122554-the-advantage-of-factions

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Dividing the population into two or more factions is a norm. Nearly all games along the mmorpg history did this. 
Factions are a way to create a dynamic pvp world with a sub-set of objectives based on lore, but other than that, what is the advantage of having a server population alienated and divided in subsections of population?
 
Is lore that important that it can and should step over gameplay? Is the lore that is created on most MMORPGS really that good that justifies the grouping and gameplay barrier?
 
My own opinion is that it is not and it's also my opinion that it wouldn't be that hard to demolish such barriers without completely destroy the lore.
 
So, in Wildstar, the Exiles are Dominion castaways. We see them both coming to Nexus to claim it yet, there is no real war to be seen. The war is mainly about the natives of Nexus (Why does this rings to 16/17th century? hehe) and we see that both factions have the exact same objectives in order to obtain that.
To me, it looks like the war is more political than anything else.
 
So, months passed by and the game population became, what we can call, uneven. The division didn't create a war, a fun world pvp setup, but rather it just created a barrier between player on each faction.
 
Why not join forces and fight together for the big picture?
Both sides are fighting against the crazed AI in nexus, both sides are fighting against the Strain and the Entity. Both sides are clearing the same dungeons to remove dangers in Nexus that would affect both sides, yet, they can't seem to find an understanding and fight together?
Both factions have bases side by side on most of the Nexus zones without a single fire being shot between both bases, showing that the war is more of a cold war than a raging war.
 
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." That proverb is around since the 4th century BC. I'm sure the advanced civilizations represented on Nexus would also know about it or at least a similar one by one of their philosophers. 
 
 
Having different factions and allow them to group together, guild up together, talk between them would just improve the game.
Would it destroy the lore? No. Not if there's an introduction to it. The reasons and the possibilities are already in place. 
It wouldn't just be easy to fit on the lore, but it would actually open up a lot of doors for a development of the lore already in place.
 
 
Factions is a mechanic and mindset that is around for a long time, and I'm sure players and devs have a different view on it for various reasons.
I know that this thread is rather rhetoric, but I'd actually love to read some opinions on the subject from both Point-of-View of the Players and the Wildstar Developers.
 
So: What do you think about Factions, the needs for it, the advantages and would allowing players to group between factions would be positive, negative or... something different?	
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From the standpoint of the story, I think having the two separate factions at the beginning is necessary. Over the last year we have seen some very heated debats as to the right or wrongness of what the factions are doing. People really do care about "Their" faction and that is just fine. 
 
At the end of the story with the threats that both factions are having to fight against, it stops making sense. The enemy is something that both sides have to fight, leaders in both factions have been shown in the most unflattering ways as to what they will sacrifice for victory. Really at that point what is the tangible benefit of not working together? At lvl 50 you should have the option to group with either side, if that is not palatable enough for the devs then we can compromise and just let us mix group for storyline instances. 	
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Dividing the population into two or more factions is a norm. Nearly all games along the mmorpg history did this. 
Factions are a way to create a dynamic pvp world with a sub-set of objectives based on lore, but other than that, what is the advantage of having a server population alienated and divided in subsections of population?
 
Is lore that important that it can and should step over gameplay? Is the lore that is created on most MMORPGS really that good that justifies the grouping and gameplay barrier?
 
My own opinion is that it is not and it's also my opinion that it wouldn't be that hard to demolish such barriers without completely destroy the lore.
 
So, in Wildstar, the Exiles are Dominion castaways. We see them both coming to Nexus to claim it yet, there is no real war to be seen. The war is mainly about the natives of Nexus (Why does this rings to 16/17th century? hehe) and we see that both factions have the exact same objectives in order to obtain that.
To me, it looks like the war is more political than anything else.
 
So, months passed by and the game population became, what we can call, uneven. The division didn't create a war, a fun world pvp setup, but rather it just created a barrier between player on each faction.
 
Why not join forces and fight together for the big picture?
Both sides are fighting against the crazed AI in nexus, both sides are fighting against the Strain and the Entity. Both sides are clearing the same dungeons to remove dangers in Nexus that would affect both sides, yet, they can't seem to find an understanding and fight together?
Both factions have bases side by side on most of the Nexus zones without a single fire being shot between both bases, showing that the war is more of a cold war than a raging war.
 
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." That proverb is around since the 4th century BC. I'm sure the advanced civilizations represented on Nexus would also know about it or at least a similar one by one of their philosophers. 
 
 
Having different factions and allow them to group together, guild up together, talk between them would just improve the game.
Would it destroy the lore? No. Not if there's an introduction to it. The reasons and the possibilities are already in place. 
It wouldn't just be easy to fit on the lore, but it would actually open up a lot of doors for a development of the lore already in place.
 
 
Factions is a mechanic and mindset that is around for a long time, and I'm sure players and devs have a different view on it for various reasons.
I know that this thread is rather rhetoric, but I'd actually love to read some opinions on the subject from both Point-of-View of the Players and the Wildstar Developers.
 
So: What do you think about Factions, the needs for it, the advantages and would allowing players to group between factions would be positive, negative or... something different?
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			All I know is that with Same faction PVP coming out it seems to me that we could have different factions in dungeons. I don't mind if you are exile scum as long as we kill Stormtalon :-)	
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Replying @ Arachnaas & in some way to VicVan too
 
 
The following is my personal opinion and PoV:
 
I agree that having two separated factions is paramount at the start of the game, and even while leveling. It don't just generate story but also gives a re-playability factor to the game. The Lore behind Wildstar kinda demands that such division exists, but as soon as one hits endgame (read, lvl 50) it don't just stop making absolute sense, but it also hinders the gameplay.
 
I'm going to point another game as example. 
Although most quests/missions are shared, The Secret World have faction based PvP and a few faction based missions, yet they allow grouping with other factions increasing dramatically how easy it is to form groups. They don't allow mixed guilds (or cabals as it is called there) but that can be bypassed by forming specific chat channels for members of the 3 factions, each one having a cabal of their own.
That game would have died by now without the possibility of mixed groups.
 
They are different groups with the same objectives. Lore wise it fits and without it the game would be already dead.	
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All I know is that with Same faction PVP coming out it seems to me that we could have different factions in dungeons. I don't mind if you are exile scum as long as we kill Stormtalon :-)
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Same faction is different fundamentally.  Both the Exiles and Dominion have inter-factional squabbles.  FCON is nothing more than bands of mercenaries that would swing at each other if given the chance.  The Dominion is constantly killing people within the faction for disloyalty or dishonor.
 
That makes total game sense.
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If we look at our own history, we see that it does make sense. 
Nexus and its colonization is no different than our own colonization phase of history. War and separation ends in a way or another as soon as the "colonizers" get detached from their home nations and start acting as a single group with the same objectives in mind.
And that's how new nations were formed. hehe 
(I know it's wasn't reaaaally like that, but I exaggerate it a bit just to pass the idea around)
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I agree that having two separated factions is paramount at the start of the game, and even while leveling. It don't just generate story but also gives a re-playability factor to the game. The Lore behind Wildstar kinda demands that such division exists, but as soon as one hits endgame (read, lvl 50) it don't just stop making absolute sense, but it also hinders the gameplay.
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I don't particularly care if we were allowed mixed factions for PVE stuff or not. However, I will say that lore wise, it doesn't fit. Sure, in the real world, we can become friends even when our governments disagree. But this is Nexus. The Dominion is executing anyone they find with any Exile "sympathies," and I doubt some Exiles would be any better. Lore-wise, the two factions are far too far apart for there to be cross cooperation at this moment. Not saying the lore folks couldn't alter that if they wanted, but that's just how I read it right now.
 
One of the big complaints many players had in The Secret World was how little faction boundaries meant. However, lore-wise it made sense from the start. Our "governments" declared it a "secret war" on purpose, and they wanted us to work together to fight the bigger evil (the Filth) while still trying to come out ahead ourselves. I still hope to see where they are taking this story. TSW has the most fascinating storylines in any MMO I've played.	
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Appreciated, but that doesn't really apply here for two reasons:
 
-The Dominion isn't just opening a colony, they are moving the seat of government to Nexus from Cassus.
 
-The Exiles don't have their own home nation.
 
Essentially, this would be like if the English moved the seat of the government after American independence from London to Ottawa
 
In the end, though, I think factional drivers aren't a bad idea, and I think they can and should stay in the game.  However, things can get muddled as you go, and I wouldn't mind if we essentially went "faction free" at 50 and got to pick who we sided with, if anyone, and how much we wanted to engage in the warfare.  There'd have to be a lot of work done in that, though, especially in how PVP moves forwards.  They have to be balanced pretty heavily for World PVP to function.
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Didn't they announce the intention of mixed PvP battlegrounds? That's where I can imagine more problems with removing faction restrictions, due to trade-wins and such, but still, don't see it as more detrimental as the current setup. Might be wrong tho. As I said, I'm not much of a PvPer and don't have the innate knowledge about it's details.
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I remember reading that somewhere, yes
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			Did they say mixed faction or same faction battlegrounds? I remember reading about same faction battlegrounds coming (just like they have arenas currently), but I don't remember where they said they'd be mixing the factions. In fact, I thought they said that was not currently programmed in. I found the discussion.	
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I agree that the divided factions are mechanically detrimental to the game. I don't agree that it stops making sense lore-wise. Is the present danger enough to forget destroyed homeworlds, genocide of entire species, the loss of friends and family, etc... or is it only enough to say, "I'll put killing you on hold until this thing is dead."?
 
I can see the Dominion changing its ways once they realize that the all-powerful Eldan were merely another pawn in much larger game. Taking pride in being chosen by a slave has no meaning; and the Dominion are extremely proud. I see deep insult to an entire way of life once they discover the truth. That being said, this changes nothing for the Exiles.	
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Dividing the population into two or more factions is a norm. Nearly all games along the mmorpg history did this.
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I agree that the divided factions are mechanically detrimental to the game. I don't agree that it stops making sense lore-wise. Is the present danger enough to forget destroyed homeworlds, genocide of entire species, the loss of friends and family, etc... or is it only enough to say, "I'll put killing you on hold until this thing is dead."?
 
I can see the Dominion changing its ways once they realize that the all-powerful Eldan were merely another pawn in much larger game. Taking pride in being chosen by a slave has no meaning; and the Dominion are extremely proud. I see deep insult to an entire way of life once they discover the truth. That being said, this changes nothing for the Exiles.
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Think about it this way.
 
Both Exile and Dominion are technically shipwrecked on Nexus, what else can they really do. Nexus is their claimed rightful place to be.
The strain and other factors seem to threaten this.
 
The terms of the past can be forgotten and things can be forgiven, but rather crimes of a trecherous pass if those of the new generation can learn to forgive and live with peace instead.
 
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"
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I don't think the Dominion is shipwrecked.  The Exiles say that the Gambler's Ruin only had one more jump in it, but the Dominion (though it's moving its seat to Nexus from Cassus), is still a massive organization which the Dominion on Nexus is only a small part of.  It's really just a matter of logistics why the Exiles are even able to stand up to them; they aren't presented as equivalent factions in the broader galaxy, just on Nexus.
 
I honestly doubt they'll remove the faction idea entirely.  It'd be more sensible to just elevate the player above it and let the player decide their level of involvement.  Let us decide on an individual level to let bygones be bygones (or just not care, as many of our characters do), but the idea that the Dominion, which controls a huge swathe of the galaxy and is essentially a hegemony which they consider the Exiles to be an unfortunately splinter of, is just going to let it go any more than the Exiles, whose entire ways of life and whole planets are under Dominion sway, seems a bit strange.  The two factions have a lot of reasons to hate each other and seem to only work in the same areas understanding their logistical issues, they don't necessarily work together unless someone says so.
 
It's not outside the lore to have people within those factions working together (I'm sure we've all done DSE a bit recently).  That seems a better route to take, to just let the player decide how seriously he takes the fighting and, thus, open up the mechanics for mixed faction instancing and whatnot.
 
You don't need to jump a massive lore hurdle for that.
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Was just simplyfying
 
"We both want nexus, but the strain and other factors might take it away from us" as an idea.
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Enjoyed how NeverWint*r implemented factions for PVP.
One signed up in town for a 24 hour alignment (and this could be changed at anytime) providing there were slots available on that instance.
No slots? - change instance and try again.
Don't feel any great tie to one side or the other in this game - too much reading of storyline makes my lips tired	
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With hindsight and given the population imbalance between Exile and Dominion, perhaps they should have chosen a model similar to LOTRO. in LOTRO everyone is on the same team for PVE, but there's a Monster Play mode for PvP.
 
This would have allowed for unified PVE questing / raiding, plus opened up all the classes to all species without the need to shoe-horn in some lore.
 
Of course Monster Play brings its own PvP balance issues, because the Monster Play classes won't be direct mirrors of PVE classes. But it does provide all manner of interesting and fun opportunities for different Monster classes and factions.	
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The bigger issue is mechanically what this does to PVP and the PVP servers.  We, being mostly PVE players here, tend to view the factional warfare as a lore appendage, but this very fundamentally shifts what happens on Warhound if it recovers.  While it might be easier to get a BG, Warplot or arena team going (the tendency is to think that if Timetravel's running the show these days, this is probably going to happen), that does mean world PVP is going to be completely different and it needs to be addressed before this goes forward.  Does it become FFA?  Guild v Guild?  Do they implement an EVE style Alliances-Guilds-Friends muddling?
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			Said it before I'll say it again EQ had hands done the best faction system of any mmo I've ever played.	
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Idk not really a fan of the idea,thought it was silly when rift did it.maybe i'm just old school and think hey just focus on learning from your mistakes and gee keep making your game better?
 
if the population keeps dropping off,going buy to play(Not F2P) would do more good than,throwing your factions out the window.But i'm open minded,it's not unheard of rivals uniting to face a common threat bigger than each other. Long as the story and lore continues to make sense i would be fine with it,but then again why would i pick a faction at character creation if it don't mean anything.	
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			To OP. Factions are a way of adding content. Plain and simple. Adding content to increase player count. Factions compliments lore and PvP in a certain reguard, but they are essentially unnecessary.	
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To OP. Factions are a way of adding content. Plain and simple. Adding content to increase player count. Factions compliments lore and PvP in a certain reguard, but they are essentially unnecessary.
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To OP. Factions are a way of adding content. Plain and simple. Adding content to increase player count. Factions compliments lore and PvP in a certain reguard, but they are essentially unnecessary.
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While I don't think the division is necessary, the way they have constructed their lore, I don't see it happening in any realistic fashion.
 
There is no way that the Aurin would ally with anyone who would ally with Chua.
There is no way that the Mordesh would trust the Dominion ever again.
Granok probably could go either way though there is still strong hate in some NPC circles based on Gnox.
Exiled humans could probably go either way, depending on what was offered.  They would probably be most likely to be able to reintegrate.	
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			I like factions, but I want more than just 2. Also would be awesome if some zones were dominated by some faction, or even temporarily, and who dominates decided by open world pvp event, or some quests in zone, so more active faction can get some buff. Not like in Galeras, here we have blood and guts around, 2 steps away you can lay on green grass and have nice sun bath, all NPC gonna just stand there and pretend that there is a war going on.	
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While I don't think the division is necessary, the way they have constructed their lore, I don't see it happening in any realistic fashion.
 
There is no way that the Aurin would ally with anyone who would ally with Chua.
There is no way that the Mordesh would trust the Dominion ever again.
Granok probably could go either way though there is still strong hate in some NPC circles based on Gnox.
Exiled humans could probably go either way, depending on what was offered.  They would probably be most likely to be able to reintegrate.
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To OP. Factions are a way of adding content. Plain and simple. Adding content to increase player count. Factions compliments lore and PvP in a certain reguard, but they are essentially unnecessary.
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Drusera: You Aurin and Chua will behave otherwise i will blow this whole planet up i swear to Toria...
 
Drusera: You Mordesh and Dominion will behave otherwise i will blow this whole planet up i swear to Toria...
 
Drusera: You Granok and Exile Humans will behave otherwise...actually i think you get the point
 
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As much as it might be a pain, the lore they've set up doesn't leave room for the factions to unite in any real sense. Literally every Aurin on Nexus watched their home planet burn at the hands of the Dominion. Every human exile has been hunted from the day they were born, and will/would have been executed on the spot if caught. These aren't things they can hand-wave away, even with Drusera. 
 
We can still cooperate vs the Strain a bit, but that'll be it. 	
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I stand by my assertion that I don't see this happening in any realistic fashion.  What you described is such a ham-handed deus ex machina that it would destroy their lore.  They could do it naturally, but it would be terrible for story integrity.
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Is everything beyond  Whitevale pretty much just rehashed Dom quests with different starting points and different quest dialogue?
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Yes. In many zones, even the art assets used for the questing areas are identical.
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Gameplay should always come first and currently the factions are only making it more difficult to find queues and what not.
 
If the biggest problem people have with removing the factions is the lore, then I'd like to remind those people that when you look at the lore the factions are really unbalanced (the Dominion is both in numbers and in military might way superior to the Exiles), and it would probably be easy for the Dominion to conquer the Exile lands and have them surrender. The only reason there are two factions is for meta-reasons, when you look at the lore it's really silly that the Exiles have always been running from the Dominion, use Nexus as their last stand, and the Dominion doesn't send in their full army to beat them.
 
In other words, it's not at all far-fetched to just do away with the factions in the lore if people really want the factions gone. Might make Exile-players mad though, so you could even throw in some peace talks where you promise that if they join the Dominion the Mordesh get access to Dominion resources and scientists to find a cure, those Harvesters will be removed from Arboria and the Aurin can restore the planet with their Eldan machines, have the Dominion conquer Gnox and allow the Granok to return from their exile to their homeworld etc.
 
Now you've explained the merging of the factions in the lore, the devs don't have to make content for two factions anymore and the game will be all the better for it.	
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This. And this. I have a bunch of my friends who are in the process of coming back, the problem is we played dominion before the great WoD exodus. Now I didn't have a problem rerolling exile, but to some its a huge detractor. And its a hard sell telling the WoW crowd that in essence one side is dead, especially after seeing Thayd compared to Illum. Look at Eve? You can be a Caldari pilot teamed up with Amarr, and they are about as close to Exile and Dominion as possible in that game. You will upset a few RP'ers and those holding on to antiquated systems like WoW, but much like the original way this game was headed before you (Carbine) started righting the ship, this is a huge change that I don't really think server side would be a huge coding deal. And plus, the best race in the game (chua) is on the least played faction. This must be fixed!
 
p.s. thanks Carbine, the game is alive and popping again. I queued for KV normal while leveling yesterday, as a tank and dps. Got a group 3 minutes later, and guess what? I got in as a dps. BAM!	
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Gameplay should always come first and currently the factions are only making it more difficult to find queues and what not.
 
If the biggest problem people have with removing the factions is the lore, then I'd like to remind those people that when you look at the lore the factions are really unbalanced (the Dominion is both in numbers and in military might way superior to the Exiles), and it would probably be easy for the Dominion to conquer the Exile lands and have them surrender. The only reason there are two factions is for meta-reasons, when you look at the lore it's really silly that the Exiles have always been running from the Dominion, use Nexus as their last stand, and the Dominion doesn't send in their full army to beat them.
 
In other words, it's not at all far-fetched to just do away with the factions in the lore if people really want the factions gone. Might make Exile-players mad though, so you could even throw in some peace talks where you promise that if they join the Dominion the Mordesh get access to Dominion resources and scientists to find a cure, those Harvesters will be removed from Arboria and the Aurin can restore the planet with their Eldan machines, have the Dominion conquer Gnox and allow the Granok to return from their exile to their homeworld etc.
 
Now you've explained the merging of the factions in the lore, the devs don't have to make content for two factions anymore and the game will be all the better for it.
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2) The whole Dominion vs Exiles thing isn't all the Exiles fault. Did everyone forget that there WERE people in the starting area of the Dominion faction who were brain scanned for Exile friendly feelings (such as the Chua thinking maybe the Exiles weren't so bad)? Those people were sent to Mondo Zax to be experimented upon by being incinerated, electrocuted and mutated into horrific abominations for just THINKING the Exiles were ok. That is the tolerance the Dominion shows to the Exiles.
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I support dropping the language barrier and allowing exiles and domis to group up and form guilds.
 
On the pvp server it can work the same as it does now except when in a group/guild, members of opposite faction won't be able to attack each other	
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Other than that, it would indeed be a bit strange for the Dominion to start peace talks instead of just forcing the Exiles to surrender whenever their full military arrives. But like I said, that would probably make Exile players mad, so you'd have to give them something in return even if it isn't 100% logical. I don't care too much either way, as long as they just stop separating the queues and making it way more difficult to get groups for content just because of the lore. I'd even be fine with just keeping the factions but just letting us be able to group together.
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Thus why a "uniting force" is needed.
 
... Like the Entity. And whenever that runs its course, you can have some brief drama of "will they or won't they" as the Dominion and Exile alliance wavers only to find themselves faced with an even greater threat. And so on. After an expac or two, you're safe to declare the "temporary" truce has been active for a long enough time that it's now permanent, with some splinter groups that still want to keep fighting that create conflict for the players.
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Again, I really do feel like this discussion is making it a LOT harder than it needs to be to implement the changes needed.  There seems to be this idea that the factions need to learn to work together, which really DOESN'T need to happen.  The whole Exiles v. Dominion dichotomy can continue just as it is.  We, as players, can be simply given the choice to be aloof of it all (and for mechanical purposes where lore isn't an issue, just ignore it).  We can be allowed to make sure we aren't KOS to each other as long as we're neutral, Hell that wouldn't even be nearly as hard.  Give us the choice to switch factions or to go factionless, lump the entire playerbase into one "faction" and turn the factions into reputations we can grind and check that we're at war with the other faction.
 
There are a lot of easy ways to do this without having to vault a wall by giving these two very different and diametrically opposed factions a peace treaty.  Really, what the game needs is more player choice in how we engage in the conflict.  At that point, they can give us mixed faction BGs, arenas, dungeon teams, etc. because, in lore terms, even though the Exile and Dominion governments HATE each other, that doesn't necessarily mean all players fall into those camps.  We can be completely dissociated from the conflict, or feel attached to both sides, or choose one or the other.  Just set up a mechanic for that and everything falls into place, no hurdles or loss of story elements required.  You can still be a Dominion soldier who will KOS any affiliated Exile, just that someone might be "neither".
 
What this brings up is the state of the PVP servers and world PVP in general.  At the moment, it's married to factional divides on both sides to give it context.  That would have to either be different from the PVE server (essentially forcing you to be Exile or Dominion) or would involve a completely different way to divide up PVP (randomly assigning sides in events, going full on FFAPVP, etc.).  That's really where the discussion has to go.
 
Focusing on trying to make the Dominion and Exiles into friends seems counterproductive; it's not strictly necessary to implement the changes you want and it seems like the loss of that conflict, at whatever level it exists, would certainly mean the removal of a story element that some people might value.	
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Again, I really do feel like this discussion is making it a LOT harder than it needs to be to implement the changes needed.  There seems to be this idea that the factions need to learn to work together, which really DOESN'T need to happen.  The whole Exiles v. Dominion dichotomy can continue just as it is.  We, as players, can be simply given the choice to be aloof of it all (and for mechanical purposes where lore isn't an issue, just ignore it).  We can be allowed to make sure we aren't KOS to each other as long as we're neutral, Hell that wouldn't even be nearly as hard.  Give us the choice to switch factions or to go factionless, lump the entire playerbase into one "faction" and turn the factions into reputations we can grind and check that we're at war with the other faction.
 
There are a lot of easy ways to do this without having to vault a wall by giving these two very different and diametrically opposed factions a peace treaty.  Really, what the game needs is more player choice in how we engage in the conflict.  At that point, they can give us mixed faction BGs, arenas, dungeon teams, etc. because, in lore terms, even though the Exile and Dominion governments HATE each other, that doesn't necessarily mean all players fall into those camps.  We can be completely dissociated from the conflict, or feel attached to both sides, or choose one or the other.  Just set up a mechanic for that and everything falls into place, no hurdles or loss of story elements required.  You can still be a Dominion soldier who will KOS any affiliated Exile, just that someone might be "neither".
 
What this brings up is the state of the PVP servers and world PVP in general.  At the moment, it's married to factional divides on both sides to give it context.  That would have to either be different from the PVE server (essentially forcing you to be Exile or Dominion) or would involve a completely different way to divide up PVP (randomly assigning sides in events, going full on FFAPVP, etc.).  That's really where the discussion has to go.
 
Focusing on trying to make the Dominion and Exiles into friends seems counterproductive; it's not strictly necessary to implement the changes you want and it seems like the loss of that conflict, at whatever level it exists, would certainly mean the removal of a story element that some people might value.
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			I think factions were a simple solution to, what was at one time, a pretty difficult problem and now they're just an easy way to make things seem deeper than they actually are.	
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There seems to be this idea that the factions need to learn to work together, which really DOESN'T need to happen.  The whole Exiles v. Dominion dichotomy can continue just as it is.  We, as players, can be simply given the choice to be aloof of it all (and for mechanical purposes where lore isn't an issue, just ignore it).  We can be allowed to make sure we aren't KOS to each other as long as we're neutral, Hell that wouldn't even be nearly as hard.  Give us the choice to switch factions or to go factionless, lump the entire playerbase into one "faction" and turn the factions into reputations we can grind and check that we're at war with the other faction.
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I think factions were a simple solution to, what was at one time, a pretty difficult problem and now they're just an easy way to make things seem deeper than they actually are.
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I'm always going to be against faction switching, we have enough of an imbalance of Exile to Dominion as it is. I'm just pushing for the lvl 50+ areas to be mixed faction. As other posters have pointed out, we are already doing the same quests. The Story also supports the idea that the Strain and the Entity are big enough deals that working together is pretty important. I'm fine with a "We will deal with you later" theme that lets us have mixed faction parties, raids, even a neutral city in the high lvl areas. I don't want to see Illium die because everyone can now go be exile. 
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Well, I'm raising just some broad spectrum debate, but if we're talking mechanical issues, I'd say that having people who can essentially be faction neutral means that people might be able to set up shop in either Illium or Thayd with no repercussions to exchange or faction.  Just a question of where you'd rather set up shop.
 
That may make Illium even more popular than it is, if people who are essentially hands-off or ambivalent to the faction warfare can stop by.
 
I think what I'd advocate is to leave the lore lie, but have our characters roles in it be less defined.  At present, I am an Exile, therefore I am involved in a life or death factional struggle whether or not Seeger actually cares that much about it (he doesn't).  Seeger has no problem with FCON thinking he's shady because he'll work for the Dominion as long as he's not working against the Exiles.  So obviously, even though the government positions are pretty well defined and don't actually have to change (they hate each other, they'll kill each other if they can, but they tend to realize when they have to conserve for someone else) our characters have a lot more wiggle room than that.  That's wiggle room we, as players, aren't granted in the current system.
 
So I'm for keeping a factional system as a system, but not having it affect our grouping.
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What this brings up is the state of the PVP servers and world PVP in general.  At the moment, it's married to factional divides on both sides to give it context.  That would have to either be different from the PVE server (essentially forcing you to be Exile or Dominion) or would involve a completely different way to divide up PVP (randomly assigning sides in events, going full on FFAPVP, etc.).  That's really where the discussion has to go.
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Well, a couple things here:
 
2) The whole Dominion vs Exiles thing isn't all the Exiles fault. Did everyone forget that there WERE people in the starting area of the Dominion faction who were brain scanned for Exile friendly feelings (such as the Chua thinking maybe the Exiles weren't so bad)? Those people were sent to Mondo Zax to be experimented upon by being incinerated, electrocuted and mutated into horrific abominations for just THINKING the Exiles were ok. That is the tolerance the Dominion shows to the Exiles.
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I get what you are saying, and agree that my character is not all that patriotic after seeing how the Lumani were created, ect. My desire to work together against the common foe is not going to stop the FCON guard from trying to separate my head from my other important bits. We can kill all of the strain monsters we like, but when mixed groups get to things like towns and outposts we have to deal with the governments. 
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Factions have a goal of grouping players, and guiding them into working together. Honestly this isn't wow, you can't find any group of people and ask if they are Horde. That was the plan though, to make it so you could do things like that out in the real world and have that instant camaraderie. What we have now is just a fracturing of our already small playerbase. It's enough to be happy that you found another Wildstar player without then finding out they play on the side your characters aren't on. 
 
There was a reason, that reason just isn't so positive with the circumstance that we have. 
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			IIRC this was a topic discussed quite a bit during late beta and into launch.    The two faction idea didn't really seem to serve any real purpose.  It felt, and still DOES feel, like it's just there because it's an industry standard.  All the quests and zones after a certain level are all the same, regardless of what faction you started on.  Dungeons, ship missions, and raids are EXACTLY the same.     I really wish MMOs would move away from this setup.  GW2 nailed it perfectly.   PVE is all one faction.  PVP is server against server, or team vs team. There's no division of the playerbase based on some arbitrary, nonsensical 'lore'  explanation.   From what I understand, Wildstar is suffering a bit of a population problem right now.  What better way to solve the problem than opening up the factions? Like has been suggested many times, you could easily throw in lore explanations, and maybe even get some quests out of the deal while doing it.  	
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Need people to explode! Easy and simple when battle is 1 team against other.
 
For those that wish peace with other faction, ask Lopp! Lopp key. No matter how much hatred fill air, Lopp change all minds with those...shiny eyes. Any that resist get obliterated by shiny spear! Lopp can gather enough shinies with lopp casino, then use funds to build shiny lopp city with activities for factions to do together!
 
...What I just say? Lopp must have brainwashed me. Lopp scary.	
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IIRC this was a topic discussed quite a bit during late beta and into launch.    The two faction idea didn't really seem to serve any real purpose.  It felt, and still DOES feel, like it's just there because it's an industry standard.  All the quests and zones after a certain level are all the same, regardless of what faction you started on.  Dungeons, ship missions, and raids are EXACTLY the same.     
 
I really wish MMOs would move away from this setup.  GW2 nailed it perfectly.   PVE is all one faction.  PVP is server against server, or team vs team. There's no division of the playerbase based on some arbitrary, nonsensical 'lore'  explanation.   
 
 
From what I understand, Wildstar is suffering a bit of a population problem right now.  What better way to solve the problem than opening up the factions? Like has been suggested many times, you could easily throw in lore explanations, and maybe even get some quests out of the deal while doing it.  
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From what I understand, Wildstar is suffering a bit of a population problem right now.  What better way to solve the problem than opening up the factions? Like has been suggested many times, you could easily throw in lore explanations, and maybe even get some quests out of the deal while doing it.  
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