Why is it Horde, Alliance, or nothing? It always puzzles me that we have various unaligned/neutral groups within WoW’s universe on Azeroth and beyond, and yet we must be Alliance or Horde; would or could we ever see cross faction/no faction guilds, communities, raid groups etc?
Because this game is built on a two faction system and will never change from that. If you want the closest to joining a “neutral group” then play Legion.
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Well it was built on a two faction system, but given BFA’s nuke performance I think it’s safe to say the “Orc vs Human” dynamic is rather outdated? We’ve grown out of it, the World in-game has moved away from it, and even the plot in most expansions makes it nonsensical…wouldn’t it make more sense canonically to divide both factions into further friendly and unfriendly subfactions? It’s not like outside of PVP we actually do any “fighting” with the other faction…
I can see why people would like this, as I myself am intrigued by the idea, I just don’t really see it happening.
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It seems more like you want a game mechanics answer than a story answer. Canon-wise of course there is no reason the factions could not divide up into smaller neutral organizations - they do that already. But this isn’t reflected as a choose from the start because those organizations aren’t large enough to encompass most players.
The reason you play Horde of Alliance is because they are the two largest none villainous (most of the time) factions - much larger than any of the neutral organizations you mention. It’s just more likely your character would start out as Horde or Alliance and then maybe work with a neutral organization after the fact.
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Story wise most nations are Horde or Alliance for much the same reason many nations got affiliated with the USA or USSR, often whether they liked it or not, during the Cold War. Theres two super powers and if you find your lone nation standing against one your only real option is to align with the other.
Mechanically though I doubt we’d see a third party faction. It’s a nightmare to balance and the Yellow Team always draws in less than the Red and Blue Team. Plus you’d have to create it out of new races or at least factions.
It’d be a tremendous amount of work for an idea that almost certainly won’t pan out. It’s difficult to balance just the two factions. Creating a brand new one that will never be as popular because people don’t have years of emotional connection to it is just a bad gameplay idea.
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That seems like a Gameplay type of issue.
As far as the Story, we work together sometimes. So it is possible to see more cooperation between the Factions down the line. Or even parts of the Factions working together going forward.
We already have the Blood Elves and Draenei as an example. The Gnomes and Goblins were more cooperative in Mechagon than in the past - though that was more because of a neutral party demanding it. And we have that Goblin and Gnome couple that made it in game, who are a part of the Alliance intro to Mechagon.
As an example for the future, I could see a Patch where the Dark Iron and the Maghar combine their specialties for a similar goal. Maybe they are working together to construct some underground tram near a planet’s molten core, or a tunnel through a volcanic mountain, and the Factions work together through that relationship.
But back to Gameplay - you never know. I get the feeling Blizzard has all sorts of options. The Covenant System might be a test run in choosing Factions and leaving them in the future. Or the Factions may be merged entirely for Gameplay, with situational Factions popping up as needed.
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