RIP "Breaking the cycle", absolutely nothing is changing with factions

[Lacryma-wyrmrest-accord (Lacryma)]

You do not speak for the masses.

[Versath-bloodsail-buccaneers]

If they removed faction restrictions I’d stop paying them.

[Caevan-moon-guard]

You do not speak for the masses.

Can’t tell.

[Caevan-moon-guard]

If they removed faction restrictions I’d stop paying them.

100% agree. I’m as big of a “shill” as they come but I’d walk away and not look back if this happened.

[Jalen-emerald-dream (Jalën)]

Having factions be able to do crossplay would be one of the nuke options for me. I’d never return to Retail if this happened.

[Valdanroth-dalaran]

You can, if everyone on both sides are willing to buy stacks of 200 of the elixer of tongues.

[Narinsil-wyrmrest-accord]

Thank god the cycle continues. The only way I’d be happy with it being broken is if both the Horde and Alliance broke apart and everyone was out for themselves.

[Valdanroth-dalaran]

I guess the only positive thing about it is that I don’t have to play with blood elf players, I would have spent alot of time kicking them from my groups.

[Flighun-llane (Flighun)]

They should make it like the real world.
At any given time there are people at “war” with each other. Despite that, there are people within those faction that communicate and work together.

So, keep the ongoing faction war, but allow the people within the factions to communicate and also do things together. Just because there is a war, it doesn’t mean that every single person within the faction hates every single person in the other faction.

Heck, look at Israel and Palestine. They’ve been at war for like, forever. But despite that, there are Palestinians and Jewish people that talk and like each other.

[Antiman-thrall (Antiman)]

So, keep the ongoing faction war

This is the only thing I disagree with, we have had 2 expansions based on the faction war, one was decent (MoP), one was a mess (BFA). It is time for the faction war to return to cold war status FOR GOOD if it must be in game.

I can understand those that don’t want to group with the other faction, but if done right they would not have to. It would just be an option for those of us that have gotten tired of being forced down one story path when another is just as viable (healing the planet vs. the faction war in BFA for instance). If I have to work with alliance for the good of Azeroth, so be it just let me group with them.

[Dedric-kul-tiras]

We just more or less want to actually party with the other faction for dungeons, raids, even quests.

Right. And at the risk of descending into a circular argument, Blizzard has said that the Alliance and Horde separation is what makes Warcraft what it is, and I agree with them. I think that being able to join up with the other faction will be dismantling one of the core identities of the property, and will lessen the impact of those times when Jaina works with Baine, or Anduin works with Thrall, etc.

[Raad-khadgar]

Totally disagree. That healthy ‘rivalry’ between factions is an integral part of Warcraft. If you start ‘breaking’ that foundation then a few expansions from now we will have one called World of Warcraft: Singing Kumbaya.

[Veranarana-pagle]

So much for breaking the cycle. RIP Saurfang, you died for nothing.

Look at what both sides have done to each other. That isn’t something you just forgive and forget about over night… Some wounds take time to heal.

[Kheradin-aerie-peak (Kheradin)]

So, at the start of BfA we were told that this expansion would “resolve” the faction war.

Now, at the announcement of Shadowlands we’re being told, naw, the faction conflict is integral to the game.

So no cross-faction grouping/guilds for instanced content in the next expansion.

Wonderful. Watch the population in the game continue to systemically shift over to one dominate faction.

[Schreiber-wyrmrest-accord (Schreiber)]

So much for breaking the cycle. RIP Saurfang, you died for nothing.

Look at what both sides have done to each other. That isn’t something you just forgive and forget about over night… Some wounds take time to heal.

That’s right, but the player characters only really care about one thing: gold and loot. There’s plenty of organizations in the game comprised of every playable race regardless of the faction line, and plenty of mixed race adventuring parties people run into throughout the world too.

Players should be able to break the cycle, even if the factions as a whole still stare each other down with all the disdain they can muster. Orcs shouldn’t wander around Stormwind, and humans shouldn’t frolic through Orgrimmar, but individual players should be allowed to group outside war mode.

[Shaerlindria-dalaran (Shaerlindria)]

“everyone knows Alliance are casuals”.

this is so true. and nelfs leaving groups if there are horde in them because of teldrassil. but we’re talking more along the lines of friends and families being able to pick their preferred race and faction and still be able to group or raid together. everquest did something like this. y ou couldnt go in enemy cities without aggro but you could group/raid with and understand each other.

Now I demand to be able to group with Horde players so I can leave the groups they are in.

Except for Vulpera because cuteness>Horde.

[Kyrrena-icecrown]

RIP Saurfang, you died for absolutely nothing.

Oh and RIP Tyrande, because we all know that this means she’s going to spark the NEXT faction war when we have to do all this stupid crap again.

[Murgatroyd-lightbringer (Murgatroyd)]

we all know that this means she’s going to spark the NEXT faction war

This works for me. I’m with her.

[Kyrrena-icecrown]

That’s going to work out as well for you as being a loyalist for sylvanas worked out for the Horde.

[Antiman-thrall (Antiman)]

Right. And at the risk of descending into a circular argument, Blizzard has said that the Alliance and Horde separation is what makes Warcraft what it is, and I agree with them.

It is only a circular argument for those that think PLAYERS should be bound to factions. We have groups in game: tThe Argents, the Cenarions, the Champions of Azeroth, etc. that are made of of members of BOTH factions. In Shadowlands we are getting covenants, why can’t players, if they so choose, group up with members of the same covenant?

Arguments like yours tend to boil down to “players should have stock in the faction conflict”. If Blizzard can pull such off, I agree, but anymore the faction war seems to have been forced and the interest in the conflict has died down, more so for some of us because Blizzard can’t seem to write faction conflict stories that do not involve smacking one faction with the villain bat.

We might not care HOW it is done. Give us a quest to break from a faction and join a neutral one if that is the only way it will work, in essence we become representatives for the neutral faction to our “home” faction. All we want is to expand our player pool for activities.

If the faction conflict is central to the story, fine, either make it so players have some kind of stake in the conflict or make it so players can break from faction for some reason that makes sense.