Horde and Alliance – finally united? An interview with the WoW boss at least suggests “Cross Faction” play and raises hopes.
It’s a topic that has been around forever and is discussed over and over again in World of Warcraft. The faction barrier bothers many players who would like to play with their friends “on the other side”. But so far this is not possible. At least for raiding, a solution seems to be slowly coming into view. Because the game director Ion Hazzikostas gives hope.
Where does the info come from? From an interview between VentureBeat magazine and World of Warcraft Game Director Ion Hazzikostas. In a long conversation, he revealed many details about the current state of development and also addressed some critical questions. One of the topics was the possibility that the Horde and Alliance could raid together.
What was said Hazzikostas was asked whether “something like cross-faction raiding is now more on the developer’s radar” and gave the following answer:
I’d say it’s more on our radar, yeah. That’s one of those things that we have to solve a lot about, how it could be approached and made possible, but in the end the question is: If Jaina and Thrall can fight side by side in a raid, why can’t the Alliance and Horde do the same in this raid? Especially when we know it would solve a lot of the social problems players are facing.
Accordingly, the World of Warcraft development team seems to be at least seriously considering such an implementation. But it is also clear that this involves a lot of changes. For example, you would have to find special rules so that a common group in PvP in the open world cannot exploit.
When could that come? Since an implementation has not yet been confirmed, it should not be expected in the near future. Such large features are usually brought with the start of a new expansion or the associated “pre-patch”.
If the developers actually want to bring the feature, then the first (realistic) date for it would probably be Patch 10.0, i.e. the start of the expansion to Shadowlands. And that should probably still be two years away.
What do you think? Do you want the Horde and Alliance to be out in raids together? Or would that ruin the core of WoW?