Forum:Horde Vs. Alliance

Forums: Village pump → Warcraft games → Horde Vs. Alliance

Okay maybe I am missing something, but I have played both horde and alliance toons and for some strange reason, the horde toons are almost always stronger than the alliance ones. Initially I only played alliance, but after getting my DK to lvl 85 and seeing that 4 out of 5 of the battlegrounds I went in were won by the horde, I decided to try out the horde for a change. As a horde, I have noticed we have won the majority of battlegrounds. Furthermore, my horde toons can almost always beat the alliance toons of the same race, class and lvl. The funny thing is, Blizzard denies the horde are favored, but having played both sides, I know this to be utterly false. Another indication is the fact that many players who start out as alliance inevitably switch sides, yet few go from horde to alliance. Now I'm curious, has anyone else noticed this inequality and why does it exist?

--Swagmaster (talk) 14:09, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I've noticed it as well, quite clearly too. I cannot explain it however; it appears the atmosphere of Horde being better than Alliance has existed since the game began. It may even have originated in some of the earlier WarCraft-games prior to World of Warcraft. My only guess is that the lore behind the Horde and the Alliance attracts different players. The Horde usually represents brute strength, violence and war, while the Alliance represents knightly pride, civilized order and politics. As such, the Horde is a much more "PvP-aligned" faction than the Alliance.

Another theory I've got is that the more a player can be "absorbed" into the world, the better the player can perform. In other words, the Horde-races are much more fantasy-like than the Alliance-races. The only human-like Horde race is the blood elf, which even among Horde players is considered to be "gay". Oppositely, humans, dwarves and gnomes are much "closer" to reality considering their appearance, which possibly removes some of the excitement a player may find in a Horde-character.

In any case, I think that much of the Horde vs Alliance-situation has to do with tradition and reputation. The Horde-players were probably better than the Alliance ones during the first months after the game was released (possibly due to the two other reasons I've mentioned), which gave the Horde a reputation of being the best. Today, Horde-players are expecting to win because they are used to it, while Alliance-players are expecting to lose due to the same reason. A mentality like that makes a difference - in order to win something, a person requires self-confidence.

While I haven't looked into it too much, I have however heard that the most popular faction on a World wide basis is the Alliance. Possibly, it may be the case for the Asian servers. Perhaps the situation is the opposite over there? WrathOfDeathfrost (talk) 21:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

The Alliance tends to be more popular, especially with the younger crowd, because the Alliance are supposedly the "heroes". In the first two Warcraft games, the Alliance were defending their lands against the Horde, which was trying to invade and conquer. The only Alliance race with a truly "evil" origin is the worgen - mainly because the worgen have been baddies for years, from Silverpine to Grizzly Hills. Which is not to say that the other races don't have their own bad apples; all of 'em have acolytes in the Twilight's Hammer, and the Cult of the Damned were mostly humans....plus all the death knights tend to be held at arm's length. Besides that, the Alliance races tend to be "honorable" types. Though humans tend to be hopelessly naive, dwarves and gnomes too curious for their own good, night elves too full of themselves, and draenei are too pious for most people's tastes.

Conversely, the only Horde race that has not been considered "evil" in some fashion or form is the tauren - the race as a whole is generally respected for their sense of honor, though there are exceptions (the Grimtotems being the most visible example of that). Orcs are demon-charged bloodthirsters (I know they're not now, but it's hard to change thirty years of perceptions), trolls are voodoo cannibals, Forsaken are undead (and there is almost always a stigma attached to that), blood elves are magi-crack addicts - and, as some might think, effeminate wimps - and goblins are money-grubbing pyromaniacs.

Strengths may play a large factor in deciding what to play - for instance, most if not all of the Horde racials are better than the Alliance ones - but it is ultimately a matter of preference. The Horde is generally portrayed as the "bad guys" - or the badasses, if you prefer, which is why those who do play them, prefer them. -- Joshmaul, Loremaster of Chaos (Leave a Message) 16:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC)