Is the Horde division finally done?

[Vivio-lightbringer]

not really since classic wow exist the merchandise is still safe even if retail removes the factions all together

[Amazoner-kul-tiras]

Not to mention the time this game had 10 million of subscribers is long gone.

I can only imagine the dread it would be in my server if I had to actually rely only on players of my server to do a dungeon or raid.

Allowing both factions to queue for the same LFR and LFD would decrease drastically, queue times.

Another example is Battlegrounds.
If none knows which side they will be appearing, Horde or Alliance would end the endless complains of which side is getting the shorter stick.

Also: less money spent on content for both factions.

Cheers.

[Sanara-argent-dawn (Sanara)]

@Wimbert-die-aldor

@Amazoner-kul-tiras

I hope so to be honest.

But, I was wondering what will happen to all Horde, Alliance merchandise ?

I think the faction identity is something they want to keep.
I think the inability to play with your friends on the other side is something they want to lose.
And I think people harassing each other over the faction they chose, and screaming about who is the more despicable person is something they wouldn’t mind ending, if they could do so without losing money.

I think the best way to do it is to make the factions still exist but not be the primary actors.

First of all: No Elves in the Horde. It ruins the whole aesthetic. Forsaken out too.

Second: High Elves in the Alliance. Night Elves and Draenei leave the Alliance and go do something else, either together or separately.

Third: Pandaren get to do whatever they want, nobody knows what they’re doing in the factions anyway.

This way, the “Alliance” and “Horde” get returned to their WarCraft 2/3 statuses, which is the iconic look for them anyway, while allowing for new factions to arise around other races. The Undead and Night Elves should always have been their own factions, keeping true to WarCraft 3.

… hell, if anything, imagine the merchandise options for adding Night Elves and Undead back as their own races! Got a Horde and Alliance keychain? Now add a Sentinels and Scourge one too!

[Vonen-ghostlands (Vonen)]

@Sanara-argent-dawn

Absolutely not. The problem is that Blizzard don’t know how to write the Horde, and have essentially made it into two separate entities that they insist is the same one.

“You made life your enemy”
Story wise there wasn’t even a division between Alliance and Horde it was always between Sylvanas and the living. The Horde division was created in the forums.

[Jito-turalyon (Jito)]

@Sanara-argent-dawn

And the core of my problem with it is that Blizzard tells us that the Horde is one thing, when it demonstrably is not.

I like to think of both factions as being ideals that they strive toward.
Honor, strength, glory, bravery, and so on.
Justice, faith, hope, righteousness, and so on.

The Horde and The Alliance are those things. As factions, that’s what they represent.
But the story is that of the characters within those factions, and how they interpret and carry out those ideals.

Honor has been interpreted differently for each Warchief. It’s one thing to Thrall…another thing to Garrosh.
Justice is an ever-discussed concept for The Alliance whenever the decision is between forgiveness and retribution. Siege of Orgrimmar, the Burning of Teldrassil.

In WoW I think our character is sort of caught in the whirlwind of all those character dynamics around us. We can choose our own preferences, and with the Saurfang questlines we even got to make some actual choices. But for the most part we’re just in it for the ride, and then we can root for whoever or whatever is to our preference.

Kind of like in the real-world. Your personal manner of influence on the happenings in the world are limited, regardless of how unhappy or upset you might be.
I think Blizzard have examplified that nicely with the gossip texts we see now as well, that the regular NPCs actually have some different opinions about the aftermath of this war. Some Night Elves are tired of war, others want vengeance. Some soldiers are happy for peace, others don’t think it’ll last. Stuff like that is sweet, and sort of makes the player’s emotions fitting - even if they’re toward the end of: “Omg why can’t you just sort this Warchief title out and pick someone proper who doesn’t go crazy and turn evil!?”…Because that’s surely also a sentiment shared by many citizens in Orgrimmar.

I think it works. I think you just have to flow with it - that the messy way the world (of Warcraft) goes is what makes it authentic, not what makes it bad writing. Like with Donald Trump in real life. Authentic real life or bad writing?

[Dainara-draenor]

Maybe.

The Horde was seemingly united in purpose after SoO too and look where that got us.

I will say however that the potential for disunity is greatly lessened now with the Forsaken doing a U-turn in regards to their role in the Horde coupled with the fact that every controversial A-list character is either dead or MIA.

Unless severe character assassination I just don’t see any of the remaining candidates for Warchief launching an unprovoked war against the Alliance in the future.

@Sanara-argent-dawn

… hell, if anything, imagine the merchandise options for adding Night Elves and Undead back as their own races! Got a Horde and Alliance keychain? Now add a Sentinels and Scourge one too!

Stop trying to divide the playerbase even further.