That was effectively it if I recall. They couldn’t figure out how to balance the spec so instead they shattered it to get people to stop playing it while I they tried to fix it.
The Horde is made up of orcs, forsaken, tauren, trolls, blood elves, and most recently, goblins. Misunderstood and cast aside, these diverse and powerful races strive to overcome their differences and unite as one in order to win freedom for their people and prosper in a land that has come to hate them.
In the Horde, action and strength are valued above diplomacy, and its leaders earn respect by the blade, wasting no time with politics. The brutality of the Horde’s champions is focused, giving a voice to those who fight for survival
I think that actually describes everything that is wrong with the horde, namely already how blizzard imagines the horde has to be. This "MEtal-"Fantasy destroys the horde in the core just as it destroys the world around them, because the world is broken to let the consequence not take place, which this behavior would entail.
It breaks both the horde internally and the world outside, because if the consequence were to take place, it would be really hard to find a “friendly face”.
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I’ll go one step further. Honestly, outside of instances where they feel the need to use us as a plot-device to settup a future villain and future antagonist … it just sort of feels like Blizz feels like the Horde is a burden to write around. They need us because of the corner they’ve made for themselves with the Alliance, in instances where something needs to be shaken up. But beyond that … ?
When you combine their almost total lack of consideration for what to with the Horde after their joyride with us in BfA; their bare-bones patchwork “fixes” they placed on the gaping wounds they left because of that expac; their making many of remaining leaders either SUPER Alliance convenient or even just Alliance characters; and the over a decade of massive neglect they’ve shown towards rebuilding the “toy” they keep breaking more and more. It paints a pretty dire picture. Of a team that “likes writing the Horde” only within the capacity that they feel more freedom to do whatever the hell they want with it, because they just don’t worry about the consequences.
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Where did you get the idea, how? I mean, one faction gets a story, the other doesn’t, and you think they neglect one faction because they can’t/won’t write it, when that’s exactly what we have in black and white about the Alliance, that they just like writing the Horde more? Thats the reason they use the horde all the time, not because the have problems to write the horde, its the exact opposite, they enjoy to write the horde. Because both MOP and BFA and Cata was just a strong - very strong - faction focus on the Horde, the active element, you know? The ALliance gets no "alliance"Story, they get “neutral-Story”
thats not an alliance-story…not in a single way.
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I get that Alliance players hated Cata, but you had just as many stories as the Horde did. Just because Blizz took some steps to even out the absurdly unbalanced leveling experience from Vanilla, does not make it a Horde expac. Or was it really that bad not dominating 70 percent of the damned map canonically, and having all the relevant content end game relate to them? And no, creating new zones for the Horde to expand leveling content into would have just resulted in Alliance players screeching about how they don’t also get “new zones” too. They should get the old ones redone AND new ones.
MoP and BfA one the other hand had a STRONG focus on USING the Horde. But, didja notice, it was all about tearing us down? Ripping us to peaces? Having us rip ourselves to pieces? And then both times after Blizz mutilated the Faction, its Identity, its Racial Fantasies, and its Character Roster … we run away into another dimension to avoid the consequences for that. Blizz had their fun, now its time to move back to the Heroes of the story. And before you say that Legion wasn’t an Alliance expansion. It was an Alliance character expansion, riddled with Alliance themes and moments … and the Alliance would actually have to be allowed internal problems to have content focusing on internal issues. Which they really don’t.
There has NEVER been an actual attempt by Blizz in over the last decade to actually attempt to fix or repair what they keep gleefully smashing against a rock. Just the barest bones bandaids on gaping wounds. Yet they just KEEP smashing! “They like writing the Horde” … in that they like USING the Horde as a plot-device to settup future villains and future expansions. With little consideration to the Horde beyond that. No matter what those fancy BfA cinematics might suggest. Its purely a mechanical relationship for them.
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Here’s a honest question, can you honestly sit there and tell me that the alliance isn’t the most boring and blandest faction out of the two? Humans after all these years, still aren’t really fleshed out, they’re just…kind of there, the dwarves and gnomes I think blizzard forgot long ago were even in the alliance, and the actual fleshed out races like the Draenei, Kaldorei and Worgen are either forgotten about or used as a plot device so that blizz, through the use of the horde can crap all over them.
Our side doesn’t haven’t as a good as you think we do hugs
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This kind of loses all meaning when you consider that Uther the “Lightbringer” was one of the paladins who banished Tirion Fordring for befriending/defending an orc.
So, sure…the Light accepts everyone as flawed and imperfect.
But only if you’re Alliance (read: “white people races”).
That’s what I mean when I talk about the Light actually being the enemy “for once.” I mean have it actually be revealed, Scarlet Crusade/Army of the Light-style, for the potentially-corrupting, hypocrisy-causing, zealot-inducing power that it is.
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Cata was - from a development standpoint - definitely not balanced, and Blizz admitted as much, they were running out of time. In addition, they also wrote the story with the Horde in mind and that was also confirmed, it was all confirmed, which at the time each of the two factions immediately got as a feeling.
Yes, they use Alliance-like characters for neutral content or even outright Alliance leaders, but no one is saying that’s a good development.
However, IT doesn’t change the fact that right here your victim complex can be seen, breaks, because the fact remains. Blizz likes certain races, certain themes and certain aesthetics.
So I say for example: Blizz likes the Fairy -Wood- Aesthetic of the night elves. They use it over and over again, even Shadowmoon Valley could have just as easily been (an Orc area) a Night Elf area! Just like Ardenwaeld.
Blizz likes the Horde faction as a theme, more than the Alliance faction, as a theme.
And blizz likes the human-heroes like Jaina and Anduin, who always appear everywhere.
But blizz don´t know how to write the alliance, is to “strict” for them, they have not enough freedom, thats their argument.
This is about resources, effort, time. It’s not about history, it’s about the fact that in BFA, as well as in MOP and Cata, clearly more resources have been spent on the Horde.
And we got that confirmed in Cata and MOP by BLizz, and in BFA it was most likely the same, I mean, the cinemas alone were worth fortunes, even if they were ultimately wasted millions.
When blizz says they are bias, it has to do with the resources spent.
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When I looked at how Night Elf player numbers were cut in half between Vanilla (2004-2006) WoW and Classic (2019) - in the same meta, I started thinking that they were doing a similar thing to us. Additionally, interest in Night Elves according to Google search trends, fell off beginning in 2010 and has only slid from there, after accounting for WoW’s decline in general. One could look at said data and conclude that they thought that too many people played Night Elves, and wanted to redistribute the population.
The problem with that is that when you do such, you’re removing player autonomy - and people don’t like that. I didn’t like Blizzard showing up and telling me that I picked the wrong playable race and that I should roll a nice human instead (who I notice aren’t subjected to this treatment and have an even more bloated population). Instead, I just left the game - and for all intents and purposes, am still gone (again, I’m here only for a month, and here only to do this).
So yeah, people could switch from Horde to Alliance, or they could just up and quit like I did, like a lot of Night Elf players did, and like a lot of Horde players did - seems like a poor business strategy to me. I would say that if they want to improve numbers around other factions and races, then rather than destroying what people liked on the other side, they should build content that people will like on the side they want to improve.
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Evidence is contrary to that. Quite the opposite honestly.
Consistently, at least since Cata, when there is separate content for the factions the design team has worked on the Horde first and spent more time on the Horde. Every beta you see the Horde content completed first. Take BfA for example. The Horde zones were completed, mostly flushed out and just addressing bugs and minor issues while the Alliance city had disconnected textures, floating buildings and the quest content was disconnected and not completable. They work on the Horde first and spend more time on it. This shows they actually get more excited about the Horde. We can also look at the notable difference in content quantity. How much screen time did the Horde story get compared to the Alliance? A fair amount more. In the end, they actually show a preference for the Horde.
That said, it is fair to say you don’t like the Horde story. And don’t get me wrong, I fully understand the complaints.
This is absolutely a justified feeling.
But, Blizzard clearly likes the Horde. They are spending more time and effort on their story. The Horde is their priority. Their failure to provide a satisfying narrative for a lot of people is a failure of writing, not of desire or effort.
Personally, I think most of it boils down to how Blizzard writes their stories. Look at how WC3 was put together (you can see in the previous WC games and even SC). Each faction has their full story chapter in a very serialized way. One goes, then the other, then the next, etc. They don’t do a very good job of telling the stories in tandem. Had the Horde story been done in a WC3 style campaign, it would have been a lot better. The WoW model makes you more a part of the story, so the villain story feels worse than say playing the scourge campaigns in WC3. Additionally the need to have the Alliance at the same time means you kind of feel like you are bullying the other players as well.
In short, the issues with the Horde story are failings of writing, not desire or effort.
Of course, on the flip side the Alliance PC gets to deal with: ‘Forced to take punch after punch only to be told repeatedly by NPCs that we are bad for fighting back.’ So, yah…feels bad across the board.
I am going to point out: That is exactly why I want to see the Horde actively trying to fix the past mistakes. Not because the Alliance or anyone else is telling them to. Rather because they see the mistakes and their part in it and want to make what amends they can. I want to see them showing that they are NOT the villains anymore. Right now that is Thrall…and nobody else.
No. The people that play the Horde primarily for racial traits wont change. If you prioritize the performance story isn’t going to change anything. The number of players that dislike the Horde story enough to move is exceedingly small, to the point of being negligible. Not to mention the fact that your theory ignores so many glaring issues the Alliance story has to deal with. The reasons for people to be upset with the story for the Alliance is different than for the Horde. But it is not all roses on the Alliance side. There are lots of reasons for the Alliance to feel upset as well.
Prior to the rework it did. The class required very specific itemization/stats and the some most convoluted rotation systems any class has ever had. You had to have addons to track everything. If you did it all, they were way to powerful and had to be nerfed repeatedly because of it. But if you didn’t do all the extra it was pretty crappy, more so after nerfs to bring the top end down. So, you had a few % at the top end pulling overpowered to the point of broken numbers and everyone else scaping the bottom of the barrel. The rework was absolutely needed.
That is why they do the Horde story first? And why they spend more time on the Horde? And why there is more story content for the Horde? No, they do not see the Horde as a burden to write, it is their preference.
No they didn’t. Go play it through, not even remotely close.
First, that is debatable at best. In fact, I would argue the Horde has control of more zones than the Alliance.
Second, and the FAR more important point: Control of zones means absolutely nothing with regard to amount of story.
The Horde got more content, more development and more attention than the Alliance did by a considerable margin. And Blizzard admitted it. They did the Horde first (not surprising as they have shown it to be their priority) and then ran out of time.
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I think they’re the most sheltered by the writers, and the most cohesive. The Alliance faction has issues with how Blizz treats them as this homogenous mass. Their race’s stories are neglected in favor of simplicity and purity. However, I also think that there hasn’t been a single moment where the Alliance’s very existence was called into question. That the Alliance players were actively shamed by the writers for what the writers chose to do with their faction. Their Faction Identity has been at worst given a black eye from BfA, and even the NE racial fantasy is largely intact. And while many of their reps are underutilized, they are characters you are allowed to take pride in and follow. Even if they suffer from the same fate as Baine and Lor’themar, representing a Race who’s stories are not represented.
The Horde Faction identity likely has been damaged beyond all repair. It IS perfectly valid to question why the Horde is allowed to exist at all anymore. Daelin has been validated, and our races are BY BIRTH portrayed as more evil and far more flawed than the Alliance ones. Several of our core Racial Fantasies are left deader than the Forsaken. And our character roster in this absurdly hero driven game is an absolute joke of underdeveloped B-rankers at best.
The Horde PC and player has been left in a Broken Faction, with a Broken Faction Identity, and Broken Racial Fantasies. Being told by Blizz themselves that we should be ashamed of the Faction we chose, and the races we enjoy. That the only way we can ever be good is to be both submissive and convenient for the Alliance. And with absolutely ZERO viable avenues to ever allow us to ever be portrayed as Heroes in this story again. So yeah, the Horde has it REALLY bad.
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Depends on what are you looking for. I would say that the switch from more “roam around and explore” approach of early days of WoW was eventually changed. But it did not happen as addition. Characters convenient for “hype moments” like Varian also cannibalized that older way of story telling. IMO both factions are victims of this “nothing progresses / evolves / going to be addressed unless it’s necessary for the current narrative”.
I personally do not care too much about both factions because there are very few characters I found interesting even then I am not allowed to walk my path with them, learn about their opinions on events / characters and so on. My interest is just in looking around and combining bits of quests, random quotes / whispers, visuals from cinematicts, etc. together to see if on the background there could be found other interesting stories.
So, both are bad, but for different reasons. When it comes to the alliance it is that it seemingly becomes less and less “alliance” and more of “Anduin & co.” And the rest of the story was there just to say that no matter what he is correct. And even when the events are going in a direction of possibility of challenging that, the plot line will bend itself to prove awesomeness of Anduin all the rest of the alliance be damned.
But it’s all just my opinion.
gl hf
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Which imo may be because of what the faction is a meta representation of
Boring and bland doesn’t make it worse than being villain batted as war criminals repeatedly?
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It’s kind of what I was getting it, it’s no longer an Alliance anymore, but Humans and everyone else. They are written as so pure and perfect that they have become a narrative black hole concerning everything else, no other race is allowed to have the spotlight. I just find the notion that Horde has it worse to be a bit disingenuous when you actually look at the alliance as a whole.
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And you know what, after being repeatedly shamed for having these supposed “Horde Expansions” that left my faction in ruin. Alliance, I truly hope you get the treatment you believe the Horde got and so heavily covet. I genuinely hope you get an expansion where you are labelled, without question, as the villains. Are forced to follow a despot around for several years for the convenience of that leader’s story. And getting to spend the entire expansion being told your bad people, and spending half of it killing members of your own faction. Resulting in the deaths and betrayals of several of your core character roster. With no hope in the slightest of Blizz ever replacing them in a meaningful way.
I hope that for you Alliance. Since Horde players don’t really seem to care about Locations and Population Numbers (as we accepted a long time ago, locations can be rebuilt and population numbers don’t matter) … I would be very happy just to have the plot-armor and character development your reps get in “Horde Expansions”. We need that time, and it be nice to not be what “Blizz loves to write” for a while.
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Is it weird I want an expansion where we focus on Azerothian problems that already exist and helping new characters in the azeroth zones. that are just like us Adventurers but then some evolve into villains setting in motion multiple threats and broadening the scope of future expansions etc. alternatively maybe have an expansion that focuses on “Widening up zones” quite literally like having an expansion set in an instanced version of lordaeron etc, but it makes those zones much larger something akin to the “in universe” scale. but they have sub zones etc. You could even have an expansion that was basically “Eastern lordaeron” etc.
Basically an expansion about returning to adventures and having betrayal etc, maybe have a farmer go from farmer and then after a lengthy (like last patch or so) become a knight or something idk.
or Follow a baker that becomes an archaeologist or whatever.
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It wouldn’t be such a problem, if you know blizzard didn’t write the humans as the most perfect of people who are incapable of doing anything wrong. It’s a problem because they literally have no idea what to do with the alliance, they can’t simply walk them back from the Angelic, Morally Correct stance without having them doing something just as bad or worse than what the horde has done.
Point is, we need to stop this notion that the alliance side has it soo good, because we don’t.
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Which is actually a pretty good point, considering—Garrosh and Sylvanas being victim-batted aside—the Horde has at least been written to allow for diversity among its Warchiefs: they’ve now had two Orcs, a Troll, and an Undead in charge.
Meanwhile, the Alliance is currently on its third generation of Wrynn human kings. What, no Dwarven or Gnomish High King?
Heck, let’s see more Moira leadership, plz and ty.
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It depends on what you measure. Depending on the kind of content it goes from being in 40% ± 3 when in comes mythic dungeons of all difficulties and pvp, to almost non-existent raiding scene outside of selected few severs.
So argument can be made anywhere from “alliance need just a bit of extra push” to "it’s almost literally extinguished by a decade of neglecting the problem (from Spine of Deathwing in Cata which broke the thing and made Method switch to the horde side, to BfA Jaina, although I am not quite sure why exactly horde racials were better for that raid).
Lately there was a question about the faction balance, and Ion said that making the alliance racials stronger is not an option for them. Which leaves IMO just the narrative and cosmetics. But I have no idea if they will seriously invest heavily into the alliance stories or / and cosmetic rewards, or will take a cheap route of 
on the horde side. I would personally prefer the first one. But can’t foresee what will the devs do.
Source about the faction balance question:
https://youtu.be/HSHriJ_RcNo?t=1306
gl hf
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The Alliance has always had the internal problems, as I once said, as for the internals, the Alliance and the Horde turned completely. Where the Horde was previously one voice, the Alliance was the various voices that were rarely in agreement, and when it was, it was the very highest roller coaster, 5 minutes before 12 scenario-like.
the humans as the center of the alliance doesn´t fit anymore, because the alliance have plenty of races, older, wiser, more powerfull, similiar ettablished as the humans.
the title “high king” have to go, supreme leader should come back and the first supreme leader may be jarod Shadowsong.
If Muradin wasn’t already a faction leader, I would have said muradin, but I don’t think any leader of a race should be supreme commander.
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