Cross faction gameplay needs to be acknowledged in the story

Community General Discussion
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  1. Many races already have basis for working with each other across the factions
  2. Liking each other across the factions
  3. Needing each other across the faction.

So far in the story, conflict has been the only option across factions - this is both unrealistic and unhealthy for a playing community full of kids and young adults…

The lore has given reasons to hate, those aren’t going away, it should also highlight reasons to corporate too.

I think some races should really drift to a less faction centric focus. Especially those whose lore fits it. Sorry, but ancient and very peaceful races make no sense being all hot and bothered in hate this includes.
Night elves/Nightborne, Draenei/Lightforged, Blood/void elves and Tauren/Highmountain.
Gnomes. Goblins, Vulpera, Undead also have few reasons to be faction bothered.

Humans, Orcs, Trolls, Dwarves, Worgen are the most faction centric ones, but even they have individuals that can work together - frostwolf clan anyone? The lore is important, to frame these things and keep your ethos in tact.

Friendships
Even some of the biggest enemies have a lot of cause for friendship. Take Night elves and blood elves - most wow players think they hate each other to death. Yet, blood elves won’t exist if Tyrande hadn’t saved the Sunstrider clan twice, once in WotA, then again in WC3, where the night elves certainly weren’t willing to fight - surely some remember that and are not hate based…

Look, if you consider most races, have some basis for friendship with 1 or several races across the factions… why not give them these factions and write about them? And surely as much as we catered to faction hate for those who love to fight each other, surely we can have friendship /trust building focuses too.

Give players a chance to join these factions to unlock cross faction questing. You can either side with people of your race that just outright hate the other faction (they have reason to) or you can side with those that want to build on friendships.

Every race will have 1 or more races across the faction bond they are actually not enemies and wanting to build ties. This shows that all the playable races have both war ambitions and peace ambitions and the player chooses.

Examples
While some want friendship, others want war - they could even make a server game out of this based on how many players pick each side and help to either goal. Here is an example of how it could work, it may be a poor one, as it’s just off the top of my head, but IF you play race X, and work on the friendships they want to pursue, you can literally work on building reputation with another race across the board, once friendly, those players will be green to you, you can visit that race’s city, do their quests and eventually even guild if you are friendly with 4 or more races across the divide - for examples

So many options open up, hope they pursue it.

Bottom line: Hating the other faction shouldn’t be the only option in the story either, there should be strong reasons to work with the other faction.

And don’t be lazy, they went through effort to give every race a reason to hate nearly every other race across the faction divide, now they must emphasise the reasons to they may want to work together.

Classes:
Classes order halls are also an additional reason for faction corporation too, and could provide some interesting ways as well to group wit h the other faction, doo tasks and quests etc.

Could also provide some @class wars2options too.

Many things become possible now.

Summary

So, cross faction pvE is being enabled in a limited capacity.

This is going to lead to more, it’s the tip of hte iceberg, once you do this, people will increasingly ask and demand why can’t they guild together or quest togehter too.

It is up to the developers to ensure the tradition of warcraft isn’t destroyed by this and the lore is developed openly even with a system in place that characterises this change and will make it smooth without undermining what they have proclaimed wow to be for so long alliance vs horde even as this would change that.

FIghting and eternal between to sides was always unrealistic, and never made sense to be the only option or so fervently upheld with the type of storylines they wanted to tell in warcraft.

There should have always been a provision from the developiing lore to facilitate those across the factions who wanted to coproprate rather than fight, because at the end of the day, this is always a reality, and unlessyou want an entire generation to be filled with hate and conflict you need to provide this option realistically.

when wow wwas only us versus them, the excuse was this was not warcraft, yet pvE and corproation/peace minded players were awlays the larger majority. And while conflict can be fun it is a g reat source of toxicity too and grieving if options for peace aren’t as powerful as the ones for war.

Ion says.

The lore has provided many instances and reasons as well many paths as to how most races actually have some cause for friendship or peace with others on the opposite faction.

however as much as the lore allows for some to be friends it has also created reasons for enmity. Till now, the enmity was focused on, time to shine the light on the friendships.

Cross Faction Racial Friendships.

Here is a list of races that have plausible cause for friendships based on existing lore that can be reasoned out. At the end of the day, anyone can be friend anyone. but for wow to work, ther eis a reason why people ar in separate factions, even if somein their race want to corporate or befriend those in the opposite faction.

Scryer/Aldor - are a perfect example of how a system is intreoduced within the faction setting that allows cross faction corporation

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Gameplay > Story. Simple as that. Let’s just have the cross faction. And keep story simple.

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It is. Like almost every raid besides very specific ones like Battle of Dazar’alor or Trial of the Crusader we’re joining forces in the lore. Did you think the Horde just went to kill Argus while the Alliance stood by or vice versa? Every world ending threat we tackle together.

In the Eternal Palace Jaina and Lor’themar fight Azshara together.

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Our leaders have regularly worked together. It is already not just acknowledged, but precedented.

The odd thing is it’s taken so long for players to be allowed to do what our leaders have been doing for literal years.

If 99% of NPCs refuse to accept it; that’s fine. Humans can get kicked out of Orgrimmar, orcs can get kicked out of Stormwind. That’s all fine. But let me group up with my friends on the other faction. It’s only a game.

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I like the idea, but they only solve the endgame side of the issue with this. That wouldn’t enable anyone to level up with a friend on the opposite faction as everyone does that via the random finder.

Now like they’ve said there are definitely some dungeons you can’t cross faction without a rework but that should be something they work towards making a reality.

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Exactly, it is so weird and “no sense”, that this corporation is suddenly forgotten outsdie these raids, and we all super hate each other… this is not how people work.

When you fight with someobody else to save something, you often tend to build a relationship of either friendship, trust or at least mutual respect. This is most people. off course osme peopel stilll hate regardelss, but this si the minority.

Yet in wow, everyone seems to hate blindly by returning to conflict as if the corporation never happened… it makes the supposedly highly intelligent races like night elves, high elves, draenei, long lived and wise races, supposedly peaceful and benevolent ones look stupid and like the game is trying to force us all to keep hating.

I’m not asking that reasons for mistrust or hatred to be removed, they are part of the ethos conflict, but for them to make the effort to introduce or emphasise the friendships and working together… rather than ignoring, downplaying or forgetting about them.

This should be brought out with cross faction play, even if it means players need to o or can build reputation to work with another faction through their race

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Exactly. and if they are opening up cross faction questing, they need lore and a systemt that supports it.

Even for opening up cross faction raiding they should

The lore and story should have visible provision for questing together or races co-operating, it’s just part of life and is healthy. Some people hold on to hate and insist on fighting, some people want to heal and corporate /have peace.

The players should be able to choose which path they take - whether they want to work towards peace or war. The story should also provide opportunity to hate, and also opportunity to want to work together - their should be motivation for both.

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It can’t and shouldn’t end there. Stop encouraging slap dash and just umping things in there just because.

Theya re giving cross faction gameplay, but it’s high time those who want to work towards friendship or peace or trust do so… and in addition to that, the situation is nuanced in every race.

Right now in wow there is generally just blind hatred for races on the other faction promoted, yet inevery story there is corporation through classes and in big events. Even many races have history of friendships in their lore make up, only to have them just disappear.

Life is not just about war and toxic culture, they have to provide options for players who want to work together too. Not just in gameplay but in the story.

Players Should Choose.

The players should be able to choose which path they take - whether they want to work towards peace or war. The story should also provide opportunity to hate, and also opportunity to want to work together - their should be motivation for both.

  1. Every race can have a faction within them that wants to work with 1 or more races from the opposite faction, and those that want them to burn.

Example
Night elves for example: (i know much about these) Night elves have many people who want to work with some on the opposite faction. Here are a few:

Night elves with Nightborne

The night elf sub race, basically Nelves on the horde. Their kin from the same city 10k years ago who by the story are neither at war, nor hate each other (in fact nightborne venerate their kaldorei heritage. We saw Farodin, night eyes, the Moonguard, also Tyrande and the sentinels all help their former city. some out of necessity, some out of compassion (read Farodin and the Moonguard).

Night elf priestesses would also be very compassionate with the nightborne and want to reconnect with them and their former capital…Suramar was the Headquarters for the order of Elune, and the order returned to help out in patch 7.1 and 7.2 when we went into their most holy temple.

Night elf Highborne would also reconnect with their nightborne counterparts, I can’t believe they would hate them just because they’re on the other faction.

Night elves with Blood Elves

Night elves have also shown desire and love to help high elves. Tyrande helped,saved and welcomed the sunstrider highborne who later became high elves, and without them theey would not have won the WotA. She again helped Kael’thas and the blood elves in TFT too, she didint want to kill and destroy them.

The Highborne too would have little reason to hate blood elves, especially those who were from Eldre’thalas, in fact they taught them reforging in cata if you remember.

Night elf and blood elf Demon Hunters are a bridge between the two races too, they work as one in united brotherhood - they can be the anchor of a movement that seeks unity and friendship rather than conflict.

Night elves with Tauren.

The ties are no where near as deep as with the other elf groups, but Taurens do respect nature greatly, and tauren druids and night elf druids have worked together since they a small sect joined druidism after WC3, they even had a school in stonetalon mountain - although it’s mainly druids, the peaceful tauren who share a respect/veneration for nature.

Night elves and Vulpera

there is no specific lore on much interaction, but they would have met them in the invasion of Dazar’alor , before the Vulpera joined the horde. The alliance tried to deter them.

But night elves you can imagine would love furries, especially cute ones, whether they are highborne, priestesses or even DHs hard to imagine - don’t forget all night elves love nature, even though they have this arcane connection and magical affinity.

They are one group I can see night elves getting on well with. However, I can also see night elves viewing them as vermin… people don’t understand night elves are also hunters, not just of demons and evil people, they hunt game, they just don’t do it un-necessarily or cruelly persay, it’s more like sport like an animal hunts and often for food/leathers when necessary.

Foxes can be quite disruptive and Vulpera are on the sly side, thieving too or can be perceived as such, and well, that’s not the sort of furry you would want. yet not all are like that.

As you can see, clear reasons to be friendly and to hate - shouldn’t the player choose?

Night elves and Pandaren.

If you know night elves, there are many who are Tushui minded, but also thsoewho are Huojin minded, it’s easy to see them getting along with both philsophies, now shouldn’t the player get to choose who to love or hate?

Reasons for enmity: You are very familiar with these. Here is a recap

Horde Hatred:

You are very familiar with these. Night elves will hate horde members for Teldrassil, especially those who participated in the burning of Teldrassil. I think most current players are aware of this, so I need not say more.

Maiev's hatred

This is worth a section in itself (esp for newer players), even though she is written to be mostly alone in her extreme hatred, yet she influenced others to hate, drawing on the tragedy of the WotA, which was the greatest disaster and biggest error of the night elves, one they are deeply ashamed off and hate their former queen for betray9ing them. Maiev took this further , hating magic (which she uses - but she views it as punishment when she was crazy), but she did manage to influence a few people in Wolfheart, and while in the end they all deserted her according to the story when they discovered how balmy she had become, trying to kill even Malfurion, it is worth mentioning as some players have taken to heart her standpoint and admire her gutsy behaviour.

Maiev up till Legion, hated any one that used arcane magic including those of her own race (and you can assume allies too - remember how she was chasing Khadgar too in the audio book for legion. Well she relented substantially after her hatred led to AU Gul’dan succeeding, even releasing the DHs she had imprisoned.

But through her, there are few night elves who would hate and dislike their arcane wielding kin, they may have to give the ones on their side a pass because of alliances, but they may allow all that hate to be channeled against those on the opposite side.

Night elves vs Blood elves

When TBC was introduced, blizzard greatly played up the night elf vs blood elf hate, the blood elves hated the night elves alot because of the exile, night elf hate was correctly not strong, in fact, night elves were in righteous indication against the blood elves for joining Illidan who they thought (at the time) was working with the Legion, and thus they felt blood elves had gone to the Legion like the Highborne in Azshara’s palace did 10,000 years ago, they are descendants of those highborne, even though their ancestors chose to fight the legion. Night elves remembered this ,and this was the source of their conflict against them. This would have put them as enemies (though not hatred), and joining te horde who later committed aggressions would have compunded that further - still not hate, but reason for fighting them.

Since the activities of TBC, they have met enough times to have those really hate each other, Larrosh in WoT epitomised what some blood elves feel or maybe most feel towards night elves for the exiles, this is hatred. Now I can’t believe that high elves would still hate so strongly after 7,000 years – however after the scourge attack in WC3 by Arthas, the surviving high elves that renamed themselves blood elves got filled with a lot more hate than before, they would have nursed all their old grudges, but felt they would lay aside the ones against the orcs enough to join them. Probably blamed humanity for Arthas and thus hated them, then when the kaldorei started questioning their integrity, in their pain, the stories passed down about the exile, (only 2 generations away for them) think of the holocaust, …so they’d have had grand parents or great grand parents who went through it , dead now off course, but the new genocide by Arthas would have bubbled this to the surface, and the night elf accusation and spying stirred up hatreds that led to the brutal way they handled them.

This would have caused some retaliatory feelings amongst the night elves too and hence the hatreds we have. But as elves, it won’t be as blind and pure as some of the other races have. At the end of the day, remember, the night elves did not kill the blood elves, but both the Orcs and the Arthas led scourge attempted to do so. and those were far more recent than the exile. Plus only the night elvs ever tried to save them twice. But then so did the humans when the high elves needed to fight the trolls, and the humans were victims of the scourge too.

So blood elves have reasons for human and night elf friendship as well as hate - the player should choose.

Night elves and orcs:

Warsong clan’s continuous war against the night elves over Ashenvale Forest. Now because of that, some night elves might hate all orcs (this should be rare though, they are not teenagers who don’t understand you don’t judge everyone for the actions of 1, they are highly intelligent, but some of their wisdom my carry them to the conclusion orcs cannot be trusted. Some would only limit this tot he warsong clan, some to all orcs, and then some to all the horde - this is also based on wisdom without compassion because the orcs and the horde have continuously and often carried out aggressions against them, kiling Cenarius in WC3 was not a good start. Then there was Garrosh in Wolfheart and Cata, then Saurfang in WoT.

But it isn’t all hate, there was also Brox, and Thrall.

How about night elf players choose to work with a group of night elves that want to develop ties with some of the races on the other side (druids with tauren, Highborne with blood elves, Priests with nightborne) and you can choose to be one of those that lean that way amongst these groups. Or you can choose to be a part of those that want to take out the other side.

Not every race would have good reasons to, but some have more than others. … remember Draenei and blood elves, Aldor and scryer, then shattered hand?

  1. What makes warcraft interesting? It’s the lore that surrounds what we do, giving us why we do it, or do not. If you are opening cross faction stuff, you have to give stronger why’s. It is important to give why too. You shouldn’t be just about promoting conflict, give players the options to work towards and produce peace too, and this must have options in the story.

The cross faction corporating in the lore in game is very weak, I don’t think this was ever healthy. Pvp players have a lot of lore reasons to hate the other side and kill them, blizzard provided this, now let them provide reasons to want to work together and let the players choose.

Classes are another option to look at, they are a source of many races working together, prime example is night elves and blood elves with the Illidari, and orcs and humans with the DKs. Night elves and Tauren with the Cenarion circle. Humans and blood elves with the Silver hand. incorporate this into the race story, even if it means it’s class champions calling for collaboration amongst the races… do it well.

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In the current raid also the horde is getting Jaina-bridges towards defeating Sylvanas. Like in ‘all’ the raids alliance and horde work together.

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AQ, Mount Hyjal, ToC, Ulduar, ICC, Firelands (molten front we go help Malfurion), Dragon Soul, SoO, HFC, Nighthold, Antorus, Eternal Palace, Ny’alotha, Sanctum.

Not good enough for you?

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Introducing friendshipfront, queueable 25 v 25

/hug the orc, if he puts consent buff up
and /praise your friendly neighbor rotting corpse athletic body!
/kneel before your furry foxes overlords
non violent game mode to encourage crossfaction play.

/cringe

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It’s funny because it was acknowledged in the story a long time ago. Cross faction gameplay would’ve made sense since BC when Horde and Alliance was in Shattrath together. Then Dalaran, then the Vale, Dalaran again and now Oribos. Lorewise, Horde and Alliance almost always attacked the raids together, the faction leaders are best buddies at this point.

The only reasons we didn’t get it sooner were because they thought that dividing a playerbase should be the core of an mmo and the alliance wasn’t almost completely dead until now.

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If you have them as a bnet friend, I think you can? Not in the open world, but you could queue dungeons as a pair.

But in the end, levelling is like 1-2% of the player experience of WoW. If they ever optimise it, that’s great, but I’d rather they focus on the majority experience that is endgame content.

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We work together so many times, yet in separate camps, afterwards it’s like there is no memory that we needed to join forces, and all that is left is the continual legacy of hate with no real show of some of us actually getting on with the other in a racial setting.

Classes provided opportunities for cross fractioning to work as you’d see NPCs from the other side together, but never players. The foundation in the races was that they all hated - can’t talk with even the opposite side regardless of how many quests events or raids required both factions.

Surely you can see how unrealistic and untenable this is?

Look at one of the more recent ones, nightborne - they are saved by their night elf kin with the Arcan’dor, the refugees helping so much, you mean to tell me joining the horde suddenly means that they forget the very people who all came from the same city and helped them again - key to their survival, because of faction conflict/ You mean faction conflict between two very young races.

Yet, there is simply no evidence in the story telling post 7.1, after the Nightborne join the horde that such corporation/friendship, acceptance exists, it’s like you joined the horde, now everyone across the board suddenly disappeared, like they either don’t exist or don’t acknowledge, like the previous lore is invalid and now we must all hate each other regardless even though it makes no sense whatsoever in that context and there is reason for friendship.

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How about the assault on the Broken Shore. Even if Sylvanos ran away and left Varian to die, they still worked together.

The Order Halls for all the classes have both factions working together. Go to the any of the Order halls and see the members wandering around with both NPC and Players of both factions.

This is not a Faction merge either. This is just allowing members of each faction to group with members of the other if they wish to. There will still be Horde zones and cities and Alliance zones and Cities. I am assuming that a Horde wandering in to Stormwind will still be attacked by guards and Alliance players.

Very little in the game will change with this. Apart from when you’re in an LFR you’ll see some orcs and humans killing the same boss at the same time.

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I mean for active player choices to work together with the other side.

After situations like WC3, TBC shattrath, Deathwing, Lickh king - nearly every expansion, shouldn’t players now have options to work with other players rather than fight them?

My point is the tory does have the factions working together, but the players can’t, there is no facility that players can work together from a gameplay perspective supported by the lore. Because while we do corporate on these occasions, we get sudden amnesia and our hate flairs up and we are totally can’t stand each other, even though this is not actually the case by the same lore for a lot of races across the factions.

Therefore, with cross faction enabled, it should be extended to quests, and the lore should now refresh all those instances and highlight them where groups that find themselves in opposite factions work together.

  • Draenei and Blood elves in Shattrath
  • Humans and Orcs in Northrend
  • High elves and blood elves in Northrend
  • All Pandaren in MoP
  • Horde and alliance against the Iron horde in Draenor
  • Night elves and Nightborne in Legion (well nightborne weren’t horde during the events, but it still counts)
  • Humans, night elves with nightborne and blood elves in Naz’jatar

They should make an effort to have stories and quest s pop up where these groups continue to work together, and go one up, players can join these factions and be friendly with other players from the opposite faction able to quest with them

In fact, unless it is a faction specific quest, they should allow cross faction grouping for quests, and if it is a faction specific quests that requires killing the other faction in hate, there should be a counter tone to try and save relationships or solve the problem without killing them.

An option for haters and an option for lovers, an option for those who want pvP and one for those who want PvE where it’s not hurting the other faction’s members even NPCs, unless they are enemies to both factions.

Anyway, if we can get faction specific quests, we should get class specific quests, race specific quests too - these are all fine, I don’t expect any other race to get a race specific quest, nor any other class to get a class specific quest, shouldn’t expect any other faction to get a faction specific quest than the one you are.

Tribes are important, they shouldn’t be done away with, yet they can be powerful visions for both peace and war, love and hate, friendship and enmity. It is a reality of our lives.

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one man’s cringe is another one’s <3, there are a large number of people who want to FIGHT towards peace and end conflicts, they should be catered to and have options. And it should that players should be given a choice to choose which they would fight for.

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Most won’t notice, or even care, that’s kinda sad, but groups will be more frequent on the alliance side.

I imagine a red wave, where everywhere alliance turn, they will see horde and the occassional fellow blue.

But in time faction distinction will lose all meaning - without lore reinforcement for both friendship and enmity.

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