Faction conflict is good for the game

Unfortunately I feel like this has become a severe minority opinion. But I really think that faction conflict between the alliance and horde is good for the game. I’m not saying the factions have to always be at war, Peace treaties are fine, and even a few years of peace is fine. But story wise I think the alliance and horde being SEPARATED is a good thing.

So many people want them merged, even if it’s just for gameplay reasons. I really think this would have catastrophic implications. Forget the break of immersion, one playing in a battle ground, or doing world PVP, even just questing with warm mode on. There’s a sense of camaraderie with other players in your faction. You’re on the same team inherently.

I feel like removing the factions would inherently HURT the identity of the game itself. The two factions make this game unique in my opinion. No other MMO does to factions like World of Warcraft

I think it’s good to have debates between factions as well. Dealing with complicated issues from two sides. I really think it benifits the story and game.

/thread

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Blizzard has proven from time to time again that they are not capable of writing faction wars at all with BfA being the prime example.

BfA has destroyed the Horde’s and the Alliance’s identities, left permanent damage on Azeroth and destroyed an entire playable race without recovery and nothing of that is going to be fixed in Shadowlands. They only said that it’s resolved now without actually resolving anything.

No thanks, no more faction wars by these writers. Not a single second of this faction war made any sense, the event that ignited the faction war (The War of Thorns) already made no sense at all. No second of it. From people like Baine happily fighting a war of extermination against the Night Elves to the Horde cheering when Teldrassil burned to the catapults reaching Teldrassil in the first place and a lot more.

BfA should have never happened and the factions should have been at peace with each other, that’s a story they should have told.

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Quite. I agree on all points.

Other than the obvious reason - that people want them to end because they’re done kind of, well, badly most of the time - I feel that people want them to end because they don’t like “their side” losing. It is, however, an entirely valid response.

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Didn’t we just have an expac where players on the same faction were pitted against each other?

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Maybe On horde side. That would never happen on the alliance. Unless I’m missing something, which you can refresh my memory.

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Agreed.

The blood must flow.

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The races had and will continue to have identities and purpose without being part of factions/faction wars.

Look at the Horde races right now- what has the faction war done for them? Most of them were made to look like crazy evil warmongers with nothing to fight for but blood itself. Several races and characters had their identities damaged rather than fortified.

They have a better chance at exploring their purpose and nuances without the faction (war)

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No other MMO does two factions quite like World of Warcraft because two factions has proven to not be great for gameplay and it’s a difficult legacy feature to maintain.

Two factions constantly pitted against each other was always kinda diametrically opposed to the notion of WC3 itself and more of a weird throwback to WC1-2 for a game that was otherwise really built entirely on WC3. It’s at juxtaposition with the themes of this game’s most memorable events – the Legion attacking through the Dark Portal, Hellfire Peninsula, the restoration of the Sunwell, the Scourge Invasions, the defeat of the Lich King, Taran Zhu finally shutting up – and it makes the game feel the worst kind of stagnant, the kind where you’re running really hard on a treadmill just to see nothing change.

If we could go back to Vanilla, I wouldn’t say ‘end the faction war’. I’d say ‘what war?’ – you just had two foreign powers that weren’t really friendly, didn’t really trust each other, but weren’t looking to fight an open war. And if we could stay in that place without a world-ending event every year that made us put aside our swords and work together and get preached at by Khadgar, Taran Zhu, Thrall, Varian/Jaina when they’re in the mood, Tirion, I’d be happy.

But they made a bed and then they refuse to let anyone lay in it. It’s not fun to follow. It makes both of our factions just feel stupid, as well as us as players.

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Story wise, it is a failure that is often worse than a zero sum game. Neither side can truly win without doing impossible things, given the structure of the MMO to the other.

Hell, mechanically it is a failure. The vast majority of high end PvP and raiding favors one faction in terms of where the player base is. I bring it up just to make the point- I’m an LFR hero who long ago exhausted my patience for PvP.

The problem of “I want to feel good about my faction while kicking yours in to the ground like it’s playing Civ against the easiest AI” is, that’s not an AI. It’s other players, and if there is any player base at all that things “Oh boy! I want to feel like my guys are awful people while the other side turns us in to paste!”

It is probably impossibly niche.

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It just doesn’t work when you have the factions both having the same goals in fighting these cosmic level threats every other day.

There needs to be solid reasoning for why the factions continue to war with each other but it doesn’t seem the writers can come up with anything other than ‘lumber’ and ‘they might attack us someday.’

The whole BfA faction war was because Sylvanas needed more souls and I guess murloc and quillboar souls aren’t good enough. The war wasn’t even for political ideology or survival. Everyone just got duped because the story said they had to go along with it.

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I like faction conflict for pvp but I think raiding cross faction needs to happen at some point. We spend most of our time working for neutral (alliance) heroes anyway and mechanically faction-restricted raiding totally screws over alliance players for no real reason

If your character is a committed soldier for their faction then that’s what war mode is for anyway

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I have to agree. The faction war is one of my main reasons for playing.

Sure, I have alts on Alliance, but no part of me actually cares for that faction in the slightest beyond them being something I get to fight and kill. If I was forced to be a part of them or whatever as some sort of “faction merge” on my Horde toons I’d probably just quit playing retail altogether.

To me, the Alliance are on the same level as Gnolls or Murlocs. I have no desire to be a part of the Gnoll or Murloc team. I like being a part of the Horde overall, even if I heavily dislike the direction its going in.

If I wanted to take quests from Anduin and the like, if I wanted to fight for the good of the Alliance or whatever, I would main Alliance. There’s no part of merging the factions that appeals to me whatsoever.

The faction war is probably the most fun I have in this game. There’s nothing more sweet and simple then going out and killing Alliance just for the fun of it. I don’t need some grand political stance to go to war with them, they’re the other team. That’s reason enough. It gives a great chance for the other Horde races to unify without diluting the experience with the presence of Alliance races and characters like what happens in every other expansion where we fight some big bad like in Legion or Wrath.

It would be like if Bioware actually ended the war between the Empire and Republic in Swtor and had them all get along and hold hands. I’m a Sith, a member of the Dark Council, there’s no reason for me to want peace with the Republic for any other reason than to deceive them and move into a more preferable position for another war against them, and the same goes for the Horde and the Alliance.

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Regardless if any of us like the faction war or not we all know it is going to keep continuing. Although I suspect the next major one wont be at least 3-4 expansions from now and at the point who knows, maybe WoW itself will be all but ready to be sunset as a game and WoW 2(or another new Blizzard MMO) ready to start on the horizon.

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Maybe good for the game, but bad for the nerves of most people here.

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I always loved the faction conflict. It was at it’s best in WotLK though. Where both sides mostly just spent their time flipping each other off and trying to be the first one to kill the big bad, with the occasional violent dustup.

When characters like Garrosh and Sylvanas started turning it into a hardcore atrocity engine, it became a lot less fun.

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As far as I a my concerned the only time that faction rivalry was done well was in the Argent tournament.

Not mustache villain horde or damsel in distress alliance. ( yea, Garrosh was dick but not yet a villain)Just a simple, if a bit contrived competition between the factions.

The tournament out some cosmetic stuff tied to the races and allow a level faction identity without sacrificing characters or cities.

So if we’re to hav another faction competition, I wouldn’t mind it.

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Looks at all the angry nelf posters, and dissatisfied non-MHP posters.

I want whatever you’re smoking.

And I’m not even factoring in how laughably unbalanced the PvE raiding scene is. The factions are an outdated concept that Blizzard cannot or will not work around of fix. You have to let it go.

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in theory, it benefits the story, the characters, and players enjoy defending their side.

in practice, the story is destroyed, characters do either incredibly stupid or OCC things so the story can advance and you have people like baine participating in a war of extermination.
and players extremely angry desiring the destruction of the entire playable enemy faction and insulting each other personally.

Yeah no, go to hell faction war.

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I love faction conflict, especially faction war. Blizzard just hasn’t handled it well. The 2 archs that most explored faction war wound up devolving into Horde civil war, breaking moral parity between the factions, and having some measure of faction cooperation against elements of the Horde.

If the writing staff ever got competent, I’m always ready for another go.

Horde vs Alliance is the story aspect I enjoy most. All the expansion big bads are just temporary antagonists, so I lose investment in them quickly. Horde and Alliance are forever.

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My main interest in the faction war is the fact that it really does give the Horde room to be as far as it’s going to get from the Alliance.

Because unfortunately, “Neutral” usually translates into a story where the main conflict is a third party threatening the world, while we follow the reactions of Alliance leaders, their long time friends/lovers/confidants, their organizations, their architecture, etc. And the Horde can come along too… if they behave.

Which I don’t necessarily fault Blizzard for. Alliance stuff is more conventional fantasy. The sources/inspirations are more numerous and well documented. It’s themes are often easier to conceptualize and grasp. It’s easier to write. It’s architecture is easier to design. The characters are easier on the eyes and easier for us the audience to project onto.

The faction conflict means you can’t rely as much on those easier shorthands.

Putting the Horde and Alliance at odds means they can’t work together, and assets needs to be separate, at which point Blizzard is kind of forced to give the Horde it’s own zones, it’s own architecture, it’s own characters, its own conflicts, it’s own narrative, and it’s own identity. And in doing so, they create something that is fairly unique in the fantasy gaming sphere.

Also, I’m one of those people who would rather see someone try something new/interesting/controversial and fail than see the same ol’ same ol’ executed merely competently.

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