The discussion turned to the fact that some of the “kingdoms” or servers in World of Warcraft have an excessively low population of Alliance or Horde. And since players can only make attacks, dungeons, missions and many other content with the same faction, this can often lead players to switch to servers with a larger population or to change faction, effectively ensuring that some servers become even more distorted or abandoned entirely. Hazzikostas cited features like gameplay between servers and connected realms as having alleviated much of this problem, but acknowledged that it was still a problem due to the need for guilds to be composed of characters all on one server, among other problems.
Johnson then asked the panel a question he acknowledged to appear on an annual basis, with a negative response each time: would Blizzard let the Horde and Alliance invade or the Mythic dungeons together?
Hazzikostas resisted the trend with his response:
“I honestly would never say … There are a number of reasons why it is essential to maintain the faction’s identity, but for the sake of the nominal arena, from day one, the Alliance could fight the Alliance and the Horde could fight the When Burning Crusade Classic will be released later this year, that will be one thing and one that will be a competitive activity, and that was one of those areas where gameplay and the need for matchmaking were the top priority and had to be. ideally, all of these priorities would coexist, but at the end of the day, an MMO like World of Warcraft is about being able to play with your friends, being able to play wherever you want, and there is undoubtedly greater extent to the faction’s identity if you feel that you can really choose the faction you identify with, that you feel most part of, and you don’t have to sacrifice that because you need to be with your group or want to join a higher ranking guild.
“I have coworkers who are lifelong Alliance players who now play with Horde, who would really like to be in the Alliance, who do so for guild reasons, and I know that there are tens of thousands, maybe more, in that same boat around the world. We would love to do something for them. “
Whatever the change looks like, it is clear that the potential unification that Hazzikostas suggests will not happen anytime soon. Although Patch 9.1 Chains of Domination includes a number of new features, including a new raid, a mega-dungeon and a new outdoor area, it does not appear that the Alliance and Horde will play together for now.
But Blizzard seems to be open to other big leaps that it may not have considered in the past, with developers telling IGN in a pre-BlizzCon interview that they are open to the idea of one day launching a classic version of Wrath of the Lich King – if there are enough interested players.
Rebekah Valentine is an IGN reporter. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.