Horde or Alliance better story?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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i can’t decide on Horde or alliance i haven’t really played classic until it released got to 40 and quit. i just auto accepted quests and what not so didn’t really read the quests.

i do the same in retail and i understand some of the stories that i did the quest many times already but wondering of the 2 factions which of the 2 have say better quest related stories?

in retail i play horde but as i stated idk much about the stories i just accept quests do the thing and turn in. im playing pvp server both factions are about 50/50

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The forsaken hands down.

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Well horde in classic was added last, so idk how much of the story was implemented right away as seen with the Onyxia quest chain for horde side.

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The Dwarves have some pretty fun quests early on, and I know the Alliance side has some really good quests like the Deadmines quest line, and the Onyxia quest line is also really cool from that side of the banner.

As for the Horde, I’d say the best storylines go along with the Forsaken and the Orcs, but Forsaken really is more fleshed out.

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Alliance quests in general are more fleshed out and detailed, and there are more drawn out quest chains Alliance-side.

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Does it matter if you don’t read the quests anyway?

Are you planning on reading all the quests? Do you think you will? Why not try this, as proof to yourself:

Level both an Alliance and a Horde, only to level 10. And read all of the quests as you do so.

I suspect that will be enough to help you with your decision.

Is this an intended pun?

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this is why i asked the question -.-" cause i PLAN TO READ THEM.

i am talking Faction wise not spec wise either as the 2 have different storylines.

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Then, I suppose there will be an amount of subjectiveness in any answer.

If you have always played Horde, then it may be quite interesting to dive into the story of the faction you are familiar with, and to understand them better.

On the other hand, it may be quite interesting to dive into the story of the faction you are less familiar with, and to understand them better.

Do you prefer blue tabards, or red tabards?

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Disclaimer - I’ve by and large only played Horde, so take that as you will

Generally, speaking, Humans and Dwarves have the most well put together story in Classic. Most of Classic’s endgame focuses on events involving Blackrock Mountain and the associated factions, and these tend to be fairly Alliance-centric. The Horde does have its own parallel stories, but they don’t really compare to things like the Alliance Onyxia questline.

Now, there is also an important caveat for Classic stories as well - a fair chunk of the late game stuff is also done by neutral factions. These tend to lean Alliance (Thorium Brotherhood, Cenaurian Circle, Argent Dawn), but the overall questing experience with them is the same for each faction. So keep that in mind too.

(I can’t speak from experience from this, but humans go to Westfall, Redridge, and Duskwood, while Dwarves go to Loch Modan and then Wetlands(?). So, I think they have a bit more of a unique experience than the Horde races.)

Now, as far as races go, not all of them get the same mileage. Gnomes and trolls are stuck piggybacking the Dwarf and Orc starting areas respectively, and never really get much content of their own. Beyond this, the three Kalimdor Horde races are pretty well funneled into the Barrens and then all of its spinoff zones going around setting up outposts and handling local threats. There really isn’t a grand overarching story to any of this though. The Forsaken have a fairly consistent narrative, but it ends with Hillsbrad. Oddly, they don’t continue on in the Plaguelands (I always considered this a mistake on Blizzard’s end). As for the Nelfs, there’s a lot of Nelf ruins and history in different parts of Kalimdor, but it never really comes together in some sort of grand plot - you’re still going around and solving local problems for your quest hubs and outposts.

Humans and Dwarves are somewhat the exception to the above, because the Defias story and Dark Iron Dwarf stories both continue up until the endgame dungeons (though there may be a bit of an intermission where you go do other stuff elsewhere).

Ultimately though I’d approach things from the perspective of what faction and aesthetics do you like the most. Classic takes a while to play through from 1-60, and I don’t recommend playing through it on a race or faction you don’t like, all for a few quests at the endgame.

(For a bit of Vanilla Backstory, they did Eastern Kingdoms before Kalimdor, and the Gnomes and Darkspear were the last races added to the factions. So that’s why those two races just share other racial starting zones, and part of why Kalimdor doesn’t have the same level of depth for stories that EK does.)

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The alliance most certainly. I’ve played and enjoyed both factions but for different reasons. Here’s why:

For low level questing, Westfall has a lot of awesome bits with you being chained from investigating the defias starting out as some hooligans in elwynn forest to finding out there’s a much larger conspiracy going on. Investigating the lore behind it and stopping the plots of the defias is fun. Duskwood is probably the best lore related zone in the entire game for me. Stitches, Mor’ladim, Morbent fel, all of these are awesome quest chains and you get tons of fun lore about the town, Mor’ladim being my favorite. I enjoy the fact that each town is asking for help but stormwind is super stretched thin. Duskwood basically already made its own militia to deal with the terrible things happening there and when redridge asks for help they basically say “No way, we have way too much on our plate”.

A majority of all endgame content relates the the alliance due to two zones having a lot of endgame dungeons or raids: Blackrock mountain and Plaguelands. Blackrock mountain is related to the dark iron dwarves (who are the villains of multiple zones for the alliance), plaguelands is related to the scourge and paladins. Playing as alliance there’s a much larger incentive to fight in these locations. The quest chain for onyxia is much better lore-wise for the alliance as well. Alliance have a very good reason to be going after onyxia.

That’s not to say that horde don’t have great quests, I love the forsaken quests a lot, they get a lot of fun ones. The orcs and trolls on the otherhand seem to get the short end of the stick to me, they seem to have the most “kill x amount of things” quests out of all of the zones. There’s a few fun ones for them though, loved assaulting the night elves with an orc infiltration squad.

Hope this helps.

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Sadly I need to disagree with this only because gnomes have the entirety of a dungeon dedicated to them and their lore (with a lot of quests that you pick up from the various gnomes in tinker town or stormwind). I can agree with the trolls though, it’s rather unfortunate that they get bolted onto the orcs since there’s tons of fun troll related content in the game… but all that content isn’t related to darkspear trolls specifically, mostly just gurubashi/zandalari in stranglethorn or the trolls of Zul Farrak.

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The Alliance’s storylines are more complete than the Horde, but it also depends whether you prefer an established faction or the misfit, scrambling together faction - and you may also enjoy individual Horde storylines or their aesthetic more.

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Horde has the best story IMO, as there are many things from WC 3 that can be seen. Especially the Tauren dialogues and Orc dialogues. There is also references to thrall’s escape from Durnhold keep and his escape to AV.

Org is shown in Rexxar campaign, but nobody mentions about stormwind in WC 3

King Teran’s Throne room is on horde side, the son of black hand and his dragon alliance

The Dark portal and Swamp of sorrows, Stonard the first outpost of the orcs etc.

I can actually relate more to WOW on horde side as I came to play WOW after WC 3 back in the day.

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Zug Zug, Loktar, Strength and Honor, Blood and Thunder, Salt and Pepper, Durka Durka

  • the extent of Orc Lore
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I will say that while I agree with this, having the culmination of Onyxia’s storyline ending as it was is quite the twist if you’re not aware of it. It came out of nowhere, starting in pretty much Elwynn with the whispers of the Defias and in Westfall and other zones as well. It’s a storyline that starts and ends as your leveling journey does.

Once TBC hits though I definitely agree, the TBC Horde is just so much more interesting.

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This is true. If you enjoyed Warcraft 3, there’s a lot of fun to be had from seeing the locations that you visit in the game. Most of these actually fall under horde territory such as Lordaeron being owned by the forsaken. The only alliance faction that currently has territories showcased in Warcraft 3 would be the night elves. This point is even made stronger in TBC when blood elves are added since they play a major role in Warcraft 3 and its expansion.

It’s for this reason that my first character was a forsaken since I loved Lordaeron and its story. Getting to see places that I destroyed in the undead campaign was awesome. I especially loved in TBC when I saw that scourge base in the ghostlands. I made that big scar on the map and I made this base too. That was cool to me.

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yeah but we have Guldan’s cult from starting all the way from valley of trials and the twilight hammer fools ending with AQ.

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Actually yeah, that’s true. I honestly miss long running storylines that span the breadth of the game. And, y’know, consistency.

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Tirion Fordring’s quest chain is probably my favorite. Love that one so much and how they continued with him into Wrath (was very upset at legion and how they treated his demise). However, fordring’s quest is a nighmare on a PvP realm. I got massive anxiety doing it.

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Speak, friend.

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