(WoW) Why the Alliance Hate and Why is the Horde so Popular?

[LunarSage]

The title pretty much sums it up. Every friend I know who is into WoW is all about the Horde and when I mention I play Alliance they're generally like "oh... I'm sorry". Why the hate? Wouldn't you think that the classic "heroic" races of the Alliance would be more popular? Is the want to play the "monsters" of the Horde indicative of a swell in our society's leanings toward the dark aspects of gaming? People may argue that the Alliance is corrupt and the Horde is all honorable, but you have but to look at many of the Horde missions (especially the Forsaken missions) compared to the Alliance missions and you'll see that the vast majority of Alliance specific quests are done for the greater good or even for the Light itself, while many of the Horde quests are either selfish or outright evil. In the rare cases where an Alliance quest has you doing a misdeed, it's always done unwittingly, as in you are tricked into doing wrong and the next quest is usually one to make amends. Yes, Wrynn is a racist bastard who should probably be replaced by his son, but look at Sylvanas for pete's sake. Evil with a capital E... and the Blood Elves aren't exactly good guys either. The only race in the Horde who gets a pass in my book are the Tauren.

So there you have it... my -opinions- and the question I pose to you... why do you play the Horde rather than the Alliance? Why do you play the Alliance rather than the Horde? Why do you play both equally?

Me, I play Alliance because deep down I want to be the good guy. I mean my favorite NPC in the game is Tirion... that alone should tell you something. ;)

[Imogen]

Funny to see that this hasn't changed. It's been like this ever since the game started, as far as I know. The Horde had the cool guys and the Alliance had bubble boys and Night Elf strippers. No idea why the distinction is still in place. Might have to do with the server you play on. In my gaming experience players on a PVP server tend to be more towards dissing the other side than those on PVE servers.

Edit: and yes, I played Horde :-P

[Pixietwist]

I think in general the attitudes have very little to do with the story lines in the game sadly.


The stereotypes are:

1) Alliance is full of 12 year olds
2) Alliance wants to be "pretty"

/shrug I spent a fair amount of time playing both sides.  Both sides are full of 12 year olds and night elf strippers have nothing on blood elves as far as the sleaze factor goes.

[meikle]

"Save your breath. I never trusted you vainglorious elves. It was a mistake to accept you into the Alliance in the first place. Now, at long last, you'll be dealt with appropriately. Take them away!"

Tagging either the Alliance or the Horde as 'good guys' is silly.  They both have their good elements and their bad elements.  You can highlight the elves and the Forsaken as evil, and that's fine -- you know why they're bad guys, why they're hanging out with the Horde?  Because in their moments of need, the Alliance kicked them out.  Humans died and become undead -- gross and icky, can't hang with the Alliance.  Elves were driven from their homeland -- hooray Garithos, send them away!

I play Horde because my friends play Horde.

[Blitzy]

I play Alliance as my main and Horde as some lowbies when I want to. I don't give a crap WHICH someone plays, so long as they're having fun.

Horde has pretty characters... they're the blood elves!

[Callie Del Noire]

I think that it's kind of ironic that the Alliance gets such hate. I jumped on Alliance at first because I liked the idea of a dwarven hunter (he had a bear pet called 'YewOleBstard') and the first week I got tricked into flagging for PVP TWICE doing things like FISHING by hordies (on my server it seems if you're an Asshat.. you play undead)

In the years since it seems that the major douches are still Undead. I went out a few years back to get enough Deviate Fish for Sept 19 (Talk like a Pirate Day) and the undead were back, flagged for PVP and jumping in front of my bobber while two dozen of their rogue friends lurked around me (Hunters have detect Invisibility guys). Needless to say the 'Let's gank the dwarf fisherman in teh Badlands' event didn't go the way they thought when 30+ friends/guildies came over the hill and I ganked 'Sir bobalot' and the guys flagged themselves in time to discover why it's not a good idea to piss off the guy who used to give away Savory Deviate Delight to all comers every  year. :D

I find it funny that the perception that the Alliance is full of 12 year olds since my old guild's average ages was 25+ and the youngest person in it was.. 19 and my current guild is mostly folks 30+ (Yes, we have a few young ones but they behave and they aren't part of the raiding contigent)

Then there is the 'Wyrm is a tool' argument, which given what I saw of Garrosh during the Goblin quests during beta is a non-starter. I still think that the Horde is playing with fire keeping the Undead around since it's clear through the Cataclysm a good portion of the Undead leadership seems to STILL want everyone who aint them dead dead dead.

There are tools on both sides.

[Shjade]

Wouldn't you think that the classic "heroic" races of the Alliance would be more popular?

Yes. Thus the hate: the popular side, being the "pretty," heroic, bright & shiny side of the game nets the bulk of the playerbase interested in things other than gameplay, meaning the Alliance side fills up with useless people who are less interested in getting epic pants and more in getting their pants off.

Rough summary of most of the opinions I heard whenever I asked about this myself. Personally, I didn't hate the Alliance (I did main as Horde - first as a forsaken, later as blood elves), but I will say that on my server (Shadow Council) the A-side of things was a hell of a lot less useful for gameplay. There were failures on both sides, but when I played A-side I just seemed to be surrounded by fail all the time, whereas on my Horde characters it was more or less 50/50 odds as to whether I'd run into competent or incompetent players. Anecdotal, but there it is.

[Anjasa]

When I was dancing I'd meet the occasional WoW player and they all played Alliance and hated on me for playing Horde. So it goes both ways, for sure. I was tricked into flagging by alliance when I was new to WoW too :X

[Silk]

I think a good portion of it also came from PvP and Battlegrounds. Generally the horde worked together, and won a good portion of the time because of it. The alliance was full of flamers who were trying to bark orders by showing of their E-peen and generally not being supportive of eachother. (This includes a night elf priest who refused to heal in a PvP even though he was holy spec.)

Also the general ettiquite in horde was a lot better, people used to help eachother out, and was less asshattery compared to the alliance side.

[Black Howling]

I think a good portion of it also came from PvP and Battlegrounds. Generally the horde worked together, and won a good portion of the time because of it. The alliance was full of flamers who were trying to bark orders by showing of their E-peen and generally not being supportive of eachother. (This includes a night elf priest who refused to heal in a PvP even though he was holy spec.)

Also the general ettiquite in horde was a lot better, people used to help eachother out, and was less asshattery compared to the alliance side.

I played a lot of WoW for a while. I played Alliance at first, and very much noted the incompetence factor. As for the people being polite or helpful on the horde side? I logged on and found someone trying hard to get any curse they could through the censor, and repeatedly flagging it over and over again. I asked a question once on the Horde side, and the people there proceeded to flame me. Then the Politics arguments in Stormwind with the alliance? Both sides are full of rude people, it's just like most other non-regulated chat where multiple people come together to speak.

I liked the Alliance better because I liked the races better. As for why most power gamers play the horde, and thus are more competent? They have a little stronger abilities in some areas. At-least easier to make use of ones in my personal opinion.

[LunarSage]

Does no one who plays care about the lore at all in regards to why they play a given faction?  Honestly I could care less about DPS and numbers.  I read every single quest's text and try and get into my character's mindset and motivations for each quest (Why am I killing 10 panthers?).  There have been quests I skipped because my character wouldn't have done it.  I never raided and rarely ever did dungeons.  I suppose I'm what you would call "casual" (whatever that means).... I'll readily admit I chose the Alliance because I perceived them to be the prettier races (Humans for the win) as well as the (in general) "good guys".  I can't bring myself to play anything ugly in a visual-based medium like a video game. 

It's interesting though.  I've heard people argue vehemently that the Forsaken are not evil in the slightest.

As far as the Horde races having superior bonuses, how can one discount the most powerful (some argue broken) race in the game?  Of course I'm talking about humans.  The only race with a racial perception (helpful in PvE and PvP) bonus plus an ability that is a -huge- advantage in PvP (Every Man For Himself) equals pretty dang impressive.

[Black Howling]

Does no one who plays care about the lore at all in regards to why they play a given faction?  Honestly I could care less about DPS and numbers.  I read every single quest's text and try and get into my character's mindset and motivations for each quest (Why am I killing 10 panthers?).  There have been quests I skipped because my character wouldn't have done it.  I never raided and rarely ever did dungeons.  I suppose I'm what you would call "casual" (whatever that means).... I'll readily admit I chose the Alliance because I perceived them to be the prettier races (Humans for the win) as well as the (in general) "good guys".  I can't bring myself to play anything ugly in a visual-based medium like a video game. 

It's interesting though.  I've heard people argue vehemently that the Forsaken are not evil in the slightest.

As far as the Horde races having superior bonuses, how can one discount the most powerful (some argue broken) race in the game?  Of course I'm talking about humans.  The only race with a racial perception (helpful in PvE and PvP) bonus plus an ability that is a -huge- advantage in PvP (Every Man For Himself) equals pretty dang impressive.

You have a point, but the night-elf for example? Really I only found them useful for playing Rogues and Druids. Humans are almost universally good on any game. Look at DnD for example?. Though many of the horde's capabilities I found slightly superior. This isn't from a PvP prospective either, this was my prospective from playing them. As for the lore, I was into it; though the lack of any guild I was in being interested in the lore, or the fact that most people skipped quests and leveled in the randoms kinda killed that for me. At-least the people I knew did this. However, I have a picture I find true not just about wow; but any mmorpg. >_> The True Meaning.

[LunarSage]

Heh.  Funny stuff.

[Callie Del Noire]

My favorite PVP encounter was after my dwarf hit the mid-50s (way back in basic WoW days). I had kept to the Eastern Kingdoms for a long time and FINALLY wandered over to the General vicinity of Crossroads (which I know back then was a genocide site for Alliance PvPers) and accidentally pulled aggro from one of the gate guards at Crossroads and got flagged before I realized it was an NPC (I don't think it's nice to kill guards/quest NPCs and/or flight masters) So I ran off and waited for my flag to drop. While I was doing this I kept hearing this weird sound (fftttt.. ftttt) and my pet disappeared. I turn around to find her and found her EATING a level 11 or so hunter (Orc) who had been shooting me.

My first PVP kill and it was my cat eating some idiot who didn't realize the dwarf with the Skull level wasn't even aware of him shooting him till his pet ate him.

[Aiden]

I play orcs, since they are my favorite race. I could care less about being pretty or stylish looking in game.


Orcs are bad ass, nuff said.

I do have worgen and human characters and a squid face, but I play both sides to play the lore out but always favored the horde.

[TheGlyphstone]

Welcome to the Internet, where the men are men, the women are men, and the children are FBI?

[Saerrael]

I play elves, in just about any game. And.. I started with Night Elves, but they actually got on my nerves (go figure...!)
I like Blood Elves better. Animations, emotes and aesthetically I find them pleasing.

I did find the Alliance to hold a lot of immature players, but I don't think it was the faction, more the realm I rolled on back then.
Like I said, I play Horde now and have found a few mature guilds on the realm I now play on.
I think either side will have any kind of person there is. WoW is quite big. I think it's a matter of how hard you look.

As the debate on which faction is more or less the 'good' or 'evil' faction...
Sure, I can understand people who'd say Alliance would the 'good' faction and Horde the 'evil' faction, but I don't see it this black and white.
I think every race in their respective faction has its own view on the world and this doesn't make the race good nor evil, on itself.
All races have done (or are still doing) something they could be less proud of.
Does that stop me from playing arrogant, power hungry, racist, magic addicted sons of bitches, myself? Hell no. That's part of the fun of playing a Blood Elf.

[Black Howling]

I think it's more individual people then it is the whole faction. Everyone has different experiences, and since there is such a big PvP thing even on PvE servers everyone is sort of pitted against the other faction just by the lore alone.

[Callie Del Noire]

I do wonder if you get the same sort of idiots in trade on the horde side though.

You know.. folks that go Anal [Talent/item/whatever] and such CONSTANTLY

[Black Howling]

I do wonder if you get the same sort of idiots in trade on the horde side though.

You know.. folks that go Anal [Talent/item/whatever] and such CONSTANTLY

Yeah, that's on any game depending on the Server. I got em on some, didn't on others. And I juggled both horde and alliance.

[Saerrael]

I do wonder if you get the same sort of idiots in trade on the horde side though.

You know.. folks that go Anal [Talent/item/whatever] and such CONSTANTLY

You do.
I have Trade muted unless I'm looking for something.

[CmdrRenegade]

Most of my time was spent as Horde.  I had an Undead Rogue I got to 60 and a Tauren Druid I got to 38 before I quit all those years ago.  I didn't hate any of the factions and still didn't.  It was just that both the Undead and the Tauren were just so different.  With the Undead, usually you're just killing them, not playing as them.  The Forsaken didn't ask for what happened to them and the rest of the living likely want them destroyed for being an abomination.  I wouldn't be all that happy either knowing these things.  As for the Tauren, it was interesting to me to play a race based so heavily on Native American culture.  Not to mention that Mulgore was probably my favorite starting zone.  I enjoyed the fact that it was as big as it was.  I could let my mind wander and that meant alot to me. 

I played on a PvP server at the time, but I couldn't do it.  I find that a lot of the people who play on these servers just have too much of a taste for schadenfreude for me.  I don't want to ruin someone's day when I beat them in a game, but no one feels like they've 'won' on a PvP server until they've done exactly that.  I think both sides are going to have immature people no matter what. 

[Anjasa]

Jumwa and I ran a heavy RP guild for over 4.5 years, so yea, I know the lore. I prefer Blood Elves, Trolls, and Night Elves from a lore perspective. I prefer the morally grey over playing the 'good guys', personally.

And I really hate the idea of the 'many men online roleplaying as girls' thing. I knew a lot of female roleplayers and I think it diminishes their presence by assuming everyone playing is male. Many women roleplay as men, as well, or play male avatars to avoid the harassment and hate that female players can get on certain servers, so it's something I think is pretty important to push past as gamers - to acknowledge female gamers as a whole.

[effervescent]

Well I stopped playing WOW before cataclysm, but I've always liked the dark side better. Like I play Rift now and I play the defiants. I think people just like the horde more because they look cooler. I think the undead look freaking sweet as hell and we really don't hate eachother, I just think it's fun to pretend. Like waiting in line for the game, we will all argue and scream for the horde and for the alliance, I think it's more for shits and giggles then anything else. At least for me it is.

[Black Howling]

Jumwa and I ran a heavy RP guild for over 4.5 years, so yea, I know the lore. I prefer Blood Elves, Trolls, and Night Elves from a lore perspective. I prefer the morally grey over playing the 'good guys', personally.

And I really hate the idea of the 'many men online roleplaying as girls' thing. I knew a lot of female roleplayers and I think it diminishes their presence by assuming everyone playing is male. Many women roleplay as men, as well, or play male avatars to avoid the harassment and hate that female players can get on certain servers, so it's something I think is pretty important to push past as gamers - to acknowledge female gamers as a whole.

It wasn't meant as an insult, more a joke. I know there are plenty of women roleplaying out there too, but it is funny when you are speaking OOC and both sides randomly pipe in that they are cross-gender playing. I did it myself, and knew many friends both male and female that did. Still, after FF7 I don't think there is any denying the female Gamer crowd.