Horde vs. Alliance is literally the backbone of the entire Warcraft universe. The game is at its best when the story revolves around the two factions being at each other’s throats.
Why do people hate the faction war so much? Is it because BFA left a sour taste in your mouth? I can understand that the expansion was mediocre at best, but that had to do with the terrible systems in place, not the faction war itself. I love having faction pride and fighting in the open world.
I sometimes like playing an alt on the other faction just to experience things from their perspective. I had so much fun leveling in BFA as horde first and then doing it as alliance just to see the change in perspective.
Now everything is all lovey dovey and bland. The story is identical for both factions which is lazy and lame. Sad thing is, I don’t think we will ever have another faction war because that would mean no more horde/alliance players in the same groups for dungeons and raids (which imo should have never been allowed in the first place). I don’t see them ever reverting to the old say and I think it’s unfortunate. They wrote themselves into a hole.
Having access to both factions player base helps a lot in que timers, that much I know.
From what I’ve heard it’s been the same helpful situation for private formed groups too. I think one side just has a much larger player base. I didn’t like the war in BFA because it was unprovoked and terribly explained. It made little sense, then a bad underlying reason. If there was a legitimate “both sides are right” story then that would be something, but it’s just been so bad imo.
THing is for the most of the franchises life the faction conflict ended with Warcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 on through WoW has been mainly both sides working together ( though shakily ) to fight a common enemy .
Fighting Legion forces in Outland was war
FIghting the Scourge in Wrath was war .
Fighting Deathwing and the forces of the Twilights hammer was war
Fighting the Mogul and Zandalarin in Panda Land was War
et cetera et cetera.
Every time they have added faction conflict into WoW it fails because there can never be a clear winner due to all the races being player playable.
Because Blizzard is bad at storytelling and returns the war in poorly contrived manners that have massive gaping plot holes the rely on both sides being lead by extreme hotheads to even marginally work.
I agree. The war should come back. But it needs actual… substance.
I’d like to see all the races free to JOIN either faction. Maybe after we’re all United in DF we can then break apart and go our separate ways with horde/alliance. Might be confusing for a little seeing gnomes in thunderbluff, but it’s a cool thought.
I don’t hate it. I just think it is pointless at current day and age. There is just no sensible reason to keep reheating it when there will never be a proper ultimatum to it. Moreover, in a gameplay perspective, it is far better when you have more interaction between players. Being able to do instanced content with people from the other faction helped me play with some of my friends that went Horde during my Sylvanaslands hiatus.
for me it’s because current Blizzard can’t seem to write a conflict more nuanced than ‘Pure Evil vs Pure Good, and also both sides are really, really Stupid’.
As others have mentioned we’ve had to work together. Constant world ending threats and global destruction from demons, old gods and what have you we have much better things to fight than each other. Just generally over time most wars die out, lack of people, lack of infrastructure, lack of resources and people just get tired of fighting. BFA was really bad from a story standpoint as we’d just had Legion and the class halls with representation from all the races then it like. Welp demons are gone now what? I know lets all fight over shiny rocks!
So I know there are people who groove on the faction war and that’s fine.
It just doesn’t appeal to me, whether from an interpersonal standpoint or a lore standpoint. Keep the villains as NPCs and leave tribal hatred out of it, in my opinion. It’s not a fun fantasy trope for me.
There’s a difference between conflict and competition, and while I’m all for friendly competition (as well as mutual aid and coordination), I’m not excited by conflict in video games. It doesn’t bring out anything in me that I value.
