Piggy backing off this comment. Really great idea, however I think that this is a feature that should have been in the game long before now. Wargames have been around for a good chunk of time now and that allows for the same faction to fight itself. Why had they not introduced this type of matchmaking in around the same time, specially when the queue times on servers were the worst?
Makes me wonder if they are trying to judge the population's reaction based on this for future content and maybe dissolving the walls between the horde and alliance. Heck the over arching theme I see in most of the stories is the races trying to find a common ground to work together, and if the playerbase themselves like being a Human but for the horde, I think we may end up seeing the restrictions lifted. All speculation and food for thought.
I believe they did it because they wanted to keep the line between Horde and Alliance clear and set. For a long time there was (and for some still is) an strong feeling of allegiance towards one side. Working with the other faction was blasphemy.
This sort of thing has gone on a decline lately and you'll find more and more people who have no problem double dipping (having main characters on both sides of the line), which allows them to implement something like this with little risk. I think if they propositioned this during Vanilla/BC/Wrath, there would have been FAR more backlash than they are seeing now.
Backlash then would have occured for sure. But with the introduction of the Pandarian race which gets the option of choosing which faction, and with this new addition of mercenary mode, it seems that possibly in the near future depending on of course multiple things such as story, mechanics, population may just end up having an option to allow for Humans to be horde and orcs to be alliance.
Ulitimatly that is the nature of what WoW is becoming these days. Gone are the days of comradarie for both factions, for pvp and to some extent pve (Only saying that depending on passives that races get, but that would cater to the people who min-max, and that would be a whole different arguement I would think).
Now I can not come out and say that the code for this new feature was already in place for when they came out with War Games, but what it is doing underneath the hood, which would most likely be flipping a value in the database, which would have been introduced with War Games was in place. Which leads me to think that all this is, War Games with added matchmaking. How ever that leads even further down the line of what even took so long for that? Arena has had match making against the same faction for years. The whole introduction to the feature is great! But at the same time leaves more to be sought after.
I think it all started in Cata when green Jesus really started to rise to power. Rather than having the Alliance and Horde fighting each other while also trying to stop the big baddy, both sides relied on Thrall. Then again in Pandaria, while there was a 'war', it was made into just a way to fuel the big baddy and they really hammered the, 'We must stop fighting each other and work together' shtick.
Piggy backing off this comment. Really great idea, however I think that this is a feature that should have been in the game long before now. Wargames have been around for a good chunk of time now and that allows for the same faction to fight itself. Why had they not introduced this type of matchmaking in around the same time, specially when the queue times on servers were the worst?
Makes me wonder if they are trying to judge the population's reaction based on this for future content and maybe dissolving the walls between the horde and alliance. Heck the over arching theme I see in most of the stories is the races trying to find a common ground to work together, and if the playerbase themselves like being a Human but for the horde, I think we may end up seeing the restrictions lifted. All speculation and food for thought.
I believe they did it because they wanted to keep the line between Horde and Alliance clear and set. For a long time there was (and for some still is) an strong feeling of allegiance towards one side. Working with the other faction was blasphemy.
This sort of thing has gone on a decline lately and you'll find more and more people who have no problem double dipping (having main characters on both sides of the line), which allows them to implement something like this with little risk. I think if they propositioned this during Vanilla/BC/Wrath, there would have been FAR more backlash than they are seeing now.
Backlash then would have occured for sure. But with the introduction of the Pandarian race which gets the option of choosing which faction, and with this new addition of mercenary mode, it seems that possibly in the near future depending on of course multiple things such as story, mechanics, population may just end up having an option to allow for Humans to be horde and orcs to be alliance.
Ulitimatly that is the nature of what WoW is becoming these days. Gone are the days of comradarie for both factions, for pvp and to some extent pve (Only saying that depending on passives that races get, but that would cater to the people who min-max, and that would be a whole different arguement I would think).
Now I can not come out and say that the code for this new feature was already in place for when they came out with War Games, but what it is doing underneath the hood, which would most likely be flipping a value in the database, which would have been introduced with War Games was in place. Which leads me to think that all this is, War Games with added matchmaking. How ever that leads even further down the line of what even took so long for that? Arena has had match making against the same faction for years. The whole introduction to the feature is great! But at the same time leaves more to be sought after.
I think it all started in Cata when green Jesus really started to rise to power. Rather than having the Alliance and Horde fighting each other while also trying to stop the big baddy, both sides relied on Thrall. Then again in Pandaria, while there was a 'war', it was made into just a way to fuel the big baddy and they really hammered the, 'We must stop fighting each other and work together' shtick.
I don't see WoD ending any differently.