Posts with tag cross-faction

Today's question is possibly a strange one: what's this game's Holy Grail? You know, the Holy Grail is that Arthurian object that you continually quest for -- if ever you actually reach the Holy Grail, you know that your quest, whatever it is, is finally at an end. So what's the Holy Grail for World of Warcraft, the thing that, if we ever actually reached it in the game, would change things forever?

When we posted the rumor that Gnomeregan would finally be retaken, I thought of this -- Gnomeregan has been, since the beginning of the game, a place that's generally off-limits to lore and change. The Gnomes are pretty much defined by not having a city, and if they were actually to take back and reclaim their home city, Ironforge wouldn't be the same, and once you've messed with Ironforge, then WoW, to me, is fundamentally changed. Same thing if they ever include cross-faction communication -- this game is so defined from the core as a game with two factions separate from each other that if they ever did allow us to speak across factions, it'd be a different game. Not necessarily a bad game, not that I'd quit, but the game's so defined by that, in my mind, that if it ever actually happened, we'd end up on a whole other quest. So what do you think: what's WoW's Holy Grail?

As noted in my previous article on the subject, the new and improved Battle.net won't affect only StarCraft II -- among other things, the Real ID feature will allow you to see what other Blizzard games your real-life friends or acquaintances are playing, should they desire it. But that's apparently not the only perk for WoW players. Blizzard recently announced that migration of WoW accounts to Battle.net accounts will soon be mandatory, and posted a FAQ about it on the official website; one detail immediately caught my eye...

What will change in World of Warcraft after the forced migration?

The core gameplay experience will remain unchanged as a result of the migration. However, you'll be able to take part in all of the new Battle.net features, such as cross-realm, cross-faction, and cross-game chat.

That's right. Got a friend that plays Horde and you play Alliance? You'll be able to talk to them from inside WoW, even if they're on a different server. Heck, even if they're playing StarCraft II or Diablo 3, you'll still be able to chat with them. How cool is that?

To quell some concerns that'll surely get posted in the comments, the extent that others can utilize your Real ID is completely up to you. You decide who gets to see what information and to what extent -- if you want your best friend to be able to see what game you're playing or what server you're on, you can do that, but you can also prevent your annoying cousin from pestering you to play StarCraft II while you're raiding. No, Jeff, I actually can wait for you to "pwn" me. Gots to get me some purps.

Some days, I just don't feel like playing my main character, so I hop onto an alt. Before long, I encounter some poor clothie of the opposite faction camping an elite quest mob hoping that someone else will show up and offer to group. Usually, the ground is speckled with skeletons.

Then the dance ensues. I salute, and the Mage waves. The Mage starts /saying things that I don't understand. I shrug. I wait for awhile, hoping that this will signal that I am willing to let the Mage go first. I'm hoping that my politeness infers that I will help.

Finally, I point at the Mage, then at the mob. Taking a leap of faith, the Mage tags it, and I run around behind to help, perhaps with a guildmate at my side.

After our parting farewells, I sit down to await a respawn. Personally, I think it would be much easier if I could say "I'm here to save the day!" or "I come in peace." Of course, there is some charm involved in finding a way to use our current emotes to communicate other messages, especially after Blizz added new ones in 2008.

How do you communicate to a player of the opposite faction messages that aren't directly built-in to emotes? Are you aching for a certain emote that would help you do this, or do you enjoy having to puzzle it out by piecing together existing ones?

You may remember that we announced that a Brewfest Kodo was hidden in the WoTLK Alpha files some time ago. With patch 2.4.3, the Kodo did in fact get into this year's Brewfest. The Brewfest is currently open for testing on the PTR, and you can see the Kodos for yourselves - but only on the Horde side.

That's right. Blizzard has added the Kodo mount, but not in the way many of us had hoped. The Ram mount is now available for purchase only on the Alliance side, and the Kodo mount only on the Horde side. Kisirani has confirmed that this is intended. She says that they came to this decision only after much deliberation, but it's likely staying, although she'll listen to constructive criticism. As you can imagine, this has not been well received.

Great news for compulsive /inspect-ors from the new patch -- Hortus confirms that in neutral areas and out of combat, players will be able to do a little cross-faction inspecting. No more will you have to wonder what kind of helmet that dirty Human Warrior is wearing around Shattrath -- you'll be able to pull them right up and check out all of their gear.

The sky, as you may have noticed, didn't fall when Inspect changed back in patch 2.3 to let anyone see anyone else's gear and talents, and it won't fall again when this change is introduced (trust me). It is interesting to consider how much the Armory has changed the game, though -- odds are that if you'd suggested that we should be able to check the other faction's gear and talents to a developer at the launch of vanilla WoW, they'd have said that, like limiting cross-faction communication, it wasn't right for the feel of the game they wanted to make.

But now that the Armory is up and showing off everyone's secret gear of shame, there's no reason to hide it any more in the game either.

I can't say I agree with the premise of this post that reader Syp wrote and sent to us (I'm Horde to the core, so for me, Gnomes only rock when eaten with a side of fries and Horde soda), but I can't really argue with most of his points. He sets out 10 reasons why Gnomes rock, and I have no doubt that they're sure to inspire lots of cross-faction discussion.

I do have to admit-- the Gnome mount is one of my favorites, and engineering has gotten to be lots of fun. Escape Artist is an excellent ability (especially since it went instant a little while ago), and I have missed out on the fun that I hear is Toshley's Station-- I'm trying to work my little Gnome Warrior up to the mid-60s so I can get in on the Star Wars references, too.

But I do take issue with Syp's "underdog" and "conformity" points. If you really want to play a race/gender that doesn't get a lot of love, try a Dwarf Female.

Arenas pit same-faction members against each other, but having Alliance and Horde on the same team seems just ridiculous. What do you guys think? Have you ever seen a glitch like this? Have you ever found yourselves with an unexpected helping hand, particularly in Arenas? Since Arenas allow members of the same faction to duke it out, is it too much of a stretch to team up with sworn enemies?

From the "OMGWTFBBQ" department comes a tale of mixed up raid ID's. Seems that two members of the Alliance guild Conquest on Kilrogg ended up in a BT raid with Horde guild Temporary Insanity. The forum thread contains many interesting screenshots for you to puzzle over. If these are digitally edited, they're done well. Bluetracker allows you to skip to the part where Tigole steps into the thread and informs folks that Blizzard is looking into it... what I personally want to know is, was this just a random glitch or 'insert conspiracy music here' is Blizzard trying to test some kind of cross faction raiding on us? Are we guinea pigs for their diabolical schemes?

No, probably it was just a bug, as cool as I think cross faction raids could be. I especially like the suggestion in this screenshot of cross faction raiding with everyone flagged for PvP. Imagine a raid where you could accidentally, or even purposefully, frag your fellow raiders? Or a raid where horde and alliance players actually had to race to the end boss, perhaps even sniping at each other along the way? Being that I'm starting to PvP more and more lately, I'd find that an interesting change to the raiding/PvP mechanic. Imagine that, instead of racing to opposite sites of Alterac Valley, you both had to race to the same place to kill the same guy.

At any rate, the folks of Conquest and Temporary Insanity got to do what almost no one else in the entire game has, namely they've confronted Illidan, the end boss of the current game, with a cross faction raid. That's one interesting bug.