I perfer three like STARCRAFT:

Terran, Zerg, Protoss

But, three sides divide people into smaller groups though.

in RTS games you could switch sides, but not in the current MMORPGs.
 

It's all about implementation really. Personally though, I prefer having three or more groups. Could just be because I like to hang back and play my enemies off each other though.
 

I'd like to see an MMO with a rebel-type faction that is fighting both the "good" and "bad" factions.

Planetside uses three factions, but I don't play that so not sure how well that worked out.
 

Three might help to keep more balance. The fact there is going to be "significant consequence" resulting from Warhammer RvR concerns me due to my experience with Wow. As a Horde player I am thankful there are no significant consequences from World PvP objectives due to the imbalance of player numbers between factions. No matter how much horde tries to achieve an objective like Halaa, we can only hold it for an hour or so due to the sheer numbers of opponents. No mater the incentive to succeed at RvR, if the odd are overwhelming people will re-roll and there will be no RvR to speak of. Perhaps in a game where players could not choose their faction and the game server allocated a players faction based on "making up the numbers"...
 

I does seem like RvR could get out of wack when there are only two sides a lot more quickly. Real RvR would not work well on most WoW servers, for example.

Hopefully Mythic has something up their sleeeves to deal with population imbalances, but I haven;t read of anything.
 

i think i prefer 3, since, as said, there will be more of a balance than 2.
 

It really depends on the material you're working with. WAR's source material isn't very conducive to a third faction. (And even the current factions are a bit of a stretch) DAoC had the liberty of pretty much being created from scratch, obviously borrowing heavily from Arthurian legend and the like, but still was pretty much a new IP.
 

As others have said, three is far more balanced.

I played Daoc for a fair amount of time and the balance of power usually stayed with one realm but the other two usually offset that power by teaming up and putting them down. Didn't happen all the time but from time to time when Albion would have all relics you would see covert operations happening where mid or hibs would be holding off a massive force whilst they other would roll in and nick a relic to try and restore a bit of balance.

Compare that to alliance vs horde in my battle group. And I'm doing a nice small social experiment, I took a fresh level 70 and im taking him through all the bg's I need to get a full set of pvp gear (season 2) so far I have a win rate of around 4% ... FOUR percent win rate in all battlegrounds, and that's only skewed because we tend to be better in AV.

I'll drop you the numbers when I'm full done :)
 

Three seems to work better for balance. Planetside did indeed have three, and although it may have had a variety of other problems, team balance was rarely one of them. If the login percentages were to believed, it was usually 32%-35% a side most of the time, and worst I ever saw it get was 40% on one side, shortly after one team had just been driven off the map. Quite a rare occurrance, and it even offered XP/Health bonuses for low staffed sides to encourage even distributions.

Never played DAoC, but that has three as well?

SWG, EQ2 and WoW have only two and generally tended to see a lot of outnumbering in favour of the obviously perceived 'Good' (or 'Pretty') side.

Two seems to tend toward victory, while three tend toward a stalemate, which is probably more useful for an MMO conflict. Often backstroy and lore considerations don't make the choice that easy though.
 

A lot of people forget the truth about DAoC. More often than not, one losing realm would team up with the winning realm to farm the second losing realm. Or the two losing realms would be forced to fight each other shortly before the dominant realm zerged them under.
 

I'm going to say I'd prefer 3 factions. Never tried it but it seems like a lot of fun. Maybe next WoW expansion?
 

Three is better than two.

With only side side, its to easy for one side to dominate.
I saw that in war where I was horde on a server where we were out numbered 2 to 1.

Most people don't like to piss in the wind.
 

Hell, Why not Five?
 

Three is better than two! woohoo!
 

Aion has 2 player factions and a 3rd npc faction that eventually allies with the underdog to preserve the balance.
 

@Anon
Regarding Aion. I also was going to mention this.
It is like a KoS for the 2 factions (Angels Vs. Demons...go figure...and how apt)
Then a 3rd faction that is non-playable is my understanding to make the 2 either unite or die.
Still out on how well this works. And the fact the PvP is integrated immediately in the PvE from the start.
Could be interesting how this system works.
A description
"The Elyos and the Asmodians won’t just be battling each other in the Abyss, however. A third faction exists, the ancient enemy known as the Balaur. Depending on the situation, players may end up battling the Balaur as well as other players, or there may be times when the Balaur can ally with one faction and fight the other. Other lethal denizens of the Abyss may also come into play. This is the heart of Aion’s PvPvE system."
 

Three. So much Bliz should add the scourge as a third faction in WoW.
 

I agree with the crowed: three factions better. The extra faction creates all kinds of imbalance and stress on the relations between the groups. Starcraft is a great example of this.

Two factions quickly boils down to us-vs-them and takes away all of the questions regarding interaction.

Of course, game-balancing three different factions is pretty tough. Either they come out the same or the game designers have to do some incredible work to make them different without being superior. Even two factions with 8 overlapping classes can sometimes be too much for the game designers (horde paladins?!)...
 

Personally, I prefer a game like Shadowbane where you can have as many factions as you want. It's, of course, hard to implement, but it naturally balances itself a lot better.
 

DAoC is NOT a good example of 3 sides preventing one being dominant. On most realms either Hibernia was dominant due to superior class selection (this is pre TOA), or Albion was dominant due to sheer numbers. Midgard dwindled and died on most servers after the pacification healer nerf.

That said, I strongly prefer 3 or 4 sides in a RvR type situation than a simple 2. 2 makes it relatively stagnant. Whoever has the most healers (with a clue i.e. not alliance) almost always wins in any 2v2.
 

2v2 imbalance is a very obvious issue. I'd be inclined to wait and see what mechanisms the games designers have planned to prevent imbalance. It's inconceivable that they don't have something planned. So it's just a matter of seeing whether their measures work or not