For years, many have said that the Alliance vs. Horde conflict puts the “WAR” in Warcraft.
Yet Warcraft, as a definition and a game, is about more than that… and I’d argue isn’t dependent on the faction conflict to live up to the name.
My suggestion is to keep the faction split for PvP and faction specific cities like Orgrimmar/Ironforge, while allowing for cross-faction grouping in raids and dungeons. Guilds could designate themselves as “neutral” for these purposes. Lore-wise this makes sense because PvE is all about banding together against a common enemy, while BGs and World PvP are skirmishes for territory between various groups within the Horde and Alliance.
Either alternatively or additionally, I would suggest allowing Warmode to serve as an “opt-out” or “opt-in” option. Players in Warmode would play the game as it is now (along with World PvP), players without Warmode would be able to group with members of the opposite faction for PvE.
I don’t want to see orcs walking through Ironforge or gnomes in Orgrimmar, but I do think cross-faction PvE can open up the game and mitigate racials while allowing for friends and gamers to connect in new ways. As a 13 year veteran Azerothian, these are my suggestions and rumination on the matter. Thank you for reading!
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Leave your thoughts & opinions, but as always, keep it civil!
-Aspiring Loremaster Wickham
35 Likes
Factions can be at peace and work together when needed without having completely open borders, so to speak.
As much as people say the faction war is “necessary” for the game, it really isn’t. Outside of the Siege of Orgrimmar and Battle of Dazar’alor, virtually every major climactic battle in WoW has involved both sides putting aside their differences to fight a common enemy, more or less. Heck, even SoO was that way considering the “current” Horde were the rebels then.
There is no reason we can’t have that play out in game with cross faction grouping at this point.
30 Likes
Exactly.
And I’m not saying we HAVE to allow gnomes in Orgrimmar or orcs in Stormwind.
Just open it up for PvE, or utilize Warmode for players who want to keep things as-is.
5 Likes
Honestly if grouping with the Alliance means forcing my Vulpera to turn into a Mechagnome similar to Mercenary Mode then I don’t want to help y’all.
I want my fluffy tail.
2 Likes
My suggestion is to allow you, as a vulpera, to group with Alliance for PvE content. Or to join a neutral guild (functioning similarly to a community).
Mercenary mode for PvP… cross-faction PvE… Warmode for those who want to keep both separate.
7 Likes
I’d kill to have a fluffy tail on Ally side, but sadly, all we get are palette swaps and enlarged humans. Which might be part of the reason why Alliance has half the endgame players that Horde does, but Ion thinks it’s fine, so what do I know?
5 Likes
I think PvE should have open grouping across factions.
PvP I think could even use a shake up. Keeping AvH as the core of PvP is fine, but it would also be cool to spice it up some. Why not have some BGs with 3rd party factions against each other. Just using this as an example but imagine if there was an Aldors vs Scyers BG where traditional faction lines were blurred and fighting with members of the opposite faction made sense from a lore perspective.
2 Likes
If the Sethrak were there to defend, the Vulpera wouldn’t have slaughtered the Allied Race numbers.
1 Like
You realize the WAR isn’t just the Horde X Alliance right?
We’re always in war, be against the lowly murlocs and boars at our starting zones or against the forces of the Legion or the Old Gods.
In the end there’s enough war to justify the Horde and Alliance finally becoming friends and nothing would change.
6 Likes
I really like your idea about guilds having the choice to be neutral or not and also echo the sentiment of cities being kept faction locked.
7 Likes
Alliance doesn’t seem to engage in pvp as much these days so I think that the “war” was removed by the player base.
“war mode” is literally just 'extra anima mode"
4 Likes
That’s what he said, yeah lol
And OP, your proposal is exactly what I’d like to see from faction barriers being loosened. Keep the factions as is in the story, keep the tensions, keep the battlegrounds, keep us hostile with each other’s NPCs and city guards, but let us each, as players and as characters, make the choice of who our allies are.
Hell, the unavoidable main storyline of this current expansion has us putting our lives at risk to rescue each other’s faction leaders. There is zero story justification for why we can’t group, trade, communicate, and organize in guilds together.
8 Likes
I will be honest and admit after a billion threads about this same subject saying the same thing over and over I pretty much stopped reading them and just reply to the title :v
I just read the title and assumed it was yet another post from someone saying that unless horde and alliance are at each others throats there can’t be war lol
My mistake.
2 Likes
Always thought that open world pvp could be war games to keep everyone in fighting shape.
2 Likes
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Horde and Alliance de-emphasized in favor of having more story focused on the actual factions (i.e. Stormwind, Ironforge, the Exodar, the Tushui Pandaren, etc.). I know that won’t happen, but that individuality is sorely missing.
2 Likes
I am for the idea of the factions merging to increase the player pool for pve content… while at the same time the faction leaders saying
“We must keep our abilities sharp and practice combat in skirmishes!” (it is after all important to practice when you regularly kill gods and death itself)
So yes the factions could be “at peace” and we could still have PvP, everyone wins!
7 Likes
I wouldn’t mind a little sanctuary spot in Orgrimmar to fish up Old Crafty though. 
That’s already the case, and all the time though. This game lacks faction wars. Factions provide a richer gameplay experience and story, whereas the opposite is very forgettable… Go enter a dungeon. Imagine instead of orc party members gnomes and dwarves. That’s the only addition I can think of.
Remove factions and what do you have? Lack of pvp lore. Lack of appropriate borders. No rival players. . Lack of personal community. It’s a darker, greyer world with no benefits.
1 Like
Your idea and compromise is perfect.
People act like it can’t work, when it constantly always does. Especially in Lore.
Guilds need to have a cross faction option as well.
4 Likes
Azeroth has a new threat almost on a daily basis, there’s so much stuff going on that there’s like 0 reasons for the main factions to be killing each other.
I would understand the faction war if Azeroth was a peaceful world in which only the factions are a threat to one another, but as it is now, it’s just dumb.
7 Likes