I'm excited for this. A lot of people in my guild want to play as races on the other side and this gives them that opportunity. When people in my guild are happy and having fun it makes me have more fun. I think this is a very exciting day for wow players and it makes me very hopeful of the future.
Anyway, the best way for them to handle this, IMO, is to keep the single-player stuff faction locked (IE a Horde can't do Alliance quests and a human can't wander into Orgrimmar uncontested), allow players to opt into cross-faction group content (including match-maker dungeon and raid finder, IMO), and make the in-game communities cross-faction (if they aren't already) to fill the niche of cross-faction guilds rather than making guilds themselves cross-faction.Story-wise the Horde and Alliance can still be contentious, just not at open war, more like the Pandaren factions were supposed to be - different ideologies and reactions to events, rather than outright antagonists. Other than that, just continue making the player character work with neutral organisations and have the factions themselves handle their own problems in their own ways.
My Body Is Ready! =D Story has been pointing this way for -ages-, glad they're finally admitting it and that the faction war is just dumb at this point. BFA was a total trash fire storywise and tons of folks are clearly sick of re litigating the same tired tropes over and over.
if thrall and jaina can group up and pretend they're not into eachother, then so can we
Within my guild we have talked about this since Legion. I have always thought they wouldn't do it, but here we are. I'm delighted they are making this change. It will help the community. I look forward to additional changes like cross faction random queues for both dungeons and raids. In addition, I look forward to the day when our forces can join within one guild. I'll finally be able to combine two guilds into one. This is good news.
my belief is they should disconnect the players race from the factions. start allow them to join the horde or alliance. as well as gain reputation with factions or loose rep based on who you play with and how you play. for example a night elf killing night elves would loose faction standing. and and as reputations vary it changes you interactions with each race. and the horde vs alliance is which member ship you choose to join.
I've always been of the opinion that Cross Faction play should have been in the game from the start and PVP simply be about what banner you hold above your head. I mean, in Final Fantasy, you choose a grand company, and that's your pvp faction. It should be the same for WoW. You choose Horde or Alliance, and that's your PVP faction. If you opt into War Mode, you can PVP the same as if you were in a battle ground, simple. Segmenting the player base from the outset was a dumb idea and I always said since the end of original that it would lead to issues down the line. However I thought that Alliance would be dominant because we had paladins and could have better threat management before Horde got Blood Elves. I thought we would have gotten Cross Faction Play at the end of Mists of Pandaria when we joined forces to help defeat the Iron Horde and the legion, narrative wise it made the most sense. However Alex Afrisabi needed to have his BFA. All in All, this is an optional system, and I think it'll be better for the health of the game if factions simply dictated what PVP team you fight for and stop segmenting the playerbase.
They should have done this after (or even during) Legion when the Horde and Alliance were working together. BfA and the faction war made no sense after the Legion expansion. But at least it's happening now.
I support it to a degree. For lore purposes they need to make it so there is a treaty signed or a handshake deal for raiders that is temporary. Consider it a partnership of convenience. I'm cool with raiding or even questing along with the other faction to save the world, but it doesnt mean we are suddenly best friends. So no cross faction in enemy cities. And honestly in contested areas I'd still like to see some aggression towards each other. If we are potentially in competition for land or resources it makes sense for small skirmishes.
you know the horde/alliance allied together in almost every single raid since wc3 right?
the LFD and LFR should imo be cross faction aswell. Atleast the LFR to cut down the timer on queues.