Is Battle for Azeroth an Extension of the Faction Conflict, or the End of It?

The Alliance/Horde War that spanned from the Wrath Gate to the Siege of Orgrimmar lasted for three expansions, and was controversial, to say the least. It led to the Alliance losing a great deal of territory in the Cataclysm revamp (no Southshore) and forced Horde players to turn against their Warchief.

It's a tricky thing. While Warcraft has always had Horde versus Alliance as a central theme (well, technically Horde versus Humans in the first one,) the Warcraft setting has grown so much in complexity that this conflict feels petty and harmful when we have things like Old Gods, the Scourge, and the Burning Legion to worry about.

Now granted, one of the main reason the Battle for Azeroth is proceeding is that one of those cosmic threats, the Legion, is being neutralized. The Scourge was also defeated (though not eliminated) in the early days of that prior war.

But I think that as controversial as that war was, having a period of peace between the factions suddenly erupt back into full scale conflict feels not only frustrating from an in-universe perspective, but also holds the potential of narrative redundancy.

And it delays an eventuality that I think a lot of us players have been wanting for a long time.

Let me tell you my fantasy:

My Rogue, a member of the Forsaken, was born in Stormwind. His brother is my Paladin. The two obviously diverged significantly, but while they've fought with one another, they never wished to see the other truly dead. Indeed, that Rogue has very little interest in Sylvanas' cult of personality - he's willing to back her up given that she's a capable leader, but if he had his way, he would return to Stormwind, welcomed back as a hero who fought the Scourge and the Burning Legion and the other grave threats Azeroth has faced. If Anduin Wrynn were to declare him a hero of the Alliance and welcome him home, my rogue would immediately tell Sylvanas and the Horde "see ya later" and proudly join team blue. (Well, he'd also do what he could to steal as much gold out of the Undercity as he could on his way out - he is a rogue after all.)

I'll tell you the value I see in having separate factions in the game: it gives you different perspectives on the adventures we get in the world. That's why I'm actually super-excited about the new zones in Battle for Azeroth, with Alliance and Horde having totally different leveling experiences. Shadowmoon Valley and (maybe to a lesser extent) Frostfire Ridge were some of my favorite experiences in Warlords, and I miss the unique feeling you'd get playing a new character as you went through a zone that meant something to your specific character - stalking through Tirisfal and Silverpine as I dealt with the Scourge, Scarlet Crusade, and Arugal's Worgen on my Rogue while I communed with the plains of Mulgore and the savannas of the Barrens on my Shaman.

Having totally different experiences is cool.

What's less cool is that my Rogue and Shaman can't group up with my guildmates.

One of the hallmarks of a story like Warcraft's is that you find people from opposite sides coming together to fight the common enemy - it's been a staple of every expansion. But while we do this story-wise, we never get to mechanically. Even if it would make perfect sense for the forces of Azeroth - the Armies of the Legionfall - to storm into Antorus together, for some reason my Highlord of the Silver Hand has to leave all of his Sunwalkers and Blood Knights twiddling their thumbs outside the instance.

I would much rather have a chance to team up, buddy-cop style, with my usual enemy and fight alongside them, perhaps with some witty banter being tossed back and forth.

Now, Battle for Azeroth is putting the Alliance/Horde conflict front and center to an extent that WoW never has. And that does not sound very promising for such an eventuality.

But maybe (and yes, this is wishful thinking,) this is the last big conflict. While the numbers are confusing, given that the Third War wasn't really between the Alliance and Horde, could this "Fifth War" actually be the "Last War?"

Imagine, if you will, that after this last big conflict between the factions, we finally reckon with the cycle of hatred and take radical steps to resolve it. I'm talking embassies and trade between the factions. And mechanically, I'm talking the ability to group up with the other side.

Yes, it'd be complicated. How does, for example, questing together work in an area like Silverpine, where a lot of the hostile NPCs are members of the Alliance? Perhaps you'd have to limit this to instanced content like dungeons and raids (which would work most of the time, give or take an Icecrown Citadel gunship battle.)

WoW has never been all that strong on the RP part of MMORPG, but giving players the option for their character to be one that sees past the faction conflict would be a great gift to allow us to determine what our characters want out of the world rather than having it dictated by NPCs.