Anyone else really feel this way? And think that both sides suffer from the others’ strengths?
I posted this in another thread here, but to me the Horde and Alliance have the opposite faction’s problems; the Alliance has a lot of fleshed out characters and character development, but doesn’t have nearly as much of a faction ‘feel’ or ‘mantra’, and the Horde has a very strong faction ‘feel’ and ‘mantra’, but absolutely terrible character development and character story.
Side question, why do you think the Horde’s strong faction ‘feel’ has resonated with players much more than the Alliance’s strong characters?
The Horde has presented better to players because by and large the devs pushed the Horde harder early in WoWs life. It was no secret that the majority of the WoW team was Horde back then.
They also have the theme of outcasts trying to survive in a world that doesn’t like them, which is a theme many of the people playing warcraft can identify with. The Alliance is the “popular” kid and the Horde are the “nerds” but in this case the underdog nerds get to stick it to the popular kids.
That’s obviously not true for everyone but the point is that it’s easier to identify personally with the flawed underdog Horde.
The Horde has a very muddled feel. There is a lot of talk of “honor” and “glory”, but these feel very Orcish. Orcish culture is often used interchangeably with that of Horde culture as a whole. So I disagree that the Horde has a defined culture and mantra. It really feels like a mess, especially after the mana bomb and Burning contradict even the vague claims of “honor” that are often voiced.
I think this was true…until BfA. Now I’m not sure the Horde has a strong faction feel anymore. It feels more listless and directionless. The council feels like a bland, watered down idea.
BfA kind of…destroyed…a lot of the Horde themes. I’m not sure its salvageable anymore.
This is pretty funny because didn’t the devs back in Classic’s alpha/beta focus on the Alliance areas first according to that one podcast? The team was all more Horde focused but put way more work into the Alliance on Classic, and you can definitely tell it showed back then.
I still say the Burning of Teldrassil was the worst lore moment in this game’s history. Yes, worse than WoD and the ‘One Legion’.
The Horde used to have a very strong “bunch of misfits against a hostile world” feeling that resonated with people even as far back as WC3. There were big named, powerful, characters like Thrall and Cairne back then that were relatable. It also didn’t help that Blizzard obviously favored the Horde like Kordana said, if that giant Orc statue at their campus wasn’t obvious enough. They also tried appealing to the edgelord “unrepentant raid fodder” WC2 horde. But I think this largely backfired because a story like that cannot coexist with Thrall’s “band of misfits” story.
The Alliance as a faction was largely bare-bones and reactionary back then. They had plenty of powerful characters, but they didn’t start taking center stage until Wrath when Blizzard started writing the story like a dimestore comic book. Its very obvious that Blizzard has little or no passion for the Alliance outside of Varian or Anduin, hence why High King exists.
When they tried to manufacture “alliance pride,” they tired to mimic what they originally did with the Horde, but in doing so put a bullet between the Alliance as a faction in any way like the original Alliance of previous games that people wanted. It also conflicted with how they were now telling the faction stories as a character driven story, so now the Alliance as a faction revolves mostly around the Wrynns.
I think they’ve given up on the Factions as a unique identity now. They’ve only insulted and driven off much of the old Horde fanbase, and what little Alliance fanbase that existed to begin with.
That was true of mists too, the good news is that the problematic Horde leadership has been disposed of and now hopefully the Horde can build itself into something better.
Rokhan, Lor’themar, Talanji, Gazlowe, etc these are really good leaders. I think it wouldn’t be shortsighted to be optimistic about the Hordes future.
Because that’s probably how the game directors built the development timeline. They obviously ran out of time just like they did for the Alliance content in Cataclysm.
Bioware’s last two games are excellent examples of why its important to have good directors managing development.
What baffles me is how Blizzard only seems to think that ‘inter-faction conflict’ is a trait only one faction can have. The whole inter-faction conflicts within the Horde only strengthened the ‘faction feel’ by making the NPCs/players really question what the Horde truly stands for.
The Alliance DESPERATELY needs this and Blizzard blew it from WoD onwards, as the lessons the Alliance learned after SoO in MoP were taken absolutely nowhere, and this REALLY hurt them in BfA. I have a little bit of hope that something will happen there with Tyrande now rejecting the peace treaty because of Teldrassil, but knowing these writers she’ll just forgive the Horde so the Alliance doesn’t have a conflict.
Seriously, after MoP you had a SERIOUS set up for a good Alliance inter-faction conflict, with some leaders focused on maintaining peace with the Horde, and some focused on wanting to end the Horde for good before they did something else, and they went NOWHERE with it.
IIRC the devs attempted to rewrite the Alliance storyline late in development of Cata and ran out of time. The Alliance seems to never have fully recovered from that.
The problem with our “strong faction feel” is that it has been completely diminished throughout WoW’s life cycle. The Horde has been watered down and we don’t even have characters worth rallying around.
Agreed. The Alliance having a civil war makes more sense and is a better way to balance the power scale between factions than the Horde magically conjuring entire armies and equipment overnight to wipe out yet another Alliance city.
But alas, the Alliance story revolves around the Wrynns now. A civil war would put them in a bad light.
The horde never had a strong faction feel, how could they with every race doing what it wants, now the alliance has a strong faction feel, everyone united in there goals.
lol like the horde is the only ones that do this KEK
Because the Alliance is the most generic of good guy fantasy team alliances ever.
Meanwhile, the Horde tries to be the alliance of the usual dark fantasy races, but(usually) without being forced to by some cliche all powerful dark lord.
I think the Horde has had more outsized presence in the Warcraft franchise because it really has been the whole defining schtick.
Remove the option to play the Horde’s story from Wacraft I, II, and III and you have a fairly generic fantasy RTS featuring an alliance of Humans, Elves, and Dwarves against an invading army of monsters. With the Horde, there was the initial novel experience of getting to play the game from the side of what would usually be the bad guys, and then Warcraft III just blew it all open with a full deconstruction of the idea of the monstrous horde that you didn’t get in other games.
I’ve said it before, but basically, if you want a fantasy game where you get to play a noble human paladin clad in plate who rides a warhorse, or nature loving elf in plant-themed gear who rides a tiger, or a steampunk dwarf with a gun- you’re kind of awash in gaming options. Especially if it’s a pseudo-European setting where most every plot is protecting the confederation from evil invasions? No need to be devoted to WoW in general or the Alliance in particular.
But you want to play a minotaur riding a rhino? A zombie mad scientist? An 8 foot tall blue troll riding a dinosaur? Want something inspired more by Central Asian/African/Pre-Columbian American sensibilities? Interested in storylines where your character has to question themselves, their past, present, and future? You’re much more limited in options, and WoW/the Horde are the standout choices.
That’s what made it great. Each race doing their own shtick but overall pushing for the same goal.
When you walk into a Horde camp from TBC onwards, you’ll see various groups all doing their own thing and the Orcs bitterly going “GUESS WE NEED THE FORSAKEN’S HELP” when begrudgingly sending you to them while the Forsaken will laugh at how dumb the Orcs are.
It gives you a sense of multiple races all working together because they have to.
It’s better than bases where 99.9% of the camp is human with the token dwarf to do archaeology stuff, token gnome for the robotics stuff and the token nelf for the nature stuff.
Horde doesn’t even have a strong “faction feel” anymore. BFA thoroughly destroyed the Horde narrative. Without any kind of superhero character in the Horde leadership, it’ll be relegated to a side-kick of the Alliance’s Superman fantasy. We’ll just be standin’ there with a sign that reads - “We’re here too! Go Alliance!”
I have always wondered if the extra development that the Alliance got in Vanilla was a consequence of WC 3. Coming out of WC 3, it was pretty clear what the core of the Horde was, but the Alliance was barely a thing after WC 3. I wonder if the developers had to spend that extra time on the Alliance because they literally had to rebuild the faction from the ground up.