I’ve been enjoying a nice replay of the first three RTS games. The horde is soooo different compared to what it is now. The horde in the RTS games just feels right. Ever since Orc and Humans first released , I was always pro horde. I loved them! But the Horde just doesn’t feel right in the current lore. The Horde doesn’t feel like the Horde…. If that makes sense? They feel more like the red alliance team.
I lost all love for the faction. I always played characters on both factions so I can experience both sides of the story. But I faction changed all my characters to Alliance a while ago. Thinking about it kind of bums me out.
Anyone like the current horde lore? Or do you prefer the older horde?
Modern Horde is boring and depressing. I don’t think there have been many people in the building that can wrap their heads around the feel and aesthetic. Or, if there were, they were not the people allowed to call any shots. There are occasional glimpses of it, but few and far between. The kosh’harg was good.
Depends which Horde captured your heart. I loved WC3’s Horde, but WoW never really lived up to its promise. We’re more or less back there now, with a slightly bigger, slightly prettier Horde with Thrall first among equals instead of just first, but it’s hard to feel good about that loop when the faction was twice demolished by writers obsessed with the WC2 Horde. And the mandatory defeat and soul-searching that comes from recycling that plot again and again left the fans they wrote it for (all three of them) unhappy too.
Kag is onto something with his Kosh’harg comment. Positive development for individual races seems the best players of either faction can hope for, and the best of those (orc, draenei, and I’d say blood elf) struck me as passion projects by devs who really got those races.
The narrative team seems to make most of it’s decisions by starting off with someone saying “wouldn’t it be cool if?..” Nothing wrong with that but after 20 years with different writers you end up in a situation where you can’t walk things back and you paint yourself into a corner. Warcraft 3 Horde, they had a more singular vision.
So the short answer is of course elves. And to be fair, Forsaken. Night Elves and Forsaken being Alliance and Horde respectively may have been a solid choice for gameplay but a terrible one narratively.
Ironically, at the moment the Alliance feel more like the monster race faction than the Horde does …
Additionally, the Horde find shadow / void as taboo; yet the Alliance embrace it? lol
… As do the Alliance hold far more claim to the light than the Horde do too.
Come to think of it, the Alliance also spank the Horde in literally every cosmic & class category there is.
Even the Arcane, people can hardly argue “BuT tHe HorDe HaVe NiGhTbOrNe aNd BlOoD ElVeS” — Because even they get backhanded with ease by humans relatively quickly and told to shutup & sit down as the humies take the reins in the magic lore scenarios.
The Alliance have:
Werewolves
Elves who are infused with the powers of the void, thus canonically the mentally strongest beings in all of creation – Surpassing even gods & the Dragon Aspects themselves.
An Ancient Civilisation of Aliens infused with the tremendous powers of the light, tattoo runes & all.
Dwarves infused with elemental powers of flame & fire.
The Undead (Alliance have access to the Darkfallen customisations too)
Demons (Eredar)
Like honestly, the Horde’s apparent “MoNsTeR rAcEs” barely hold a candle to all that.
The Horde is currently hoarding 4 identities and visuals that are rooted or originated from the Alliance: Blood Elves (former High Elves), Nightborne (former Night Elves), Forsaken (former Humans), Earthen (dwarven relatives)
When will the Alliance get Orc or Troll race offshoots?
Most of my favorite races in this game are Horde races, but… I don’t like The Horde very much. I don’t like the fact that this game’s political landscape is flattened to Red vs Blue.
The RTS Horde, just Orcs/Trolls/Tauren, wins simply by virtue of being smaller.
Hey I resemble this remark! You also forgot that the Alliance has a lot of death knights and demon hunters by virtue of how the Alliance races were more abundant and both Lich Kings raised in undeath to bolster their forces and the Demon Hunters were initially Night Elven followers of Illidan and only in BC era did they train Blood Elves into their ranks so likely thousands of Night Elven Demon Hunters with centuries of experience versus the Blood elven ones with what a few decades?
Alliance has demons walking around as you mentioned in their major cities aka Eredar, their Lightforged cousins, their exiled brothers, They also have Darkfallen elves both Kaldorei and Thalassian. They have werewolves as you mentioned. They also have Void infused elves, they have Wildhammer dwarves who are attuned to nature like their Dark Iron cousins. All these guys bring next level of magic and technology that simply can’t be competed by most Horde races.
The alliance also has cybernetically enhanced gnomes who can build radically advanced technology along with their regular gnomish cousins who bolster a space faring civilizations tech like the Vindicators of the Alliance Draenei. I mean at this point if it wasn’t for plot armor the Alliance would have already conquered Azeroth, but due to outside forces and Anduin have been able to share the world with the Horde.
I don’t put any faith or merit behind any of these bombastic claims, because every time we see some new tech or unexpected magic, it’s overcome within minutes, if not a week.
As Ramsay Bolton said: “All I need are twenty good men.”
Giant Mechanical Airship or Demon Vessel? - Blown out of the sky when boarded by their enemies. Every time.
Giant Mechanical Tank or Mecha? - Blown up by stabbing it with a sword or shooting it with arrows. Every time.
Superbly powerful Magi? Greatest Archmage of an Age?
Supreme Godspeaker of a Culture of Violence?
All slain or maimed by twenty people and their rabid rottweilers.
Jaina Proudmoore can animate a sunken ship to fly and shoot arcane blasts out of its’ cannons, but then gets inconvenienced by getting shot or caught by giant spider webs.
Power is an illusion in the World of Warcraft. All serve the Narrative.
Come to think of it, the Alliance also spank the Horde in literally every cosmic & class category there is.
I mean at this point if it wasn’t for plot armor the Alliance would have already conquered Azeroth, but due to outside forces and Anduin have been able to share the world with the Horde.