Nightborne cities that reflect their more unique identity.

You have to go all out, but if you don't bother

2. Ditch the faction nonsense, because you're not prepared to maintain it, and you prefer a mixing. The entire schism between factions is built on two speraate worlds. we are not even allowed to communicate cross factions, they want the horde world and the alliance world, which they ahd at first, but then to make hte horde more popular, brought the alliance eto it, and thus kinda made that whole thing rather meaningless.. so you either undo that and tighten up, or you follow the current path to it's natural conclusion, which will show you that as factions are right now, with this sort of set up, the divide is meaningless and pointless.

There isn't much special about it, the more you get into it, it starts falling apart, and you just wonder why? things would be so much better if we could mix.. the whole point of the walls being up was because the two factions were very different and separate, now they are not, because the alliance is also on the horde, there is no point .. so either you remove the alliance form the horde, or you just get rid of the meaningless wall

[Tanaria]

I'm not campaigning for anything

Faction imbalance is not due to social issues, social issues are a factor, but they are more symptoms as a result of a more root causality.

If you want to:
1. Maintain the faction divide and distinction that the original Warcraft was based on, you have to strip the high elf aspects of the blood elf away from them, and the Nightborne too, if you want these guys to be more than periphery, they cannot be like the high elves or night elves. Furthermore, the alliance needs it's elves showcased, because high elf are core to the alliance, and while the kaldorei are not, their pre-sundering civilization is the utopia of such culture, it's basically the highest form of the things the alliance is all about -

The alliance can't be prominent and distinct from the horde and thus start drawing people back without this sort of thing happening.

It most likely means Silvermoon and Suramar should leave the horde to be replaced by future blood elf and Nightborne cities that reflect their more unique identity.

You have to go all out, but if you don't bother

2. Ditch the faction nonsense, because you're not prepared to maintain it, and you prefer a mixing. The entire schism between factions is built on two speraate worlds. we are not even allowed to communicate cross factions, they want the horde world and the alliance world, which they ahd at first, but then to make hte horde more popular, brought the alliance eto it, and thus kinda made that whole thing rather meaningless.. so you either undo that and tighten up, or you follow the current path to it's natural conclusion, which will show you that as factions are right now, with this sort of set up, the divide is meaningless and pointless.

There isn't much special about it, the more you get into it, it starts falling apart, and you just wonder why? things would be so much better if we could mix.. the whole point of the walls being up was because the two factions were very different and separate, now they are not, because the alliance is also on the horde, there is no point .. so either you remove the alliance form the horde, or you just get rid of the meaningless wall

Blizzard are quite clearly not going back to the days of just Orcs, Trolls and Tauren.
They don't want to and they don't need to.

Silvermoon and Quel'Thalas needs updating for Blood Elf players on the Horde. Alliance will get updated Draenei zones. Alliance don't deserve two new questing zones and the Horde have 0. If you think Blizzard will do that then I'm lost for words and you are selfish. Don't say "oh well you'll get a new Orc city and troll city." Be quiet about that. We have Orgrimmar and Atal'Dazar...we don't need pathetic versions of them. Here is where your totally disconnected with the Horde and it's playerbase and you really have no idea what your talking about.
I mean you want Sin'dorei and Shal'dorei to be ignored as well. I can tell you, Blizzard loves Blood Elves and they won't ignore them. Yes, they might not use them as much for one expansion, but they won't drive them out of their own city and then not use them for 10+ years, just to make selfish people like you feel better. Blood Elves will be kept in Quel'Thalas with the Sunwell and Silvermoon, because they are the core of Thalassian Elves and a core Horde race. They are more Horde than the Pandaren ever are, so don't insult Horde players with those things. Same with Nightborne...where Thalyssra was part of the group to release Talanji and Zul where Stormwind was set on fire.

Blood Elves and Nightborne will stay as they are, because they are core Horde races. Arcane Elves in Arcane cities started with the Horde Blood Elves which makes Arcane Elves a core Horde feature. I'd say Alliance has a bit of a Horde feature with the Arcane/Void using Ren'dorei.

Nelf Mages were always a mistake to make playable. Horde should have remained as the "Arcane Elves" with Void Elves being a feature brought to the Alliance from the Horde.

[Klueade]

Why make things so complicated? The faction barrier should never have been implemented in the first place. Nothing good ever came from it.

To make things easier. There's enough people who want factions to consider compromising on this issue. Servers with varied settings including a cross faction setting is a more palatable thought. It's not just my nostalgia and server identity stuff, but the many who simply want faction barriers. Whether the intent or interpretation of is to place integrity of Story & lore or favor notions of community or game design. More and arguably each person can be accommodated with a server of their preference, PVE/CF RP/CF (CF means cross-faction)...

With that said. Each solution has it's pitfalls, depending on who you ask.

[Beloren]

Blizzard are quite clearly not going back to the days of just Orcs, Trolls and Tauren.
They don't want to and they don't need to.

I dunno, classic and WC3 maps are still hugely popular, and people are more fanatical about that Warcraft than today. Maybe they should.

These current problems all arose not because we have two factions, but because they decided to force the players into two camps that they had to take as ide rather than allow fluidity - which would have allowed the lore to continue to stay true to it's core and not needing to be altered.

If a WC2 mmo was released, do you think you would be forced to only pick either horde or alliance? No, yet horde and alliance would dominate the political and battle landscape and the narrative - yet the players won't be so stringently divided.

This is the flaw with the current system, far more so than blood elves being on horde or orcs being on alliance - those things.

[Hyrican]

the strong stories are more race related than faction related in my opinion.

Different starting experiences for player races, reputation faction story campaigns (some of the allied race story campaigns as well as the unlock scenario come to mind as good examples)

The faction dynamic felt mostly tacked upon the expansion stories told for each zone and raid even in Battle for Azeroth.

Taking faction sides while questing is mostly comprised of choosing a zone faction side. Keeping existing horde and alliance faction distinction in existing areas but designing new expansion content with more agency into choosing sides of expansion and zone factions independent of alliance and horde is actually done right now already with Covenants.

There are horde and aliance players that support subfactions across the faction divide. It is actually told in almost all expansions that some form of working together is already being done by story characters. just currently not allowed by the player characters except the mercenary mode in pvp for the bigger faction.

Is it such a huge step to allow cooperative play in a pve setting? Die hard believers could avoid inviting cross faction, others and min maxers could care less and just invite from the whole player base. You can already invite cross server and with other language clients that you do not even understand. Both break the original concept of server communities. But this original server concept is > 25 years old and already iterated upon constantly. There is a reason why other games play with the concept of mega servers. The struggling communities benefit froom a new approach as long as its possible to actually connect and meet people outside the inner circle of the community itself.

[huth]

To make things easier. There's enough people who want factions to consider compromising on this issue. Servers with varied settings including a cross faction setting is a more palatable thought. It's not just my nostalgia and server identity stuff, but the many who simply want faction barriers. Whether the intent or interpretation of is to place integrity of Story & lore or favor notions of community or game design. More and arguably each person can be accommodated with a server of their preference, PVE/CF RP/CF (CF means cross-faction)...

With that said. Each solution has it's pitfalls, depending on who you ask.

You can have factions without faction barriers. You're not adding a whole lot to the game this way, while splitting up the community even more. It certainly doesn't make anything easier, at best it makes it more palatable to those on the extreme ends, which i don't consider a relevant factor.

[Tanaria]

I dunno, classic and WC3 maps are still hugely popular, and people are more fanatical about that Warcraft than today. Maybe they should.
.

Every expansion has basically been following Orcs around, except from Legion. I've had enough of that.
Last expansion was about the things Ravenmoon only wants to see and that's Orcs, Trolls and Tauren with an undead high elf Warchief.

So no, they shouldn't go back to focusing on just 3 races for the Horde, because that's boring and all you'd get is crap versions of Orgrimmar and Atal'Dazar and Blizzard aren't that stupid to think the Horde playerbase will sit there as Lordaeron, Suramar, Silvermoon and Highmountain are given to the Alliance.

The Alliance are not the only faction that's important.

[Beloren]

Every expansion has basically been following Orcs around, except from Legion. I've had enough of that.
Last expansion was about the things Ravenmoon only wants to see and that's Orcs, Trolls and Tauren with an undead high elf Warchief.

So no, they shouldn't go back to focusing on just 3 races for the Horde, because that's boring and all you'd get is crap versions of Orgrimmar and Atal'Dazar and Blizzard aren't that stupid to think the Horde playerbase will sit there as Lordaeron, Suramar, Silvermoon and Highmountain are given to the Alliance.

The Alliance are not the only faction that's important.

Wouldn't they? it's not like the playerbase had any choice in whatever race went where. I don't remember the horde playerbase ever asking for blood elves, or the alliance playerbase ever asking for Night elves.

And they don't really announce what they will do, they just do. Lordaeron did return to the alliance - I mean do who has what in-game assets really actually matter? Aren't they just for flavour and drumming up fanfare an excitement or drama?

The current game set up only needs the races in each faction to remain there. Azeroth could even be destroyed - so what happens to Silvermoon or Exodar city is essentially there for whatever means they want. Cities and racial assets don't actually have functional uses for gameplay.