In an interview with Matt Firor, what I think is the main reason for locking races to factions was revealed. It is well known that Firor produced and ran Dark Age of Camelot for many years, and ESO draws from it in many ways.

Firor said that when you face an enemy in PvP, he wants it to be clear by their appearance who they are and where they come from (paraphrasing here). This is a notion taken directly from DAoC, but I don't believe that it's benefits outweigh the negative aspects. Yes, in DAoC it was extreme easy to tell you were fighting Hibernians by looking at Lurikeens and Firbolgs, even at a distance. And it did add to the feeling of faction solidarity and pride, too. Taking down those annoying little 'Keens was always great.

The negative aspects for ESO are too great, though. Race locking gives us only three choices per alliance., with very little lore to expand in the future. DAoC started with 4 and had an entire mythology to draw from,. They currently have seven races each. Also, TES fans are very much accustomed to picking whichever race they wish, with no worry worry about where it will place them. There has already been uproar in our very small community here so far on these forums.

In combat, there are many other possibilities for large groups to discern themselves. Nameplates not being the least of them. Not to mention that the races themselves are much more humanoid in TES than the differences you have in DAoC. Lurikeen, Inconnu and Dwarf vs Firbolg, Minotaurs or Trolls. And yes TES has beast races of course, but they're not as radically different than they are in DAoC.

Race restrictions should be removed, but keep faction locks.

The part that bothers me the most is that we probably won't be able to speak to the other faction races. This makes absolutely no sense according to ES lore because I can not remember any ES game, and I have played them all when they were new games, that I could not speak to all of the different races I encountered in the game.

There were no subtitles, well in Arena and Daggerfall and even Morrowind, there were however back then voice overs were just not done because games came on about 10 to 12 floppy disks and there was just no room for voice on those disks. However I could still read everything they said, I did not have to learn any new languages, I did not have to hire a translator, and now suddenly they are stopping Nords from speaking to Breton's? I just don't get that part at all and it may make it, eventually, so I would quit ESO and unsub because of it.

most likely because they are at war.

So, you really give no reason why race restrictions should be removed, only that you should be able to tell races apart at a glance.

Ok, you want them to remove the players choice of different races, and make it so players can't play with their friends? You are a moron. They might as well make them red, blue and green teams and not races at all.

Actually, in Arena, you could choose different languages your character knew on character creation (e.g. Giantish). If there is faction language, it doesn't make sense that an Argonian can speak to Dark Elves but a Breton can't talk to a Nord.

War doesn't make people suddenly forget their native tongue.

How do I delete posts here? Could a mod delete my double post?