I agree with this idea exactly.

I can see not ever being allowed to stroll around in Orgrimmar, but why should I consider all Horde to be my enemy? Especially when I have fought with Horde as my allies to defeat the Lich King? Especially since I lived peacefully alongside those same Horde in Dalaran?

(I know in actual gameplay ICC was separated by Alliance and Horde raids...but the Ashen Verdict was made of both factions and it is the group that helped clear out ICC in the story. Plus there are many groups in game like the Ebon Blade, Argent Dawn, Argent Crusade, Cenarion Circle, Earthen Ring etc. that have no faction lines.)

I don't think it would break the game at all to allow cross-faction Real ID or Battletag raiding. Instead it would allow more people to play with their friends while also allowing them to be the Faction they like best. Win-win all around.

I was thinking this as well, of the groups that currently exist in the game, that have members of races from both factions.

It makes me think of situations where say many generations of a family continue to pass down the same line of racism or prejudice to each new generation, but then there is one that doesn't fall in line and thinks that they no longer need to feel a certain way about a certain people because their great-grandparents and on down the line felt that way. Then they can teach the next generation a general acceptance of all people. Or at least give them to open opportunity to judge on a person to person basis and not judge the entire race on the actions of one or a select few.

Wouldn't all that go against the new tagline of putting the war back in Warcraft? That said I think it would be great for the game to be able to do that.

I think the whole concept of two factions forced to be separated by game mechanics and unable to interact with each other unless it's with mutual agression purposes is pretty stupid.

I'd like factions to be more of a personal character choice rather than "if you rolled a Tauren, you're automatically at war with the Alliance, forget about having any Night Elf buddies, even though their philosophy and values are much more similar to yours than those of the Goblins or the Forsaken"

That said, Blizzard has stated that they want to bring back the war and they seems to be pretty interested in getting everyone into PvP. So I think, if anything, they want the factions to be more separated than ever. So, no cross-faction raiding, or dungeons, or whatever.

RGSmith: What your faction and its leaders do, and what you do, are two different things.