So much this.
The players are the Champions of Azeroth, we should be able to do whatever we damn well please.
And if a Night Elf player really hates the forsaken, Then they can deny them from groups, or talk smack to them.
The idea is to give people the choices to do what they want. Not force them into factions they have no control over.
My apologies for establishing the confusion in the first place my friend. Never intended that.
That’s fine, that’s your prerogative. I blame it on their ineptitude for writing the Alliance as anything other than the knights in shining armor. Because they’ve said it themselves, Alliance are boring to write about. And that’s their fault. They have some fascinating races with rich lore and history, but they focus on Humans. It’s their fault the Alliance are so boring.
As for pandering to the Horde, if they actually did we wouldn’t be going through MoP 2.0.
I do care, but that’s my proposal to fix it. I’m not going to force myself to play a character I don’t want to and move to a faction I have no friends on. I care about the issues but I can’t do a thing about them. My solution is dramatic but it solves a lot of issues the game has, faction balance notwithstanding.
I’m on mobile, it’s harder for me to Google anything. Also, again, I mentioned I don’t keep up with it because population doesn’t bother me. I’ve played with the same 10 people for 6 years; I don’t pug at all so population doesn’t directly affect me.
I could have Googled but the snarkiness wasn’t entirely necessary.
And that’s fair. I tend to get grumpy and angry during my arguments/discussions, too. But it’s just whenever we talk, I get a feeling of just loathing from you. And I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it.
When death isn’t permanent, decisions have no value.
The only reason the whole “lets all hold hands and put the conflict behind us!” approach sounds attractive at all is because people are meta-gaming for their benefit.
No night elf would willingly work with a forsaken. Not ever.
Not after Darnassus, not after Dark Shore, not after Gilneas, not after Lordaeron, not after the Wrath Gate, not after the events of WC3 that spawned them in the first place.
You both win, they win.
They betray you, they win.
It would be a lop-sided relationship. They can’t trust them.
I can’t say I am a fan of the idea.
I myself kind of want all neutral organizations to completely separate both faction races into independent organizations instead.
Get your head out of your butt, and think about gameplay for a second.
Nothing would change for most players. The Forsaken players may see the occasional night elf or human running around, since those are the Only Alliance races anyone plays anymore.
Some Night Elves may just not care. at all.
Some are Refugees, some are exiles from Darnassus, Some night elves just don’t have a direct connection to their race. A Night Elf could’ve grown up with goblins in Gadgetzan for all we know.
You don’t need to connect every single character to the Horde or the Alliance, and it’s narrow minded to do so.
And if you play a Character that hates the Forsaken, then man up, and don’t invite them to groups, talk down to them TO THEIR FACES.
Because with the factions the way they are. The only thing you can do is AFK in boralus, and tell yourself that you Hate them.
Even I grow sick of accidentally falling into random unmarked faction bases; to be greeted with flag arrows. It’s even more agitating with daze effects.
Well, on the plus side - I wouldn’t be here to disagree with you on the subject so I guess there’s that. 
I want the faction war to take a preeminent place in the game, but that’s me.
In-character? You rolled horde. Get on the BBQ! It’s burger time!
Out of character? You’re suggesting a solution I am very against even though I know it would fix the problem because of what state it leaves the game in. I’m afraid of what it would do to the alliance moving forward because it fixes the problem for the game without fixing it for the alliance.
Just look at Kul’tirans and Mechagnomes. This is what the devs thought we wanted for ARs and they’re hideous. Nobody plays either race. They are the least popular races in the game bar nothing.
Meanwhile the horde gets Vulpera, a race that is so fluffy and cute you couldn’t swing and miss with them if you were blindfolded.
If you remove factions, you remove the need to ever pay any attention to my faction ever again. You can just make “general improvements” and call it good enough.
We already know the devs enjoy working on the horde and tend to put their best efforts into your content, even at the general expense of alliance content (don’t start on the city designs. Boralis has problems too). I mean, just look at the Crucible of Storms raid.
Two bosses for the alliance-themed raid. Meanwhile uldir had eight.
Know why there was a difference? Crucible was supposed to be an eight boss raid that ran parallel to uldir. It was supposed to be the final implementation of the separate-but-equal raid leaderboard system.
Guess which raid they built first!
Guess which raid got cut for time.
This is just an example. It has been happening on the regular since Warlords of Draenor when they did the same thing for the Shattrath raid that was supposed to finish Yrel’s story and make the Blackhand cutscene make any kind of sense.
Remove the factions and we never see them get better at alliance content. We never see them put in effort. We never get to see them try because there’s just no reason for them to. Because the alliance can just go enjoy the horde content out of neutral cities.
It’s why I make a call to just force faction-changing the alliance. It’s what I feel the actual end-game of faction removal really is by way of the simple, logical manhour-triage that happens in real world development environments.
And you can say, “That’s not what would happen!” all you want. But once you go the route of removing factions, you can never, ever take it back. So I only have to be right once. Meanwhile if any improvements were to ever happen for the alliance they would have to fight for every. single. improvement because now there would be an easier route to take.
“Just give it to everyone. There aren’t any factions anymore!”
I want them to fix my faction same as they did the horde. Not favored. Just brought up to par.
An important thing to note, For both Briselody’s argument, and mine:
This player base absolutely has a Silent majority. Most Vocal opinions on the forums do not represent the larger whole.
HOWEVER: That silent majority, overall. Could not possibly care less about the faction divide.
Most people in WoW really just want to play the game with their friends, and that majority of players really wouldn’t care if they could suddenly team up with all the races.
There isn’t going to be a mass exodus of players due to the end of the faction divide. Most people genuinely wouldn’t care, and many would still retain their pride for their faction, without being overdramatic just because they get the occasional human in their dungeon group.
“Silent Majority” is a logical fallacy. You cannot claim to speak for them.
Ollin, I don’t wanna hurt you or anything.
But that is exactly what blizzard does. Right now.
That’s how the Alliance allied races came to be. Because blizzard counts giving the Horde something as “General Improvements” since that is the only fantasy they want to pander to.
And it’s difficult to say they are wrong in this regard. IF they please the Horde with every AR, then they’ve pleased the majority of the player base. They don’t need to pay attention to the Alliance ever again.
This bleak outlook you see in the future is already here. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true
Bingo. This is the only way the Alliance will get any love. If it benefits the Horde too.
And that’s perfectly fair. I don’t believe I deserve the vitriol you have towards me for my idea, but that’s your choice at the end of the day.
I’m not going to go through and respond to everything, but a couple of big tickets:
It’s hard to use WoD as a justification for anything other than annual expansions don’t work. WoD was bad for everyone, and I will always write it off as wasted potential. I wanted the Shattrath raid, too. They screwed everything up in that expansion.
As for this expansion, They screwed up here as well. Crucible was an awful raid for what it was and should have been full or cut. It’s existence virtually meant nothing.
I do understand that removing factions is dramatic and will never be able to go back on. That’s the dramatic change. What I would be happy for would be cross faction grouping but maintain the faction divide. It would solve participation issues. But at the end of the day, as I said to Midare, that’s what I want for the game but it’s still just an opinion. I respect others but will always advocate for mine.
I also want the writing to improve because it’s trash tier garbage right now, but I don’t see it ever improving so long as the faction conflict exists. No growth or evolution, just the same boring conflict. Even the surprise twists and attacks are predictable now. But that’s also just my opinion.
Whatever happens (or doesn’t happen) the Alliance will continue to decay and I don’t know if Blizzard can or will fix them. I don’t believe Blizzard can write or improve anything right now considering their stances on popular requests, but I’m also being cynical because my own requests (such as account wide essences) aren’t being addressed so to me it feels like they aren’t doing anything.
So at PVE, should I forget that Gilneas will remain uninhabitable and that Darnassus will always be destroyed, and conduct honest cooperation with the orc / forsake / blood elf who participated in every act performed against my people and allies?
How nice guy I am.
Personally I don’t like the idea. I didn’t like Legion, having members of the horde in the same class hall, when outside they were acting against me and ally.
But if Blizzard decides to do that, what good will my ultrage do?
We just continue to humiliate the alliance as we have been doing since BfA.
I’d rather just see a third faction where we are just neutral to each other.
No. you absolutely shouldn’t forget about it. Its a major story point in lore, and will affect the history of Azeroth for years to come.
But, for gameplay reasons. People should have the CHOICE to side with anyone they want. Since the Player Character can be whoever they want to be.
And if you want to be vengeful about Darnassus and Gilneas, More power to you. I’m right there with you.
But everyone should have the freedom of choice to do what they want.
And I don’t see alliance writing improving if we cease to ever be an issue again because technically our stuff works so long as we can get help from the Horde.
Why have story at all past that point if you’re going to get rid of the factions?
Why bother maintaining it if it’s just going to be an illusion? It’s just wasted effort. Especially if you don’t need to ever put effort into one of the factions because they can just get help from the other faction when they fall short.
This is why I keep coming back to forcing faction-transfers.
If you’re just going to maintain an illusion why not just simplify the whole thing and re-release WoW as the World of Hordecraft? I mean, if you’re just going to keep the alliance around out of pity…
…and Acti-Blizz could get by with half the dev team. Overhead goes down, stock price goes up. This is far more likely to be what happens.
Doesn’t seem like it to me.
Actually having a so-called leader abandon you when you’re under attack is just as bad.
The Alliance writing would improve because maybe your faction leaders wouldn’t have to be written as idiots to make the faction war make sense. The Horde is far weaker than the Alliance right now, in almost every way, yet they want them to still seem like a threat so Anduin, Tyrande, all of the Alliance has to be made idiots to make the Horde seem threatening. TWO civil wars, the Horde shouod hardly exist at this point, yet it will for faction conflict.
I used to love Night Elves in Warcraft III. They were declawed right make them fit in with Human morals. I loathe that more than almost anything else in this game, that Human morality that just ruins the Alliance. It’s part of why I don’t play on that side; it’s boring.
The Alliance story could be more about different races rather than Blizzard trying to shove Horde and Alliance down our throats at every turn. The faction conflict steals the spotlight so other story can’t happen. And it’s so bad that it gets frustrating.
Rhuor hasn’t been Horde since MoP. He’s been with the Cenarion Circle for the last six or so years, but I can’t play that in game so I’m stuck Horde. 
I am not blind, Ollin.
Forcing faction transfers would work, you know. But it would upset a great many people.
Blizzard won’t do it, for a simple reason.
If they split the Playerbase 50/50 Then they have to work to please both sides.
If they keep it the way it is now. They only have to please one faction, and they can milk money from all the Transfers.
I was mad when Teldrassil burned. But I was more upset that the Alliance saw nothing for it.
They only want to please the Horde. It already is world of Hordecraft.
Hanging on to an outdated mechanic, is only forcing them to create half baked, lazy content for the Alliance.