he Shadowland Campaign have maintained a development where Alliance NPCs are aiding Horde NPCs - and vice versa. The faction leaders and important story characters are pals hanging out in Oribos, and all Alliance players have aided in finding a new axe to Thrall as well as aiding Anduin in healing Baine.
The Horde and the Alliance is at a merging point where the only gameplay obstacle is the ridiculous forced language barrier. Come on…
It is time to drop this abomination of nonsense, get the faction merged, and add a new secondary all-race faction. I will for now call the merged Horde&Alliance faction “New Alliance”, but that is simply because I have no better naming suggestion right now.
New Alliance versus…
My hope for 10.0 is a Cataclysm 2.0 with preservation of the past zone phases, which also opens up for a new villain faction consisting of our beloved Twilight Hammer-movement. We kicked their butts in Cataclysm, and we haven’t been on either Kalimdor nor Eastern Kingsom since then. So surely they must have grown in to a something worth of being a playable faction by now.
The Twilight Hammer as we already know consists of people from all races, which have infiltrated both the Horde and the Alliance for recruiting more members. And they happens to reach out to you and you get the options:
- Slay the recruiter and confirm your loyalty to the New Alliance
- Accept the invitation and undergo a quest line introducing you to the Twilight Hammer faction.
The Twilight Hammer’s new bases will become available, some smaller, some bigger, and even a couple well hidden cities. And the main objective is to infiltrate and do as much destruction to the New Alliance as possible, using the traditional means of the Twilight Hammer.
New characters will not “pick” their new faction at the character creation screen, instead only race and class will be pickable among with the usual customisation. And they get the usual choice of starting at their racial starting area, or at Exile’s reach. It is upon completion of either areas the players gets approached by a Twilight Hammer recruiter, and the choice is made then.
Now about faction switch - which could become available in a “free” version:
From the merged faction to Twilight Hammer: You speak with an recruiter in Stormwind/Orgrimmar and turn in the recruit quest at another NPC outside New Alliance territory. Doing so will make you hated with every reputation subfaction within the New Alliance, and you start at Hated with the Twilights. Better standing and acceptance within your new faction is build up during a lengthy quest line.
From the Twilight to New Alliance: You submit yourself to a specific New Alliance guardian which will imprison you in the Stockades/Tol Dagor/Orgrimmar/somewhere. Doing do will make you Hated with the Twilights and you start at Hated with the New Alliance. As a prisoner you start on a lengthy quest chain proving yourself worthy of being rehabilitated and later released once a certain reputation is reached.
Changing faction back to the former one wont restore the former subfaction reputations, all have to be earned anew.