The hype round Battle for Azeroth has as soon as once more introduced the seemingly limitless battle between World of Warcraft’s Alliance and Horde into the highlight. Regardless of being a long-time WoW participant, although, I discover myself giving critical thought to passing on this enlargement altogether for the easy purpose that I’ve lengthy felt the factional battle is, in a phrase, silly.
And that’s not simply true of WoW. Factions in MMOs — or at the very least in PvE targeted MMOs — have all the time been considered one of my pet peeves. They hurt video games excess of they’ve ever helped them.
Factions Add Little
Initially, it must be mentioned that factions actually don’t add a lot to the expertise of enjoying MMOs. They’re pointless, at greatest.
The chief argument that appears to be put forth in favor of dividing gamers into factions is that it instills a way of pleasure and faction id, however I’ve by no means heard anybody clearly articulate why that’s really a very good factor. Principally it simply appears to feed toxicity between gamers (extra on that in a minute).
The subsequent largest argument for factions is that they supply a foundation for PvP, however in actuality they’re fully pointless for PvP. It’s fully potential to nonetheless have participant competitors with out them. Guild Wars 2 presents a number of PvP modes, together with huge world versus world, with none discrete factions in any respect. And that’s only one instance that I may give.
If something, factions hurt PvP greater than they assist it. It’s very tough for builders to steadiness the inhabitants numbers between factions, particularly given folks’s predilection to gravitate to whichever faction has extra “fairly” races. Simply have a look at Aion’s everlasting struggles to steadiness the Elyos and Asmodae factions.
The one profit from factions that I personally have ever seen is that they provide selection in relation to storylines and leveling content material. Leveling up as an Imperial character in Star Wars: The Previous Republic tends to be a really completely different expertise from doing those self same ranges as a republic character.
However even then, factions aren’t actually crucial for that. Guild Wars 2 presents a wholesome number of distinct starter zones and private tales based mostly on its numerous races with none have to divide gamers between arbitrary factions.
They Go Nowhere
One other factor that grinds my gears about factions is that the battle between them can by no means really go wherever. It’s a narrative with no drama. To maintain the sport balanced, neither facet can ever win a serious victory or endure a serious loss. Doing so means favoring one group of paying prospects whereas disadvantaging one other, and that’s such unhealthy enterprise it borders on financial suicide. No developer is ever going to try this, nor ought to they.
When Blizzard revealed that Battle for Azeroth could be an enlargement targeted on the Alliance-Horde struggle, they instantly revealed that it might be a filler enlargement and killed my hype proper out of the gate. We already know this story can’t go wherever. Neither facet is ever going to win or lose this struggle.
We see this already with the pre-patch. The Alliance shedding Teldrassil or the Horde shedding Undercity every individually may have been a strong second for this story, however this completely balanced eye for an eye fixed state of affairs pulls the curtain again from how stale and synthetic this battle really is.
This isn’t a singular drawback to WoW, both. The elemental nature of MMO design prevents faction conflicts from ever having a correct decision. Even in video games the place gamers are in a position to combat different factions for territory straight, true victory or defeat is inconceivable. It doesn’t matter how usually the Daggerfall Covenant loses in Cyrodiil; they’ll all the time preserve coming again.
And They Drive Us Aside
For all the explanations listed above, I take into account factions in most MMOs to be superfluous. However that’s not why I’m actually in opposition to them. The worst factor about factions is that they divide the group.
Firstly, they divide us in a easy, literal sense. If I’m enjoying Alliance and my buddy performs Horde, considered one of us has to switch, or we will’t play collectively. In case your sport has two factions, you’ve successfully lower your playerbase in half. In a style the place extra folks to fulfill and group with is nearly all the time higher, that’s a powerfully asinine transfer.
You’ll be able to mitigate this by permitting folks to group throughout factions — as Elder Scrolls On-line properly has — however at that time one has to surprise why hassle having factions within the first place.
Worse, it breeds toxicity in a style that already has far an excessive amount of of it. Builders appear to assume factional rivalries result in enjoyable, neighborly competitors, however the actuality finally ends up wanting extra like a blood feud between competing mob households.
If I had a nickel for each time I heard somebody make the earnest declare that Horde gamers are bullies or that Alliance gamers are crybabies (each stereotypes which have extra reality to them than I care to confess), I may pay for my subscription for years to come back.
It’s not simply the occasional snide touch upon boards, both. The bile between participant factions can typically escalate to critical, ongoing harassment. Builders have been identified to obtain loss of life threats when one faction or one other is considered to be unfairly favored.
MMOs must be about bringing folks collectively, however all factions do is drive folks aside.
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There are some video games for which factions make sense. PvP targeted video games just like the upcoming Camelot Unchained merely wouldn’t work with out participant factions, and I’ve no drawback with that.
Nevertheless it’s time to acknowledge factions as what they’re: A distinct segment characteristic that doesn’t slot in most video games. For a PvE themepark, factions provide little, and take away a lot.
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