Piece by piece, ZOS has removed distinctive features of the factions, undermining their own vision for the game.

• You can do any faction's quests after level 50
• You can learn any racial style when crafting gear
• You can create any character in any faction

There were little distinctions to begin with, but now, there don't seem to be any. Roleplaying a defender of Queen Ayrenn is not enough, the game needs to support your choices in a meaningful way, which also means forfeiting other options.

I'd like to ask for ideas how we can prevent ESO from becoming a yellow vs blue vs red game? If there's one thing this whole thing proves, it's that they listen to the community. So unless we decide just not to buy their game, we should try to formulate some constructive suggestions.

My suggestion would be to change the current Alliance-War skill line so that each faction has at least one unique one.

You joined different factions, it stands to reason that they would teach you different things for warfare.

First you will not get other factions armor from drops anyway. so styles will be mixed up at once.
Playing in another faction is possible if you preorder or probably buy it later.

This is mostly to let you play with friends and you don't agree on races, this will probably be pretty uncommon, expect to get some racism at least.

Expect to get some racism, how?

Them doing this makes it possible for Nords in the Aldermeri Dominion to sit the Ruby Throne as Emperor. It's bloody ridiculous.

They're tearing apart -everything- that was going to make this game unique and amazing. It's becoming a GW2 reskin, really, perhaps nicer graphics and less RP opportunities, mind you.

Why can't they simply allow you to 'defect', during a questline that takes effort to do so? I just hate what this game is becoming.

More so on topic, however, I don't really think that faction identity can be salvaged because there isn't going to be one if it goes this direction, it will sheerly be for PvP reasons. NDA restricts me from going into too much, but the Ebonheart Pact questline I played on my Nord really, really made me hate the Daggerfall covenant, I can't imagine it being that way if I'm fighting beside Bretons, Redguard and so on.

At this point? Nothing makes sense.

They've said time and time again that the faction lock was part of the design. The NPCs are VOICED to support this lore.

Now, they get greedy and everyone (who preorders) can be part of any faction - and the NPCs won't even detect it and comment accordingly?

That's some lore for you.

imo the factions are pointless now. the entire lore behind them is trash. i will still play and enjoy this game but i dont like what they did to the alliances

Does the game cost more if you preorder?

I don't think this is the end of the world. We've argued before that faction locks don't make too much sense... no extreme or absolute does.
Opening up factions to only preorders however, will (I feel) mix enough race and alliance to feel more organic, yet still keep the bulk of the game faction-centric.

TLDR: the sky is not falling.

The problem is that the alliances are at the center of the game, both in PvP and PvE. You can't just ignore or even remove them without gutting the whole experience.

You might suggest nothing short of removing the pre-order bonus again will fix this, and I might agree, but we know that won't happen.

So I'll have to ask, what else can we do to make this work?

At this point i wonder why do we even have uncrossable borders between factions.

The war could take place in Cyrodiil and the rest of the world could be open and safe thanks to a non belligerant pact between factions.

While i do like the opportunity to play a "renegade" it should be the reward of a long and difficult quest that gives a meaning to it and not a common thing.

Not something you can buy.

Play an Gnome in WOW to learn about racism.

Plenty of people don't like other races, and as you say some quests might be designed to build up hate.

And yes you will be on the receiving end.

No need for an deflecting quest as you was probably born in the province.

No I don't care about this, All my three favorite races is in the AD. I understand why some other people want it.
However don't get surprised if you face racism.

You can probably unlock the faction switching later in the cash shop. That is something I agree should stay behind an paywall, you pay a dollar and can select faction, however you don't do it without an reason usually friends or guilds.

This was actually one of my arguments for not wanting to just let any race play in any faction so late in development. Lots and lots of the voice acting has to be overhauled for it to make sense. If they would have wantes to change this, they woild have needed to do it earlier in development or change lots of things now, or in one of the first patches.

bleh the faction lock only makes sense with regards to PVP; You need to have some teams to fight against one another.

It also made sense in PvE with the way they had designed their game. Now lots of the conversation from the story will not make sense. Imagine a quest where an npc talks to you about those damn filthy orcs or w/e while YOU are an orc. Doesn't really make sense. The voice lines will need to be tweeked for them to make sense. Although I couldn't tell you how many of those quests there are, you can bet they are there.

Hey an Orc can think his own people are filthy right? That's why he defected to another province.

If that was indeed the case, the npc wouldn't know and would also have said it on a different tone or had not said it at all. Let's just face it. It will not match very well in some situations.

it might be that the npc want to insult you for being an orc, its not fun to belong to an group who is on the other side in a war.

Yes its not fun that you can not kill quest givers in the game, plenty of people in Skyrim who the last thing they said was "cat".

Yes yes. All true, but that would have to be said in an other way to fit the situation. There is a difference between talking about a certain race and talking to a character from that race. I'm okay if you don't agree. I've made my point and I agree with DKDartagnan on this one.

I'll make a Nord and have him join the Aldmeri Dominion.

Clearly the high elves will take kindly to him and give him a high ranking position within their order.
Maybe he'll become emperor and be their representative as well. Maybe his argonian wife will be his empress, too.

Makes a loooot of sense. It's not like the higher ups at the Dominion would have any issue with being ruled by man and lizard, or anything. Nope, none at all.

Same situation vice-versa. I can just imagine the Nords bursting with joy at the thought of being ruled by a golden elf. Can't you?

[Seriously ZOS, what the hell were you thinking? Way to brutalize your in-game lore before it even began]