It seems Midnight’s hub city is bringing some faction conflict back to WoW! Despite many players being worried about the Blood Elf capital getting lost to host all players in the next expansion, it seems the Horde are very much still in control of the city, and quite protective of it!
Kill on Sight
During today’s gamescom panel, Lead Game Designer Maria Hamilton talked about Midnight’s hub, Silvermoon City. It’s enormous, and a “small section” of it has been set aside as a sanctuary where both factions can stay together. This is the hub part of the hub city. However, the majority of the city is very much Horde-controlled, and the Alliance is not welcome. In fact, the direct quote from the panel is “Alliance is kill on sight, as you would expect”. Here’s that section:
Good or Bad?
Many players voiced concern about this exact thing before the Midnight reveal, that the Horde would lose a capital city. That fear has very explicitly been put to rest, with some very strong wording. On the other hand, there are players who are not happy with this, as the new Night Elf capital, Bel’Ameth in Amirdrassil, has Horde players only “closely watched”. That city also wasn’t the hub for an entire expansion. One interesting thing players mentioned is the possibility of Alliance players getting to see the rest of the city with some sort of Suramar-like disguise, at least for a quest or two! There’s a huge reddit thread discussing this issue, which you can check out here.
Now, this is only a quote from a developer panel, and the expansion isn’t even in Alpha. So, how exactly that “kill on sight” part will be handled in the actual game is unclear. We’ve seen faction-exclusive areas before, and some simply teleport players out (especially when flying is involved). Or, perhaps, there will be a whole lot of Alliance skeletons near the hub area, as some players miss their landings!
Silvermoon looks great, and it seems it’s keeping its Horde pride very much intact. What do you think if this implementation?
