I am still only level 12 and am wondering if I made the right choice choosing Alliance.
Can someone explain the benefits or negatives of each Faction please. So I can decide which I should play.
Younger players tend to play Alliance for the real life looks.
Horde tend to want to leave real life behind and enjoy the role play of wonder.
Both factions on the same path mostly. As well as starring the quest lines. Play what you want that appeals to your minds eye.
Some will tell you to play this or that because they like it, or is better for this or that.
Welcome to the game and as always beware the living.
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I’m a super casual player, and I spend time on both factions. For casual play, there’s really not much of a difference between the factions as far as player personality goes. Good and bad people in both factions.
We don’t really know how the upcoming changes to allow cross faction grouping will affect things in the future, but for now, here’s how it basically stands:
Players who are interested in high end competitive play tend to go to Horde. If this is what you are interested in, Horde is the better choice. If you’re looking for more casual group play not on the bleeding edge, then either faction works.
For Roleplay, I’ve found Alliance to be a bit more active, and again, you have the situation where people who are really interested in it tend to move over to Alliance because that’s where more people are. Wyrmrest Accord is still a solid option for Horde roleplayers.
Beyond that, it’s going to about what you enjoy. Probably the most helpful thing is to play on a server where the faction you want to play has a good active population. (You’re posting character is on Moonguard Alliance which is a very solid choice, especially if you are interested in RP.)
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When in doubt, I generally recommend rolling a human character.
Many parts of the game are locked behind reaching certain reputation levels. The human +10% reputation bonus can literally save days of reputation grinding. And they have a good PvP racial.
Worgen have drippy noses and Tauren have fleas. The constant sniffling and scratching gets old real fast.
As you will most often be following a running character, some people recommend picking a race that looks good to you from the rear.
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If you have friends that play, play what they play. That way they can help you out and you can join them.
If you don’t have friends that play, then it all really comes down to aesthetics and what you want to do. Pick a race you like the look of and a class you like the style of. You may end up playing both factions eventually anyway to experience the other parts of the story line (Cata and BFA zones mostly, the others are fairly similar), if you enjoy questing. If you want to RP pick a class/race that fits for a story for you.
Both factions have their positives and negatives, but a lot of those stem from the players, and it varies by server. Alliance on my server is awesome. Alliance on my old server is a wretched hive of scum (for the most part). There’s a reason I left that server. I have Horde characters on that server now, and Horde is decent there. Of course, my guild switched servers back in MoP, so a lot could have changed.
Really, find a group you’re comfortable with. Faction doesn’t matter too much.
Both factions are fine. Horde has an advantage over Alliance (I believe it’s around 60-40?) but it varies depending on realm. With cross-faction due to release with 9.2.5, it’ll matter even less.
Pick based on community and aesthetics.
Choosing a faction is largely only a lore/RPG decision…for the most part, neither faction has any sort of power advantage over the other one (unless you’re getting into really minute, min/maxxing parsing, which most players will never have to deal with).
Best bet is picking the side that seems to appeal to you the most from an aesthetic/narrative perspective. Alliance is most new players choice, since they have more recognizable race options, namely the humans. But both sides have great stories to experience and are well worth your time.
Horde races are generally more rooted in Warcraft specific interpretations of typical fantasy races (ie orcs, zombies, etc.) and therefore may be a little more confusing to get into, but the lore for WoW is pretty deep for all the races/classes, so that’s just something you’ll learn along the way. For now, just pick the race you like and don’t worry about being left behind.
In a nutshell
Horde is a more masculine, dominant faction with larger numbers, more aggressive in open world.
Alliance is more democracy stuff, underdog in numbers compared to Horde. In open world 10 Horde to 1 Alliance outnumber. Alliance has many spies and so-called " rats "
Horde is more populated, players are mostly more aggressive in world PVP. They are more interesting too because they play interesting races. They have more active guilds , more PVE. Horde is not great at high level PVP, they are more competitive for PVE. They have longer ques for BGs because there are less Alliance players to fight against. They have cooler songs.
Alliance is less populated, its an underdog basically. Less players in world PVP, nearly 10 Horde to 1 alliance, making Alliance players to stick together in outside world. Less populated guilds, less PVE. However in competitive PVP Alliance indeed beats Horde at high level of play. Faster ques for BGs
Mxeci, that might be true on your server, but my server has a lot more Alliance than Horde. Each servers balance is different. Some are balanced, some aren’t.
Queue times and all that, yes, Horde has a bit of an advantage. But that’s mostly at high level. The populations aren’t quite as disparate as you make them out to be though. The server you’re on is 93% Alliance.
It depends on what level you’re planning to play on.
If your goal is to become top 5% of the playerbase, Horde may be a better pick. However, cross-faction is coming in 9.2.5.
Aesthetically, I’ve always favored Alliance over horde. I love Alliance cities better. I like Alliance RP better. I love transmog on Night Elves and Humans. Some mogs on Dwarves look insane!
You should really pick whatever matches your fantasy. You are likely to end up paying for race/faction change in the future if you pick Horde over Alliance just because Horde has more numbers, but all you want is to play casually and level alts. (implying you’re leaning towards alliance now)
I swapped from Alliance to Horde last patch as I want to play on a higher level. But I really miss Alliance. My druid cow is so meh. I miss Night Elf mog I had.