wow Game Director Ion Hazzikostas on Faction Barrier and Covenant Switching

[Staff 1,488]

In a series of tweets, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas talked about cross-faction play, Covenant switching, and more. Check out what he had to say!

The first few tweets are about free Covenant switching coming in Patch 9.1.5 and that it made sense to "pull the ripcord" now that the story of all Covenants align.

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Ion agrees the WoW team should do more to add depth and progression in the outdoor world. According to the Game Director, "There's more to the faction divide than just narrative." While they have nothing to announce right now, the faction barrier is a major issue that needs to be addressed.

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[durdyenglish 298]

PVE should all be cross faction, for lore and gameplay reasons it makes sense.

[req0 9]

The issues are racials too. Let us choose whatever we want. 1 active 3 passive for example. Compare Troll haste with RF to HM Tauren racials. What a joke =D 

[Prophet001 598]

59 minutes ago, durdyenglish said:

PVE should all be cross faction, for lore and gameplay reasons it makes sense.

No thank you.

World of WARcraft.

[Starseed 113]

8 minutes ago, Prophet001 said:

No thank you.

World of WARcraft.

yeah you are true thats one major point i always used to defend it to in the same way i defend the burning of a major city by the WARchief ^^

but to be real if we look at the story at this point they are already working onn this with the horde not having a warchief but a bunch of guys that drink tea two time the week with the boy king we will go into cross faction to be sure and dont get me wrong i will love it cause i like some of the alli races but i think if they want to do it they should go with a traitor thing cause thats a realistic thing two

[Krob 1]

I don't believe that Ion and wow team let us change convenant because now lore is at the stage which alows it. I am sure they have planned it from the beginning to alow us to change it originally at 9.3 and even I am sure they was prepared with that excuse from the beginning but they decided to do it earlier because of subs drop rate. That only proves the way they work to do content with obvious problems to be solved at the end of expac without any development effort in the whole expansion time because they have solutions from the begining ready to be realesed. 

[Iron451 7]

1 hour ago, Prophet001 said:

No thank you.

World of WARcraft.

Yes, WARcraft, as in we've fought a war against LK, Legion, Iron Horde, Old Gods and many others.
While I'd personally love WC2's narrative of "Ally Vs. Horde" to come back, we are way beyond that point unless they pull another "We're fighting over newfound resource that'll give us a technological advantage".
There really is no reason for Ally & Horde to be divided at this point, in lore we're fought shoulder-to-shoulder so many times now, why the hell are we still separated by some colors? 

[Nym85 72]

1 hour ago, req0 said:

The issues are racials too. Let us choose whatever we want. 1 active 3 passive for example. Compare Troll haste with RF to HM Tauren racials. What a joke =D 

They could change racials so you could pick 1 defensive, 1 offensive, 1 utility and 1 profession out of a pool of options, something like a small racial talent tree.

[Prophet001 598]

1 hour ago, Iron451 said:

Yes, WARcraft, as in we've fought a war against LK, Legion, Iron Horde, Old Gods and many others.
While I'd personally love WC2's narrative of "Ally Vs. Horde" to come back, we are way beyond that point unless they pull another "We're fighting over newfound resource that'll give us a technological advantage".
There really is no reason for Ally & Horde to be divided at this point, in lore we're fought shoulder-to-shoulder so many times now, why the hell are we still separated by some colors? 

Same reason you drive cars in Gran Tourismo...

...it's foundational to the game.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Prophet001

[Bobbis 208]

48 minutes ago, Prophet001 said:

Same reason you drive cars in Gran Tourismo...

...it's foundational to the game.

Eh I get the idea but Iron isn't wrong. Allowing x-faction pvE doesn't detract from the WAR part of WoW. Just moves with the times. 

 

No one is ever suggestion removing pvP btw, that side of things remains in game. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, durdyenglish said:

PVE should all be cross faction, for lore and gameplay reasons it makes sense.

I agree.  Why?!? How dare roo says it is still War of WARcraft even with cross faction.  Simple. Both the horde and alliance teamed up in the past against a common enemy that has been manipulating events throughout the world.  Why it went back to name calling and slugging it out the last 3 expansions is any one's guess (I say it is because the certain groups wanted it)  but there is still that 3rd enemy and the horde and alliance should and could align against that.  Thereby still having War of WARcraft.    Just have it in PVE then so PVP game play is still there.

 

But this is one roo's observation and this and £100 will buy one a cup of tea almost anywhere in the world. 🤪

Edited September 2, 2021 by Guest

[Shadehallow 8]

4 hours ago, durdyenglish said:

PVE should all be cross faction, for lore and gameplay reasons it makes sense.

Honestly PvP too. You can already Merc and none of the BGs or Arenas make sense canonically as actual combat fully killing your enemies. I've always seen it as elaborate training exercises to stay sharp for the next god we have to kill

[durdyenglish 298]

1 hour ago, roo said:

I agree.  Why?!? How dare roo says it is still War of WARcraft even with cross faction.  Simple. Both the horde and alliance teamed up in the past against a common enemy that has been manipulating events throughout the world.  Why it went back to name calling and slugging it out the last 3 expansions is any one's guess (I say it is because the certain groups wanted it)  but there is still that 3rd enemy and the horde and alliance should and could align against that.  Thereby still having War of WARcraft.    Just have it in PVE then so PVP game play is still there.

 

But this is one roo's observation and this and £100 will buy one a cup of tea almost anywhere in the world. 🤪

Also, there something to be said for player agency and immersion in this entire thing. Simply put, disallowing cross faction play just forces a narrative that does not exist for every being on Azeroth.

Horde and Alliance work together throughout the narrative. Some NPC characters even forgo these factions all together; we see orc and human pirates fighting side by side all time, for example. Not every character in lore subscribes to faction war, in fact it seems to increasingly be a minority perspective with most major characters advocating for peace, if not all out cooperation.

As characters in the lore, however "nameless" we end up being in the end, we still have a right to that agency. We should still be able to personally put aside old grudges and hatred to do something great or even everyday. 

We should also be allowed to continue to fight. Players could opt into faction conflict by going into War Mode, which would enable World PVP and disable cross-faction PVE.

Battlegrounds could be redone for non-PVP players by simply pitting two equally numbered sides against each other in "training exercises." Arenas should be re-contextualized for everyone as nonlethal spectator sport and even allow players to sit in the stands and watch random arena battles populate live in front of them.

So many ways to maintain the spirit of the original game and provide logical progression for the faction narrative.

[Devilmark 1]

5 hours ago, Prophet001 said:

No thank you.

World of WARcraft.

Yes, it IS WARcraft, but war entails many things. War can do strange things. Rather than simply keep the lines drawn so simply and clearly, "Horde" races over here, "Alliance" races over here... we should be able to create Horde OR Alliance races on EITHER side. Because, even in war where people hate each other and kill each other, people don't always follow the battle lines.

Sometimes you sympathize with your "faction's" enemy. To allow for faction swapping for already created characters, a quest line can be introduced to switch factions if you're so inclined to do so. You do some legwork, bring up the opposing faction's reputations, and reduce your current factions reputations, and swap over, allowing access to the "opposing" side.

This would give players more agency with their characters, and allow for it to feel a bit more natural, since that kind of thing happens in real life too. This would keep the PvP intact, and still allow for it to be Warcraft, but give more freedom and options to the players. And cross-faction stuff for PvE raids and dungeons can still be on the table for everyone, because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

[Arcling 898]

5 hours ago, Prophet001 said:

No thank you.

World of WARcraft.

Oh no, not this again... WAR can be against any faction, not just playable ones (and that's what we are doing most of the time). Besides, if this keeps going on there won't be any faction war anyway, when one of the factions keeps bleeding players.

Merging factions would be the best thing, not just temporary, but also on a guild level. It can be explained by the lore, but doesn't have to be. I mean, they didn't need any "lore" for same faction arenas or bgs, or mercenary mode.

[zigrifid 133]

Lore and world fantasy are extremely important

LOL says the company that changes the lore more than they change underwear

[Guest]

22 hours ago, zigrifid said:

Lore and world fantasy are extremely important

LOL says the company that changes the lore more than they change underwear

Seems to be the company's way of their "doing business" in their underwear (omg, did roo just say what I think he said? - yup!!) and that is prob why it has to be changed so often.  😝  But I still play as lore has no meaning to me since it does change so often.

A question that has prob been answered somewhere, somewhen, etc, etc,  Why does WOW (I guess it is now called Modern Wow) only goes to 60 with SL and yet, Classic Wow goes to 60?   Where and how does Classic TBC fit into this? Adds 10 more levels to Classic WoW so it now goes to 70?  Really, I don't know this answer. And thanks for the answer.

[Arcling 898]

44 minutes ago, roo said:

A question that has prob been answered somewhere, somewhen, etc, etc,  Why does WOW (I guess it is now called Modern Wow) only goes to 60 with SL and yet, Classic Wow goes to 60?   Where and how does Classic TBC fit into this? Adds 10 more levels to Classic WoW so it now goes to 70?  Really, I don't know this answer. And thanks for the answer.

It's a stat squish, so your hp and damage numbers don't go into millions or billions eventually. Also, a visual thing for new players, 120 might look more intimidating than 60, so new player could get an impression that leveling is a very long grind.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Arcling

[JShepLord 0]

On 9/2/2021 at 8:13 AM, Prophet001 said:

No thank you.

World of WARcraft.

In case you've missed it, we've had plenty of war in the game even when we weren't uselessly fighting each other. Quit with your purist gaming ideologies, they make the game worse.

[Prophet001 598]

11 hours ago, JShepLord said:

In case you've missed it, we've had plenty of war in the game even when we weren't uselessly fighting each other. Quit with your purist gaming ideologies, they make the game worse.

Homogenization and the removal of unique design and game mechanics makes the game worse.

[Nym85 72]

On 9/4/2021 at 2:50 PM, Prophet001 said:

Homogenization and the removal of unique design and game mechanics makes the game worse.

I mean many people, myself included, believe that MoP had some of the best class gameplay the game has ever had. And MoP was the time of the greatest homogenization in class design. Opinions are just that and neither yours or mine is anything more than an opinion.