This is awesome news. All I can say is it’s about damn time! 
I think Blizz should be adding cross faction guilds as well. Maybe that will happen after they set this up.
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I was already your friend though! 
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I just resubbed after seven months away because of this. Finally, I can transfer my progression characters back to Alliance. Also +1 to all the suggestions for cross-faction guilds and mail.
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So I still have to switch to horde to join a raiding guild? Useless
also still have to be on a horde server to mythic raid. useless
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I can see a lot of people rolling an Alliance alt now who never would in the past out of fear of having their endgame content hindered. Now they can do so and still play with their friends who are horde.
I feel that this isn’t going to do much until blizzard extends this option to guilds. I feel it’s crucial that they do this. I mean at least give guilds the option make it a toggle or something
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This is wonderful news.
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Days the game has died. Cataclysm, bfa shadowlands and today.
That’s really rich coming from a raccoon.
think we’ll be able to buy cross faction mounts in the future?
i want a few horde raptors and their vicious saddle horsies to match my xmog!
i guess my hope is that if i’m PvP’ing with a horde team…i should be able to obtain/earn their rewards?
So this is useless in open world? I might of read this post wrong. I do that. But it seems that you are leaving a very large portion of your player base out of this announcement. I’m not saying it needs to be perfect but I would like to group up with some Alliance friends and just do some questing? Rare farming?
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I think there is a little something lost with this but it is 99% upside. Just a little something, a little spice missing now, but I think this is good.
Please continue to encourage faction balance, even with these changes. Don’t throw in the towel. Iterate on cool things to give the underdogs. Let Khadgar look at us ingame and say that if Azeroth is to survive, both factions need be healthy. He gives us [Khadgar’s Orb of Dueling] where you use it in war mode (long cd or something) to make a 4v1 gank on you suddenly a 1v1. You get your 1v1, chance to prove your meddle, then the duel ends. The walls of the makeshift arena/magical boundaries come crashing down and their horde allies come to enact retribution on you for killing their friend… but you got to demonstrate you could win the 1v1. Idk, just an idea of how to encourage the underdog faction with cool stuff while making it a ‘fair fight’ in some way (not winning “just because of a 20% dmg buff”)
Will they allow the Horde to communicate in LookingForGroup chat channel?
The old guard - which includes the game director - only made the step because WoW is dying. Not because some sex offenders have left the company, the “old guard” is still active in the game development.
Important questions: Can I talk and party with opposite faction in open world? or only in instances? Does it work like the pvp version where you’re turned into a random race? Is this just a bandaid or are you FINALLY peeling away faction barriers in game? Will this effect major or minor cities?
There are likely those who have read this far with some unease, worried that this is chipping away at a foundational principle of Warcraft. At BlizzCon in 2019, when an attendee asked about cross-faction play, we responded at the time that “Alliance and Horde separation … is a pillar of what makes Warcraft, Warcraft.” But upon reflection, that’s an oversimplification: Alliance and Horde identity is what is fundamental to Warcraft. And while at times that identity has been one of division and open conflict, we’ve seen Alliance and Horde finding common ground and working together ever since Warcraft III (notably including the last time a Warcraft chapter was named “Eternity’s End” …), and the instances of cooperation in World of Warcraft itself are too numerous to count.
I wanted to comment on this, as well as the concern that players are “not ready” for cross faction, since I’ve done some research on this.
Players are beyond ready for full cross faction. A huge motivation for players to leave WoW in BfA was because players had had enough of the faction conflict and the hypocrisy of us being at each other’s throats until we find a Big Bad to distract us. I remember back in Wrath I actively avoided the Alliance-specific quests in Icecrown for the abject stupidity of killing Horde at the seat of the entity that was using dead people to build an army.
From my research, players are ready for cross faction. They would prefer that cross-faction roll out narratively, as part of a story that redefines the narrative, and players prefer the agency to choose whether or not to lean into the change, but overall folks are done being denied agency by being forced into a conflict they have no skin in for.
Blizzard trying to social engineer to hot hatred the factions have for each other amongst the player base was the single worst decision Blizzard could have made for the game. Players have always occupied a tangential space to the conflict. We were the Indiana Jones with World War II being the backdrop, and the Bad Guys were basically NPCs. This was expressed beautifully in Mists where we were pulled away by Lorewalker Cho so weren’t active participants when the Horde and Alliance stupidly decided to fight under the Jade Statue. There are those of us who have always seen ourselves as faction-tangent, a narrative fairly easy to develop as, say a Night Elf player in vanilla where not only were you barely involved with the Alliance, but also never exposed to open Horde conflict - Splintertree Post notwithstanding (fun fact, for a Night Elf player in Vanilla, you had no quests that engage with the Horde in Ashenvale while as Horde, you actively kill Night Elves).
Players should be framed as “free agents” amongst each major faction - the ones to be used as ambassadors and diplomats. Blizzard has to stop micromanaging us to be blind adherents to a faction. While the narrative is easier to find amongst Horde, it was never a solidarity amongst Alliance players (for so many reasons for me to recount at this time).
The tl;dnr is that the faction war was largely ended at the finale of Warcraft III, but ramped up for “reasons” by Blizzard. The hard divide was because players don’t know how to act maturely and Blizzard had to hardcode the divide, but 15-20 years later players are tired of the faction conflict and the hypocrisies it introduces into the story. And ultimately, players want the agency to be able to choose, but would PREFER Blizzard addresses the adjustment in approach to the faction divide NARRATIVELY and not just bald systems changes.
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\o/
Trolls rejoice! Time to talk smack cross faction!
More people randomly kicked from instances and raids!
I know you believe in people and gamers love to game, but reality gamers love to antagonize most of all! Truth is, humanity is awful and online we have anonymity to take it out on each other!
Suffer well dolts! Reap your rewards and find a little more reason to go to FFXIV!
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Finally!!! This is like a dream come true. I hope with outpouring community support that this can be a step forward to opening up more in game barriers for the rest of the content and letting the players decide.
I don’t mind this at all on a limited base and I am glad they are reviewing the impact.
This is excelent, but guilds should be able to be cross-faction and here is why:
- Guilds do not necessarily form part of a faction and technically they are a faction in itself.
- Cross-faction guids will exist in one form or another through the creation of a representative Horde and an Alliance, and the unification of both through the formation of a community. The problem in this case would be the Guild Achievements.
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It’s about time.
Thanks for considering that the strength of WoW is that of it’s players having fun playing with their real world friends.
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