149996-nexus-needs-saving-banding-together-to-save-nexus

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This is my idea, to rid the "faction imbalance" and have the game feel more populated. Hopefully there aren't too many typos and you guys kinda understand what I'm trying to say here.. I'll be posting this to Reddit as well and hopefully this can gain traction if you guys think it's a good idea. Here goes nothin!This is a great game. I've been a player since launch. I hate to see it in the state it's in and I'm a "dommie scum" as most of you would say. I love the lore and gameplay but I think to save the game we need to come together as one.... but here's how.... 
 
Player Vs Environment
 
The Peace Treaty: Due to the recent agreement you wouldn't be trying to slay each other on sight anymore you can (instance/party) with the opposite faction to help save the planet! After all, you're still looking out for you in the end. Nexus is a DANGEROUS place. The leaders of the Exile and Dominion stumble upon what happened to the life there before them and why the planet is in disarray and much to their dismay must band together not because they want too but because they have too. Note : I'm not a writer of any sort but feel an arc could be written in easily by the dev team leading to this, and this is very vague I know but it could be plausible in a "intergalactic war" MMO.	
Going Rogue: A lot of people or at least a few I've seen say or claim the Races play part of the Faction imbalance. Solution to that would be that along with the Factions coming together for survival on planet Nexus would be a Rogue system that would allow any race to play on any faction - Via a quest chain/arc that could be unlocked. It wouldn't be too hard or too easy but would be time consuming and would allow you to change allegiance. Note in my Player vs Player section I'd explain what this would mean for World PvP mechanics. Once you go Rogue from your original faction there would be a "Cool down" period and some type of system you'd have to go thru to get back to your original faction if you ever wanted too. Sure, this means Aurin and Chua would have to tolerate eachother... but Nexus would be saved!  Note: Since this is kind of a way to "Faction Xfer" without having to re-roll it could be "FREE" to Premium accounts and something unlockable via the ingame shop for F2P accounts. That way you can keep feeding the employees and would be able to easily play with your IRL friends despite their choice of faction. 
"Well what does that mean for PvP!?!?! THAT'S ALL I WANT TO DO!!!!!" - I can hear the cries now and I'd be shouting with you, if it weren't for the system I thought of that would set PvP back on the right track and keep the game alive. There could even be a Neutral party system put in place that would allow access to both factions cities as long as you weren't flagged for PvP.Player Vs Player
 You can still World Flag as your original faction as a personal choice to show everyone on Nexus "I 'aint gonna be apart of no nuthin that includes them Dominion". It could be your way of saying "I don't believe in inter-faction relationships" *kappa* This takes care of the World aspect of sorts and once again is vague but i feel I'm getting the point across here. If you ended up a Neutral party via the Rogue system and flagged for PvP you would be a target for both factions. Lets say you were Dominion going Exile. Well you haven't earned their trust yet but have displayed enough distrust to the Dominion that they would want to execute you on site. - For being a Neutral flagged character you'd recieve 1.5x of the bonus to world PvP.	Battlegrounds would still be the best way to show everyone you like to kill s**t that can rage, but here's how that would work. You can choose to que as your faction by straight queing into the battlegrounds or you can que as a Mercenary. Queing as a Merc would give you a bonus of gold or another type of incentive and you would be put on a team reguardless of your faction. This means you as a Exile could end up placed with Dominion because hell, you're gettin paid to be there!
Warplots - still in the works but imagine being able to build/que as a Mercenary hide out/base and defend that way. Vague I know but i feel like you're getting it...
 
I know this isn't very in depth but I do feel could be easily written into the lore - is plausible as far as the story goes and could definitely help save the game. It's a way to bring the entire game together and still have a need/role for the factions. Thought this could keep both types of people happy - the ones that say the factions shouldn't merge because this is a way to do it and still have "purebreds" in the sense that Exiles can't go to Dominion capitals - the agreement was to work together against a common enemy NOT profit from one another and vice versa UNLESS they have gone Rogue and also the people that play and think "Well I wish there were more people on" because there are people on  they're just not always where you are. 
To make the game feel more populated while staying as a purist to your original faction a quest could be created to unlock the "Capital Comm." A divice that allows your account to communicate to all capitals reguardless of faction. This could be toggled on and off and would allow a General(Zone) chat to include all capitals for PvE communication/Trade. I say have a quest to gain the item due to bots and such spamming chat.I know I haven't thought of everything but this is what I thought. I appreciate questions comments and ideas as far as this goes. Im going to create my own thread for this so please comment here or there and maybe if you guys think this is good the Devs will see it and we can "Save Nexus".Sincerely,  Bucki O'Hare A.K.A Billy Savage	
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my opinion on this : No
I don't want anything to do with Exiles, I do not want to see Aurin's in my parties, groups, circles, guilds or cities.
I joined Dominion exctly for this, so I do not have to deal with them.
Even on roleplay level; the communities for both factions are different.
 
Keep em that way please.	
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my opinion on this : No
I don't want anything to do with Exiles, I do not want to see Aurin's in my parties, groups, circles, guilds or cities.
I joined Dominion exctly for this, so I do not have to deal with them.
Even on roleplay level; the communities for both factions are different.
 
Keep em that way please.
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my opinion on this : No
I don't want anything to do with Exiles, I do not want to see Aurin's in my parties, groups, circles, guilds or cities.
I joined Dominion exctly for this, so I do not have to deal with them.
Even on roleplay level; the communities for both factions are different.
 
Keep em that way please.
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I think keeping faction imbalance in the game for these reasons are pretty selfish.
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My opinion on this is simple: The faction wall is an obsolete and terrible system that splits people apart and at least in my opinion is bad for the game in general. It doesn't really add anything apart from lore fluff.
I wanted to play a draken when i started playing WS at launch but if i wanted to play with my friends i couldn't do that, of course now launch was as it was and my friends soon all left along with myself. When i started playing again i made that draken char, some of the friends came back and i couldn't play with them because of this arbitrary wall and how alt unfriendly the game is in general. I'm sure there are more than me out there with stories like this.
 
So i for one hope that this wall will be removed, or at least lessened so that the two sides can team up.	
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The communities are different. I don't RP but I know some who do and what they've told me about the almost all aurin RP community is pure comedy gold. The best Exile guild is probably a Dominion guild that lost to the roster boss. Dominion win/lose 50/50 in PvP despite the population imbalance. Carbine should try to resurrect the early-mid P2P Dommie community by adding free faction changes around the time of the Steam release before killing it once and for all.
 
If Steam and free faction changes don't help they can try adding the elf race, worked in WoW. But if nothing works and Dominion population stays the way it is now then I agree with those who wish to remove the faction wall/let all players join all guilds etc.	
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I don't think factions are inherently a bad thing, but with a low population of players there's literally NOTHING to gain. It's awesome being able to identity yourself as one faction and wage some 'friendly' war against the opposite faction, but when said opposite faction is almost non-existent (Dominion), there's really nothing to go on about. You can still keep the factions and the rivalry, but instead make a subsection of each faction that works in secrecy towards the goal of saving the Genesis Prime and eliminating The Entity. The enemy of my enemy is my friend so to speak.
 
Trust me, it can work with Wildstar. It will hurt a little on the lore, no doubt about it, but it can still work in a pretty logical way. You can make it so whenever you're flagged for PvP, you represent your faction on planet Nexus. You still have to choose between Dominion or Exile, but to actually represent each faction on Nexus, you flag yourself for PvP. This way you still have Dominion VS Exile in some way or another, but it doesn't bleed into other aspects such as dungeons, raids, instanced PvP, expeditions etc.
 
I was pro-faction for a long time, but at some point you also need to realize that it might be a sustainable 'feature' to continue. Right now, I don't see how it benefits anyone besides Exile. Dominion is honestly at a low point by my observations, and queues in general take ages. I find myself waiting forever for just a simple PvP match or Dungeon.  	
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			Just let players officially join CoGS - then they can join parties both of their own faction and of fellow we-don't-want-a-faction-wall players who also joined CoGS. That way, the players who don't want to play with players of the other faction don't have to (that is, no one is required to join CoGS), but those who do want a larger pool of potential party members can choose to ignore the faction wall.	
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Just let players officially join CoGS - then they can join parties both of their own faction and of fellow we-don't-want-a-faction-wall players who also joined CoGS. That way, the players who don't want to play with players of the other faction don't have to (that is, no one is required to join CoGS), but those who do want a larger pool of potential party members can choose to ignore the faction wall.
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			Turn the emperor into another Lich King. Plunge the Dominion into civil war. Have the Exile help out Dominion to overthrow Myrcalus. And the faction wall will crumble into dust ... lol  :rolleyes:	
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my opinion on this : No
I don't want anything to do with Exiles, I do not want to see Aurin's in my parties, groups, circles, guilds or cities.
I joined Dominion exctly for this, so I do not have to deal with them.
Even on roleplay level; the communities for both factions are different.
 
Keep em that way please.
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Eh, as much as I hate the exiles, and hate the idea of playing with aurin... this might be what's best for the game. We will see how the steam release goes and whatnot, but it may have to come to that.
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The communities are different. I don't RP but I know some who do and what they've told me about the almost all aurin RP community is pure comedy gold. The best Exile guild is probably a Dominion guild that lost to the roster boss. Dominion win/lose 50/50 in PvP despite the population imbalance. Carbine should try to resurrect the early-mid P2P Dommie community by adding free faction changes around the time of the Steam release before killing it once and for all.
 
If Steam and free faction changes don't help they can try adding the elf race, worked in WoW. But if nothing works and Dominion population stays the way it is now then I agree with those who wish to remove the faction wall/let all players join all guilds etc.
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It always amazes me how absolutely obsessively hateful people are of Aurin.
 
Like, to the point that they wouldn't even want to play with any player that plays them. Mind-boggling.
 
Please, by all means, don't like the race, but refusing to play with people due to their aesthetic choice is just ludicrous. I hate chua a hell of a whole lot, but I'm not going to irrationally assign hatred to its player-base for choosing fuzzballs as their character of choice. In fact, I think it'd be a great idea to remove the faction barrier in terms of grouping (not necessarily lore,) and yes there are ways to do it without trashing the storyline.	
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It always amazes me how absolutely obsessively hateful people are of Aurin.
 
Like, to the point that they wouldn't even want to play with any player that plays them. Mind-boggling.
 
Please, by all means, don't like the race, but refusing to play with people due to their aesthetic choice is just ludicrous. I hate chua a hell of a whole lot, but I'm not going to irrationally assign hatred to its player-base for choosing fuzzballs as their character of choice. In fact, I think it'd be a great idea to remove the faction barrier in terms of grouping (not necessarily lore,) and yes there are ways to do it without trashing the storyline.
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 :rolleyes:
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 :rolleyes:  :blink:
 
Some people have an unhealthy hatred towards Aurin.
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What they should have done was let the player choose the faction in the beginning so we wouldn't had this problem.  Factions for the most part always scew to one side creating this imbalance.  
 
I guess it would have been hard to do that considering how the LORE is, but if it went something like a bunch of people landed on Nexus (all the races were buddies at one point) then split after it would have worked.	
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Just let players officially join CoGS - then they can join parties both of their own faction and of fellow we-don't-want-a-faction-wall players who also joined CoGS. That way, the players who don't want to play with players of the other faction don't have to (that is, no one is required to join CoGS), but those who do want a larger pool of potential party members can choose to ignore the faction wall.
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OF COURSE IT'S 2 AURIN THAT SAY THAT.
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I think there's been a little misunderstanding in these threads, I don't think anyone is actually asking to have the factions removed, that would be an insane request. People from different factions just want to be able to join the same guilds and use the same queues etc.
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			I don't want to be forced to play Exile because I want to be able to find parties. That's a buzz kill and will drive people away.. Once again these are just my opinions and ideas. I was just hoping for some feedback.	
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OF COURSE IT'S 2 AURIN THAT SAY THAT.
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I don't like the aurin, I don't really understand why so many people choose them, one of the reasons I don't play eastern MMOs is that every one of them has these furry races, in fact I was hesitating about playing WS in the first place because of the aestetics. But this aurin angst you people have is just mind boggling. Why do you even care so much what other people play with...? If only there were racial abilities and aurin were OP, but no, it is merely a skin they are having. Like an armor skin. In fact, in a full-covering body armor, aurin and draken look quite similar...
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			Well.. Minus the slouch... 	
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Think about it, if they didn't exist....how would the population span out?...regardless of the faction choice most make their choices based on aesthetics alone anyway.
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			A race that is so much fun to hate is actually brilliantly designed!	
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Sorry? Calling it as I see it. If your refusal to play with a certain player-base hinges on the fact that their purely aesthetic choices differ from yours, that's a problem.
 
It's not like by virtue of playing Aurin we neatly fit into a 'obnoxious hyperactive nature-is-precious' box, just like as chua players aren't (very likely) actually psychopathic killers with preference towards using explosive means in real life.
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I have played exile since the start, And my wife plays bloody Aurin, and I hate them more than any Dommie ever will. ESPECIALLY the MALE ONES. Holy crap what a stupid looking bunch of garbage. 
 
Look like freaking teenage boys, dont even get me started on players who decide to "dress less"... erughhh	
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I can't speak to EU since I'm on the other side of the world, but I see no reason to not want to play with the NA Dominion side here. I have no problem with (most of) them. However, I would be utterly shocked if the two factions are so vastly different on a personal level, and that you could paint all Exiles with the same brush to this degree. If I'm wrong, and the Exiles somehow are all jerks over on EU? So be it. On NA side, that's wholly untrue.
 
Mind you, I'm just bloody sick and tired of the Aurin hate. It's most often the same reason people hate Blood elves; we chose the popular race, so people see us around more often. And while you may not be explicitly saying 'it's because they play Aurin' you're singling out specifically Aurin players on a forum not dedicated to EU. However, some people have already said and will probably continue to say just that.
			
				
	Edited February 29, 2016 by Bloodrose	
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			I'm not opposed to this. Trion implemented cross faction features in RIFT while still essentially retaining the factions themselves. It works pretty well there, and I don't see why it couldn't work here. Silly "I-hate-X-so-this-shouldn't-happen" aside, this is probably something that could help facilitate more group play down the line if the game retains players from the eventual Steam launch.	
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So people who chose their faction/race have to feel guilty and beeing ashamed of their choice, and beeing called selfish because happy little cupcakes decided that lore is meanigless and for the sake of gameplay everyone has to play together ? Isn't this a bit selfish aswell, judging other people you doesn't know anything about like that, and nearly telling that their opinion is invalid or not right or they having a problem because they chose to not to play with some player aesthetics ? -sigh-
Devs just gonna do what they feel good, if they want to keep the faction wall so let it be, if not then they just gonna handle this like they handled f2p launch i guess. :rolleyes: 
Best solution if they have to merge the faction imo is to make it for pve only with "Queue me with my old faction only" option. Don't want to mess with mixed team in pvp aswell, my thoughts that would just higher the salts levels.
By the way, putting two ridiculous bunny ears on a smaller human model with others animations don't make it a furry. This is called furry.	
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			I think this is an amazing idea, partly why I love playing MMO's is because I enjoy creating these interesting backstories for my characters, however it's hard for my chua to be a wandering trader who sells his wares to whoever offers the most pay when there is a split. I wouldn't have had such a strong opinion about it if I hadn't come across a small little quest. In Wilderrun (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) you jump on these mushrooms and eventually find a group of hunters who have made their home in a rather large branch. In this group are races from both the dominion and the exile, so why can't we as the player tag along with some other people from the other faction. On a more technical note this may help the game a bit, once you reach lvl 50 the game suddenly feels dead if you're not apart of a guild of some sort. The queue times feel horribly long for anything that isn't vet dungeon and if you have just reached lvl 50 you're gear "isn't good enough for vet dungeons." Maybe allowing those who want to tag along with people from the opposite faction would help out more then some people might think.	
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So people who chose their faction/race have to feel guilty and beeing ashamed of their choice, and beeing called selfish because happy little cupcakes decided that lore is meanigless and for the sake of gameplay everyone has to play together ? Isn't this a bit selfish aswell, judging other people you doesn't know anything about like that, and nearly telling that their opinion is invalid or not right or they having a problem because they chose to not to play with some player aesthetics ? -sigh-
Devs just gonna do what they feel good, if they want to keep the faction wall so let it be, if not then they just gonna handle this like they handled f2p launch i guess. :rolleyes:
Best solution if they have to merge the faction imo is to make it for pve only with "Queue me with my old faction only" option. Don't want to mess with mixed team in pvp aswell, my thoughts that would just higher the salts levels.
By the way, putting two ridiculous bunny ears on a smaller human model with others animations don't make it a furry. This is called furry.
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I don't understand why people are so infatuated with being segregated in 2 factions. You know the players on the other side are humans too, right? They're like you, me and Irene. You can still be at odds with each other, but realize that working together can benefit both parties.
 
According to the lore as of now, our objective has almost nothing to do with a faction war, and instead it's entirely about separating Drusera from the Entity, and defeat the Entity. Heck, if you've been on the PTR, you should try and pay attention to the dialogue between a Dominion scientist and Exile scientist. They even end their dialogue with how they'd be a strong alliance between Exile and Dominion, if not for the war. They did argue between want to secure some artifacts in Thayd or Illium, but that was all there really was. For the most part they even got very much along and had mutual respect for each other as scientists. 
 
I think a lot of people take this faction hatred far too serious. 
 
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Turn the emperor into another Lich King. Plunge the Dominion into civil war. Have the Exile help out Dominion to overthrow Myrcalus. And the faction wall will crumble into dust ... lol  :rolleyes:
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Also this:  :rolleyes: 
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			I don't play any races with tails or that are short.	
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I gotta ask, why do people keep complaining about things no one is even asking for? No one is asking for classes to be able to wear the opposite factions armor.
 
Stop straying off track, it's just both factions being able to be in the same guild, use the same queues and go to each others housing plots, IF YOU SO CHOOSE. Nothing is being forced on you, we don't hate the game or you, and it's not some secret plot to kill off all your eRP's.
 
Also why does the above look any worse than the Dominions stumpy cat class the Chua?
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Here's a scenario that could unite the factions; the Eldan (or at least some digital copies of them) awakens to see all this fighting going on, and the Strain, and decides to take Drusera off world (since she was the main goal of the project) and scorch the whole planet.
 
Both factions try to run but then both of their arkships get shot down, and when the Dominion try to contact the emperor for help, he sides with the Eldan and leaves all Dominion forces on Nexus for dead. Now, stuck on a doomed planet their sworn enemies, the Exiles and Dominion must unite to stop the planet's destruction and rescue Drusera, or die with it.
 
 
Course if that doesn't work, then nothing will.
			
				
	Edited February 29, 2016 by Rambler13	
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Sorry? Calling it as I see it. If your refusal to play with a certain player-base hinges on the fact that their purely aesthetic choices differ from yours, that's a problem.
 
It's not like by virtue of playing Aurin we neatly fit into a 'obnoxious hyperactive nature-is-precious' box, just like as chua players aren't (very likely) actually psychopathic killers with preference towards using explosive means in real life.
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I think keeping faction imbalance in the game for these reasons are pretty selfish.
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I greatly dislike how many times I've had to say this. 
 
 
STOP
 
There is no need for any of this silly throwing of random brain vomit at a wall.
 
IF Pappy and the team were to do anything like this, most of these suggestions are useless and/or moot. 
 
We don't need an excuse to get the factions to work together, we ALREADY have the in game lore and gameplay basis to do this (C.o.G.S., which for those of you who pay no attention is the Coalition of Galactic Scientists. They run all but two of the Adventures and are comprised of EVERY playable (and most unplayable) races in the game. C.o.G.S. members put aside their faction loyalty to work towards improving scientific knowledge, to launch extensive exploratory missions, and otherwise discover and explore the Nexus system). 
 
We don't need silly story gymnastics or crazy new systems to work cross faction; we already technically do on all but two adventures and on at least one shiphand. As far as gameplay, put all the group instanced content (dungeons, adventures, shiphands, maybe raids) under the purview of C.o.G.S. and allow the OPTION of x-faction queuing. If doing everything for C.o.G.S. gets boring, open up the purview to the Ekose captains (already done with shiphands), lopp traders, Protostar etc. There are plenty of neutral factions players already do "consult" for. Leave the solo-instances under the factional purview as well as the world story until post - omni-core 1. Allow plots to have a public (faction) and public (both factions) option, and remove mail and chat restrictions. Keep guilds one faction only, but open up circles and created chat channels to both factions. Keep all races limited to their current faction, and keep all non-event and non-group quests faction bound.
 
There you go, simple solutions with no crazy twists to existing gameplay or lore while maintaining the faction wall, but still alowing x-faction instanced play and easier collaboration. 	
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The only thing you need to justifty PvE queueing with the other faction is by noticing that:
 
1) None of the dungeons or adventures beyond the first one have anything to do at all with the faction war. They are all about fighting a third party who would become too much trouble if you don't stop them. The Osun, the Pell, the Marauders, the tainted Torine or whatever happens in SSM. None of them have anything to do with the faction war. 
2) The Exiles and the Dominion already fight certain enemies together, to the point that they put their bases next to each other. See Farside against the Ikthian or everything in the Strain areas. Also see the Defenders of the Grove and Lightspire events.
3) The faction war takes a back seat once you reach Whitevale; both factions dedicate themselves to helping third factions who are neutral. Every now and then you are sent to shoot the other faction because the quest writers remembered that Facions Must Mean Something, but it's not central at all to the plot of the game. To the lore? Sure. But that's like saying that because England and France were at war for very long stretches of time in the past then they can NEVER EVER make an alliance, peace or just stop shooting each other for a bit.
 
You can also go ahead and justify cross-faction circles because those aren't an actual 'thing' in the game. They exist to gather players together with similar goals or who just want to have a convenient way to communicating with each other. And if they ARE a thing in the game universe...well, there's the Circle of Galactic Scientist. They have the word in the name and they have members of both sides.
Though, of course, without cross-faction PvE capabilities making a Circle with members of both factions wouldn't have much sense...except for talking with your group of friends while you level up in the other faction, or for roleplaying purposes. But I guess because those reasons are tied to interactions that don't take into account 'faction loyalty' then don't have any merit or something.	
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Nobody said that, you should read better what is being written in posts.
The general mindset, behaviour and overal atmosphere on Exile side is completely different then Dominion, even amongst people.
And that alone is ground enough for me to not want to be part of it at all.
It's 0% compatible with me, my believes, playstyle and what not.
So yes, please keep Aurin and Exiles away from me.
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How do you know that people who you play with don't play aurin on Exile side as alts or something - or even mains, running their Dommie alts in your dungeons/raids...? You ask everyone, and if someone plays on the opposing side, you refuse to play with them? Your beliefs? Really? And what if the Dominion got a new cute race and a lot of people changed sides...? You are taking this playing a PC game business a bit too seriously...
 
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The only thing you need to justifty PvE queueing with the other faction is by noticing that:
 
1) None of the dungeons or adventures beyond the first one have anything to do at all with the faction war. They are all about fighting a third party who would become too much trouble if you don't stop them. The Osun, the Pell, the Marauders, the tainted Torine or whatever happens in SSM. None of them have anything to do with the faction war. 
 
We were never at war with the Soviets, the cold war was a proxy war. Most of what you list falls into that category. Yes many dungeons are not explicitly aimed against the other faction; but all involve building alliances and helping allies to bolster ones side of said proxy war for control of Nexus.
 
2) The Exiles and the Dominion already fight certain enemies together, to the point that they put their bases next to each other. See Farside against the Ikthian or everything in the Strain areas. Also see the Defenders of the Grove and Lightspire events.
 
This is a decent point, but neglects the fact that even when forced into close proximity and to work together, the factions are still at eachothers throats. See the Light Spire quests to save your soldiers and kill the other factions; even while ostensibly "working together" to reach the light spire.
 
3) The faction war takes a back seat once you reach Whitevale; both factions dedicate themselves to helping third factions who are neutral. Every now and then you are sent to shoot the other faction because the quest writers remembered that Facions Must Mean Something, but it's not central at all to the plot of the game. To the lore? Sure. But that's like saying that because England and France were at war for very long stretches of time in the past then they can NEVER EVER make an alliance, peace or just stop shooting each other for a bit.
 
You don't need to be actively shooting some one to be promulgating a conflict with them. In Malgrave both the Exiles and Dominion are trying hard to convince the Lopp to cut out the other faction. Going back to the proxy war; both factions are trying to establish control of Nexus through strategic alliances and partnerships. Ignoring that war is 90% manoeuvring and 10% violence doesn't mean that those manoeuvres aren't part of the conflict.
 
You can also go ahead and justify cross-faction circles because those aren't an actual 'thing' in the game. They exist to gather players together with similar goals or who just want to have a convenient way to communicating with each other. And if they ARE a thing in the game universe...well, there's the Circle of Galactic Scientist. They have the word in the name and they have members of both sides.
Though, of course, without cross-faction PvE capabilities making a Circle with members of both factions wouldn't have much sense...except for talking with your group of friends while you level up in the other faction, or for roleplaying purposes. But I guess because those reasons are tied to interactions that don't take into account 'faction loyalty' then don't have any merit or something.
 
As you suggest (sort of) there's no need to justify any of those types of changes. The current systems already make little sense in terms of lore or gameplay.
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We don't need an excuse to get the factions to work together, we ALREADY have the in game lore and gameplay basis to do this. 
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Indeed we do. It's only players who are really limited with all of this. Even the dominion and exile partly works together in Arcterra with little bickering here and there. It's not really a complex issue, but I don't think resorting to a entirely 3rd faction is a good idea either, leaving both Dominion and Exile to remain as they were.
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How do you know that people who you play with don't play aurin on Exile side as alts or something - or even mains, running their Dommie alts in your dungeons/raids...? You ask everyone, and if someone plays on the opposing side, you refuse to play with them? Your beliefs? Really? And what if the Dominion got a new cute race and a lot of people changed sides...? You are taking this playing a PC game business a bit too seriously...
 
 
 
And who's fault is that? Who made aurins? You're even bashing on aurin lore - who wrote that, the players...?
 
 
Seriously, am I being trolled here...?
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"Who's fault is that?" What does that have to do with anything? I don't care if it's the players' fault for picking them, or Carbine's fault for making them an Exile-only race. I am not BLAMING anyone here, because I don't care who's to blame. I simply hate Aurin because of what they did to the faction balance, and because of their lore and aesthetics. What dont you get? I hate aurin because everyone HAS to play them. And at what point did I say that I hate the player? If someone has an aurin alt then fine, what does that have to do with anything? Seriously, why do you care that I hate aurin? Stop taking it out of context and assuming that means I hate the player base.
 
And the idea of adding a new cutesy race that would lead to a lot of people changing sides, thus making the sides more balanced? That would awesome for everyone regardless if I like the race or not. Of course there are issues with this possible solution, but that's beside the point. It was just an off-hand suggestion I made.
 
The irony here is that you are taking me hating a race in a game way too seriously. Perhaps you should take your own advice? Am I getting trolled here?
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I hate aurin because everyone HAS to play them.
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Even if you are to use the argument that the lore is too pervasive to abandon the Exile vs. Dominion war, my question is:  Why do I have to abide by it?  Why can't my Mechari decide he wants to work with a Mordesh?  Why can't my character decide to put temporarily put the conflict aside to work together against the threats that exist on Nexus?  As others have pointed out, there are places in the game that already see the factions working together, and it's not like the Exile or Dominion cast them out or hunt them down.
 
In a much broader sense, both historically and in fictional universes, there is plenty of precedent for two opposing forces coming together or even those within opposing forces deciding to personally put the conflict aside to work with their enemies.  So, what is stopping my character from doing so aside from some obstructive coding that says I can't?  Why does the lore get to dictate how I play my character and with whom I choose to play?	
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Even if you are to use the argument that the lore is too pervasive to abandon the Exile vs. Dominion war, my question is:  Why do I have to abide by it?  Why can't my Mechari decide he wants to work with a Mordesh?  Why can't my character decide to put temporarily put the conflict aside to work together against the threats that exist on Nexus?  As others have pointed out, there are places in the game that already see the factions working together, and it's not like the Exile or Dominion cast them out or hunt them down.
 
In a much broader sense, both historically and in fictional universes, there is plenty of precedent for two opposing forces coming together or even those within opposing forces deciding to personally put the conflict aside to work with their enemies.  So, what is stopping my character from doing so aside from some obstructive coding that says I can't?  Why does the lore get to dictate how I play my character and with whom I choose to play?
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The population dictates the boundaries of gameplay. Without a population, you won't be able to perform most gameplay. To me it's not a question of whether lore or not works out to a greater meaning, but if it's even sustainable or has a point. In the end, I'd rather see the game head towards a more healthy state, and by that I mean not bloody get shut down by the end of the year. 
 
Really, my closing sentiment at this point. 
			
				
	Edited February 29, 2016 by Razhork	
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Because games have rules and even life isn't a free for all. Same reason you can't decide to work with North Koreans in real life. They'd take you prisoner / kill you and we would disown you.
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			We already merged PVP and PVE servers, why not to have some type of "truce era", maybe the devs could come out with some kind of expansion where a huge discovery made by scientists from both sides forces them to collaborate together or been exterminated? What da ya think?	
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but........you used logic.....
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So it's logical to hate refugees too? Because it doesn't matter what made them migrate, it doesn't matter who has the responsibility or power to solve the refugee situation. Let's hate them because everyone HAS to be a refugee. And we don't like their lore and aesthetics either. So let's hate the refugees themselves, because it is only... logical...
 
The important part is: let's make sure we vent that angst in every forum topic where the refugee matter is slightly involved.
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but........you used logic.....
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			why not keep dominion and exile, but let all races choose what side they are on, I would love to have chua exile hehe.	
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why not keep dominion and exile, but let all races choose what side they are on, I would love to have chua exile hehe.
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The problem isn't so much that there's a racial divide, so much as there is a divide at all.
 
It's better to have 100% of the player-base be able to play together, than, say, 65/35 split. It makes the game that much less fun for the 35%. Quite frankly I think keeping the two factions is perfectly fine, the thing that should be brought down is guild/circle/housing/party/LFG restrictions and toss out the language "barrier." I wouldn't even mind still being considered hostile by Dommie NPCs as an Exile and vice-versa, though it'd be odd not to be able to hang with your guildees in the major city together.	
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			this ain't Hello Kitty Online where everyone holds hands and sings songs to make the bug bad entity dissapear.	
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The game is not less fun for the 35% as long as the game's overall population is high enough. This has been explained multiple times in the 5 recent faction related threads.
 
Currently Dominion population is too low. Guild variety is important to the semi-hardcore, who have a wide variety of different schedule requirements and both semi-hardcore and hardcore guilds risk losing to the roster boss when population is low. But we still have Steam and possibly free faction changes.
 
Rewarding tanks and healers should speed up random queues, this has also been brought up several times.	
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I personally do hope the steam release does help populations for this game rise up (it probably will) but my other hope is that it is very successful because it may help NCSoft make plans on a thing they had talked about back when free to play was announced. Which is moving to consoles, now I haven't bothered looking into this more then what I have read in an interview which was a solid maybe so perhaps they have changed their minds on this matter but I haven't read anything about that.
 
Now I had read that someone suggested a whole "you remain neutral until you pick a side in the beginning of the game" which is a nice suggestion, I've always found mordesh way out of place in the exiles. (I have read the lore and it does make sense but they still feel out of place) But I personally would love to just be able to continue being neutral, have it so that with important faction quests you get a message from both quest givers that tell you what's gonna go down and what you will get as a reward. Once the player chooses one of the quest givers they then temporarily serve that faction and once that quest is over they go back to being neutral. For pvp when you queue up you can get a menu that shows you how many dominion players there are compared to exile and once again have the player choose a side, if your character happened to be somewhere in the opposite factions base the game could port you out to a safe zone within the faction you chose so that way there isn't any sort of bs out of nowhere kills and so that the player doesn't get gunned down immediately by the surrounding population. (please note my pvp suggestions are just pieced together from what I have read, I don't do pvp since I never enjoyed it all too much.)  	
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this ain't Hello Kitty Online where everyone holds hands and sings songs to make the bug bad entity dissapear.
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why not keep dominion and exile, but let all races choose what side they are on, I would love to have chua exile hehe.
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Fighting the Eldan ascended (the literal gods of the Dominion) has nothing to do with the factions?
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I didn't know the Dominion was fighting on the Entity's side... There could be one faction and the game would be the same PvE-wise (except some leveling content ofc).
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Fighting the Eldan ascended (the literal gods of the Dominion) has nothing to do with the factions?
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I never said they were. But the Drusentity is the literal god of the Dominion, that has direct implications for the nature of factional relationships and gameplay scenarios. 
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			I think this is a great idea; it will help revitalize the community by strengthening the player market, lowering queues for PVP and PVE, make for interesting RP, and will be a big help with the content slated for release (the tiered events in Arcterra). 	
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I never said they were. But the Drusentity is the literal god of the Dominion, that has direct implications for the nature of factional relationships and gameplay scenarios. The game is built entirely around a dual faction conflict with 3rd party intervention. Once the Drusentity Arc is ended (which it will be) the Conflict between factions will remain (E.G., Horde and Alliance, Empire and Republic, etc)
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Here is the deal. She isn't a literal god of the Dominion in any way, shape or form. She is A god, but a god over no specific faction. When the Dominion came to Nexus, it was not to find Drusera because well, nobody really knew of her existence until now. But it was to find a physically interact with our gods, the Eldan. Too bad there was no Eldan left. 
 
In the end, both factions help Drusera out. Both have everything to gain since the Entity is a threat to both factions. It doesn't matter how the Dominion sees Drusera because in the end, she doesn't favor either faction. She is out to defeat the Entity as well. Whatever happens after that's done, who knows. My money is on that Drusera will die(fuse with Nexus w/e) anyways. 
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And what does that relate to the faction imbalance? It has presented no plot that strengthened the need for faction barriers. The dominion could worship Drusera (they've given little to no implication that is the case. She's more like an ally for both the Dominion and Exile if anything else. 
 
Planet Nexus is important to both the Dominion and Exile for different reasons. The Exile has had nowhere to go and call a home, while the Dominion is invested in the planet due to it being known for hosting Eldan, aka their gods. It's not as simple as "oh, but the exile could've just settled somewhere else" because if it was ever so simple, then they would've done so. 
 
I do believe the Empire and Luminai are very invested into Drusera in the background without showing the players. There's also a bit on hinting in Drop 7 to a lot of relevant stuff, but I wouldn't want to spoil. 	
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And what does that relate to the faction imbalance? It has presented no plot that strengthened the need for faction barriers. The dominion could worship Drusera (they've given little to no implication that is the case. She's more like an ally for both the Dominion and Exile if anything else. 
 
Planet Nexus is important to both the Dominion and Exile for different reasons. The Exile has had nowhere to go and call a home, while the Dominion is invested in the planet due to it being known for hosting Eldan, aka their gods. It's not as simple as "oh, but the exile could've just settled somewhere else" because if it was ever so simple, then they would've done so. 
 
I do believe the Empire and Luminai are very invested into Drusera in the background without showing the players. There's also a bit on hinting in Drop 7 to a lot of relevant stuff, but I wouldn't want to spoil. 
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The plot is to figure out how to defeat the Entity and how to defeat the Entity. Whatever else in the story has had no implication on the faction war. 
I can't get behind your rationale for "Dominion worship Drusera, thus there has to be a reason for them to stay on Nexus". Here's the deal. 
 
Dominion worshipped the Eldan, and the Dominion is a product of the Eldan's design. The Eldan are DEAD (The ones who make up Drusera is no more. Drusera and the Entity has no recollection of the Eldan or any like minded goals). 
Drusera does not give 3 shits about the Dominion's worship of her. She is out to get rid of the Entity because he's bad and she's good. Both the Dominion and Exile's primary objective is to get rid of the Entity. Everything we've been doing since Grimvault has been leading to this. 
 
Now let's say at the end of all of this, the Entity is dead and all that is left is Drusera. She is worshipped by the Dominion, sure - do you believe that she would support any faction war? Has she ever exhibited any favor towards a particular faction? No, she hasn't. 
 
I'm not sure exactly what you're arguing for right now. It doesn't matter how the Dominion views Drusera in the game. 	
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The underlying impetus for the *GAME* is the faction conflict.
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Not really. There is only a conflict so there could be two factions, hence, PvP could exist. If one faction was suddenly removed from the game, the PvE players of the other faction wouldn't even necessarily notice it... You said it yourself, the Exiles are only a sidetrack for the Dominion, the main story for them is the Drusentity, so you could easily imagine the game without the Exiles. They got a message from their god ancestors and been given the coordinates of the long lost homeplanet of them. They go in to dioscover their origins. The Exiles are not needed for that. Or it can be told the other way around, the Exiles are explorers who stumbled upon Nexus and discovered the Drusentity, etc, etc. The Dominion is totally not needed.
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With out both factions, there is no Wildstar. There are no Warplots, no (substantive) PvP, no quest lines (as they are now). You're left with an impotent narrative as in FFXI
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Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
 
Answer: The Egg; which existed long before Avians ever evolved. 
 
The Conflict did not preceed the factions; the factions resulted from conflict. And that conflict drives the game in terms of story, objectives, gameplay, and lore. 
 
The Exiles didn't stumble on Nexus; a Dying Dorian Walker was brought there by the Drusentity.
 
With out both factions, there is no Wildstar. There are no Warplots, no (substantive) PvP, no quest lines (as they are now). You're left with an impotent narrative as in FFXI
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... I mean... Technically speaking... A lot of that would've still been a thing, lol. Warplots are non-existent with or without factions. PvP will exist with or without factions. Quest lines depend on factions because the devs made it so. There is a faction war, but it becomes irelevant by the time you're done with Whitevale, basically. It all depends on how you define Wildstar, and to many players it has nothing to do with whatever faction war has been impeding. 
 
You're making the factions out to be a lot more important than they even are in-game.
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Lol, your logic is ridicilous. It's not about chickens... The real question is: what came first, the egg, or the animal that first layed eggs?
 
You say yourself the dying Dorian Walker was brought here by the Drusentity. Why do you need a conflict for that...? He could be just a random explorer in a hippi universe. "no quest lines (as they are now)" keywords are:"as they are now" There could always be a different story written without conflict.
 
"that conflict drives the game in terms of story, objectives, gameplay, and lore"
 
Really...? Where did the story and lore evolve regarding the conflict since the game started...?
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@Nazryn,
 
Ok, and what does it matter storywise and lorewise if the other faction is players or NPCs...? There could be one playable faction, and the other faction could be NPCs and story/lore could be absolutely the same. One faction would simply be played by the game... just like the Drusentity is now. BAM!
 
"There needs to be conflict for that because otherwise Dorian would not be in the Outer rim."
 
And why not exactly...? He's an explorer who just goes there exploring. BAM!
			
				
	Edited March 2, 2016 by Strayhand	
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Which is all shoved entirely to the sideline. Such small and unimportant quests in the grand scheme of things. Do you for example consider the questline in which we help the intelligent spiders in the Defile get rid of the bees, to then be betrayed by the spiders, a tactical and smart move by whatever faction assisted? It's just there to tell a small storyline. Nothing significant outside of giving you insight into how the Logic element can make creatures significantly smarter than they'd otherwise be. They don't play any role in the story arc, because the faction war doesn't drive the story at all. Our desire to defeat the Entity does however drive story. If we don't defeat the Entity, we've lost. Simple as that. The strain will run rampant and 'perfect' everyone. 
 
What has been the latest pieces of story? Blighthaven was primarily about Drusera's origins. We stopped the Entity from taking the Protoplasmic Resonator for himself. In this zone, we don't fight the opposite faction at any given time. We're being attacked by the Strain and Globellum (however small of a threat that turned out). The Defile primarily centered around us stopping the Strain from bridging over to the Lightspire. Here we had Koral using the black focus as a big power plant for the Strain, or that's how I remember it at least. Either way, it was for strengthening the Strain, and we fought against him and destroyed the black focus. Eventually also stopped the Strain from freeing the Entity, but its no biggie, because we SABOTAGED the opposite faction. Huzzah! Victory for everyone! I really felt the stakes being raced when those pesky Exiles were doing *cupcake* all at the beginning in the Defile, phew. 
 
OMNIcore-1 was about restoring the Caretaker so we could get information on how to defeat the Entity. Turns out he doesn't remember as much as one would have hoped. The next drop follows the trend of figuring out how to defeat the Entity. 
 
Now tell me that the factions drives the story. *Hint* It hasn't since whitevale. 	
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@Nazryn,
 
Ok, and what does it matter storywise and lorewise if the other faction is players or NPCs...? There could be one playable faction, and the other faction could be NPCs and story/lore could be absolutely the same. One faction would simply be played by the game... (just like the Drusentity is now)
 
"There needs to be conflict for that because otherwise Dorian would not be in the Outer rim."
 
And why not exactly...? He's an explorer who just goes there exploring. BAM!
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With out the Entirety of the Exile fleet being forced into the outer rim, he could never have made that trip. Indeed, even under those conflict circumstances he virtually didn't; with his life support failing just as Drusera brought him to Nexus
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If the writers wanted it, he would made that trip... It's that simple... Look. I'm playing only PvE in Wildstar. I play it for the raiding. If there would be no Dominion, no conflict, or if the Dominion would be an NPC faction, the game would be and totally could be ABSOLUTELY THE SAME to me.
 
Btw the chicken and egg question supposed to be an unanswerable question - that's the point for crying out load... You're like Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy...^^ (no offense, he's a lovable fella)
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If the writers wanted it, he would made that trip... It's that simple... Look. I'm playing only PvE in Wildstar. I play it for the raiding. If there would be no Dominion, no conflict, or if the Dominion would be an NPC faction, the game would be and totally could be ABSOLUTELY THE SAME to me.
 
Btw the chicken and egg question supposed to be an unanswerable question - that's the point for crying out load... You're like Drax from Guardians of the Galaxy...^^ (no offense, he's a lovable fella)
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By your same argument: If the writers didn't want faction conflict driving the game, they wouldn't have wrote it that way.
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But that's exactly what I'm saying!^^ They wrote as much conflict into the game as they wanted. They could have left it out entirely. And I would still have the same fun exploring Nexus and raiding GA and DS the same way I am now.
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Plus, new players would have 7 races to choose from in the beginning. It's an illusion, but I think it's better than binding those options into the choice of factions, the choice between "good" and "evil", or even the choice between red and blue lol. We also wouldn't have problems with alt-friendliness, queues, and ... hatred towards Aurin (well, they'd probably still hate Aurin but I figure the hate would be less intense if you're all on the same side lol).
 
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When you say there's a faction imbalance, which way is it skewed?
 
i.e., who has more/less?
			
				
	Edited March 3, 2016 by Reizak StormFury	
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