If it werent for the gameplay, how would the factions look like?

Its quite obvious that the composition of the alliance and horde as it is now is only for gameplay reason of having 2 factions and no one can ever leave.
Thats why for example Tauren put up with all the things the Forsaken do or Pandaren were killing other Pandaren because Garrosh yelled at them.

But if it wasn’t for gameplay, how do you think the factions would look like? Which race would switch, which would be neutral or supportive but not actively participating in any Horde vs. Alliance war? Would there be a 3rd, 4th or 5th major faction? Would one race that is currently only found in one faction be found in multiple ones? Or would Pandaren or Dracthyr not be a cross faction race?

Really, that should be up to the story they tell. Unchangable alliances never should have been a thing. There is no reason why humans and dwarves, or orcs and tauren couldn’t have a falling out, even though those were among the closer race relations we had until now. If the story lets something happen that drives a wedge between them (like for instance, Varian trying to kill the dwarven heir to the throne and install a more Stormwind-friendly dwarven government, or Garrosh killing Baine Bloodhoof in a duel with a posoned blade…) they could and should break apart. I’m not a fan of looking at racial temperaments to decide who should stick with whom, when it should all be about politics, and different peoples trying to maneuvre to get what is best for their people in a dangerous world.

Sometimes that means sticikng to an ally. Sometimes that means holding back on them. Sometimes that means changing teams.

There are some obvious things.
-Night Elves would never have joined the Aliance and consequentially couldn’t act as a conduit to have Varian give the Gilneans a chance, because he liked them about as much as the Forsaken liked them.
-Hero Classes would work independently of either
-The Horde would likely overall be a looser aliance, with the orc/tauren/troll and forsaken/blelf halves not necessarily seeing eye to eye on a fair few things, but still seeing the overall benefit of that arrangement. With the EK half possibly dipping out temporarily during Garrosh’s reign, but being brought back into the fold when Vol’jin was looking for help to stage coup.
-Pandas would still be inconsequential
-Ironforge would likely have withdrawn their support from the Aliance after that Ironforge fiasco with Varian or at least drastically curb it, with Gnomes likely following their lead.

With those things in mind BfA’s setup would need to be heavily reworked so won’t even attempt getting into that one.

Theramore probably would never be part of the Alliance, neither would the Night Elves.
Anything else is pretty hard to figure out since it butterflies out of control in an endless cascade of changed timelines.

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Night elves would have not joined the Alliance so Guilneans would have all been killed and raised as forsaken by Sylvannas.
Sin’dorei would likely be part of the Alliance.

I didn’t necessarily mean retroactively.
I would also like to hear how the factions would develop now if it weren’t for gameplay and the hard alliance/horde split which will never be resolved.

That’s kind of the hard thing since the story is mostly written with the divide in mind and Blizzard has tried to give the different races reasons to go for it. We can point out some of the more contrived nonsense and follow the cascading events from there as i actually believe that written organically the factions would be WAY more hostile toward each other, as Taran Zhu pointed out they’re locked in an endless spiral of reprisals, with majority of the Horde races joining up because Humans either screwed them over or tried to kill them, while the Aliance has a historic inner clique of human, gnome, dwarf.

Maybe, but they wouldn’t have lasted to get to that point. The political interests within the factions weren’t united enough for that, so they would have fallen apart.

The possibilities are endless. But I would say that the tauren and night elves would be a solid union. And that the blood elves and forsaken wouldn’t be part of the Horde, really…
Humans, dwarves and gnomes are all somewhat on the same spectrum as far as cultures and core values go. It’s unlikely that a rift would become great enough to split these.

I could see humans, dwarves and gnomes being a faction, orcs, ogres and trolls being one, too, tauren, night elves, and perhaps pandaren and furbolg being another, and finally some sort of trauma bond and a desperate need for manpower being the key points for an alliance being forged between the blood elves and the forsaken.

I can’t really see the draenei, vulpera and dracthyr really fitting into any of those factions, since the draenei are ancient alien race of extremely technologically-advanced masters of arcane and fanatical light worshippers (the latter maybe being favourable in the eyes of certain humans…) and the latter two… well, I don’t know too much about those.

Note that the allied races that fall under the category of elves, dwarves etc…, are included with their non-allied race brethren above, in my little text here.

Not necessarily France and Britain fought each other for basically a thousand years all over the world. I’d imagine the conflict being more like that than a world war, with them squabbling over border territories and colonies, because a successful campaign deep into the opposing territory would be too costly.

Assuming that KAldorei and Theramore remain neutral-ish. (which would actually be pretty easy just say Kul’tiras stayed in the Aliance proper instead of Jaina and don’t change the NEs to fit the Aliance) Kalimdor would mostly revolve around Northwatch and it’s escapades.

Eastern Kingdoms would have some heavily contested areas in zones surrounding the old Stromgarde and Swamp of Sorrows, with pretty much infinite potential for squabbling.

Neither of those were grand alliances, though. Other peoples didn’t get a seat at their table, they were subdued by the gun. I don’t see much of a comparison there.

Sure, you could have done that kind of conflict basically forever. But you argued that the hatred between Horde, and Alliance would run even deeper, and I don’t think that’s what you would get from border skirmishes between equal foes.

I’ll agree that this would have been preferable to the kind of conflict we got… It’s just not what the collective devs wanted.

The comparison is that they’re a give or take technology/tactics wise appropriate analogue, for an eternal ongoing feud, where both sides can and will score some good hits, but neither has the capacity to take out the other so they take every chance to screw the other over.

The frustrating thing is that the groundwork is there, but what you end up with is that the Horde gets screwed over, forgives the Aliance because it was actually their fault and the Aliance actually did them a favor, but then the Horde turns around and raises one of Aliance’s capitals for the glory of satan… Nobody acts like that.

Sure, but my point was that the alliances wouldn’t last, not that the feuds wouldn’t last, so I don’t see how it applies here. I’m arguing there would be more, and more changable feuds, not just the one between the same alliances.

More of an Aliance problem to be honest, because outside Tauren basically everyone else has a bone to pick with humans, in particular.

Nelves and Dreanei usually prefer to mind their own business, everyone hates Gilneans and Dwarves/Gnomes got dragged in because of their close ties to humanity, but aren’t rly invested beyond that, because their beef is mostly with independent NPC factions.

But yes, if humans ever got definitively beat Horde would likely split up into smaller aliances.

“Outside Tauren” is already a big problem. And again, you’re arguing for the conflict, not the alliance. “We hate humans, that’s why our alliance to the undead abomination humans will last” doesn’t work. Humans can have multiple foes without making them into one united foe.

Alliances are about trusting each other to work together without needing to leave defenses agaist each other in place.

While Tauren are the outlier they’re still roughly equal to Dwarves/Gnomes, as their beef is with NPC stuff and are only about because of an oath to someone actually invested. More than you can say for half the Aliance.

The Forsaken sought them out looking for allies offering a large foothold and sizable military, whilst playing on the “also used by evil against our will” emotional cord. While i would agree it’s anything but rock solid it’s enough to get the foot in the door.

Not necessarily. There are plenty of examples where the only real common ground was an enemy. Everyone ganging up on Napoleon, everyone ganging up on Germany, etc.

I’m not arguing for the stability of the Alliance. I am arguing against the stability of the Horde, because that’s where our contradiction was. I think both factions would and should splinter, change and adapt with the events that happen, given any half-hearted attempt at believable azerothian geo-politics.

Which required the guys that lived through the second war and were all into internment camp politics to let an orc-led Horde into their land, and their bases. Pretty much making it really easy to be conquered or destroyed by them. That’s a looooot of unexplained trust. And the Horde took that offer without ever thinking that they actually didn’t need those undead abominations to make use of their keeps, and even invited them to join them in their home cities, half a world away. Once again some deep trust and benevolence there.

If you really think that was a realistic bit of writing, and not just a half-hearted excuse to give WCIII players playable scourge within the planned 2-faction-game… I guess I wouldn’t bother replying anymore. We’ll see.

The hatred can be the reason for the alliance. The trust is the requirement. If you fear the others might attack you instead of the common foe, if you let your guard down, you can’t let their armies pass through your lands or have a joined command, or have battle plans that leave you open to betrayal. And there was quite a bit of room for distrust within the Horde. Starting with no one ever really trusting the malevolent undead, the opportunistic Blood Elves, the uncontrollable orcish savagery, the trollish claim to pretty much the whole world, or the open goblin greed. Heck, the Forsaken are the same people that was ravaged by the Horde, and betrayed the Blood Elves through Garithos, while the Blood Elves still squat on trollish holy ground. And if Tauren and Frostwolves have a problem with dwarven disrespect for nature and borders, they might want to have a look at goblins and forsaken.

There is a reason why Blizzard always framed Thrall’s Horde as a defensive Alliance. If they didn’t have to work together to survive, smashing these clashing cultures together is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Remember how the devs actually tried to explain the Forsaken presence by the Tauren looking for a way to heal those poor souls? Yeah, that’s why that happened, and why that plot was never followed up on, when the Forsaken plot developed. And that’s still not going into all the reason Blizzard’s plot gave us that could and would reasonably have lead to schisms, just by the politics they decided to put in. Most of the Horde might have one enemy in common, but there are multiple lines where the Horde peoples are just natural enemies to each other.

Also if it weren’t for gameplay a lot more races would belong two multiple factions.

For example, a hypothetical Nightelf-Tauren faction would probably also include a sizeable Worgen population who stayed with the NEs after being cured. Other Worgen would join the Alliance/Stormwind to reclaim Gilneas.
And Goblins would probably work for anyone that pays while other races are unlikely to participate in any Horde-Alliance war like Pandaren or Dracthyr as they have no reason to kill others of their race considering their backstory.

Without gameplay the Alliance would be dead and the Horde reign supreme over Azeroth.

hard to say, though the Drachtyr never realy joined eighter horde or alliance, they just came to warn them, gameplay reasons they are split up, but the drachtyr has never split up to two factions them self, or well not for alliance or horde, they work with both, but aint actualy alligned to any, exept to the blackdragon flight, or now pretty much to Alextrasa.