How would you allow cross-faction play with a satisfactory lore to justify it?

[Toho]

The WoW team seems to have finally begun to step in the right direction by heeding community feedback. And it only took multiple disasters to get there...

Anyway let us assume a true miracle has happened and all these talks of WoW 2, Azeroth revamp, abandoning of the cosmos plotline (Shadowlands and other realms) finally materialize. So Blizzard heads finally tell the writing team to reel it back and go back to the basics and chill out with mystery box chase of the lore and make more grounded stories. The new exiles reach zone proves that they can do it...
So now the biggest pickle we have to deal with, merging both factions because the gameplay is almost dead on one side and it is affecting the other side. But how will this be done without pissing off many people? Before would could always argue some immediate emergency allows us to cooperate but a couple of name characters and a few champions are not the entire faction.

After Legion it was totally possible to say both faction can drop the faction divide and come together but the Horde's genocide of the Night Elves threw a 3 tone wrentch into that. So how do you do this? How do we explain how Orcs and Undead players or NPCs are not killed on sight in previously Alliance locations?
Do we wave the amnesia wand and have everybody be super best friends or would you do something else?

[Combatbutler]

Destroy the factions altogether, reduce players to mercenaries

[Toho]

Destroy the factions altogether, reduce players to mercenaries

That doesn't answer the question of how we are supposed to show this factionless game but all the NPCs are not trying to kill the other side's players or NPCs on sight.
Mercenary or not that doesnt solve the hostility from multiple faction wars that were never properly resolved.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

I wouldn't and if it ever does happen then it would make things easier for me to quit.

[draugril]

This lore exists already. It just isn't reflected mechanically.

Keep Alliance and Horde. Don't let us freely enter each other's capitals or do quests intended for the opposing faction. Keep battlegrounds and warmode and whatever else.

Just let us group with each other, as we have been doing in the lore since before the game launched. Even now, we're still rescuing Jaina and Thrall, regardless of faction.

No need to destroy this or take away that - just add a single, solitary option.

[geco]

Bypassing Teldrassil. What is there to justify?

The Horde already assisted in Alliance camps several times and the Alliance did the same with the Horde.

If the Alliance goes to any city of the Horde they may remember once that I saved the Ass.

If it weren't for Teldrazzil. If the Horde goes anywhere in the Alliance it would be "that guy who helped us that time." (Maybe not with the dwarves.)
____________
The alliance saved the 4 cities of the Horde.
The Horde worked with all the leaders of the Alliance except the dwarves (and surely that is because I lack information)

[Chromell]

How about "the world will just fucking die if we don't band together", isn't that enough?

[Toho]

This lore exists already. It just isn't reflected mechanically.

Keep Alliance and Horde. Don't let us freely enter each other's capitals or do quests intended for the opposing faction. Keep battlegrounds and warmode and whatever else.

Just let us group with each other, as we have been doing in the lore since before the game launched. Even now, we're still rescuing Jaina and Thrall, regardless of faction.

No need to destroy this or take away that - just add a single, solitary option.

I think for this to work we need to allow players to join the same guilds, same chats, same economy and probably the same content to save money for other things.
Just allowing players to opt for LFG on both sides wouldn't really help fix the population issue or the inflating economy.

How about "the world will just fucking die if we don't band together", isn't that enough?

For one raid? sure. To merge both factions where one was just a year ago burning an entire nation alive with no remorse? Harder to stomach that imo. We essentially have to have a convincing "These guys are totally cool now don't worry ok?"

[draugril]

I think for this to work we need to allow players to join the same guilds, same chats, same economy and probably the same content to save money for other things.
Just allowing players to opt for LFG on both sides wouldn't really help fix the population issue or the inflating economy.



For one raid? sure. To merge both factions where one was just a year ago burning an entire nation alive with no remorse? Harder to stomach that imo.

I see very few people asking to "merge," the factions, as it were. Most just want the option to group and guild. That's it. The same as joining a neutral faction, the same as sharing a narrative thread. It's generally those against removing this division that misrepresent the issue, arguing against a strawman who wants to erase the concepts of Horde and Alliance entirely.

[Puri]

I don't see why you would need to rewrite or add anything. Just keep the factions as they are, the are a driving factor of the franchise.
But that doesn't mean that I (the character) cannot be friends with people from the opposing faction. It applies to NPCs all the time. So mechanically just cut the artificial bounds and let me invite/join people from the other faction. That's all, there is no justification needed nor does that need to be reflected in the lore.

[Aresk]

Why does cross-faction play have to extend to city guards? I can play my Alliance character in Shadowlands with my Horde friends without requiring Stormwind's guards to let them enter. Raids, Mythic+, Battlegrounds could all be done on a mercenary mode basis, not unlike how Horde already plays with Alliance in battlegrounds. From a lore standpoint, all Thrall needs to do is apparently hand Sylvanas' head to Tyrande to forgive Teldrassil. There are already multiple cross-faction organizations that could facilitate the exchange: the covenants, every Order Hall, cross-faction NPCs like Khadgar or Magni. The current reagent of Stormwind was personally working alongside the Horde two expansions ago.

In terms of what would be cross-faction, I assume they could share quest kill/loot credit, share neutral quests, visit instances with one another. I presume any faction guard is going to continue to respond the same way. I don't think Alliance will be throwing any big parties in the Valley of Honor. But that's not required to tear down the faction divide and allow the communities to play with one another.

[draugril]

Just listen to the ending cutscene of WCIII. The foundation for cooperation was set here. Its extension has been completely forced, inorganic and artificial since.

[Toho]

what if guilds and auction houses were something ran by the goblin cartels that are neutral rather than faction thing? That will let the factions hate each other as much as they want and the guilds can function independently.

But what if two players want to share quests and do the same content. The current game setup still prevents them from visiting each other's towns to pick up the same quests.

Just listen to the ending cutscene of WCIII. The foundation for cooperation was set here. Its extension has been completely forced, inorganic and artificial since.

With the multiple atrocities commited against each other whatever foundation built in WC3 was broken apart thanks to expansions like BFA or MoP. This a source of frustration for many though...

[Gelannerai]

As others have said, keep the major cities faction-based but allow cross-faction pve groups and guilds. The arbitrary divide only serves to hurt the game and playerbase at this point.

[Raetary]

We literally team up all the fucking time.
We've been doing so for years.
The lore is already there, they just need to loosen the damn restrictions.

Nothing needs to be added, nothing needs to be rewritten, our cooperation already is a vital part of the damn franchise.

To merge both factions

Why would they need to merge the factions?
They can keep the faction split, they can keep each other out of different faction hubs, just let us group up for quest, dungeon and raid content.

For pvp, arenas are not split between horde/alliance anyway.
As for BGs and warmode, they can expand upon the mercenary mode and keep the split.

[Clone]

In the current design just let players be able to party/raid/guild across factions. The racial capitals and faction questlines remain separate.

If you we are starting the game anew then just make players part of a coalition faction separate from Alliance and Horde. This way players can choose to be part of or opt out of Red VS BLue, and Blizzard still gets to tell their faction war story.

[exochaft]

If Anduin can basically be pen-pal besties with Baine despite everything that's gone on, how can the players not be capable of this lore-wise?

The irony is that Blizz makes this decision for us, despite the game have the capability to let us decide. Horde and Alliance always team up in the end for the greater good, even if that means going after one of their own. This could easily extend to the players: Horde and Alliance players can team up for the greater good (raid, M+, etc.), but still be capable of killing their own or each other (PvP, War Mode, FFA zones, etc.). You can maintain your factions and simultaneous allow cooperation and fighting between both factions. Any lore reasons you can think of to remove the faction barrier already exists in the game, it's just weird that it's gone on for so long.

Maybe we should call this the cross-faction ripcord? It's one of those things that I'd imagine would get pulled at some point, as we've had FFA zones for a while, and the BoD raid in BfA (along with mercenary mode in PvP) already established that you could have temporary faction swapping. While they will say that their main reasons for not pulling said ripcord is for lore or fundamental changes to the game, the real reason is the massive amount of money they probably make off of faction transfers. Trust me, I've spent more money than I'd care to admit in the name of hardcore mythic/end game raiding on server and faction transfers...

[Combatbutler]

That doesn't answer the question of how we are supposed to show this factionless game but all the NPCs are not trying to kill the other side's players or NPCs on sight.
Mercenary or not that doesnt solve the hostility from multiple faction wars that were never properly resolved.

Time skip 200 years

[Gorsameth]

Both factions have repeatedly set aside their differences and united to face a common foe. Back in Legion we, the player, saw both factions again posturing for war while faced with a galactic level threat and said 'screw you guys we'll work together without you' and formed the order halls to combat the legion without the Alliance and Horde. Neither side seemed to have much of a problem with that. Alliance heroes were still welcome in Alliance cities and same for the Horde.

The end of BfA was a perfect time for more united Alliance and Horde, separate but working together.

The lore to justify it already exists. Blizzard just has to be willing to make the decision.

Background wise Legion's order halls were literally Horde and Alliance doing raids and dungeons together. Which is all that the 'remove faction barrier' part of the population is asking for.

(the fact that no one cares about faction barriers being sorta gone in PvP thanks to mercenary mode but doing it for PvE is heresy is kind of hilarious)

[Stormdash]

The "lore to justify it" has literally come and gone at the end of like the last four completed expansions. What's false and artificial has been having the faction war persist each time because they are too lazy to just accept that PVP doesn't need a lore justification (or they can just use FF14's, that the conflicts are unsanctioned and deemed without political consequence).