BFA has given us a LOT of opportunities fro RPVP and we should take full advantage of that. However doing so has been difficult due to the fact of lack of ppl on MG horde.
Now the Zandalari race has helped but it is not enough. We need to help balance out as I believe that a balanced faction base will create a healthier server overall.
I believe this can be done in two ways.
1. Get more Alliance players to try horde: Now I know that Zandalari trolls helped with this but we need to get more people trying hordeside. This in my opinion starts with the guilds ā¦we need more big name Alliance rp guilds trying out horde Spinoff branches and this IMO will bring more people into trying hard.
2. Get New people to join MG horde: now this has been tricky due to WRA being the defacto horde server however we can change this. I believe we should maket MG horde like we do MG alliance, a place that is less structured than WRA and thus allows people to rp how they like will not only get new people to join in but also get WRA people to join in as well. We also we need to take advantage of the media sources we have. We need MG horde RP guilds advertising in this forum and the Worldās End Tavern forum. It would also help for MG horde guilds, players, and events to be posted on our Moon Guard wiki.
If we do this I believe this will get more people to try horde and thus make a better server community as a whole.
Several efforts have been made into this exact topic, and theyve made the first few steps, but its a long road.
The single biggest thing that could be done is for people to make more than passing attempts, as what Iāve heard as the major turning away point is that walk up RP is fairly rare for Horde.
Another thing is we really need to get people to stop saying to go to WrA for Horde rp. Mgās Horde rp is just as good, but more centered toward community run public events.
To do that we have to offer something WRA does not have. From what I heard WRA is pushing for a more āFamily Friendlyā mindset when it comes to RP. If we can offer a place for Horde players to Rp darker themes we will get people.
Provide the quality content and spaces to RP, and they will come. Iām doing my part with my brand new guild. Hopefully providing an idea and story hook that should appeal to Horde folks more interested in the sort of Horde envisioned by Thrall, Volājin, and Saurfang.
It is a slow process, though. And itās even slower given the generally dismissal reception of BFA.
That said, Flywheel has been busting her butt for a good long while with this particular problem.
You gotta walk the talk , bro. If you want to make a difference on MG Horde, you have to stop treating it like your āaltā while MG Alliance ( or WrA Horde) remains your āmainā. Commitment is what Iām talking about. People need to start forging their identities as their Horde main characters. Posting on an MG Horde toon would be a good start.
Iām not saying itās for everyone, and thereās nothing wrong with giving it a try. But if youāre gonna stand up there in a podium and preach what everyone else should be doing, then you better be setting and following that example. People need role models. They need to be inspired, not lectured.
Also, fist bump to Rekfar and Vaknosh. These guys are veterans of MG Horde and know what theyāre talking about. Theyāre loyal to the bone, through thick and thin.
Honestly, it would help if the Horde story held any personal interest to me. Me claiming a Horde main is difficult when it holds an unfortunate consistency within Blizzardās writing to frequently have the Horde be genuine one-note monsters while still trying to have something or someone claim some moral high ground within it. I certainly could write a number of interesting characters to play as on Horde-side but if the overall story arc of the faction isnāt appealing, interesting, or anywhere remotely nearing any sort of nuance, then why bother? At the end of the day, I still like to play the game Iām creating characters and stories in, and the stories just arenāt good under the red flag. In fact, weāve been through this supervillain arc before with a Warchief, and itās totally going to end with another transitory Warchief this time as well.
As positive as Iād like to be from time to time, thatās just a massive, massive hurdle to jump over for anyone. My choices are dealing with a bunch of wannabe dictators and despots, or a more colorful complexity of varying degrees of faction story.
Basically every other server is Horde-dominated, I donāt think switching one of the only Alliance-dominated servers to āparityā with the Horde is a good idea. Cross-realm grouping already exists and does wonders.
Playing Horde really isnāt my thing for a variety of reasons that arenāt really relevant to this discussion, but even if you are a strictly Alliance player there are ways to help our Horde RP brethren.
The biggest one is possibly the easiest - we need to ditch the stigma that MG Horde is dead and stop sending people to WrA. Every time someone tells a prospective Horde player āMG for Alliance, WrA for Hordeā MG Horde grows that much smaller. People complain thereās a small population, people complain thereās no walk-ups, but if you keep steering people away, these problems will never get better.
Now, donāt lie about the state of affairs. Donāt kid yourself and say MG Horde is more active than WrA Horde or something like thatā¦but donāt sabotage things by dismissing MG Horde entirely.
I really donāt get why some MG Alliance seem so awfully eager to try and knock MG Horde down more. Itās basically a meme at this point. Instead of thinking a raising tide raises all ships, some of yāall seem awfully eager to make sure other ships run aground.
At this point I believe itās just been said so many times people donāt really think anymore. Itās a well known fact that MG has a high Alliance pop and a well known fact WrA has a high Horde pop, so most people probably just accept that as dogma and never bother to look any deeper into it.
WrA is about 60:40 Horde:Alliance, but people think itās higher because their Horde population is bigger than MG. I believe that eventually they will also have Alliance outnumber Horde.
The fact of the matter is, Alliance will always be more popular on RP servers due to the popularity of human-like and attractive races such as night elves. I believe that if Horde were to have another attractive race similar to blood elves, or if nightborne were not rep-locked, we would notice more Horde RPers.
Such things are out of the hands of players however. The best we can do is to make Horde more appealing to roleplayers by having lots of events, and advertising our interesting cultures.
Iām not looking for a Horde dominated server. But I believe that if we could bring the balance more towards 40% Horde and 60% Alliance, we would be healthier as a server and people looking for a balanced server would be more inclined to roll here rather than WrA.
Like the OP said, we can market ourselves to be more accommodating towards mature themes that people may wish to RP. But thereās no reason why newcomers should have to choose Alliance or go elsewhere.
Last I saw, WrA was about 60:40 on Realmpop, but essentially 50/50. Thatās the sad parallel of all this - WrA has a thriving Alliance population and Moon Guard has a Horde population and both of them get marginalized with this āMoon Guard = Alliance, Wyrmrest Accord = Hordeā rule of thumb that people spout on about. As long as people keep that as a commonly accepted āfactā, a large population of players gets marginalized.
Yes, youāre right Elenstelle. My apologies. I fixed my previous post for the correction.
Looking at the population differences on realm pop, WrA has SO many blood elves. About 30% of the server, which is twice as many as their humans. On MG, the reverse is true.
I donāt know what that means, or how it can help our faction imbalance. If there were more blood elf themed guilds and events, would people be more inclined to roll Horde?
All my characters on MG are on Horde, but Iād love to have a Zandalari. Ret pally running around on a big holy dinosaur? Iām all about that. Or a Zandalari druid and just BE all the dinosaurs! Or a Zandalari monk with that sweet Aztec armor, kicking fools in the face with my bare feet.
Problem is, Iām not willing to pay that tax. Iād have to roll a new toon, level to 120, grind the rep, do the achievements, unlock the Zandalari as a race, make ANOTHER toon, level that one to 120, just to play Horde. Thatās insane, no matter how much I love the race.
If the price for entry ever drops to something easier, I wouldnāt mind changing colors. But Iām not going to punish myself to do it, and Iām sure there are others who feel the same way.
We could try more events that are faction neutral or horde specific.
Things like dinners, tavern rps, rpvp, guild fairs. Big events where social interaction is encouraged between new people and advertise them on the MG and tavern forums. When advertising for a while, especially on the tavern forum, we could also mention some of our Horde startup groups that (as far as I heard) are providing care packages and helping find guilds for new hordies.
I have a Horde side priest (love my priesties) who share the same visions as thrall did.
Perhaps I could look into your guild for her? I donāt know to much about Horde lore, Iāve been trying to look up on it and more than willing to make any corrections for errors I make!
We have those, often. Weekly tavern events, monthly pilgrimages to the Sunwell, we just had the Carnival of the Sun recently and there are constantly events that are public to the Horde. Flywheel has a goblin lore event coming up as well.
As for the guild for new players, Flywheel also runs the monthly guild expo.
((Sorry in advance about the grammar and spelling, never been my best area.))
I wanna throw my 2 cents into this cuz I donāt think Ive seen anyone explain it from how I view MG Horde. Personally I think a big issue with MG Horde is that it is hard to get into the door. When BFA was announced I made a choice to be Horde for it, I missed all the fun of being Horde in Cata and MoP but I was not going to let this one pass me by. So I started to look, I quickly came to a problem. there were not a lot of forum posts about horde guilds and the ones I found were inactive, dead or dying. I started to look deeper and found the MG united Horde discord and my hopes went up! As I kept up with things I came to the sad conclusions that almost every event advertised was weekly casual stuff, bar nights and so on. Now at first this was amazing, I got to go out and see what was going on but as BFA came out and the story moved on but there was maybe 2 or 3 horde meetings but then back to the same old, nothing to really sink my teeth into story wise. Now i heard of a few server events and but I had an impossible time tracking them down maybe that is my own problem but I found it very difficult and missed out.
Outside of information not always being easy to come by (At least from my experience) Guilds were also hard to get into, both in joining and getting behind the story. You see a ton of guilds running around but hardly ever see a recruitment forum so it feels like you shouldnāt bother cuz they are not looking. you also have the guilds that you see and want to be in SO badly cuz they are amazing sounding but I quickly found the really good sounding ones to either have inactive leadership or be dead altogether. (One even packed up and left for allie side ) then you have guilds of a more out there nature. Ill use flashbang as an example (side note: Flywheel love you and your guild this is just my opinion and I mean nothing bad by it at all.) in BFA I personally and I donāt think I am alone in this was wanting to be a part of the war and really get into the Horde effort but some guilds like Flashbang is about a business with fireworks. Now that is great and those who love it, love it but it feels to casual in nature for me and that brings me to my last point.
People tend to discourage you from trying to improve or try a new way. when I noticed I did not find something I wanted to be a part of I decided I would try and make a guild and try and attract people with the same visions I had, I quickly was messaged by multiple people saying āYou should look into other guilds we donāt have the population to spread out with new ones.ā or āGreat idea but you shouldnāt complete with those already established.ā all this was very discouraging to say the least.
Now this is ONLY my thoughts and examples from my opinions but I dont think I am the only one to see this side of things. Personally I am not giving up on the MG Horde and despite not finding a place I keep looking and encourage others to as well. The community is amazing but it needs to work to improve itself instead of just blaming others for saying go to WrA.
) then you have guilds of a more out there nature. Ill use flashbang as an example (side note: Flywheel love you and your guild this is just my opinion and I mean nothing bad by it at all.) in BFA I personally and I donāt think I am alone in this was wanting to be a part of the war and really get into the Horde effort but some guilds like Flashbang is about a business with fireworks. Now that is great and those who love it, love it but it feels to casual in nature for me and that brings me to my last point.