It could work in a SW:ToR or AION like fashion when the player is the focus of the story i na sense…
But you are right ,revamping the whole thing would be complicated
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The whole story is that the army lost vs the Emus. But then they did the intelligent thing and just put a bounty on them which got a lot more humans involved
You’re waaaaaaay overcomplicating this. I’m not asking for Baldur’s Gate 3, I’m asking for something more akin to The Elder Scrolls - earlier versions where factions were exclusive against one another. Can’t be mages guild and Telvanni at once, as an example, and being Telvanni means you can have slaves, and having slaves means you can be considered more negatively by some groups and quests will appear to keep them in check against people trying to free them. There’s also an organization that helps to free the slaves. You can’t be in it and Telvanni, either. But you can be in both the Fighter’s and Mage’s Guild, or be a vampire while working for the temple, etc.
So how does this work? Simple - some factions won’t let you join if you’re members of another, maybe enable PvP combat in warmode if you’re on opposing factions, and put a bunch of quests on each of the factions. Add a few quests that’ll try to direct a mage to the remnants of Dalaran but makes less efforts towards a warrior character, or give more NPC’s very simple and small reputations that actually just indicate how much they like you, and if they like you more they give you a quest or two.
As for acknowledging race and gender, just put it in the quest text, or record two voice-overs, one with he and one with she, for some dialogue, add 4-5 class quests, plop down a quest about a Pandaren looking for ale, all 4 quests available to anybody but a guard gives an extra breadcrumb quests to Pandaren and Monk characters so it’s easier to find, etc.
It’s about detail and turmoil, not about huge branching storylines.
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Yawn.
Move on.
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Yes.
Yes. I want Garrosh back (the Cata era one, not whatever he was MoP onwards).
No.
We can have both at the same time.
And faction imbalance almost killed the game in the past. It absolutely killed servers when that was a thing.
Gameplay >>>> than story. Because you cant treat WoW as an RPG. Its a multiplayer RPG, and multiplayer gameplay has to be taken into consideration.
No thanks. Faction war is old, stale, boring, and deeply unsatisfying (it can’t be satisfying when we all know neither faction will ever be able to win).
I’m looking forward to all remaining faction barriers hopefully going down in the future. 
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I agree, there is always war. We don’t need it to be red vs blue. There is always a big bad enemy.
Personally I want to see Blizz do the opposite to what the OP wants. We are at peace and our gameplay reflects that. My guild, as most are, is a mix of both factions. I want to see them remove the faction barriers more at this stage not less.
The Alliance was dying because of the faction system and how many players favoured Horde. Now faction doesn’t matter. It’s just a flavour choice for races.
It would not work for me to be at war with my guild mates and friends. Just let me queue for all content with them. This will also improve queue times for everyone.
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Horde and Alliance should be and stay at war. Its one of the core fundementals of the game. People that want hand holding are not playing the right game.
We need to go back to separate quest hubs and stories.
Having the Alliance be the agressor would be nice for a change.
I don’t really agree with this, because even today in our own society, not every generation is learning the same lesson. What about the old generations of all the immortal races who have known nothing but conflict? should their perspective not also be included in this arguement? What about the warden that saw the Legion first invade and will not ever look at the High Elf branch as anything but pests on the world? what about the orcs who have fighting in their blood? what about the human who can’t forget the horrors of the scourge when they hear they have family in the forsaken?
All this happened in the same generation as the one we have now, the lessons of the past leading to peace are only true if you cherrypick because there have been plenty of lessons that showed reasons for either factions to distrust the other.
Part of why Bel’ameth neutral feels so bad is because it feels unearned, it would make sense if it wasnt also the new nelf city but because it is… why are they allowing people who burnt the last one to come close?
Same with reclaiming gilneas, there was no Scarlet pressence there, they were conjured out of thin air just to prevent us seeing worgen taking back Gilneas from the forsaken, which was something people have been looking forward too for years.
All of this is about not shutting down perspectives, we are dumbing down the story by cutting out an entire path the story could possibly branch out too.
I don’t agree, though I don’t want more timeskips and think they are lazy story telling, Blizzard has shown they are capable of it.
I also don’t see why going back to a narrative thread we have always had in the past needs a wow 2.
For triggering grandscale war yes, but there are still tensions and smaller scale conflict hinted at lower levels, hell, even all the way up in high command with Geya’rah and Turalyon exchanging insults and they’re role models in their respective factions so its easy to assume there’s humans and orcs who feel like turalyon and geya’rah do while they insult eachother on the shore of the isle of dorn.
And going after the next bozo high on cosmic force powder isn’t?
Either story thread becomes stale in the absence of the other.
“Human no like orc! Rargggh!!”
“Well Orc no like Human!! Rarrrgh!!”
“OK so is there anything else that you two bring to the table apart from your pathetic little race war…”
Human and orc look at each other and interviewer a few times
Human and Orc “No. Rarrrgh!!”
You’re asking the WoW writing team to have a faction war again? Cool. Lets see them actually have a faction war WORTH it for a change, rather than…
well.
“Human no like Orc. Rarrrgh!”
“Well Orc no like Human! Rarrrgh!”
And for the love of God, not another storyline riddled with cliches like Sylvanas and her pathetic lust for power.
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If I was allowed to post pictures I would go for Thanos balancing his pocketknife while saying the thing
Only if it was the Thanos from the comics and not the cgi eye candy detritus vomited on screen by movie studios who looked at wikipedia for “Marvel crossovers” and said “oh here’s a good one, think we could string out ten movies on this one?”
No, because we eventually win against the bozo. With Horde vs Alliance a resolution can never happen, and the resolution we get sucks donkey nuggets.
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But it never had an impact and is just flavor/cosmetic, unlike games like DAoC that really had faction wars as it’s fundamental core.
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far as i could tell it was a justification for PvP, still is, and always will be. because any faction “war” involved in an expansion is quickly swallowed up by the expansions big bad.
Even the Sylvanas storyline, genius of warfare apparently, like bombing and making her own stronghold uninhabitable, wow it’s a miracle she lost!, ended up being a subplot to another big bad.
And look how that turned out.
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Well, here’s the thing about PvP: it’s not canon. Whatever battles are fought on battlegrounds are only just replays of battles long past. Arena fights and duels are another thing; but those could also happen under peace just like sports matches work.
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Blizzard stopped caring about canon a very long time ago. Ive always said that if you care about warcraft lore you don’t play the game, you read the books because the game developers will tear apart any shred of canon if they can retconn it to shoehorn in a big bad they pulled out of thin air.
Just look at what they did with The Jailer.
The fact that Anduin is still alive is an atrocity already. Also Khadgar. Let. Them. Go.
Won’t happen, the friendlyness was always a cynical ploy to save money. No need to design two separate cities, no need to produce two story lines and quest lines. Thats what it has been about in my cynical opinion.
Its what the franchise is build upon. Definitely had an impact.