I recently made a post on reddit and on the General forums regarding cross-faction play, and if it should be available and so on. I won’t repeat it here.
I recieved a number of comments from people saying that they feel that cross-faction would denigrate their communities and make the game worse.
As the only group within WoW that enjoys cross-faction play (within RP atleast to an extent) due to the potion, and prior to that the CrossRP addon. I wanted to ask you if you thought that the Elixir of Tongues has done any damage to AD’s community, if it has improved or depressed your quality of life on the server?
The general playerbase will not share the thoughts that roleplayers do about items and addons like this, and for most of them I bet they don’t even know something like Elixir of tongues exists. When you say “Cross faction play” to normal players, it inevitably devolves into a discussion about dissolving the factions and the degradation of the games themes. Cross faction raid groups and such. That, and understanding the opposition will be immediately connected to trashtalking in PvP.
But for RP? Yeah, Cross RP and the elixir are a blessing. There are so many possibilities for RP PvP and we’ve seen these massive cross faction events be made possible thanks to all this. Yes. These things are exactly what we need.
Only, I do wish we had a proper system for learning languages that are in the game, instead of having to use a potion. Being able to learn the different languages through gameplay would be so good for different RP characters.
I’m not a huge fan of using it myself but it has definitely improved RP in general. Personally I prefer the days before elixir of tongues, but that’s just me (I’m not invested in neutral cross-faction RP which is so dependent on this sort of thing).
In regards to Cross-Faction RP, and this is speaking solely in context of my guild, Tongues Elixir has opened many options for us, in regards to RP - letting us fight against, and alongside, several other guilds, allowing for more immersive, and in some aspects, interesting events.
Tongues Elixir is essential for RP-PvP, providing more dynamic combat in otherwise npc-heavy scenarios, while CrossRP has allowed us far more freedom in regards to cross-faction, hosted events - allowing DM’s to share emotes and RW’s without having to resort to other means, such as Discord, etc.
The Cross-Faction chat censor was an immature and degenerate implementation that severely limited some roleplay stories; ironically, it most impacted the ability to do compelling narratives about warfare, as you could not communicate with your enemy at all. But it also limited the plethora of neutral RPers.
More options is never a bad thing, and any disintegration of the community is not down to this barrier being lifted. Whilst I’d argue there has yet to be a project that has really capitalised on this newfound communication (so far I’ve only seen it being broadly used for festivals and markets), the fact it is there is one of the role players greatest assets.
There’s non-aligned guilds like the Light Watch Order and the Ebon Onslaught. The Forlorn Order took part in the LWO’s Death’s Rising campaign this fall that saw guilds from the Horde and the Alliance come together to fight the Scourge alongside the Argents and it was great.
I think CrossRP and the Elixer of Tongues have added a lot of good to AD in the form of options - both for cross-faction RP in its various forms and RP-PVP, while not really hampering anything - there’s no drawbacks I can think of.
The Ebon Onslaught is a guild (Two guilds) that is primarily about Cross-Faction RP. And I have to say, Cross faction interaction has only made it better.
To the point where I sometimes forget there IS a faction divide.
I sometimes forget there are people that are literally obsessed IRL about the Horde and the Alliance, who actively enjoy making life miserable for the other faction for… reasons.
Yes, it has led to some incredible stories that would have not been possible without it.
Ask them how exactly. Because I can’t imagine any other reason other than “MUH NOSTALGIA!!!”. Same reason why people don’t want all mogs to be available to everyone.
Yes, as it opened amount of possibilities which are legitimate and make sense. Some of them listed above; Argent Guilds with both ‘faction races’ in, or other Neutral Guilds.
No, as it brought situations which are rather silly, where suddenly everyone can speak with everyone else with a destruction of an IC language barrier - and some players bringing characters in locations where they should not be, avoiding potential consequences. (Like a Troll of some supposed neutral tribe coming to Darkshire, and even renting a hut there…)
Honestly for RP it has made things easier and more logical imo.
I’ve always found it weird why Forsaken and Humans cannot communicate, or why in every cinematic or interaction any in-game characters ever have they seem to perfectly understand eachother like there is a common language on Azeroth.
I’ll just as well ignore a Horde char speaking in Orcish to their mates if they put it in brackets before their text or make it clear in their emote, but this doesn’t stand for most people I reckon.
An improvement would be that it literally adds a true common or Azerothian option to languages one can speak and understand, that way Human Common and Orcish can also be their own thing.
