I don't know if a question like this has been asked before, but I had this crazy idea for a version of World of Warcraft which had several more factions than the binary Alliance/Horde.

So the major factions would be:

• Alliance: humans, gnomes, dwarves, high elves, etc
• Horde: orcs, tauren, trolls, goblins, etc
• Sentinels: night elves, firbolg, dryads/keepers, etc
• Scourge: undead, humans, aqir, dread lords, etc
• Legion: fel orcs, satyrs, dread lord, eredar, etc
• Mercenary: goblins, creeps, etc
• Resistance: forsaken, blood elves, naga, draenei, etc
• Old God: faceless, aqir, elemental, etc

All of the factions have loosely sympathetic backstories and motivations, although that doesn't absolve them of any villainous acts they perform. Yes, even the void lords are sympathetic like Sargeras and Lich King became.

Thoughts?

That would flow better if WoW had just soft factions.

Blizz can't write two, so i doubt more would help

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I think the game would be more fun, at least in terms of story and immersion.

But also PvP would not be as good.

Factionalism would not be nearly as high paradoxically since so many factions would necessitate players working together since most or all factions would not have enough people to be viable solo. Could be all can freely mingle as mercenaries (and freely fight too) or there could be factions you are friendly to, neutral and hostile to.
Weather or not factionalism is a good thing is up to you however. I feel most here think it has been ruinous for the story and it has created a lot of toxicity. But strict factionalism of WoW does give more spirit and meaning to the factions and arguably the game.

The game would have less content one way or the other. If you build up all of the factions there is less common content, more common content and the factions are skeletal.

That is all I can think of without spending too much time on this

Not necessarily, can just gut cenarion circle and argent crusade

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AC and CC are just excuses for the Horde to have access to Paladins and Druids.

If there were four factions, let's say, Alliance, Horde, Sentinels and Illidari (blood elves, broken, naga) there could be a system of fixed relationships. For each faction, one other is a hostile enemy, one is neutral and one is an ally.

Alliance - Ally (Illidari), Neutral (Sentinels), Enemy (Horde)
Horde - Ally (Sentinels), Neutral (Illidari), Enemy (Alliance)
Sentinels - Ally (Horde), Neutral (Alliance), Enemy (Illidari)
Illidari - Ally (Alliance), Neutral (Horde), Enemy (Sentinels)

This would mean that there would be two sides of exclusive content - one available for the Alliance and Illidari, the other available for the Sentinels and the Horde. The Alliance and the Sentinels can team up to do some content with each other, while the Horde and the Illidari can do the same for each other.

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Daelin was right.

It's been said a dozen times over, but a very interesting match-up would be a four-way split now.

Alliance: humans, dwarves, gnomes
Horde: orcs, tauren, trolls
Sentinels: night elves, draenei, worgen
Forsaken: undead, blood elves, goblins

Pandaren can still pick any faction. Most allied races join their main race's faction. It would feel a little weird with void elves and lightforged being with the Sentinels, so I'm figuring out what to do about it.

But given that Lor'themar is now in team anti-Sylvanas, I guess that division is done for.

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Goblins and Forsaken and belfs feels like such an unappetizing mix

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Factions work best outside a MMO setting. There's a clear lack of faction shifting that we normally see in historic and fantasy epics.



WoW can only add races to the two factions, but they'll never split them off. If they can manage to separate races like how Garrosh cut out any non-Orc and non-Tauren from Orgrimmar, it would be a great turn of events. But until then, every faction we face is just going to either be some NPC ally force like the Cenarion Circle or some NPC enemy force like the Twilights Hammer.

I think WoW should have adopted a new PvP mdoel a long time ago.

I get that having Blue & Red sort of made people feel more and more like they were a part of something, and that was good marketing and obviously for PvP content purposes having two powerful factions made sense but it's really, really played out at this point and there are other ways to do PvP content.

I'm not sure how world PvP would play out without the strict Horde-Alliance division, but there's gotta be a way to do it.

In effect they did sort of toy with this, having Horde who were loyal to Sylvanas, and Horde who were not loyal in the BfA war campaign.

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"The Demons did their job well. You creatures are as reckless and bloodthirsty as they ever were."

Free for all. Anyone can attack anyone. Maybe except for party and/or guild members.

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I like the system but it needs some change in combinations. Horde allied with Sentinels? Really?

I like this idea as well. Sounds like Warcraft 3 a bit, very sentimentally anyhow.
The undead and evil elves coalition seem very pure evil-ish. Goblins are ok here, like vile engineers helping the apothecaries in creating a machine of death.
Blood Elves have Leper Gnome slaves already, thus green, short creatures aren't unfamiliar for this affair.

Yeah I don't see Sentinels allying with Horde. I seem Neutral with Horde, Ally with Alliance and Enemy with Illidari.

I was going off those concepts where the night elves are very much savage and tribal; they have many similarities with the Horde in that case. It'd be nature/tradition/Primal (Horde & Sentinels) vs Arcane/innovation/empire (Alliance & Illidari).

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Daelin was right.

The Night Elves should be opposed to the Alliance/East Kingdoms for their acceptance of magic. And otherwise be their own faction.

Factions, like PvP, could have easily been optional. Making various PvP options could also deepen the setting. For example, here is a conflict between the Alliance and the Horde. And here is a conflict between two Goblin cartels hiring mercenaries, and anyone can sign up for either side. Battlegrounds already developed this pattern, and it could be diversified beyond the Horde vs Alliance lines. It could help in making a living world, instead of a one that exists in static until random Horde/Ally expeditions show up out of nowhere and start fighting.

Finally we could aid the Scarlets.

For Sentinels I'd rather go:
Enemy: Horde
Orcs stay in Ashenvale and deforest a forest.
Neutral: Illidari
Tyrande has some 'sentiment' toward Illidan. Also he and his Naga have saved her.
Ally: Alliance.

Then for Horde:
Enemy: Sentinels.
Neutral: Alliance
Horde and Alliance keeping status quo like in the original WoW after all.

Then at long last, comes out that Alliance and Illidari are enemies. It could be explained very easy though. Illidan romped some around in the Lordaeron during Frozen Throne. Alliance may regard him as some half daemon to be fought back. Grudge toward Blood Elves and aversion toward Naga was already assembled in Frozen Throne too.