Welcome back to the Weekly Innervate where every week I cover a topic inside of the video game world. With Blizzcon less than a month away we are continuing on with the World of Warcraft expansion theories. This week is an interesting topic surrounding the race/faction restrictions for World of Warcraft and how I think it would work if it was lifted.
To be more specific, this would mean that races (such as humans or blood elves) would no longer be restricted to the Horde and Alliance. This would mean that any race could belong to any faction such as the Kirin Tor or the Knights of the Ebon Blade currently function. This would NOT get rid of the Horde and the Alliance it would simply make it so any race could be either faction. World of Warcraft;s factions are much too important and I don't think that the game would survive if they were removed entirely. This was cemented in Mists of Pandaria when Wrathion attempted to forge one faction that would never be. The story of Azeroth relies too heavily on their being two factions that pretty much hate each other.
A lot of other games being released now are doing something similar. Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XIV both released without factions and their PvP centered around in game clans you could choose to side with. I think WoW could work a similar way where you choose your race in the opening character creation screen and then either pick a faction inside of the character select screen or you pick you faction while you level similar to the way that Pandaren currently work. They would have to redesign the starting areas either way and making two separate stories for each zone would be a lot of work. Instead, they could make one universal starting area in a contested area and you do quests for both faction and then choose which faction you wish to join. If it was universal they would have to keep it very short or else rolling alts would be even more tedious than it is now. There can then be battle mages that can teleport you to any of the other fronts that can continue the 5-?? areas for each faction.
I feel like it would work now is due to the silhouette issue that has been virtually removed due to a mixture of Pandaren on both factions, same faction battlegrounds and transmog. This was specifically for PvP as they wanted it to be easy to see who was in PvE/PvP gear and who wasn't the same faction as you while you were fighting. Now that all battlegrounds are able to be same faction as well as transmog covering up your gear the silhouette issue is virtually non-existent.
There are mixed race factions all over the place in World of Warcraft, nearly every faction aside from the Horde and the Alliance are not a mix of both races and I feel as though, especially for Role Playing reasons that races shouldn't be tied to factions. Just because you were born a Blood Elf doesn't mean you automatically have ties to the Horde. And since it is not possible to join a mixed race neutral faction we are stuck with the Alliance/Horde based on what race we want to play.
This stems primarily from the fact that I absolutely hate the Horde races for Druids and all of my friends are Horde, so I'm forced to sit and look at a race that is ugly and I hate just so I can play with my friends. If I had a choice, I would be Alliance through and through because I generally side with the Alliance on pretty much every decision they have ever made and the races for Druids are so much better. And I would definitely roll a Worgen Horde Druid or a Blood Elf Alliance Druid and be so happy with life.
I feel like this could theoretically happen but I don't think it would. At least not right now. I think it is more likely that they would lift the restriction of class/race before they lifted the race/faction restriction. Next week, I go over what Blizzard could do for the 4th additional spec for classes!
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