Well the. Villian bat has destroyed any chance of Horde faction pride
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Honorable Horde first, followed by Tauren, which is why it pains me to see the Horde always have an identity crisis over and over again. Having said that I just canāt bring myself to play the Alliance. I only played an Alliance using the 110 free level token to do the War of Thorns and Battle for Lordaeron on the experience of the Alliance side. It was admittingly the worst experience Iāve ever played. Not because of the burning of Teldrassil or anything like that, but it actually felt like I was playing a failed Horde, or Blue Horde. It felt like it was trying to unify a team that had no feeling of unification. In short, it just felt like nothing but humans, a human king leading a human nation despite different races. Now how this came about can only guess it by two things.
First off the leveling experience of both sides felt like being complete opposites. The Horde was more about survival, thereās a reason thereās the quote āI survived Barrenās Chat.ā It was not just the chat that was bad, if you strayed off the road even by the tiniest bit, youāll be dead by a pack of hyenas, centaurs, raptors, harpies, cultists, what have you, the list goes on and on. There were a lot of group quests, and quests that should have been group quests, so you had to group up, YOU HAD TO GROUP UP! Even grouping up to go to just travel to ānormalā quest areas in the Barrens wasnāt rare back in my time. Like a raptorās den that sure you could solo a raptor easily ā¦ but they were in packs of 3 or 5. So the sense of unity and comradery was always there, because if you were alone in the Barrens, you would not make it far! That and since Orcs were mostly a warrior race, Horde proably had more Warriors, and warriors canāt solo in classic. Also last but certainly not least, now I cannot exactly recall the exact level, but I remember being stuck in the Barrens for about levels 10 to 30 to 40, I think it was 35. So you were stuck in the Barrens for the long haul.
Now Iāve played on the Alliance side back in classic and I only was able to get to level 20, and be done with Westfall. The only time I felt like I needed aid big time was from the infamous Hogger, and the Deadmines, hence why he is so popular. Well that basically was what Barrens was, a Land Hogger, and the Wailing Caverns as the Deadmines but on steroids.
Second reason is both factions are built on opposite ways when it comes to faction and races. The Horde has different races built into it. Each race is completely different in terms of religion, practices, rules, etc. The Orcs were honorable to the core, even if it meant death. The Tauren are peaceful, and value life. The Trolls worshipped Voodoo and shadows. The Forsaken were the black sheep, pragmatic and believe victory at any costs. Even the Blood Elves were very different from the other Horde races both in looks and believes. We didnāt need to work on racial identities, we had to work on the opposite, to unite under one banner, the Horde banner. So screaming FOR THE HORDE! Is the representation of hard work between NPCs, and even players. Now if we can only remember that, and get this identity crisis out of the way finally!
The Alliance however are the opposite, they were already unified. However the NPCs were more okay with that, it was the players that had to bring out their own identities from their factions. The problem with the Alliance though is that most of the races worship the same things. The Humans and Dwarves worshipped the light. The Gnomes were a joke race so sadly they didnāt even matter. The Night Elves worshipped Elune, that is probably why most NE players felt alienated from the others. This leads to the problem that the Alliance are just a big blob of Lawful Good Humans, you have you normal humans, your tall and pointy ear purple humans, your short humans, your short short humans. Even the Draenei worshipped the light, making them big blue goat humans. So to me, when screaming FOR THE ALLIANCE! It feels hollow and empty because not a lot of hard work was placed upon it. A lot more hard work was placed on trying to not be a giant big blob of Lawful Good Humans. Unfortunately it feels like Blizzard forcefully made the players fail in that regard with Varian being High King, and how the commanders of the Alliance are all Humans.
Thatās my guess on why both factions are different and opposites in terms of factions vs races.
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Race. The Alliance is a tool of human Imperialism, and the Horde is an expansionist war machine. No thanks to both of them.
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Which is ironic cause Horde is advertised as the faction that celebrates individuality but really, these days, itās just all these kiddies shouting āfor the Horde!ā cuz their friends told them to roll it lol. Now they all these Sylvanas loyalists who donāt give a crap about Thrall or anything and think Horde is just all about āHorde win 100%! horde smash!!ā and call you a traitor if you like the OG WC3/Vanilla Horde.
Edit: To answer the topic tho Iād say Iām honorable Horde for the reasons people usually mention, being an underdog, hustling struggling together, and then Troll cause they funny and also cool.
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When the race and the faction are garbage you donāt have to choose.
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Itās actually 50/50 for me.
Iām a Troll player for the most part these days, and even if the Darkspear arenāt āEat your fingers in front of you like buffalo wingsā savage like the Bloodscalps might be, theyāre still proud members of the wider Troll community and have pretty pious/traditionalist values; While still having progressive ideas that allow them to work with the wider Horde.
At the tribes lowest point, when we were set to be ground down into paste by a tide of naga, murlocs, and Kul Tirans from all sides, it was the Horde that helped us out when to the rest of the world considered the Darkspear just another Troll tribe that no one would miss. The Orcs taught the tribe how far we could really go by accepting other races as allies. And were why Volājin ultimately turned down Zul when he attempted to rally the other tribes.
The Darkspear have risen further in the short time since the New Horde was formed than any other Troll tribe in history. From a footnote in Troll history set to be relegated to a single history tablet in Zuldazarās temples, to a core component of one of the two largest polities on Azeroth.
This is why I welcome near all newcomer races to the Horde openly. The Tauren faced a VERY similar circumstance as the Darkspear. The Orcs are also a sad shadow of the clans in their heyday before the Legion got to them. The Forsaken, like the Trolls, are a group considered little more than a nuisance, vermin no one from the Alliance races would notice disappearing. The Goblins of Kezan, detestable as they can be, are refugees of a disaster that could have destroyed them all. And where else could they have gone, if not the Horde? Theyād have been financially gutted and sold into drudgery by the other Goblin cartels, and the Alliance has never cared much for the race as a whole(plus Gnomes).
Then thereās the Magāhar, the Nightborne, and the Zandalari. All of whom suffer devastating losses before being offered a hand by the Horde.
I love Trolls, but iām Horde all the way, regardless of race.
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Always Race for me. Dwarven pride!
Nothing stands taller than the might oā tha dwarves!
Which is why it really pisses me off when you see night elves, draenei and dwarves wearing HUMAN plate, Emblazzoned with STORMWINDās heraldry.
Legion was the Class expansion, BFA was the āfactionā expansions
Iād love for an expansion that focuses more on each race individually. Imagine like class halls, and class campaigns/war campaign but race themed. Each race gets a new race-only hub, each with a large scale race themed questline with racial themed rewards(mogs and mounts etc.).
I know something like that would ever happen but a Dawi can dream
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For me itās always been about the Faction. I was interested in the horde long before I started playing WoW and pretty much exclusively played the game as part of the horde faction.
Possibly itās because iām not wild about elves, Blood or Night or whatever lays in between, and partially itās because Iām not enamored of the traditional protagonists of fantasy like humans , dwarves, or gnomes and the like. (Having said that, neither Draenai or Worgen are all that attractive to me either.)
I just really like the idea of the more monstrous races banding together in fellowship and family to defy a world that feels it would be better off with them dead. Sure there are parts of the Horde that are uglier than othersā¦ Orcish blood lust, Troll voodoo, Forsaken experiments, Blood Elven conceit, Goblin greedā¦ but at the end of the day I liked the idea that those differences and grievances might be overlooked for the common good. That the Horde existed despite their differences rather than because of their similarities.
Of course thatās just how the Horde has been in WoW. In the earlier games of course it was all about their similarities drawing them together and the vulnerability of the soft āpink skinsā that drove them to war. But I like the Faction of The Horde far more than any single constituent race (although if I had to pick one it would be Trolls)ā¦
Or at least I used to.
Iām not sure iām going to like the Horde very much anymore after BFA.
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Alliance is more individualist and Horde is more collectivist.
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Says the Gilnean!
Gilneas never sided with the orcs like alterac did
This is probably the best example of race over faction- the fact that people RP outside of their faction. I hope they somehow acquire the Ashbringer and start causing all kinds of problems with their radicalism.
More interesting result is Sargerasā Blade jump started the presumed Narru that its power crystal is assumed to be and its reborn as a unique Death/Light aligned Narru. While not as talky as Xalatath that blade did speak to you hinting at some sort of will in it.
As for this thread there are some interesting results, though maybe that is to be expected that the Alliance being so homogenized forces people to look elsewhere for inspiration.
The Sinādorei come before anyone else. The Horde are a close secondā¦
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What is this āfactionā and āraceā you speak of? Arenāt we all just one race and faction?
That wasnāt Alterac, it was Perenolde. Perenolde was a worm.
perenolde was king of alterac.
My choice is a hard one, first and foremost if we are talking identifying with your main? I am by far Dark Iron warlock to the core. I have been interested in Dark Irons since I first started this game, their lore is quite expansive and rich. I became somewhat of a expert on their loreā¦
I am like many others in here identifying with class before race. I played scourge almost exclusively in w3 for the dreadlord and loved to go recruit me a pitlord second hero. I love the legion more than I enjoy any other group in the game, if there was ever a point where one could have chosen to be apart of the legion, thatās my desire.
This translated later into wanting to make storywise the oldest possible warlock, hence the love of Dark Iron. There are Dark Iron warlocks in lore long before the orcs ever came to Azeroth. If I recall two of The Seven are warlocks and Thane Shadowforge was a Warlock/Shaman mix.
I enjoy the alliance but I do wish for better potential. Right now wow devs have alliance as the holy heroes of righteousness who must stop a evil horde or other villainyā¦ I rather enjoy the idea that the alliance at times seems to act like a empire! The idea of the alliance empire versus the savage horde makes more sense, where both sides get their share of evil! Now a few times this shows up so I guess itās goid enough. During mop the alliance flat out use Pandaren child labor to build a base in the Jade Forest.
Even after all this I have 16 characters about 8 on each side so I personally enjoy most of wows cultures. But in the end I value, warlock > legion > Dark Irons > alliance
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I think part of the individuality vs. unity aspect - Iām gonna try to put this as lightly as a blue poster can - is that thereās a difference between how the Alliance and Horde function.
The Horde often requires a sworn blood oath to the Warchief and the Horde, as seen with the Taunka in Dragonblight. Complications of this oath are seen with people like Nazgrim, who was honorbound to Garrosh even after his crimes. Interestingly in more recent times (on the PTR), Talanji REFUSES to swear the oath, and instead offers Zandalar to join the Horde as a sister kingdom, an offer Sylvanas accepts.
The Alliance has no such oath, as it is simply that; an alliance. Iām not saying one is better than the other, but the Hordeās membership focuses more on the greater faction, while the Alliance allows for focus on the individual allied kingdoms.
Dunno how much sense that made, but I think I about surmised it.
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The Crusade was driven to xenophobic paranoia by demons. If anything, the opposite of what you say is true, and I place my faction, The Scarlet Brotherhood (which i desperately hope has become a silly circus run by Joseph the Awakened as ringleader) over my race.
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