And that’s exactly one of the solutions the pro divide-loosening people have proposed.
Real life, yes. In a ‘medieval setting’/fantasy that Warcraft is based on, no. Especially when the name is called Warcraft not Peacecraft. Get it?
What I would think would work is if they would have some type of cross-faction ‘scenarios’, where they would allow that communication and gameplay where you play together because then it becomes story/plot-driven.
The Warcraft universe i so much larger than that. It makes me sad to see you believe it’s all in that one tiny box.
With all of the things to fight for instead you insist on fighting against something. It looks like we contnue to serve those that would harm and/or enslave all of our peoples. Like the good little unthinking brutes you would have us be.
That could very well be why we didn’t get what I was expecting. I mean they are all about player agency. Letting us decide what faction we want to be a part of after the war should be up to the players.
I really did think that faction was going to be about player choice and not the race of your character. We got a few races on both sides that could be very well represented in the other faction.
So much for that idea.
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Your best argument is “this has never been a thing” even though it has literally been a thing throughout lore and ingame content?
I just have a couple of questions for all the pro-divide people.
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What does the faction divide add, for you, to your PvE experience? What does it make better when you’re playing in a purely PvE sense?
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If the faction divide and conflict are such an unbreakable pillar of World of WarCraft, why is it that PvP content, and even content in which the factions fight each other, takes a backseat? There were times in BFA I forgot there even was a war.
If this game were the old, dead Warhammer MMO, I’d totally agree - because there it added to the game. The entire point was fighting the other faction.
But here…? We’ve got a PvE-focused MMO that has a faction split because reasons. What does it add to a PvE game beyond just having ‘the other’ you can never interact with?
Basically, we can still have factions, but what on earth does splitting the players within them apart, add to PvE?
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As someone who plays both factions, and specifically made this character to play with Alliance friends, I like that the mechanical faction divide gives each side a unique visual identity. It makes it so that playing Horde or Alliance actually means something in as many ways as possible.
Star Trek Online got rid of the faction divide for grouping out of necessity, as it had a REAL faction imbalance (folks claiming Horde or Alliance bias in WoW have no idea what it’s like playing a game where one faction really is given more attention than the other) that made the game borderline unplayable for Klingon players as there weren’t actually enough most of the time to get five people together at once. It was unfortunate that it had to happen, because it took away any trace of gameplay identity for Klingons, drowning them in a sea of human Federation characters.
I don’t think I’m ready for most dungeons to be just groups of humans and blood elves with rare appearances by literally anything else, especially when it really isn’t mechanically necessary to do so.
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I’d really just like to play with my friends again without having to fork Blizzard $25 extra for the privilege.
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The issue is a frustration of mine as I’ve been Alliance since Cataclysm. I got 7 alts at or higher than 100. Yet, the Mythic Raiding and High end PvP scene on Alliance is dead.
Blizzard has done such a crap job of making Alliance players feel good about their choice - whether its story direction that requires them always to lose, racials for Horde that are just much better for DPS, or just the overall developers attitude toward Alliance that bleeds into everything they do. (Kudos for not making fun of Alliance players this Blizzcon or hamming up the “For the Horde” BS that just excludes Alliance - I think this is the first time since 2011)… and now we’re seeing the effects of it.
- Overall less Alliance players period.
- 3x less Alliance players doing Mythic
- 3x less Alliance doing PVP above 1800.
- Always less Alliance doing PvP in general. War Mode bonus and enlistment bonus always on for Alliance. Every BG, 50-60% of the other players are Horde Mercs.
Blizzard wants to have it both ways - they want to have a faction based game where factions matter, but they don’t bother caring if both factions are on equal footing… so in the end, it’s only Blizzard and a small minority of players who care about the faction conflict… and Blizzard says stuff like: “WoW’s most important component is faction identity”… to which a lot Alliance players say: “Uh, considering you haven’t given a toss about our faction since Cataclysm, why the hell should we?”
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New emote /sesame confirmed!
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That’s a fair enough argument - I do like how the Alliance and Horde have distinct and unique aesthetics, however…
What most of us are proposing is simply to let people group, not have them waltz into hostile cities and prance around. And I really don’t get that sense of ‘faction unity’ in a dungeon (as in your example) - honestly it’s rare I even notice what races a player is when I’m running a dungeon, unless they’re particularly talkative or doing really well.
The only place, aside from our factional home cities, I can really see it mattering is PvP - and if mercenary mode is any indication, they’ve already got it so that you’ll only ever see races from your own faction.
Really, with how disconnected most (if not all) dungeons are from the faction conflict as a whole, I don’t think I’d even blink if my tank were a hulking Tauren.
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Yes it is the only argument. Other than a few cut scenes when have we ever been able to queue with the opposing faction? Never once in the history of this game have we as players been able to join forces. You are delusional to think otherwise. A cut scene is a mini movie that is all. Even in the history of the real world, countries have bound together to fight a common enemy, then returned to hating each other right after. A five minute cut scene does not mend all the wounds.
I just want there to be a neutral faction or something for people to join. Doesn’t really have to change up the game narrative all that much.
Yeah, I know, I just don’t even want Alliance characters in my Horde groups. I’d be sort of okay with it if it was like a mercenary mode deal where you’re transformed into an opposite faction race to do it, but also after leveling a couple Alliance alts, I’m not even sure if I want the players tbh.
Like most Alliance folks are okay but there sure is a higher chance of a group just imploding due to incompetence on the blue team in a way that I almost never experience on Horde anymore.
Eh, in my experience, there’s really no big difference between the temperament of Alliance players and Horde players overall when doing high-end content. Most people pushing Mythic or High End PvP have similar characteristics.
As for the other content, I mean, think about it - like 36.6% of level 120 Horde mains are Blood Elves. Do you really think there’s much difference between the average Horde player and the average Alliance one?
Blood elf players have really shaped up over the past 13 years in a way that human players really just haven’t.
Ehhhhh… have they really though?
Trust me, I’m pretty sure that most male human prot warriors would drown if they looked up during a rainstorm.
Male human prot warriors? That’s awfully specific… LOL
That’s the kinda behavior I’d expect of Night Elf Hunters of either gender or any spec. 
And if it was implemented in how I and others suggest, you wouldn’t have to. There’d be a box somewhere that you’d just leave unchecked, labeled “Allow Cross-Faction Grouping”. And that’s it. Only trace you’d see of it. For those who want their experience unchanged, it would be unchanged.
While I would personally enjoy more extreme changes, I’m only actually in favor of ones that would have little to no actual impact on the people who like things as they are.