Could it work? Assuming they still go along with making everyone able to play with anyone else, and we player characters kinda work more like mercenaries than die-hard faction loyalists.
Faction 1: Orcs/Trolls/Tauren
Faction 2: Forsaken/Blood Elves/Goblins
Faction 3: Humans/Bronzebeards/Gnomes
Faction 4: Night Elves/Worgen/Dark Irons
Fill in the rest with the other races where seen fit. Thoughts?
In a lore sense? Sure.
Mechanically for the game? Not really.
i think a faction rift would be cool in theory, but i don’t know if splitting the diminished player base like that would make the new factions feel empty. also, i think you’d need to let players pick which side they want to join rather than choosing for them based on race.
Lore wise it would work better than the current set-up, but I can’t see it ever happening.
I’m in WoW for the Horde, so if the Forsaken broke off I’d just roll a Troll or Orc and keep espousing the same anti-Alliance/pro-burn Alliance views on a Troll or Orc.
Besides, Tauren belong either with humans or in the dirt, so these lists are already all wrong.
I don’t care what you do with the rest of them but Tauren and Night Elves need to be their own faction. They have a ton more in common with each other than their factions.
would have made sense
too late now
My proposal:
This minimizes work Blizz would need to overhaul the game mechanically, and makes the lore more flexible moving forward.
Gamewise, it wouldn’t work. Whoever gets BEs will have far quicker Que times
Shame Blizz never had the guts to lock factions/races when bloated disproportionately to the point of detriment.
So if a new player comes along he is force between like 2 to 3 races only within each faction?
Doesn’t sound healthy for the player base at all
Neither does a PvP and M+ ranking list containing two Alliance players for every hundred Horde but here we are.
Horde without Goblins is no Horde. What is going to happen to all the Goblin Zepplins flying around Orgrimmar?
And the Dark Irons with Night Elves and Worgen?
Uhh … the BEs as a people would NEVER side with the Forsaken after Sylvanas has riddled their racial name with hypocrisy (outside of those few that could overlook their own racial heritage to such an extent they’d independently join her). The Bilgewater are also not stupid enough to join the faction of the woman who’s on the top of rest of the worlds biggest hit list. They’re a business … ostracizing 3/4ths of the worlds population by sticking by Sylvie is bad business.
As for Faction Four? Why would the Worgen and the Dark Irons abandon the Alliance for the sake of the NEs? I understand that the Worgen ow the NEs A LOT, but you’d essentially be asking them to sacrifice the best chance of getting their own homes back; to reinforce the NEs getting THEIRS back instead. The Dark Irons also do not have any real connections with the NEs (and they CERTAINLY don’t have many (if any) cultural similarities with them). The WIldhammer “maybe”, but definitely not the Dark Irons.
If blizzard sucks at writing, designing, and balancing for 2 factions, why and how would they get better at four?
Look at the class halls. Some were great while others were crap.
Well, they could very easily be better with more.
The problem with the factions we have now is that they don’t mean anything. They’re too diverse. What does the Horde stand for? Nothing. Blood Elves, Forsaken and Orcs have virtually nothing in common, aside from the most empty nonsense like “?they want freedom?”
If you had more factions, and each had a narrower, clearer focus, they’d be MUCH easier to write well.
Wouldnt: Night Elves, Worgen, and Kultirans work better?
Personally, I favor an even crazier approach: go nuts. Tons of factions, but allow cross-faction guilds and groupings so they’re not overly isolating. Also, some races exist in multiple factions.
Something like:
Nature-Lovers: Nelves, Some Worgen, Some Tauren
Savage Horde: Orcs, Tauren, Darkspear Trolls, Ogres?
The Highborne: Belves, Nightborne, maybe some hb Nelves
The Alliance: Humans (stormwind, Strom, gilneas, Kul’tiras), Dwarves, Helves
The Knights of the Ebon Blade: Yes, literally all Death Knights are their own faction
The Cartels: Goblins, various races employed by goblins.
So on and so forth. A multitude of narrow factions with clear aesthetics, clear common culture and clear goals.
They could easily write two. We had our answer in vanilla: monsters who want freedom. We had it after mop: a family that protects on another. Even Garrosh’s wasn’t so bad in cata: security. They don’t have to conflict with each other, and frankly any of these warchiefs could’ve found a balance. Blizzard are just trash writers.
Forsaken can either grow up as a race or piss off and be their own “pragmatic” faction. They can go force undeath on others without the rest of the Horde being their meatshields. I’m not dying for their personal vendetta against life.
We keep the Blood elves and Goblins tho.
Oh, and they can take Gallywix with them, we’ll install Gazlowe as the Goblins’ new leader. Y’know, someone who actually cares about his people.