Just because it’s for sale doesn’t mean it’s selling 
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Been here since '04, not tired of faction conflict. Tired of it being poorly written and tired of the outdated mechanics that limit gameplay opportunity, but not tired of the idea of the conflict at all.
I’m here to ook the other team in the dooker.
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Well what we do know is that there is a ton of it.
We can speculate that none of it is selling if we want but without some numbers I’d lean toward the idea that there wouldn’t have been much of it made to begin with if nobody was buying it. I doubt Blizz is just making that stuff out of passion and eating a loss on those items just for the fun of it.
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Good thing you can still do that in warmode and normal BGs.
Well, not normal BGs because Horde doesn’t win those, but those are still faction v faction.
I’m all for players deciding that sort of thing for themselves. But it should not be canon.
I’m good with it. Just like in RL there can be tensions between two countries or even war between those two countries. While at the same time individual or even smaller factions from those two countries can be friends and work together. I’m sure there are Russians and Ukrainian friends in the world. I remember back in the day playing Everquest I would group and raid with Dark Elves as a High Elf, but I couldn’t go near Neriak (Dark Elf capital) as I would be killed on sight. I think we can still have the conflict in a different way but at the same time open things up for players. Times change. I think we can have our cake and eat it too.
The faction story is pointless. We’ve been through it, for nearly two decades. It’s over. There are a million new stories that can be told without the Alliance and Horde at each others’ throats… stories about war, about loss, about victory, about failure, about life.
If you want more faction war, turn on war mode. Otherwise, the rest of us would very much like to put it into the past where it belongs.
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The Blizzard gear shop gets updated about once a decade. It’s not exactly doing big business.
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Lol it absolutely should be canon. There’s a lot of reason for various in-game races to hate the other side.
We need nuance to the faction conflict (which I realize Blizzard has never been good at) so we can have canon reasons to play outside of faction limitations, but that doesn’t mean the factions should all sit around a campfire and put flowers in each other’s hair.
NASA and the RSA are together in science, but the US and Russia as a whole aren’t friends. The EU and China might get along on economic grounds, but you’re sure as heck not going to see troops on the other’s turf in a friendly capacity.
WoW should be the same. Cooperation in some aspects, conflict in others.
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Well, it is, it always has been, and “let me take my Night Elf to Thunder Bluff” isn’t a compelling reason to change it in my opinion.
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The Alliance are the bad guys. Wow is a critique of the failures of monarchy disguised as republicanism. The peasants have not done well under the Stormwind kings for decades now.
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Right! Cooperation in the story, and conflict in PVP! That can stay in its own modes. Players can have as much conflict as they like.
There’s plenty of conflict to be had in War Mode and in PVP, I don’t think “I can’t PVP” is a good reason to keep the faction war going.
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There is plenty of cooperation to be found over the course of this 20 year story as well. No reason to fundamentally change the game just because some people want the conflict segregated away where they don’t have to see it. Or want it removed entirely.
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Think about it this way: If it’s not canon, it allows players to actually do a lot more in game. Think about if warfronts were PVP and were not canon. Every zone could be like a warfront, there could be warmode only quests and incentives to do the faction war. Without having to write a dumb reason for it to be canon, for it to continue for no good reason. You wouldn’t have to worry about anyone having any complaints about their side not winning. You want your side to win? You gotta contribute.
All the lives the Alliance lost to the Horde, yep as if nothing ever happened.
I mean I think it’s alright to stand together and fight the thing that’s going to harm Azeroth, that’s all fine and dandy, but surely the anger will still be there about the fact that the Horde went on a rampage under Sylvanas’ rule just to give souls to the jailer.
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I PvP always, peace was never an option lol.
Hell, sometimes I’m out there killing my own faction in ranked, lol.
Don’t forget- Warcraft started as a PvP game, when it was still an RTS.
It’s popularity was due to Battle.net’s early PvP lobby system, it was just good.
Warcraft 3 was when the story really started to become the focus.
World of Warcraft is becoming less about crafting war (faction conflict) each expansion.
I’ll never get tired of it, because that’s what Warcraft always was at heart.
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pretty much this.
and “Horde are cartoon villains who the mighty, noble, and absolutely perfect and justified Alliance needs to defeat” = a Horde bias in the eyes of players.
let’s just move on to different stories. we’ve done the Faction Conflict story twice and Blizzard has done it the same way twice, so we know where that road ultimately leads.
AT THE SAME TIME, I kinda enjoy the faction SEPARATION, where each side has its own distinct story path, flavor and lore that converges at the the right time to fight the Big Bad Threat.
Playing both sides meant a unique experience with different characters, dungeons, experiences, and a separate vibe for each side. I wish they would maintain this, but I suppose it’s not financially viable to do so anymore.
Doesn’t mean we always have to be at war.
Make everything neutral. It’s just getting annoying. There’s nothing but whining because of the faction system. Nonstop. One thread after another complaining because someone plays faction X or Y and how bad that feels.
Just give each faction all races. Make all cities neutral, and except for PvP sets, all transmogs and mounts should be accessible to both factions. Then no one can play the victim anymore.
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Warcraft 2 didn’t have battle net at launch, and it became one of the best selling PC games of the 90s before the battle net edition launched in 1999.
Multiplayer(and PvP) has always been a part of it, but the games have always had a story focus.
It just wouldn’t be until Warcraft 3 that we’d see the franchise move past pretty generic “human/elf/dwarf faction good, orc/troll/goblin faction bad” writing.
Exactly. They all could’ve stood up to Sylvanas but they didn’t. Saurfang was all for the invasion up until the burning, and he threatened to kill Garrosh if he led the Horde down a dark path.
Excluding Mayla and Thalyssra, none of em learned from Garrosh.
Sure, lets do the same, “Explore new territory, meet new people, solve their problems, and bring them together against the big bad.” story they’ve done 3 times in a row. Let do it again another three times!
Edit: We’re even helping ANOTHER rebellion. That’s what, 3rd time? Again?
The double standard here is so obvious a niffen can SEE it.
It hasn’t been that way since BFA, and it doesn’t appear to be the case for the future. Faction identity is being thrown out the window, and the fandom’s all for it.
And turn WoW into DnD, where everyone can be anything, everyone can hang out, and the most outlandish things can happen because the fandom likes it. Can’t wait till Fan-Fiction becomes canon. 
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That’s funny, I seem to recall there being a whole army and some adventurers pitching in at some point. I wonder what happened to them…
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