I had to deal with the same issue near the middle of ICC raiding. I had only been in 2 guilds.... one that was a group of 7 RL friends who lived near me and a few of their long term WoW buddies (this was at the start of BC), and then when that split apart we all joined the same Horde guild. I went from 1 lvl 70 at the end of BC to 7 80s at the middle of Wrath. I was really loving the Horde side, but suddenly the same crap happened. The guild factioned into 3 10 man groups which wouldn't work together and kept trying to poach each others members weekly based solely upon the meters, not the good of the guild. None of the groups were interested in heroic 10m, so I really didn't see a point in continuing. I was one of the only one of my friends still playing and I wanted to raid. I only needed 25m gear, I would have taken 10m heroic gear, and I wasn't about to sit there and help the guild fight amongst itself so I stood back. After a few weeks of just not being able to raid, I finally took my newest lvl 80 (Orc Warlock) and transfered him to the alliance side of my server and ended up joining the #1 guild on the server. I left my main on the Horde side and after a month or two I did move over my Belf pally to a Dranei pally so I could have some instaqueues. Eventually my guild decided to try out a high pop server and they moved. I ended up going along with them, just with the 2 toons at first. I logged onto my horde toons to grab some gear to take with me, and was surprised to find that my other 5 80s had been gkicked b/c "I betrayed the guild by refusing to help them progress." Srsly? I had spend 2 years raiding 3 -4 nights a week with these guys, I did everything I could for them, I considered some of them friends, and my refusal to carry them through 10m content we had on farm was betrayal?

One by one, as money permitted, I moved all of my horde toons over to my new server as alliance. Two of them remained horde, my DK and my hunter, I love Taurens too much to not have any of them.

I lost a lot of Real ID friends and even a RL friend who just saw it as a real personal betrayal, not sure what to think of that but if 5 years of friendship meant that little then w/e.

I ended up moving my last 2 Horde 80s to a different server and they became 85 and I've loved it.

But after playing both sides, I realize there isn't really any difference. 99% of the crap each faction says about the other is complete rubbish. Both sides complain that they suck at PVP, both sides say the game is balanced against them, both sides say there are no good arena teams, both sides say the other faction is just a bunch of stupid kids, etc. But the truth is there really isnt' that much difference. Sure, the newer and often younger players do jump right into whatever class is the flavor of the month, and that can make a faction seem crappy for a while, but it happens all the time. It's gonna happen all the time.

It's been almost 2 years now and I still play both sides. I am about to hit 85 on the final character I plan on leveling unless another class comes out - this will be #12, my shaman. He was an orc, now he's a dwarf. In the end I ended up with 9 ally 85s and 3 horde. I started a goblin warrior and ran him up to 85 to see all the new content along the way on the horde side since I had done it so many times before. I also ran up a 2nd druid and 2nd hunter so I coudl experience the alliance side (nelf bear / cat and worgen boomkin / tree for druid, tauren and worgen hunters).

I can't say any one side is better than the other and I don't even listen to the stupid faction related comments. The game is heading towards a 3rd faction and / or the merging of the H&A factions based on the leaks from Blizzard, and maybe that's what we needed all along.

Look at ICC - sure, we fought the Horde gunships on the way to the top of ICC, but only b/c we refused to admit we needed each others help. In the end both factions suffered at the hands of the Forsaken and the minions of the LK. We have seem both sides stand side by side at the Wrathgate, I've seen Thrall nearly sacrifice himself to save the world, not just the Horde. Both sides aren't really at war with each other anymore outside of the pre-WOW lore, every new expansion just shows us a greater evil / common enemy.

TBQH I woudnl't mind fighting alongside my former Horde companions as we fight on the back of deathwing - would have been an easy way to bring back 40 man raids honestly.

TL;DR version - I started Horde, I went mostly Alliance, but love playing both sides. I won't play both sides on the same server anymore, that just causes too much bad blood, but I have no problem playing with whichever faction I feel is the best fit for my mood and my play style. I love my Alliance guild, and I love my new Horde guild, but I coudln't pick between the two, I'd rather quit than do that. I only belong to two guilds (not counting my twink guilds, that's a whole different ballgame there) and I belong to each of them b/c of the people, not because of the racials or the factions or the class combos, I play with the people that I want to play with. Maybe that's just me, but this is a social MMO, I'd rather play with the worst players in the world that are just damn good people that I enjoy being around, than playing with the best players in the world who are dicks. The game is about having fun and if after 5 years and 12 85s I'm not burned out, I must really enjoy the game. If I didn't have the players aroudn me that I did, I would quit.

It's not about the factions, it's about the players. Horde, alliance - it's all just cowpeople vs wolfpeople, belfs vs nelfs, orcs vs dwarves, it's all the same just different skins and a seperate set of chat channels.

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