I personally have advocated the solution of cross faction play but still keeping the factions intact, but thinking about this more I can see problems in this situation too. So in essence we are saying that using the lfg tools means you can group up to do any content and this would alleviate the problems Alliance currently face in having a smaller player base to do content with, but then aren’t we basically giving some Alliance players no choice but to pug in order to do certain content?
Even if you become a regular ‘pug’ for a specific guild (i.e. they invite you often to their guild runs) not being part of that guild would also mean you would not have the advantage of guild repairs, nor probably flasks/consumables that some guilds do provide. Also finding a ‘regular pug’ situation where you find a guild that has the same expectations as yourself e.g. Heroic or Mythic raiding, and you find this group fun to play with, in the end could this possibly lead to the Alliance player doing a transfer to Horde as they have found their ideal guild? So rather than addressing the problem, we are adding to it.
People have put forward the idea that Alliance racials be buffed to encourage ‘high end mythic guilds’ to transfer to Alliance, but if that happened and such transfers took place, how long before the situation is the same but in reverse, so Horde player base having the same problem as Alliance now faces? What then was achieved? If this was made a short term solution just to tempt over a portion of Horde players, how many do you believe would do this if it was say just for a 3 or 6 month period? Think of the costs involved in such transfers, we need to be realistic, not many would transfer for a short term buff.
Remove racials, again how will this fix the issue of getting more players on Alliance?
Then we have the ‘Devs favour the Horde’ and this caused the problem, so let’s for a moment say this is true (whether you agree it is the case or not). Past decisions/story lines that may have impacted on the community and preferences for Horde or Alliance are just that, past decisions that now cannot be undone. So we can have long debates on whether they did or didn’t favour a faction and what decisions they made, but that does not give us a solution to the current problems. Was it that Horde got Belfs so long ago that ‘turned the tide’ for when Horde was the less favoured faction? If so the fact that we see now similar options available on Alliance side for the ‘pretty elf’ do people think this will now encourage Horde players to switch to Alliance in any significant numbers? Or do people think Alliance now needs an awesome race added to make the faction a popular choice?
Remove faction barriers is another solution offered, but we have ‘faction pride’ and lots of players don’t want this blurring of the lines. So is this the solution or will it divide the player base even more than it is now?
Communities versus Guilds, do people think that maybe if Blizzard made changes to make cross faction communities/play would make a difference. So keep the factions but offer cross community play for those that wish to? Basically give a cross faction community all the same facilities as open to a guild and those that wish to can join such communities. Or do you think this would lead to a decline in guilds?
I have no new solution and I honestly am not sure if there is a solution, but what I am trying to say is that maybe we all need to be open to discuss ‘long term fixes’ rather than the quick fix. There are just so many variables that I wonder if there is any one overriding solution. The only thing I would say is that I doubt the players can fix the issue, all we can do is put forward ideas and hope the Devs take these on board.
