Is there really any? We’re pretty unified now so other than just two sides, we’re virtually the same. When a new player joins who are they picking and why? We share the same cities, the same zones, same quest hubs. Why are they fighting in PvP? All the story beats going back several expansions have us working together.
This isn’t me saying “we need war!” But what is the difference? How can they realistically get it back on track? Do they even want to?
Best thing I can say is, It’s hard to have a faction identity when there’s barely a racial identity.
The ideas people have about the races we have really all just stem back from vanilla, barring the new/allied races. We don’t have prominent leaders. Or leaders at all with the councils.
How can you build a identity when a large player base really don’t know anything about the factions other than “pretty vs ugly”
Edit: also want to mention, they’ll release an allied races who’s prominent in that expansion, then by the next their left in the dust too
But these days, it is assumed everyone plays both sides.
Also, they only write a singular story everyone experiences rather than faction-specific lore. We stopped getting those after like MoP/WoD.
Your experience will be the same regardless of what you play.
I just hate how they keep introducing some new race and just abandon it for the next thing.
Legion races are abandoned, BfA races too.
Can’t wait until Haranir are abandoned for some other elf variant, and all those players reroll to whatever that is.
Would rather they just improve all the older stuff instead of new things that aren’t all that creative nor original. (I suppose Midnight is partially going in that direction.)
Allot of the loss of racial/faction identity has to do with the loss of the finer details of how you used to start in game. Racial identity knowledge for players used to come from having a start zone specific to your race and having spend a significant amount of time questing and leveling that gives a sense of racial identity. Then your questing got more faction related for the faction identity.
Now everything is fast tracked, its, pick a race, faction fast track start area, & directly to the new expansion (& previous expac) to play. Of course the new players have no sense of racial/faction identity.
And I have a hard time believing that we’ll get through midnight without another. We have been sharing a hub city for a while and so have been in proximity. But that city has never been Silvermoon. I can’t imagine having us together for a whole expansion in an iconic, culturally important city like Silvermoon without some kind of drama being sparked.
Arathi storyline, questline on Isle of Dorn, and I can’t remember if the third one was in spider town or Hallowfall, but there was a brief moment in one of the questlines that had snark in it from the factions.
Yeah, Mechagnomes racial should be the ability to transform into mechanized travel forms (ground, flying, aquatic). If Blizz did THAT, that race would go nuclear in terms of player population imo lol
I was getting snippy comments and warnings all the time when I went to an opposite faction neighborhood. I stopped doing that after the first week. lol
I was reading alittle bit about the arathi highlands and I guess that does. It’s a pretty small incident featuring the mag’har orcs. As google put it “two-chapter storyline” I don’t know about the Spider town/hallowfall but snark hardly counts. I guess something’s better than nothing though. All the same I’m not arguing for more horde vs alliance just more racial identities/faction identity
There are all sorts of cultural and community stories and interactions at all levels to explore. Dividing the world up into just two sides raging at each other in an eternal stalemate isn’t something that’s particularly interesting to me.
Infact even Racial identity has been worse since WoW launched. Why should night elves care about humans/gilneans or anyone. The rest of em for nearly 20+years let the Horde encroach, Terraform Ashara (zone), Savage Ashenvale and then burn Teldrassil.
Faction identity hasn’t really felt like a lot ever. You can yell for the Horde/for the Alliance but even as far back as End of Vanilla/TBC (and I’m playing it right now) they already start even breaking racial identity.
As horde towards later phase of classic you literally start allying with a faction of the cenarius circle, OK.
Forsaken go from beware the living to ‘oh there’s a blood elf I can save’.
Faction identity was always strongest with the players and how driven it would make them to fight in all the maps (whether open world or BGs) that Blizzard has crafted.
So in my opinion hold onto that. You still have some wonderful ‘faction diff’ in the maps/areas that are faction based especially BfA/WoD and faction zone hubs in Cata/WoTLK/TBC and ofc classic.
with that said
One thing I do miss is a bit of Horde savagery in retail compared to classic. The distinct impression I get doing old EK/Kalimdor is that as Horde we are a very oppressive force and it feels powerful. I’m actively killing Night Elf Guardian leaders in Ashenvale/killing protectors of Cenarius/Druidic leaders, I’m using troll voodoo magic on the wildlife to corrupt it.
This does resurge a bit in BfA but then dies completely from SL onwards.
Just my thoughts as someone a bit here and there on this topic.
I get that. We’ll see some of the tension and culture in Silvermoon, but… that’s hardly faction identity, just that one racial identity.
Though, if those Belfs get snippy with my Nelf being in their city, there will be words. Those Belfs assassinated a lot of Nelfs in Ashenvale during the War of Thorns, leading up to the burning of the tree. They don’t get to sass me!
New players won’t be as attached to, or understand the lore of, their played races.
The old starting areas were just way better for lore than Exile’s Reach, where noobs are forced to go.
Probably dated and worse from a gameplay perspective, but you can’t deny a homogeneous experience kinda hurts the uniqueness of each race, compared to what we had prior.
Each starting zone also culminated in you meeting your racial leader at some point, usually around level 10-12.
This is correct.
I started this game thinking ‘ooh pretty race’, I want to make a Lightforged Draenei someday (2021).
I understood faction identity most when:
Started doing Loremaster
Started playing Classic. Horde especially. Classic Alliance is surprisingly independent.
As a Shadowlands starter, new players won’t really much faction conflict outside of occasional insults such as when Turalyon/Geya’rah are training up troops.
This isn’t the case entirely and I haven’t done the traditional starting zones since before cataclysm but how many of those leaders either) aren’t dead, arent present, aren’t replaced
Arathi Highlands? 
