GamesBeat: Talking about community requests and maybe stubbornness, is something like cross-faction raiding a bit more on the radar as a possibility these days?
Hazzikostas: I’d say that is a bit more on the radar, yes. That’s one of those areas where, a lot of things to solve, a lot of things to figure out to make it happen, but at the end of the day, if Jaina and Thrall are working alongside each other in the raid, why can’t Alliance and Horde players also work alongside each other in that raid, especially when we know it’s going to solve a lot of the social problems people are grappling with? Particularly trying to keep a high-end Alliance guild together in North America or a Horde one in Oceania.
I’m sorry did we read the same thing? Because he literally says cross faction raids might be a thing someday. Not that I particularly want but I find your response to just be amusing.
Blizzard has even stated at one point that merging the Factions is more likely than adding a third Faction so this statement is no surprise.
And yet… Holinka stated that PVP is not going anywhere while he is around so… Expect the Factions to merge and a new second Faction to show up.
If Blizzard must add a Card Carrying Villain Faction(using every Race available to Horde and Alliance) to replace the Horde than so be it! And it will have to be a Card Carrying Villain Faction otherwise the Faction when it reaches the point where it has to work with the Good Guy Faction the Fans will start demanding reconcilement!
Naturally the Players will switch between Factions via a Quest so the Players can be persuaded to join or leave the Good Guys just as the NPCs can.
So what? PVP doesn’t have to disappear to let people raid cross-faction.
There can still be a cold war type situation lore-wise. I don’t expect everyone to immediately make friends on the opposite faction and can easily imagine some people staying true to their old views and wanting nothing to do with who they still consider “the enemy”.
P.S. Oh and let everyone speak Common, already. We know that in lore they do.
Oh I can just see it now. Player Y just ended a BG where Player X from the opposite faction just spent half the time ganking him and possibly tea bagging his corpse only for both of them to end up in a PUG. That will be amusing.
If Blizzard does intend to allow cross faction raid they will either have to go all in or not at all because a “middle ground” is just a toxic pool waiting to consume its player base.
I’m not sure player Y would even care past that point, unless they are bad at losing. This is the exact situation that comes up all the time in any game with an online pvp aspect (warcraft 3, CoD, WoT, etc)
They don’t even have to “merge” the faction, just merge the playerbase.
I don’t see how the Horde and Alliance can “merge” without some serious retcons or heavy-handed plot fiat after the dumpster fire that was BfA’s and Shadowlands story. That said, its a proven fact that the Alliance raiding scene is on its last legs thanks to Blizzard’s lackadaisical neglect of the faction imbalance in the PvE scene for nearly a decade. They can totally push the factions to the background and merge the playerbase while keeping the PvP scene. It also doesn’t help that Square-Enix is doing this far better than the once “best” in the industry bercause the current WoW dev decision makers are inept boomers who can’t adapt.
Also keep in mind that Ion is a lawyer first and foremost. Never take any of his vague statements as fact. Lying comes as naturally to a lawyer as breathing.
Having a raid in which Alliance and Horde participate and gear towards the same end is not the same as saying they have to willingly cooperate or even help each other.
The Zuldazar raid and the Undercity two sieges would be fine examples of something that could be a cross faction raid in which both are not only not cooperating, but actively fighting each other.
And I for one would be disappointed if the Horde started to be thrown to “all mushy” over alliance after all the “dismantle the horde” and some other such non sense the alliance has done throughout the years. And I would not trust someone wanting to get all mushy with the Horde after all that happened, being horde will or not, to the Alliance territory. That would be more fake and bad writing than Anduin’s whole life.
Was there even a single Horde Hero in that expansion? lol
Don’t worry Khadgar, Illidan, Velen, Tyrande, Turyalon, Alleria, Magni, and Malfurion, I’ll help you push back the Void Nightmare, cleanse the Temples of Suramar and Elune, defeat your nemesis Kil’jaden, and save your Pantheon…
…oh Vol’jin? Yea, he died, lol. Sylvanas?? idk, she’s talking the questional dead people, whatever…
When was the last time that faction-based lore was considered a good addition to the game that enriched it as a whole instead of just being divisive and turning players against one another
. But it’s a nice possible addition to the game