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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Could there be more than two factions?
by Matt Clerico 
Nov 6th 2011 at 8:00AM
As World of Warcraft grows older, perhaps it's time to shake up things a bit to keep things interesting. After seven years of a war between two groups being the focus of the storyline, could we return to a time of four factions? That's right, a return. After all, Warcraft 3 had four opposing armies: Humans, Undead, Night Elves and Orcs. Presently, we have 12 races among the two factions, and considering all the new class/race combinations implemented in Cataclysm, perhaps four separate groups are not as unthinkable as they once were.
With the political climate of the Horde being what it is and Sylvanas going farther off the grid all the time, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine the Banshee Queen pulling the Foresaken and her Blood Elf relatives out of the Horde, establishing her own nation in Northern Lorderon. (For the sake of racial number balance, maybe she bribes the goblins of the Bilgewater Cartel into joining her with a new home city of ... Gilneas!) Or frustrated by the unwillingness of King Varian to stop the Orc's systematic destruction of Ashenvale , could Tyrande (finally doing something in-game for once) decide to defect from the Alliance, bringing her Worgen and Draenei allies with her?
Do you think additional factions would be interesting? How would they work in game? What do you think they would look like?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 6 of 7)
Dude Nov 6th 2011 11:54AM
The Survivors would be:
Forsaken
Draenei
Blood Elves
Pandaren
Horde:
Orc
Tauren
Troll
Goblin
Pandaren
Alliance:
Human
Night Elf
Dwarf
Gnome
Worgen
Pandaren
Alliance would have the most races but Horde and Survivors would be the most readily playable with the least expansions needed to play.
plgrmsun Nov 6th 2011 12:03PM
Blizzard has had difficulties balancing out two factions. Adding a third would make things worse for everyone. Worse for developers who have to design three different tracks of quests. Worse for players of all three factions because their content is edited down due to constraints on the devs.
So yeah, while a third (or forth!) faction may be a fun thing to muse over, and it may happen eventually, it would be a colossal pain in the rear.
Thurro Nov 6th 2011 12:26PM
A Sylvanas led faction would certainly be the way to go but I'd take it another way and allow undead versions of every race join. Undead Tauren FTW.
How awesome would an epic quest at level cap to submit yourself to Sylvanas be? Or perhaps a simple option every time you die to make a pilgrimage to the Undercity, choosing Val'kyr resurrection over that of a Spirit Healer.
Tuxton Nov 6th 2011 12:39PM
I propose cross-faction guilds. Maybe not on pvp servers, but I feel like that would be a better idea than chopping up the existing factions.
razion Nov 6th 2011 12:52PM
One word: Scourge.
Paul Nov 6th 2011 12:52PM
More than two factions is more of a missed opportunity than a future addition in my eyes.
From release it should've been Horde vs Alliance vs Forsaken, with the Forsaken being undead versions of all races rather than just Humans.
To make this a viable future, retconning as well as race distribution and another overhaul of the 1-60 experience is required, and that is just too much to ask for.
NetherLands Nov 6th 2011 12:54PM
Although it would make sense storywise, I don't see e.g. Forsaken splitting off due to the Guid etc. issue.
Also, given the neglect already existing Factions like Undermarket (now gone), Ravenholdt (just an Engineering Vendor and a cool HQ that's gathering dust) and The Syndicate get, I don't see them developping a new third 'big' Faction - Factionplay is of interest to non-Raiders so it won't get any significant developtime as long as GC and co are at the wheel.
What would make imo for a more interesting game (and, if WoW aped EQ a bit more in this regard, they could have special servers to test it out) would be a more 'sandboxy' approach to Factions:
- everybody can speak with eachother using Common/Trade language;
- the rep rewards/reductions for play are increased, and every Quest gives some sort of rep;
- you start out being Friendly to your homecity and Neutral to the other 'player Factions' and the various Battleground Factions, Unfriendly or worse to 'monster' Factions;
- Groups, Guilds etc. can have members of any race, but interaction with NPC's should be considered when setting up a base;
- by doing the usual (Quests, killing enemies, turn-ins; no tabards - they're silly) you can improve your Rep with any Faction (meaning that eg a Gnome could do the Durotar Quests) but where appropriate (eg not for getting some cactus fruit but yes for killing generals) this will reduce your Rep with other Factions;
- in Battlegrounds you can choose every time which side you fight for, resulting in Rep increase and decrease.
The end result of this would be that basically Factions mainly exist as NPC organisations that have their individual scores to settle, but that players can choose which Faction they help at a somewhat ad hoc basis, resulting in a crapload of 'extra' content as people can basically do double the current Quest content.
darksky Nov 6th 2011 12:58PM
Y'know, I was kind of thinking about this the other day, specifically from the point-of-view from a thinking bull's Tauren. For me, I'd be giving a lot of thought to why us Tauren were still allied with the Horde. It made sense at one point, back when the great old bull Cairne and Thrall were such strong allies and the Horde through Thrall's leadership had Thunder Bluff's best interests (and security & stability) in mind. But when Thrall left, things started going downhill fast: because of Garrosh's hotheadedness, we lost our beloved Chieftan to treachery and nearly lost Thunder Bluff in the process. And now, for no other reason than guilt by association, the Alliance has Mulgore so besieged we've had to wall ourselves off from the rest of the world. And let's not even speak of the bulls, cows & calves slaughtered at Camp Taurajo... all because the Alliance saw us as allies with the Horde. We just want to live in peace with the land, safe from outside threats, but we're getting pulled along into this war we don't want making us less safe, and there's no longer the old friendship between Cairne & Thrall to keep us loyal to the Horde. I'm not sure I could support seeing the noble tauren allying with any members of the Alliance after what they've done to us, but I'm not sure I can support remaining in the Horde either. But, after seeing what the orcs have done to the land in Ashenvale, I fear leaving the Horde would soon find us new enemies we'd have to fight without aid.
On a non-RP topic, I've pondered a bit of a radical idea to get around the "guild" problem with faction shifts. There's no precept in lore for "guilds," so why not completely separate the "guild" mechanism from the "faction" mechanism? Blizzard has already slightly nudged in that direction with RealID (allowing players to chat with their friends no matter who or where they're playing)... so why not pull the trigger and let guilds truly be the social thing they're designed to be, no matter what character the player chooses to play? I know there'd have to be a little adjustment for guild achievements, but is it really such a stretch to think that guilds could be an association of people/accounts, not just faction-restricted characters?
Ominous Nov 6th 2011 12:58PM
It could certainly be done.
You could keep good and evil, but have a second degree of each.
The terms "lawful good" and "chaotic evil" spring to mind, from past role-playing (attempts) days.
Those needn't be the terms used but, like that, you'd keep the essential idea of light and dark and yet still be able to have degrees of each.
A good idea and not as hard as some seem to think it would be.
thebl4ckd0g Nov 6th 2011 1:17PM
I'd love to see us be able to do more with the secondary factions we join. Like maybe permanently have a secondary faction. That secondary faction would give us additional quests (not just 1 here, 1 there, but dozens of them) - to get us better gear as we level and progress. I for one would love to see a lot more content - both while leveling and end-game - from other factions. Be neat to see more content. :)
Kylenne Nov 6th 2011 1:22PM
Okay, I know this is on the back page any no one will see it, but I just have to after reading one too many comments to this effect: why the hell do so many people think the Blood Elves would up and follow Sylvanas if she left the Horde? Not Burning Crusade!Sylvanas that cried over her sister's locket and fought tooth and nail for her old people to join the Horde and sent a faction of her folks to go help them kick the remaining Scourge out of their lands. I mean Cataclysm!Sylvanas, who took a swan dive off the slippery slope and is one step away from becoming a Lich Queen, raising undead to do her bidding, and is currently torturing/brainwashing at least one of their own because he defied her.
How many Blood Elves do you see involved in her bullshit anywhere, despite the fact that they are the closest allied faction and it would make logistical sense? I've seen exactly one, and that would be the one I just mentioned. So...
As long as the Amani stay in their backyard plotting voodoo BBQs, the Blood Elves ain't going anywhere. And Halduron's practically drinking buddies with Vol'jin now after this Zandalari business. Nope, we're not leaving the Horde any time soon. Even if we did, it wouldn't be for Sylvanas.
SamLowry Nov 6th 2011 11:05PM
Your vote counts about as much as the votes all those folks who wanted Basic Campfire over Garrosh. In other words, zero.
The devs will twist the lore into whatever shape they like then tell us, the players, that we're merely footsoldiers who have to do what we're told.
SamLowry Nov 6th 2011 11:06PM
Pat, can I buy an "of"?
Zerlin Nov 6th 2011 1:29PM
Why not have something like when Burning Crusade came out, The Aldor and The Scryers. You leave the Horde and Alliance as they are but then you have splinter groups of each. Like Sylvannas leaves the horde taking all loyal subjects to her from all aspects of the horde and maybe even some alliance. So that we as the players would choose where we stood in the grand scheme of things and who we want to back.
kkbryan Nov 6th 2011 1:39PM
Well I was looking more to future expansions and if Bliz could go to muliple factions then. They do say they are adding world pvp in the new zones though I will believe it when I see it. Definitely one of the harder things to balance unless they are just talking about another TB.
Having a race like the NE split off from the Alliance wouldn't mean much though unless it actually involved some sort of world pvp between these new factions (and definitely older zone pvp, not just a few new zones). Just another group to play against in regular BG's would be pretty minor.
Hillazon Nov 6th 2011 2:07PM
I propose reorganizing the factions into Tails and Non-Tails
Tails:
Draenei
Tauren
Worgen (possibly)
Non Tails:
Everyone else.
green_jerm Nov 6th 2011 4:47PM
The panda's shouldn't pick sides, should just be neutral, be able to go anywhere, and when the que they should que as "mercenaries" and which side needs them should get them to fill dungeons or bgs.
Cecilbgnome Nov 6th 2011 5:43PM
I Would love to see extra factions implemented, keeping it neutral as in something akin to the cenarian circle/earthen ring would be great and treating those races similar to how they do with the Pandaren.
You can either go with horde or alliance as emissaries or you can stay with the cenarian circle/earthen ring choosing your faction when you hit level 10, with perhaps a quest in a central faction zone (ie: moonglade) allowing you to choose a different faction for current players..
This would then reset your reputations for that faction so as to prevent people from faction hopping.
the big thing though is ALLOWING choice - if you force players into something they will likely moan and cry on forums etc and its the only way to do it without breaking the game as it is now.
Cenarian Circle
Night Elves
Tauren
Worgen
Trolls
Broken (I can see them being a neutral race and really it seems to fit their logic, though druidism is a LONG stretch for them - I have wanted broken ever since hearing about Draenei in BC)
Furbolg (another race I could see being added eventually in the neutral aspect)
Earthen Ring
Dwarves
Broken
Draenei
Tauren
Goblins
Orcs
Trolls
Furbolg
Excuse the grammar and spelling - its early here and I am half asleep...
ryan.mccalla Nov 6th 2011 5:48PM
oops Forgot to add in Pandaren for Earthen ring... Silly me
shirtntie Nov 6th 2011 5:52PM
A third faction could work. If you think about it there have always been thrid factions. Horde Vs. Alliance Vs. the enemy of the expansion. The only reason the enemy of the faction is defeated is because of the consistent broken plot device of "the Horde and Alliance working together" idea. All you have to do is get rid of that plot device and you can have three factions that are at odds with each other.
The only disadvantage is that this third faction would be new and have less of a foundation than the Horde or Alliance but since nothing is canon, lore can be changed according to game play, who cares! Certainly not the developers.