That is kinda what I mean. Sure automatation of content for most things has been done. Diablo 3 for example uses it by pulling from a set of tiles to put together each dungeon/map. However, the only way that it will ever grow is if the developers or artists create more parameters or tilesets for the automation to take hold of. WIth the use of a neural network, after a a given amount of generations, that would no longer need to happen. Since the network itself is crossbreeding the tiles sets(including art assets, sound effets, the limits would be the paramaters really) that already existed in a way and create completly new content.

Granted most content would be kinda of wonkey at first since it is of course learning, but the public would not see that unless it was released. A good example of this is a network that is reading the database of hearthstone cards. The first few generations it had some really out of the way cards, but after so many generations a lot of the cards that had started popping up are solid cards that could be completly viable in the game today.

But as far as I am aware, I do not think that many developers are using neural networks for content creation. Most are done in more "simplistic" ways.

Link to the hearthstone story: http://www.reddit.com/comments/3cyi15/

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.

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.