I think factions are a handicap to the game and provide more negative effects than positive one. Here’s a bunch of positive changes that would happen if factions get deleted:
Make WPvP FFA, cowards won’t get randomly helped by a passer-by, less random giant groups killing lone questers because basically everyone will be a lone quester unless they actually group with friends. Make groups and guilds automatically friendly and everything else is hostile. This could even lead to more guild-oriented content or activities made by devs or the community.
BGs become team vs team. Basically same gameplay but at least everyone will have the same queue times.
Can group and fight with and against anyone and everyone. Easier to make groups for any and all content, easier to recruit for guilds as well, easier to play with friends.
No more of that lame language barrier thing. We never needed that, if someone is being a coward in WPvP I should be allowed to inform them of that fact so they don’t incorrectly think they’re being “smart” by running away from the fight they started.
No more snoozefest narrative about hating each other but still teaming up to kill bad guys. That’s a no brainer.
No more faction favoritism in lore or content.
No more racial skill imbalance on one side.
Realm population balanced by default.
Access to all capitals for everyone, much easier to travel the world.
Better accessibility to unlocking allied races.
No more tribal group identity mentality.
Now the negatives:
Your cringy blue Alliance logo sweater will mean even less.
Tattoo removal will require booking ahead of time for all these idiots with Horde logo tattoos on their calf.
Blizzard will make less money off of faction related merch. (boohoo)
We will see even more elves in every groups
I’m not joking I can’t think of any serious negative point coming from that change.
What do you think? Like it? Hate it? Offended? Wanna call the cops? Wanna add something to either list? Pick up the mic and yell it out, soldier.
Warcraft is Horde vs Alliance, even if people want to deny that on the forums, it’s the main appeal of the brand. Remove that and it’s just another fantasy MMO where we kill demons and lovecraft-wannabe things. A lot of people would quit.
Ah yes, the thing that killed WoW in cata.
Mercenary mode already exist and it’s used mostly for Hordes to AFK for quick honor.
But there’s no Horde vs Alliance. We’re always indirectly working together, never really killing each other, never destroying cities like we should, and even if we could I bet Blizz would just make it respawn after a few days instead of forcingthe losing faction to step up and get better. Nothing we do in the game, as actual gameplay, is related to REALLY do this Horde vs Alliance thing. It’s all fakes in BGs and made completely irrelevant and inconsequential in the world.
The essence of Warcraft is already not in the game or not properly respected so I really don’t see why many features of the game should suffer because one tiny ideology is holding on to something so trivial in the bigger picture.
In non-warmode, there already is co-op gameplay and pseudo-grouping between horde vs alliance. As alliance or horde, I often help the other side kill rares and bosses (many but not all are shared) but even if not I still help the other side with their kills or quests or whatever it happens to be.
Can leave warmode as game currently is for those who want the faction conflict. But non-warmode is already conflict free so it wouldn’t really change anything. Its great being able to help everyone. Might as well go full PVE on it its already halfway there.
If there was no H and Alliance those features wouldn’t exist, but they are there. Make factions go away and end up with really nothing as a highlight of WoW.
I read your list, and I am undecided. I mentioned something similar, but different. What if some, (with all the new allied races) start a 3rd faction?
Tauren would leave the Horde and Night-elves leave the Alliance and then add the others you think would fit.
Just like your idea it sounds cool at first but I don’t even know how to make it work. Would 2 be able to become closer and gang up on one? Or wait maybe they break into 4 factions so it’s no uneven! Oh wait…
The main problem of factions, like almost every group in life, is that the majority of people just want to be part of the group that’s already winning and it creates several problems stemming from this. As long as people have the ability to pick their side these issues will always be there. Only way to solve these issues is removing sides entirely, creating more may “soften” the issues but will never really solve them.
Doing it the best compared to others doesn’t mean that’s the best thing for the game.
It started much earlier than that. Horde has almost always had BG queue problems, servers have had population imbalance since forver. Most (not all) racial abilities that were tweaked/rebalanced were because of the opposing side crying about it, never would have happened if there was no side.
I talk about it now but it’s not because it’s a new problem. This has been around pretty much forever, just because it wasn’t a popular topic doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. In the same way a topic doesn’t become more important based on the amount of people talking about it.
And I feel that the factions brought something fun to the game. Granted, I think steps need to be done to adjust the competition population. But over all? I feel they’ve increased the over all quality, despite the hiccups along the way.
I love not understanding your text in game. I like the language barrier and you can always avail yourself of that potion from the Dalaran Sewers if you feel the need to understand Alliance…
Nothing rude in telling cowards that they are being cowards.
But you’re already associated to Night Elves, it can’t really get any worse. And on the bright side you’ll get Orc friends. Everybody wants orc friends, right?
