Will we get better cross faction lore support?

[Mace]

Yes, now cross faction play is here and expanding to guilds too, and we can make up our own fantasies, I wonder if they'll add some more official cross faction inter play or at least make it interesting in the story.


Keeping the faction identity and conflict, but also making provision in the story for races and groups that can get along could be very interesting and I wonder if they'll pursue this further now. officially there is very little support in the lore, the factions pretty much hate each other (by developer design) and barely stand each other when cooperating.

This is very unrealistic, especially after so many battles fought together, and though there is enough betrayal and grievous wrongs to make it plausible enough, there are many areas where there isn't and also some instances where we know races across both factions have deeper connections. I would like to see these explored.


1. Forsaken and human
2. Blood elf and Draenei
3. Lightforged with Blood elf and Nightborne
4. Druidic tauren and night elves
5. Blood elf and human
6. Void elf and blood elf
7. Orc and human (via Jaina and Thrall and those who fought with them)
8. Night elf and Nightborne all that history (not forgetting Farodin, Farondis and the Val'Sharah/Suramar night elves in 7.0
9. Mechagnomes and Goblins


Frankly every race has reason to hate, but also reasons can be found to cooperate, in fact you can also have factions within a race that actually want to work with a race or more from the opposite faction and those who just want to kill them. Similarly, not everyone within a faction likes each other.

this nuance would be nicely explored

Some great new ones could form.
10. Worgen and Troll I'd love to see
11. Nightborne and Draenei
12. Nightborne and human
13. Worgen and Tauren
14. Orc and Draenei - yeh, they're supposed to really hate each other, but I think it would be fascinating to see some strong bonds develop amongst some key characters.
15. Dark Irons and Mag'har orcs
16. Mag'har orcs and Void elves

So far, blizzard has always emphasised the hatred, to stoke up the faction aggression and hate - ofc this has had a negative impact on the community, the balance was never sought as the corporations were often either muted, or never followed up well. We should have had both. Would be nice to see some occur. Which would you like to see?

[Throwme]

Considering how often the top of each faction work together, and how they work together, I'd say we don't need more "support" for it in the lore. It's already established as a real thing. good enough for me.

As for the gameplay aspect, I'm all for opening up more crossfaction stuff.

[Myradin]

Not only do the leaders work together, there's numerous neutral factions that consist of player races.

Argent Crusade, Druids, Dalaran most the time, Explorer's league leans alliance but generally works with both, the Sha'tar.

Most expansions generally have us working with a neutral party to take down the big bads. Faction war is usually more of a leveling thing, with exceptions like MoP and BFA.

[bloodwulf]

Im not sure how we need more lore support. We have repeatedly fought side by side against "Insert Random Existential Threat Here" for years. Our leaders were already basically having beach parties, and the outright "villain" leader is on a path to redemption. You are always going to have some friction but at this point it makes less sense to not be allied with each other.

[Aucald]

I doubt we'll get any real "cross-faction" lore support in terms of in-game questions, scenarios, or what have you that allow the Alliance and Horde to mix - the two factions will always remain bifurcated by the in-game divides. In terms of how that'll shape the narrative, I'd wager that Dragonflight and the next expansions will likely have stories where the Alliance and Horde work more or less in concert, albeit separately, with the occasional skirmishing arising from border or territorial conflicts that provide a reason for PvP content to exist. These conflicts will be small-scale and limited, as the developers have professed a desire to put the greater faction conflict to bed with the closing of the Fourth War arc, and they'll have no real impact on either the greater story or any ongoing ramifications.

[Tanaria]

Hasn't Ion already confirmed that their won't be much lore going into the cross-faction grouping?

It's just a player thing where we sometimes see both factions team up, like in Dragonflight where it's primarily Blood Elves and Dwarves.

Overall though - it's just for the players and doesn't hold impact on the overall story.

[Florena]

Im not sure how we need more lore support. We have repeatedly fought side by side against "Insert Random Existential Threat Here" for years. Our leaders were already basically having beach parties, and the outright "villain" leader is on a path to redemption. You are always going to have some friction but at this point it makes less sense to not be allied with each other.

Yep, dating all the way back to WC 3 when humans and orcs and night elves banded together against the Legion. Honestly I kind of wish the game hadn't been so strongly divided on faction lines back in vanilla, building off of those events instead of having the alliance and horde cycle between working together and killing eachother through the years.

[Maljinwo]

I shared a beer with dwarves and we formed a party

The end

[Mace]

I'd also like themes like healing and forgiveness to be sustainable avenues that do get explored and happen cross faction.

No, it doesnt have to be every race, or even everyo e in the races that do, it could be some orcs and say some humans or some humans and some forsaken getting along.

But what unequally dont want is it to be just focused on a pair of groups.

Like all the cross faction cooperation only happens between humans and forsaken and everywhere else and everyone else is forgotten or hates each other

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Im not sure how we need more lore support. We have repeatedly fought side by side against "Insert Random Existential Threat Here" for years. Our leaders were already basically having beach parties, and the outright "villain" leader is on a path to redemption. You are always going to have some friction but at this point it makes less sense to not be allied with each other.

Yet up till now, we have been presented as still hating each other. I,m talking about actually putting g some effort in to show that not everyone does especially since we have worked together so much. We know that, but the story has often continued on as if it never happened and our only me,Tories are killing each other .

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Not only do the leaders work together, there's numerous neutral factions that consist of player races.

Argent Crusade, Druids, Dalaran most the time, Explorer's league leans alliance but generally works with both, the Sha'tar.

Most expansions generally have us working with a neutral party to take down the big bads. Faction war is usually more of a leveling thing, with exceptions like MoP and BFA.

Yes and class order halls to, and yet these happen separate from the official race/nation stance effectively only happening in the bubble of the cause we need to cooperate for, then it's back to normal business of hating and killing each other because we are horde/alliance and that is what we do.

So the dynamic has to have equal levels of cooperation from a player faction and race perspective to be reflected, and not just an NPC one like Argent Daen or Dalaran which arent factions we play

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Hasn't Ion already confirmed that their won't be much lore going into the cross-faction grouping?

It's just a player thing where we sometimes see both factions team up, like in Dragonflight where it's primarily Blood Elves and Dwarves.

Overall though - it's just for the players and doesn't hold impact on the overall story.

Would be nice if it did it feels more real when it is officially canon. Same argument applies fir why we want groups like Wildhammer dwarves labelled as such in ther dwarf customisations , or having something in game that can officially say this is wild bammer it is more meaningful

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Yep, dating all the way back to WC 3 when humans and orcs and night elves banded together against the Legion. Honestly I kind of wish the game hadn't been so strongly divided on faction lines back in vanilla, building off of those events instead of having the alliance and horde cycle between working together and killing eachother through the years.

Indeed, they pushed had to drive wedges and played down hard that ae had worked together, when they should have built both up, not just the hating each other .

That is why now, it would be nice if they build up more of the working together parts

[Iain]

Rather than pairing up races in some type of obvious link it's also possible to find broader themes in which they could fit.

Like Mechagnomes and Lightforged Draenei both being obsessed with the concept of 'purity', but in their own way. Or Highmountain Tauren and Dwarves and Iron Dwarves finding commonality in their affinity with the earth.

Kul'Tiran, Goblins and Vulpera as merchants and nomads.

And it doesn't just have to be cross-faction either, the classes can intersect as well. Like Demon Hunters, Warlocks, Rogues, Void Elves and Mag'har Orcs all considered outcasts by the rest. Or Kul'Tiran and Monks joining the Tauren and Night Elf druids together.

This is how I see Covenants returning to the game. In a more meaningful way than the four Shadowland factions, or the Dragon aspects.

If the theme is strong enough, then the covenant will find all kinds of ways for them to assert themselves across the world. And from the player's point of view, their personal character (race/class) does greatly constrain their choice in regards to such exclusive covenants. But at the same time there can be more generic covenants that largely overlap with all races and classes. That, or maybe particular race/class combinations that feel 'off' need much more effort to gain their trust of that one covenant they picked to represent.

[uuuhname]

something tells me there has been very little in way of how to explain this move in lore, IDK something about this company makes me think they do huge moves like this just on the fly with little to no foresight put into it.

[Tanaria]

Would be nice if it did it feels more real when it is officially canon. Same argument applies fir why we want groups like Wildhammer dwarves labelled as such in ther dwarf customisations , or having something in game that can officially say this is wild bammer it is more meaningful

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But you can already do that with the various roleplay addons.

Plus, who's to say that you can't have a Wildhammer-looking Dwarf Warlock? It might not be lore friendly, but should still be given to the player.

Also, from what I can gather - Ion is all about the theme. The main explorer groups from both factions are Blood Elves and Dwarves, so it makes sense that they have put their animosity aside.

[Mace]

But you can already do that with the various roleplay addons.

Plus, who's to say that you can't have a Wildhammer-looking Dwarf Warlock? It might not be lore friendly, but should still be given to the player.

Also, from what I can gather - Ion is all about the theme. The main explorer groups from both factions are Blood Elves and Dwarves, so it makes sense that they have put their animosity aside.

It's not the same Tanaria. not even close. When neutral factions or rogansiations have got together, races have worked together not as their nations working together, but just as individuals more committed to that field of study or that organisations goals than they are to nationalism. It is not the same as two enemy nations having factions with them that actually want to corporate and work togetther, even if antoher cause binds them.


Blizzard has to present cross faction corporation as a thing mentioned and impacting the story - whether it is races taht get together under a different umbrella like the CEnarion circle or Darlarn or the upteen neutral factions out there, or it is actually a group of blood elves that really do want to work with Draenei and don't want the fact that they are in an opposite faction to stop it.

This scenario is different. The lore can now engineer and make much more of a deal of the Shattered offensive - rather than the cooperation only existing within the context of the sunwell events. Currently in wow, Draenei and Blood elves don't get on at all. However within the context of saving the sunwell they worked together - and that was it... they don't talk to each other, and they kill each other.

This is how the game presents it. SO my point is the lore must now actively make an effort to do something different. I think it must present alternatives OFFICIALLY, to support the cross faction. I also think this would make more interesting developments.

Amongst the blood elves you could have groups that want to reach out to other races in the alliance, and groups that don't like every race in the horde - but you need to write this officially happenning, so now a bloodelf player can go, Im par of this blood elf faction or has now official examples in lore that some blood elves are working with humans or draenei or night elves or gnomes - whether this happens through Dalaran or the Reliquary or it's a faction of blood elves - currently the way it's written, Blodo elves in dalaran or the Reliquary may work with alliance races, but the lore presents them as hating it entirely and only doing it because they have to and the shared goal is more valuable.

this is a hostile faction conflict mindset, there is no open allowance for those who want either peace or working together - only those who want to hate or kill. THis is what I am advocating needs direct lore development input to change. The default is hate across the faction you ened to officially present peace/friendship alternatives.


It would also help to continue to remind the audience that while some are working for friendship and are cooperating, there are still some and in many cases, the majority that do hate and would rather kill. The exact amount is never the same, some races may have more that want peace than less, and it may be the case that they only want it with 1 or 2 races in the other faction. There could be some races that actually like most of the races in the opposite faction, and have more people amongst thier race that feel this way, but they remain in their faction becasue they have even stronger bonds with one or more races in their own faction. I can see the Tauren being an example of actually liking most alliance races, or having most Tauren want to work with most alliance races, but they remain horde rather than neutral because htye have a very strong bond with orcs, trolls and forsaken., and like blood elves just as much as they do any alliance race even if they aren't close to them.


Each race will have a different dynamic, which is how it is realistically with nuance, and in time yo u will flesh it out. Ideally you need a race focused expansion that will explore each race well

[Tanaria]

SNIP

Ion has already said that cross faction will not play a huge role in future lore...his words are all about fitting the theme.

So, in this instance of Dragonflight - if your M+ team consisted of 3 Blood Elves and 2 Dwarves, one could say that it's lore appropriate for the theme of the expansion.
I don't think they're going to jump through hoops to keep the lore up to date with cross faction play.

Plus, we've actually got some friendships within the factions that need re-establishing or have more emphasis put into it, such as:

Night Elves and Draenei - Night Elves were the first race who made contact with the Draenei.
Zandalari and Nightborne - Talanji personally thanked Thalyssra and the Nightborne for their direct aid in saving Zandalar.
Blood Elves and Forsaken/Darkfallen - obvious.

Now, what do I think will happen...we are getting a heavy allied race presence at the start of Dragonflight, so I do hope we see more Nightborne/Zandalari cooperation, but I also reckon the cross faction stuff will occur between Blood Elves/Nightborne and Dwarves/DI Dwarves/Void Elves.

[Shadowferal]

Tauren and Night Elves have always had a common bond in druidism, and that has been ignored for too damn long.

[Mace]

Ion has already said that cross faction will not play a huge role in future lore...his words are all about fitting the theme.

that ws before, Ion has said, if you listen to his more recent interviews, that they are surprised how wiell it has gone down and how it hasnt' changed faction i dentity like they feared it ouwl,d and they will be doing a lot more development of it.

You should know by now this is an ongoing design , and things change.

So, in this instance of Dragonflight - if your M+ team consisted of 3 Blood Elves and 2 Dwarves, one could say that it's lore appropriate for the theme of the expansion.
I don't think they're going to jump through hoops to keep the lore up to date with cross faction play.

I don't htink they need to jump through hoops at all, they just need to emphasise or show where from a nation/race perspective that race x or some in race x want to work with people of race y - and it has nothing to do with being in a neutral faction. Some blood elves are fine working with Draenei or dwarves or humans or night elves - even different factions within the blood elves are, while some hate - this is independent of being in a neutral oraganisation like Darlan or the Argent Crusade. or a class order hall.

Plus, we've actually got some friendships within the factions that need re-establishing or have more emphasis put into it, such as:

Night Elves and Draenei - Night Elves were the first race who made contact with the Draenei.
Zandalari and Nightborne - Talanji personally thanked Thalyssra and the Nightborne for their direct aid in saving Zandalar.
Blood Elves and Forsaken/Darkfallen - obvious.

Yes, that also needs doing, but it's not an either/or - both need doing, in fact the more useful would be to open up the friendly aspect within the races after nearly two decades of doubling down on the the and adversity.

Still it would be nice not to also show other friendships within the races of a faction, which is why a faction based expansion is really needed to explore and expand on these things within races.

Now, what do I think will happen...we are getting a heavy allied race presence at the start of Dragonflight, so I do hope we see more Nightborne/Zandalari cooperation, but I also reckon the cross faction stuff will occur between Blood Elves/Nightborne and Dwarves/DI Dwarves/Void Elves.

I think we get more racial interaction within factions anyway, more so than cross faction - what we get though is still far too limited and depends on who is involved in the expansion but we do get it, and yes there should be more of it - the alliance knows how it seems only race x interacting with humans ever happens, and it's almost non-existent to see race x and race y interacting on the alliance without humans.


But that is not the focus here, because we want the lore to now reflect cross faction intermingling in the settings alongside the hatred and conflict.. if this makes sense.

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Tauren and Night Elves have always had a common bond in druidism, and that has been ignored for too damn long.

That was a classic example of a class based relationship - the reality was that only night elf druids and tauren ones got on, and Malfurion was the one that believed in this. Fandral if you remember was against their inclusion and he had a lot of support.

Does that mean friendship within the two races should have developed? Apparently it did not. Druidism is tiny amongst the Mulgore Tauren too, tauren quests show this where Hamuul himself tells you we are a small group and often not trusted/shunned by our own people ( i don't remember exactly, but Tauren community hasn't fully recognised them yet or relies on them) - it's not as big amongst them as players think.

Players think it's big because Tauren were the only horde race for a long time that could be druids, so all that class's horde characters were tauren, given an impression amongst the playerbase of tauren druidism that was grossly inflated, in a similar way to how the large number of BElf players makes people feel the blood elves and horde are totally integrated and the horde is full of blood elves ,whereas the blood elves are actually a very small select group that there aren't many around, and they don't like places like Orgrimmar either so very few would be there.


Question is though, should they have built more relationships between the two races using druidism as a bridge.. the answer is emphatically yes, as an example of cross faction corporation. Tauren druidism maybe small, but it has very ancient roots, despite the dominating shamanism and hunting that is the bread and butter of that race., so there could be a race wide connecting to roots , fuelled by An'she revivalists, connection to druidism and Sunwalker priests/paladins and night elven friendship bolstered by the Highmountain.


This can be developed - Highmountain could have far more of a story tot ell, We had nothing of Highmountain druids in the story of the zone and group, nor did we have any Highmountain and night elf interaction either druid or Highborne or Priest (not even hunters (consider the unseen path) or warriors) - they just didn't mix at all, however, they can now. Malfurion type night elves have always been open to other races, but it must be noted that you have substantial amount of night elves that aren't - but this is what I am saying. Some in a race will hate the other faction more and always, they may be larger numbers - but htis has been the standard, and it will continue, what we need to see is the exceptions or representation for those who like the race in the opposite faction.

Tauren
So take tauren for example. Within the alliance they could relate to

1. Night elves via druidism -
2. Dwarves via shamanism
3. Worgen humans via hunting and strong code of honour


I don't think they'd get on well with Gnomes, Void elves, Dark irons, Mecha-gnomes. THey'd view void elves as tampering with natural things rather than the elven view of understanding to defend/weaponize against the void or embracing the night as a useful tool (something we see elves, night elves/high elves do when they take on magics). They'd view Dark irons as disrupting the earth with all their digging and mole machines - and be horrified with gnoems trying to substitute nature - becuase the larger tauren society honour and respect nature and the land - it's not a fond affection like elven nature lovers have, or tauren druids would have, . Non druidic tauren -which are the vast majority of tauren, respect the Earthmother and the land

[Shadowferal]

You've seen my ideas before regarding rewriting lore. Several factions including "bridging" factions that connect between races nominally opposed. A Tauren druid should be welcome in Darnassus as "tree friend" or something. (Still working on labels) A Scarlet Brotherhood paladin should be welcome in Stormwind..and the like, etc

[Tanaria]

I don't htink they need to jump through hoops at all, they just need to emphasise or show where from a nation/race perspective that race x or some in race x want to work with people of race y - and it has nothing to do with being in a neutral faction. Some blood elves are fine working with Draenei or dwarves or humans or night elves - even different factions within the blood elves are, while some hate - this is independent of being in a neutral oraganisation like Darlan or the Argent Crusade. or a class order hall.

But it's not a question as to whether Blood Elves who like working with Alliance races exist. It's a question of how important are they to the story and the theme.

Blood Elves are being used in Dragonflight through the Reliquary. The Reliquary have had most lore and conflict with the Ironforge Dwarves and more specifically, the Explorer's League Ironforge Dwarves (who are also present.) It's this Blood Elf faction that overrides any other in Dragonflight because they are part of the exploration theme that Blizzard wants to show us.

Their could be a Blood Elf Mage faction called the Sunstars who love working with Night Elves, but the simple fact is - such a faction of Blood Elves just aren't important. Not in the immediate anyway.

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that ws before, Ion has said, if you listen to his more recent interviews, that they are surprised how wiell it has gone down and how it hasnt' changed faction i dentity like they feared it ouwl,d and they will be doing a lot more development of it.

You should know by now this is an ongoing design , and things change.

Lots of systems have been a success - doesn't mean everything needs lore reasons behind it.
Transmog is a successful system and has been growing since 4.3.

And again - it's theme and Ion has never deviated from the theme needing to fit before they make choices.

If a group of Night Elves and Blood Elves worked together in 11.0 and they called themselves the Sunstar Spellweavers and it matched up with the theme of the expansion, then again - cross-faction lore would be developed.

This time round, it's just the races that make the most sense (minus Dracthyr), of working together to perhaps enhance the cross-faction lore is Blood Elves, Dwarves and the allied races. I'm not expecting Humans, Night Elves, Orcs and Forsaken to get a lot of lore this time as they have been the focus for the past 2-3 expansions, so it's good that we're having a break from them at the very least.

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Yes, that also needs doing, but it's not an either/or - both need doing, in fact the more useful would be to open up the friendly aspect within the races after nearly two decades of doubling down on the the and adversity.

Still it would be nice not to also show other friendships within the races of a faction, which is why a faction based expansion is really needed to explore and expand on these things within races.

A faction based expansion has always been and will always be team red vs team blue.

A racial based expansion would involve delving into the specific races and why they are, who they are and what it means to be playing one.
I would love a racial based theme expansion, but that's just me.

I'm done with faction based expansions because it's always the two against each other and their is never a good ending. If only people who push for them would realise it...

[Shadowferal]

Their could be a Blood Elf Mage faction called the Sunstars who love working with Night Elves, but the simple fact is - such a faction of Blood Elves just aren't important. Not in the immediate anyway.

Not bad.
Blood elf "sunstar" (solar beam, sunfire)
Night elf "nightstar" (Starfire, moonfire)

[Tanaria]

Not bad.
Blood elf "sunstar" (solar beam, sunfire)
Night elf "nightstar" (Starfire, moonfire)

Well I was thinking of a joint faction, like we have with the Blood Elves and Dwarves in Dragonflight with the Dragonscale Expedition.

so the "Sunstars" just seemed to work.