As part of my postmortem thoughts about WoW (quit playing it last week or so) I'd like to have a bit of a group brainstorm about factions. This was an interesting but very underdeveloped concept in wow. A faction is a political unit of NPCs with which you can build a reputation, just as you could build a friendly or romantic relationship with an individual NPC. Factions you have a low reputation with may attack you on sight, or simply refuse to talk to you, sell you anything, or give you quests. Factions with which you have a high reputation may give you discounted or free stuff, greet you with more affection or flattery, sell you items unique to that faction, give you access to recipes, abilities, and quests unique to that faction, allow you to officially join that faction and look like them by wearing a tabard or other gear matching what those npcs wear or their faction symbol, and/or giving you a faction title displayed similar to a guild name. (Not all of these functions exist in WoW.) Ideally, a faction would also have a personality including a philosophical/political stance different from those of all other factions in the game, as well as a unique cultural flavor. So I have been thinking about what sorts of personalities and functions it would be interesting to put in a game, and how their existence would contribute to the depth of the worldbuilding. (I should probably also add that I was considering this in the context of an mmo with no classes, so I was considering having faction alignment partially replace traditional classes.) Here are the faction ideas I came up with so far: Combat-Oriented Factions Combat requires enemies, so I was thinking 2 pairs of philosophically opposed but gameplay-equal factions here. Players would be able to belong to one faction of each pair creating 4 basic combat alignments, similar to D&D's chaotic good, chaotic evil, orderly good, and orderly evil. And yeah that's really cliche. :P But it's better than horde vs. alliance and aldor vs. scryers where the two sides have no real philosophical difference. Additionally there might be a pacifist faction for those opposed to combat and/or a healer faction Economic Factions None of these factions are mutually exclusive. They essentially are professions (including pet/mount capturing/breeding) with the addition of exploring, lore scholarship, puzzle solving, and art factions for players who favor these types of activities. Social Factions This is not about socializing with players, but instead about socializing with NPCs. One faction would give rewards for building the deepest romance with one NPC or the most romances with the most NPCs. The other would give rewards for 'popularity' defined as having pleased the most npcs by completing their quests. Other random ideas Deputy faction, where a particular NPC leader gives you quests culminating in naming you his deputy. For people who enjoy being a helpful follower. Harem faction, where a group of beautiful but helpless NPCs is always getting beaten on and protecting them will result in them electing you their heroic leader and basically worshiping you. Religious faction, involves you performing rituals and building monuments, results in gaining elemental/celestial powers and maybe accessories like wings, horns, tail. Shapeshifter faction, involves learning to transform into different animals and doing quests which can only be done in animal form. Soooo, thoughts? Any other faction ideas, or can you describe how another game makes an interesting use of factions?

This is a very interesting concept indeed. It would make for much more "organic" classes in MMOs instead of the rigid "warrior, assassin, priest" classes we have now. As a former WoW player myself, I know what you mean when you talk about how ultimately shallow the factions were in that game. There really weren't very well designed consequences when it came to aligning with one faction or another. For a genre which thrives off of replicating social interactions in a different world, it seems like adding more depth to faction systems is a natural evolution in the genre.

For example, I'd love to see a game in which a character can literally be recognized as a celebrity by the NPCs in a certain faction if that player has done incredible deeds for them. Not only would that type of reward break up the "phat loot" motivation, it would also add a sense that player characters have a real impact on the world around them.

But going back to the beginning a bit, the gameplay attraction of combing classes with factions is also very attractive. In a sense, it could lend itself to infinite classes. A player could train with the archer faction extensively, and then train on the side with the magician faction. "Limitless character classes" is an attractive phrase to have on the back of the box.

As far as specific factions are concerned, I'd love to see a bounty hunter type faction. The player gets an enemy they have to kill (or capture, or whatever) and are rewarded with "teh epic lewts" or other more immaterial goods.

It would be kinda cool to see a "conspiracy theory" type group. By this I mean the player character can become involved with like a shadow organization pulling the strings behind the political affairs. Not only could this let some more advanced players in on the "real" story behind some in-game events, but a reward could perhaps be having the player receive money skimmed off the top or something similar.

A very interesting aspect of world-building in MMOs that I'm sadly surprised I haven't heard of before. I would love to see this concept put into a game or at least tested on.

I love the idea. Its something I think about on occasion based on D&D style stories and RP, which often have various factions which that are interesting to think of as playable game mechanics.

I would suggest, though, less focus on quests and goals, especially in the style of the Deputy faction and Harem faction listed. To me, that kind of reward encourages viewing the faction as a generic pez-dispenser of quests/xp/loot, which counteracts the biggest benefits of personality, community, and world story. But im sure that sort of thing would be less of a problem in a real design, where it can be iterated,changed and made more detailed.


But yeah... in general I think theyre a great way to involve players both in a player community, and in the world setting. It can be used to demonstrate all sorts of details and subtleties of the setting through example instead of blocks of text.

For example, combat oriented factions can be used to demonstrate the balance of power, if carefully constructed. Instead of 2 vs 2 factions, perhaps 2 larger factions on one side, and 3 smaller factions on the other - you can show, and give the emotion and personality of, one side which is large and powerful, while the other is a group of smaller diverse factions.

Plenty more ideas, but Id just be rambling...

I think you've expanded the idea of factions, as expressed in WoW, into much broader categories that a lot of RPG's use, but don't necessary call factions; i.e. a single storyline with an NPC where you help them with a side quest and they like you a bit more within a linear narrative could easily be described as a "rep grind" within this context. Just an observation.

Regarding social factions, I think this could be made more interesting by having factions that you gain influence with indirectly; through the interactions you have not simply with NPCs, but with the world as a whole throughout the game. This could range anywhere from being a green thumb and having a higher-than-normal regard for plant-based enemies and picking herbs, to having a penchant for sarcasm in your NPC interactions and universally alienating the PC's romantic interests. Or do a reversal of that, and have the faction's reputation be based on your subversion of their interests; example, the logging company approaches you because you score high on the FOREST-TRAVEL scale, but low on the ALTRUISM scale... well, you get the idea.

Looking at how a character behaves, where they spend their time? The sky's the limit on that one.