My entire MMO experience, just to get it out of the way, is Guild Wars (quit before the first expansion and never looked back) and WoW. So I dunno how this sort of thing is dealt with in *good* MMOs, but it really annoys me when just because I'm a Horde player, I can't communicate with my Alliance friends (eg my sister, who dislikes the ugly Horde races).
If I have friends who play Bretons and I'm an Argonian, frankly, I'd like to cheat the system and do quests and public dungeons with them in *Cyrodiil*. In an ideal world I'd like to be in a party together, but i'd gladly settle for some kind of communication between factions. Obviously there'd be people who'd harass everyone, which is why I think cross-faction communication should be between friends only.

Thoughts?

Cross-faction communication contradicts and jeopardizes the integrity and stability of AvA. This is the primary reason it will not happen. If you want to group with friends/family, it will have to be through the same faction. Any other solution just puts the entire PvP and faction system at risk and ZOS will not do it.

I really don't see how. Explain?

A cross-communication system could negatively impact how a PvP battle goes- a friend could feed tactical information to another friend in the same battle, on a different (or the opposing) side.

It should be mentioned that only WoW truly implements the system- it's next competator, Everquest and Everquest II, have similar lines drawn, but you can switch sides (after a LONG quest,) and can communicate to your friends on the opposing side. Of course, most of the servers are not PvP-oriented.

THIS. Would be awesome. So awesome. Possible in many games and makes those games better, more dynamic and more interesting.

Plus, there's no way to justify different languages lore-wise. Everyone in Tamriel generally speaks the one main language. Unless they have some lore-based coded language for each faction, which is pretty far-fetched, I'd not be happy if we can't communicate between factions.

i dont see how not leting us talk to the opposing factions would make any sense, lore or game-play wise. i personally like talking to my enemy (either to make fun of them [even as i fall dead] or befriend them)

So, I will just talk to them out of the game. You can't avoid player communication, so why make us jump through hoops in the first place? It is simply a ridiculous idea, and it's even more ridiculous that pming my friend in the Aldmeri Dominion supposedly "puts the entire faction system at risk".

Ridiculous or not, it actually works extremely well in practice. Dark Age of Camelot is the obvious example of where there was no cross-faction communication. Sure, players from enemy factions will be able to communicate through the forums, but that's fine. The point is to limit any kind of action that could be detrimental to the immediate experience in-game. It's really something you will have to experience for yourself as one cannot fully understand it through words alone. ZOS has made this choice because it is honestly the best choice for AvA and for faction-building.

Exactly. AND, if I wanted to sabotage my faction (which would add a whole other layer to inter faction politics, just sayin') I could always just phone or text my friends in the enemy faction.

Placing unnecessary restrictions accomplishes nothing.

Edit: AND, might I add, there's always alt characters. If I really wanted to, i'd drop out, load up my alt, check out what that side's up to, and report back in my main account.

That's not how ESO is going to work actually. ZOS is implementing a system for AvA known as Campaigns, as it's physically impossible to have hundreds of thousands of players all in Cyrodiil at once. The obvious reason is that everyone is on one server. The other reason Campaigns are being created so that people can't do exactly what you just suggested, hop to the winning side and crush the opposition. Whenever you do make an alt, it will be forced into a different Campaign from your main toon, so there will never be a situation where you could use that strategy to your advantage. ZOS isn't foolish and they understand how poor player behavior could be detrimental to the AvA experience. They have us covered.