How much does human skew that data? A lot of people will (probably) prefer RP and customisation in an avatar that is human or close to it.
Alliance does have the four races closest to human - this would affect the spread of all the social/RP factors fairly significantly (IMHO)

If its not too much hassle could you do the data w/o human?

How can something be "significant", yet also be "trivial"? That standard deviation of ~ 8 makes differences in the mean of ~ 1 difficult to interpret. I think you what you meant to say is that the survey showed no statistically age difference between alliance and horde.

Language is everything. Particularly when interpreting statistical data :)

note to self: proof read more carefully!

statistically important*

I'm not so sure that "looking human" is nearly as important as "looking good" or "looking cool" or "having a cool history". I like the Orcs because of their honor, the Tauren because of their American Indian ties, the Night Elves because of their druidic background and awesome music in their starting location (plus, their druid-cat-form doesn't have horns!), the humans just because, and the dwarves as hunters. :) I find the undead creepy and mean, trolls to be ugly and gangly, and gnomes to be somewhat useless... Not that I wouldn't play them, but that my preference ranks them like this. I don't think human vs. non-human really even gets into it. Most people in a fantasy setting don't want to play "just a human" unless there's some good advantages to it.

Interesting. I play undead because I like the variety of appearances I can choose from. I actually find the art to be more pleasing and robust than the others. I also find their backstory to be sympathetic in a sort of pitiful kind of way, which lends itself to fun RP'ing. And, I'm of the group surveyed who does not enjoy PvP or provoking other players.

I started as alliance mainly because I wanted to play the paladin class and because I thought the horde character artwork sucked. After several months of playing, however, I've often considered "rolling horde" in the hopes of finding a more skilled player base on the other side.

In the new Battlegrounds, it's more or less common knowledge that the average horde player is more skilled than the average alliance player, for whatever reason. I also get the impression that the alliance has more casual, inexperienced players that make up a significant portion of the human / nightelf population simply because they look normal, which may skew the numbers a bit.

Certain classes also are available to specific races, so someone's desire to play a specific class (i.e. paladin, shaman) may contribute to their faction decision.

To Joey and others who were confused by the wording - I was using shorthand (been writing too many APA papers lately). "Significant" is typically reserved to mean "statistically significant".

I have reworded the phrase. A difference can be statistically significant but still substantively trivial.

To Tony - It's not the humans who like role-playing the most. It's the Gnomes and Trolls. See the page on race data.

Well I'm glad you wrote that it's not humans who RP the most. I wanted to point out that if you're RPing for immersion, escapism, and the like, you want it to be the LEAST like RL, not the most like RL. I never ever intend to RP a human. Why be human in the game when humans all over the world are showing me just how imperfect the human race is?

Holly- RP'ing a human can be just as fun as RP'ing any other available race, it's all preference based. Just because "actual" humans are an imperfect race doesn't honestly mean jack about the humans ingame... I have a rogue and a mage who are both human. I can RP with them in so many different ways you wouldn't know it was the same person playing them. And have you ever RP'd a human in love with another race? that can be quite interesting. For you to say that RP'rs want it to be LEAST like RL if YOUR opinion, not all RP'rs, please dont make up my mind for me =)

Come on Thayet, why did you need a '=)' at the end of that? You OBVIOUSLY are being irritable and angry, CAPITALIZING words for emphasis and to give YOU a TONE. The =) is just irritating and obviously out of place - if you were going to give a genuine smile, would it be after you give a command in a sentence with an argumentative tone and a sarcastic closing.
P.S.
=)

Interesting about the gender breakdown. My wife was surprised when I said that most female characters are very likely played my male players. I'd be interested to know why male players would choose female characters. (My wife plays a female paladin BTW.)

Oops - just found the link below about gender-bending, with comments. Fascinating...

I chose horde over alliance because of the races that each had. I am a heavy rp'er and I actually find the "monster" races far easier to roleplay because the more human the race is, the more it just sounds like I'm ... talking. The monster races have the abilty to discuss eating human flesh at insane length, and also the fun of some unified language, like the Jamaicain (sp?) tongue of the troll for instance. The large overbalance in population favouring alliance also, I find, tends to give a much less unified group, as the number of idiots (read: people who use acronyms and L33t speech on a roleplaying server) goes up (so does the number of good players, but they are less vocal).

My appologies, I should clarify something in the above post before I start an arguement: By my definition of idiot, I meant those that do it in yells and public says, not those that do it in private tells. Sorry.

I played alliance only because I love gnomes (I was a dwarf) but I do agree that horde were about a 100 times more organized than us at any instance, or azuregos or kazzak. We'd bring 2 raid parties of 40 and 20 and they'd have 40 to get loot, and 60 more to defend.

I have noticed one big difference... alliance players are ganking people a lot more than horde. Especially paladins, which is very funny :P. I could name zounds of idiot corpse-camping paladins from my server... and it seems female night elf rogues are almost always honorless gankers... i love dueling and 1vs1 pvp but alliance are ruining my fun all the time :/. Damn i hate those honorless bastards who cant match horde players in one-on-one combat... :R

I play Horde for the fun aspect of being undead/orc/tauren or even a troll.

I can talk about "Losing my arm in Stratholme" on my main. Or flirt with the undead ladies on my orc. Or even make potions on my troll.(everyone calls him a hippy)
My tauren loves everyone.

Plus Horde players are more than likely to help someone out than the Alliance side.

Atleast that is what Ive experienced.

That's funny that Alliance scores higher in RP because on my server, and in every other mmorpg I've played, serious RP was more prevalent on the evil or horde side than on the "good guys" side. Good guy RP tends to run RP-lite.

Charles - Gender Bending - I'm male and exclusively play female toons. While some might raise an eyebrow at that and question sexuality or what-not, allow me to ask the guys who are playing male toons one question....

If your going to stare at an ass for hours on end, animated or not, which would you really rather look at...a dude's ass or a nice pert female ass?

Ha! That's so funny though, to think everyone is complaining that all the Bnet kiddies are in alliance playing chick Night-elves!!! It's actually the other way around! And I've seen it myself! I play on Earthen Ring, alliance all the way and it's very mature! I recently decided to level my level 30 Shaman and I hated it! People are so immature, every single Pick up group I joined was filled with l33t speakers, or lazy typers (ppl dat speak lik dis. u no wat i mean?)! Don't get me wrong, I was a 25 shaman, reached level 30, and I got sick of it.

Haha. I'm glad i found this place. I've noticed that alliance tends to be the younger ones. That's why everyone on the horde says that almost all the alliance are 9 year old kids. One way to tell if alliance is 9 years old (Or completly dumb) is if they make a gnome anything besides Mage/warlock. "Gnome rogue is the best, because gnomes are so short, they can't click on them in time!" Umm, you're dumb. Have you ever heard of something called "Tab Targeting"? I've also found that alliance tend to be more mean. I play on Burning legion server and alliance seem to be more mean than horde. But somehow horde still rules over the alliance. They are mean in person as well as being mean to play against. Before i knew what i was doing, i played alliance. I ask one question in Ironforge and i'd get awnsers like "ROFLBBQ NUBLET!" My friends started to play horde, and I always wanted to make a druid, so I did, and never went back to alliance, besides from making fun of Leeroy once.
I'm not really into the whole RP aspect of the game. I'm just leveling so i can do AV and AB. I can understand the RP aspect of the alliance, because the only REALLY customizable race on the Horde is Undead.

So, in conclusion.
Horde= Leveling, and having fun with your experence, and getting great items, and being able to kick ass in BG, and just raids in general
Alliance= Mostly RP. I have nothing else to say about them at the moment.

Now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to go to Menethil harbor in cat form and kill level 60's deuling.

Thank you and goodnight.

By the way, I hit level 58 on Saturday. /cheer

You're variation in mean player age is on the order of 1 year, your standard deviation is 8ish, and your t-scores are in the 5ish range on a sample of 1k? Could be, and I'm hardly going to do the math, but it doesn't *feel* right.

rcm

The t-scores in the table are for motivation scores, not age. I don't even report the t-score or p-value for the age difference above because it was so marginally signficant.

alliance gets owned in bg's, but their paladins help them get farther in instances.

ALLIANCE SUCKS

I must be the exception that proves the rule.

IRL, female, 40 years old.

I emphasize roleplay, exploration and (crafting) achievemnt in my gaming. I'm a social builder.

And I chose horde, female for a large number of reasons, including the fact that I find all of the female alliance avatars to be downright grotesque. Not in the least bit visually appealing. Believe it or not, I find troll females to be the least ugly avatars to be found in WoW -- out of all faction, race and gender choices. Least attractive? Female night elves.

I found the lack of visual customization choices in WoW to be a serious turn off. In the end, I wandered away from the game because I found it to be resistant to my primary playstyles. It literally seemed to punish the "good team player", though I suspect a great deal of that was more in the players than the game itself and might indeed be wound up with playing horde, though my experiences watching my husband play alliance (male human paladin) suggest that they (players on the alliance side)are no better in the good sportsmanship rating.

/shrug

I am currently playing horde myself i just started with a orc hunter and i am having a great time, i had a higher lvl elf priest for a while on the same server which is kaz geroth but I soon found that the alliance players were very poor in group situations with tanks generally assuming the rolls of support or semi support positions. I especially hated elf hunters for some reoson there just terrible compared to dwarf or horde hunters
In conclusion ALLIANCE SUCKS

Thanks and good night
Tuggnut

ofcourse all the 1337 counterstrike kids play undeads those little kids have or have zero life experience, they pick a evil race because its cool!

Ha ha! I'm damn glad I've found this thread.
IRL, 16 male.
WoW, 41 tauren male.

The Horde is quite possibly one of the most organized and tactically professional team of kids ages 13+. Unfortunately, this does not apply to all of us. There are those among us who have the mental capacity and typing skills of an eight year old, and I'm not proud at all to say that they do show up quite often in our races. (Fellow Horde, remember Barrens Chat?) Luckily, most of these players rarely make it past 30. I've spoken to one of these players, a 12 orc hunter. They said "the hrde suks i gota lv l44 nightelf oyu fuckng fagot". And I believed him. A note to all those who have been to internet or LAN cafes, I dont know anything about any near you, but the closest one to me is filled with one of three types of people, children 8-11 years old with 55 female night elves, 21-30 year old men with 60 female night elves, and kids my age, all mid to high level Horde. I say nothing bad about the alliance races, just I'm uncomfortable with those who play them. I fear the expansion pack because those who love night elves will choose blood elves. I hope that they find the horde stilll unsatisfactory and stay alliance.

RL 17 male

I play a 41 level Troll on Kirin Tor. I have found that the Alliance players tend to be much younger...I have also found that the Alliance tend to be revolved around the female night elf races. I must confess my first two months in WoW I was playing a night elf warrior thinking that I would find good RP on the "good side". I find that MOST RP is on Horde side. In my opinion that seems to be because we don't sit in inns or taverns in the human realm watching half naked computerized avatars dance...*sigh*. Anyway I posted to say that I am worried because of the expansion also. The Blood Elves were a bad idea altogether. I get a bad feeling that we are going to get bombarded by ex-nightelf females going after new more human like yet "sexier" blood elves...whether or not they are accepted, well we can only hope they are not.

Just watch, when people start rollong bloodelves, the horde will start mysteriously sucking at BGs.

I would never want to roleplay with a human. I did with a dwarf for 3 years and that was a bit too close to a drunk irishman(?) every day! :D I would still be an orc even if I wanted to roleplay, the background material on orcs in azeroth is really abundant :)

Jay,

Actually, I do not spend the game looking at my toons ass. I'm looking at the battle or the back of his head.

My question to you is: why are you looking at your toons ass?

I agree with Holly. I worry that people who choose human/Alliance are not enjoying their own imaginations as much as they could. I play a female troll and she's as sexy as any wimpish night elf. And has cool tusks, and a sense of humour. Not at all like me in RL (except for the tusks of course). Though she is of the Horde, she is thoroughly honourable and polite (if cheeky), and has found the vast majority of fellow Horders to be same. I think the feeling of outsider "monsterism"/racial weirdness may bind Horde members more closely together, and that the Horde ethic may appeal to those with an uneasy feeling of "difference" in RL to start with. -f/35

I agree with Kranow and Alison, back when i played alliance all i ever saw were Feamale Night elfs and pallys, and they were all ass hats (pardon my language) When i swiched to Horde most of the people were vary polite not "savage" or just flat out rude to you because you didnt know somthing.

Prejudice against alliance or horde is just that, prejudice. I play on the Aszune server , a 'mature' server, and i play both horde and alliance characters, and i must say that stupidity is no respecter of race or class. I have had appalling experiences of PUG's on both sides , as well as good ones.
Once people have been playing a while they want to experiment with the different things the game has to offer. Mind you , i will agree alliance raids on the Barrens are really boring for the horde and they have my complete sympathy there.

Unfortunately I agree with horde guys.. I'm an ally and almost in every server alliance have more gang players,corpse campers... even in pirate servers! And horde more organized then alliance... but I'm still alliance =) maybe some day I can show them true way =P

Im 17 in RL and i've been playing WoW for around 3 months now. My first choice in race was a Troll Hunter (which is now lv 43), and since creating my Troll character i have made several other horde 'alts'. i was attracted to the horde because i found thier background and art far more interesting and origional than a particularily bland alliance.
i have played characters on both the alliance and horde sides and i must admmit that the atmosphere on the horde side is far more friendly. people are more willing to give advice and to lend a helping hand and there is a much larger sense of community.
one thing that really gets on my nerves is the mentality shared among most typical alliance players (8-13 year old kids) that the horde is 'evil'. this winds me up because it is far from true, if you look back at some of the lore in WoW, the horde have some of the most unfairly treated races in all of azeroth. so in actual fact the most 'evil' faction in azeroth is probably going to be the alliance.

RL: 19 Male
Wow: 42 Tauren Hunter, 24 Human Priest, 22 Tauren Druid.

When I started playing the server my friends were playing on was closed for character creation, so I picked another server to get a feel for the game on while I waited for it to open up.

My normal play style lends itself to the Human Priest style, so I decided to do something so totally different I'd never consider it normally except as a temporary character. Hence my Tauren Hunter.

Finally my server opened up and I created my human priest and started playing with my friends in RL. I liked the priest a lot; it's fun to just go around helping people, being the character that can step in at the last instance to make the difference between victory and defeat.

Then I got high enough to go into the BG.

The alliance split into two raids and argued about who was raid leader. Then they split up and went in 9 different directions. Then we lost 3 flags to 0. I switched back to my Hordie and never looked back, except recently when I switched to the Tauren Druid, restoration spec, becaus it falls in line with the style of play I like best, like the priest. I think I may make it my Main eventually

I'm of the opinion now that the Tauren are the only "not evil" race in the game, and I play them almost exclusively. I've been attacked by gnomes after saving their lives from mobs, backstabed by NE rogues 40 levels above me in neutral towns, ganked by epiced 60 pallys comming down the lift from thunder bluff, and zerged by entire groups of alliance after they noticed me fighting two mobs at once.

The other horde characters aren't realy "evil" per say, but they're not exactly neutral either. In the undead's case it's not exactly their fault the plague killed them, and although they're bloodthirsty you have to admire the honor the Orcs play with. The trolls are more funny than anything else.

I'm going to have to agree with "" on this one, beef. I play horde because I like playing horde... I know on alliance side there are a lot of morons and yeah, we got morons on horde too. Still, there's a lot of good pvpers I've played against on my hordie whom I have a lot of respect for.

The point is, this is a discussion about why people choose one faction over the other, not a shouting match over which side you think is best.

I play Alliance simply because I think they are the "good guys". Why? well historically the good guys are attractive (we're made to believe this through sublimal messages fed to us through years of TV and Hollywood). I play Kaldorei because they represent what is pure and natural -- especially druids. Their lore is deep and honorable, and their existence seem to have more purpose than all the other races Horde or alliance.

Yes I've tried Horde, and yes I felt evil simply because I was a green Orc or a huge hairy Tauren -- I detest ugly things that are also historically associated with evil. I do not find a difference in player styles or skill Alliance or Horde. the same people I played with on Bleeding Hollow won PVP and the same people lost as Alliance on Warsong. Why was this? Well simply game combat unbalanced mechanics. At the time specifically Tauren shaman. Playing one was a breeze (st the time) and playing a Kaldorei Druid a task, very difficult and extremely frustrating.

I play a Kaldorei Warrior now. I'm big on role-playing, huge on PVP -- Yes I wish I could kill my own faction, and I enjoy huge raids.

I will always play the "Good" side, I will always be "Elf" or some form of "Elf" because I've been that in MMORPGs for almost 8 years.

Fun thread, thanks.

Mjolniir -- Maelstorm (Warrior)

It was interesting finding this website and reading people's thoughts. As someone with a degree in anthropology, I've often pondered why people choose to play the characters they do - what they are trying to say about themselves versus what they do behind a veil of anonymity.

I, personally, wound up playing horde because the majority of my friends rolled horde (Mal'Ganis, and yes, I post on SomethingAwful), and my boyfriend was enamored with the thought of playing a troll. I, personally, wanted to roll a night elf at the time, since I was ignorant of the lore, and wanted to play one of the nicer-looking races.

However, after researching the lore, it quickly became apparent that only the tauren seemed to be truly "good" - and so I considered a tauren shaman or druid. However, since my friends (as trolls and orcs) would be starting out in a completely different area, I eventually decided on playing as a female orc shaman - a race and class combo that I have come to truly enjoy. The lore concerning orcs is fairly specific about their shamanistic roots, and Thrall is a wonderful example of a non-evil horde protagonist.

Good and bad are relative in this game...npcs ask you to complete tasks of varying types - and often these quests have questionable morals behind them, regardless of which side you play. Horde is not bad, and alliance is not good - they're both different sides of the same coin, and which you choose to play depends on what you're trying to be in the game. You can play a pally - a character who should be the epitome of what is "good" - but be a miserable, nasty person, harassing everyone around you and despised by your own faction as well as the horde. Or you could create an undead rogue and skip around alliance zones stunning and poisoning mobs that lowbies are fighting, rescuing them from peril and vanishing. The choice is truly your own - do you wish to play a hero, villain, or something in between?

I, personally, play the game as I'd like to be treated, even if I can't expect other people to show me the same courtesy. For example, alliance on my server are extremely rude and hostile - I can't tell you the number of times, while levelling, I've been outright ganked by a pally in full epics or a 60 gnome with a complex. I choose not to gank, and I've been known to help lowbie alliance if I see they're struggling with adds or a bad pull. I randomly wave, dance, smile, wink, and hug people, because, well...it's fun! I'd much rather form an uneasy grinding alliance with a human warlock than outright kill him. And, when it comes down to it, I guess I just don't see the challenge in attacking someone more then 7 or so levels lower than you, and I never will.

This has been a far longer post than intended, but my point is that I think it is foolish to choose a race based on whether or not they're "good" or "evil" - choose a race because they have interesting lore, because you think they look nice, because they're in the same starting area as your friends, etc. I believe that, in the end, if you've made a good CLASS choice, and if you're playing the game in a style that suits YOU, you'll enjoy playing any race in the game. Limiting yourself to one faction based on absolute notions of good and evil will only deprive you of the chance to experience new and interesting things in the game...and we all should realize that this game is what you make of it!

-Sarula (Shaman) Mal'Ganis
(24/f)

Fascinating thread. (Hope no one minds that I post here... I just found this site while surfing Google out of boredom.)

To be honest, I've always wanted to go Horde myself, because I'm drawn to the "good" side, but my friends all rolled Alliance, so...

Yes, from an RP standpoint, I believe that the Horde are, generally speaking, slightly less "evil" and much less arrogant than the Alliance. The Night Elves have become increasingly powerhungry (hence Teldrassil,) and the Dwarves run around digging up everything in sight regardless of the welfare of the people whose territory they're excavating... The Orcs and Tauren, on the other hand, are almost entirely, flawlessly honorable, the Trolls mostly keep to themselves, and the only truly "evil" races is the Undead.

As for the actual nature of the players on each side, I haven't actually noticed a major difference. You might think that there are indeed less jerks in the Horde than the Alliance, but that illusion will be dispelled as soon as you enter the Barrens with general chat enabled. As for "gankers" and "griefers," people only believe that those are more common on one side than the other because they only witness (for the most part) ganking from the other side. I have been slaughtered/camped/etc. by Horde members 6+ levels above me many, many times throughout the course of leveling up two characters (one to 46, the other to 33, with a bunch of alts that aren't very high.)

It doesn't really bother me, though, and in the end, I don't think it matters at all... for me, the satisfaction of meeting one friendly, sane player outweighs the irritation of running into a hundred idiots. For example, when I was about level 30 on my warrior, I was running through the elite "Dun Modr" quest series with a group of five... then a level 47 tauren hunter showed up. Instead of killing us, however, he helped us clear out the mobs we were having trouble with for a good 20 minutes or so. That made my day. :P

The one aspect of this debate that really annoys me is the extreme age-related prejudice that is so common on both sides. The immature jerks I've met in this game generally fall anywhere between the ages of 10 and 25, with the average being about 16-17. Nonetheless, virtually everyone in this game will shun you if they discover that your age is below 15. This is why I never mention it unless absolutely necessary, and why I'm posting under a pseudonym... actually, I quit recently, but it never hurts to be on the safe side. >_> I'm 14, myself.

Well... in conclusion, even though I've left this game for another, it's nice to know that there are still plenty of sane people in the vastness of WoW.

RE to Rolland:
Ok this isn't meant as a slam, but I'm kind of glad that Horde is uglier that Alliance simply for the fact that people some people up Alliance for that reason. If you can't get past how the character looks, I don't want you judging the character of my hordies.

Adolf Hitler was a hansom and charismatic leader. Winston Churchill was old and wrinkly.

I'd rather be on Churchill's moral ground than Hitler's, thank you very much.

RE to Reis: I wish all the kids in WoW were like you. It's always bugged me the way everyone expects the younger players to be stupid and inept simply by merit of their age. I've run into some double-take moments myself where the annoyingly immature players turn out to be over 25 or someone you've gotten used to having good, intelligent conversations with turn out to be 12.

Maybe it's just that the older players are simply tired about social rules and don't want to deal with them in real life. I've noticed the younger players make much better RPers as well... maybe nobody's crushed your imaginations yet :)

I like what you describe about how great it feels to have someone of the opposite faction help you out. I've been on both sides of that coin before. It always feels nice to show up when an Alliance toon is six seconds from grizzly death, and instead of killing them like they expect you pull them out of the fire instead. It get's kind of tiresome when they just leave you with all the mob agro and run away, or even worse when they sit down to regen and wait for you to nearly die before attacking you themselves. Nice to know we're appreciated by some people.

This thread is very nice.

Just the other day we had the same debate among me and my friends. Horde or alliance?

Most of us became Alliance because 3 of our friends were already deep into Alliance on the Bleeding Hollow server. WoW had become our number one option for communication.

It truely makes my day when a hordie goes out of his/her way to make things easier for me. Just two days ago I was farming shadowpaw panthers in STV when I aggroed too many. This lev 60 Tauren Shaman who was fishing not only did not kill me but helped clear out the adds twice.

In the same area on the same day about an hour later. A level 40 undead just went and killed me. no provocations, no bad looks. I was afk then.

The week before I saw a couple of paladins level 60 camping some poor level 30 hordie.

I guess what I wanted to say is its not the horde o alliance. It's the folks who play who make life in the game somewhat frustrating at times.

But for every 10 aholes in Azeroth there is one who will laways make your day.

Yz on Bleeding Hollow lev 39 Arcane Mage

I just got harassed because i have horde and this guy has alliance. is it true that horde had complained for paladians?

Well im inclined to agree to the age difference post. The first molten core raid was with a 10 year old tank, no joke he was 10!! almost full wrath, the bloodlords defender, and quel serar, it was amazing hearing his super squeeky little voice in team speak. he was a nice person he bragged about not ganking and i almost felt bad about that gnome rogue....then i realized it was a gnome..... , blizzard screwed horde... a horde pally?!? Blizzard your wrong!

I know it's been about a month since the last post... hey, I'm new here, can I catch a break? :)

Reading up on all the "horde/alliance, which is evil" talk is spurring me to vent my personal fealings (which are based completely on lore) on the subject.

Horde:
Orc - Noble shamans, got tricked into the "blood pact" with Manaroth. Were corrupted and twisted from their nature into the bloodthirsty, First Horde. With Thrall and (my hero) Grom Hellscream's help, they returned to their shamanistic roots and formed the Second Horde. In summery, they are pig farmers. Sure they'll rip your arm off if you mess with them, but generally good people.

Tauren - "We Tauren have always had the deepest respect for the earthmother." What more is there to say? Many people call them the "only good horde race," but I think that's more out of ignorance of what the Horde is. In summery, the smoke da piece pipe.

Trolls - In ancient times, fought against the spread of the Elves into their ancestral homeland. This sparked a blood feud that continues to this day (except in ways that the WoW dev team decides to screw with lore, aka horde Blood elves). Sure they're "savage" and ya they eat their fallen foes from time to time, but two things on that. 1)Canabalism when it comes to enemies in combat is an ancient tradition in our world as well, and just because it has become very tabu in our culture doesn't make it "evil." 2)The trolls that joined the Horde have sworn off canibalsims and, while still brutal foes, have taken the wonderful influence of the Orcs to heart. In summery, evil? One would be hard pressed to call Vul'jin that.

Undead - Ahh undead. Humans killed by the plague and reborn into the scourge. Silvanis Windrunner set them free from within, creating an autonomous entitiy known as The Forsaken. They joined the Horde for one reason: ensured survival. The Scarlet Crusade, the Scourge, the Alliance... everyone wanted them dead, and why? Because they used to be mindless slaves before finding their minds themselves. They have just as much a right to survive as any other race. They know it and are willing to fight for it. They're looking to find a new plague, something that will halt all the forces trying to kill them once and for all. In summery, they just want to survive. Their methods may be questionable, but what would you do if everyone you used to call friend wants do kill you?

The Alliance:
Humans - The humans will never forgive the orcs for nearly wiping them off the map back when the orcs were under the Blood Craze. Admiral Proudmoore is proof enough of that. (side note, Jaina Proudmoore should be Horde alligned, or at least neutral, after she helped Thrall defend Durotar from her father). They look down on the races of the Horde as barbaric, in a eery paralell to the way modern societies view tribal cultures. In WoW, however, humans don't have the advanced technology to "justify" such fealings. In summery, humans are arrogent, ignorant, and racist. I meant IN game, right... Their xenophobia is second only to...

Night Elves - If it's not night elf, then it's no good. Well, that's how they view it (and apparently 23% of WoW's player base). When Thrall, Jaina, and Cairne were trying to fight the Burning Legion, the elves attacked them with zeal, before they even knew much about them. (as apposed to Thrall and Jaina's initial misgivings, which was based on old emnities) They referred to humans and orcs as "pink skins" and "green skins" respectively. In summery, I am shocked and amazed that they made the NE's an alliance race. I expected their place and that of the Blood Elves to be switched, in that blood elves were an NPC, third faction race that no one got along well with (pre burning crusade). I wouldn't want to be in an alliance with these bigots.

Dwarves - Why do the elves hate the Orcs for cutting down a couple trees, and yet are in an alliance with these people? Trees grow back quicker than a strip-mine. They have an interesting backstory, what with being related to Troggs and all... In summery, not evil, but just as vicious as the most "evil" troll (compare Dark Iron dwarves to Gurubashi trolls), but for some reason don't get the same wrap for it. Probably because of Blizz' anti-horde marketing campaign. Finally...

Gnomes - What is there to say? Factioned goblins. Not evil, not good, pretty neutral so far as I've seen. They're in the alliance because of their friendship with the dwarves, but really just like to tinker. In summery, a lot like many of us in that we're happier behind a computer than swinging an axe. Gnome warriors make as much sense to me as Tauren rogues, but hey, that's Blizz for ya.

What can I say? Ya I play Horde, and I hate Blizzard for making out Alliance to be "the good side" and the Horde to be "evil." It's a lie, and if one were to spend a little time and actually read, they might figure that out, too.

nice racial run-down, Garnoth :) Pretty accurate.

When I first started playing WoW I clicked Alliance and never considered anything else. After reading about and getting to know the Horde races, you start to figure out that they're merely in competition with the Alliance, not evil blood-thirsting savages. Though I'll never admit to that while I'm PVPing ingame :P and I've rolled a few Horde toons to 13 or so. I still overall prefer Alliance (I just really like my NE, and I'm not an 8 year old LOTR fan either).

As far as Players go, I actually experienced more immature general banter over on the Horde side than the alliance, and that was on a 3 month old server as opposed to my alliance toon on a launch day server.

I've been playing the alliance side for over two years now. Recently however I've decided to make 'the switch' over to horde. I've noticed that immaturity is pretty much even for both sides, however the horde do seem to get along more and cooperate with eachother in groups. Honestly though the only thing I do miss about the alliance is Ironforge. I miss all the snow. :P

I know this may seem off comment but it is the most current link I could find for this article. My husband is severly addicted to the game, he is a Horde player. He lives out fantasy with the char that now has effected his real life.

In RL he was a good gentle person, now he is abbrasive and down right mean. He quit his job over a year ago to play 15-20 hours a day. He farms with his 60LVL char because he says the guild has done so much for him he owes it to them.

He has stated that the more than $2000.00 that he has spent in the last 2 months to buy gold is because he doesnt have the time he needs to quest so it is a payback to all the patient guildies. Over the last year he has spent well over $11,000.00 The money comes from me and it effects our RL greatly. I have changed our accounts and banks numerous times to keep it away from him as best I can.
To which he has stated I do nothing for him and they are there for him whenever he needs them. We have been married for 15 years.
Like I said I know this is a bit off topic but it seems to me that no normal person would take real money and joy from your RL using it to inhance a RPG.

If you find the road to happiness in your game is paved with purchased gold, stop and walk away. If you can put the game aside for a week or two and go back unscathed great. If you find that you can't don't buy the gold get real with yourself and realise your money is better spent on a haircut rather than a cartoon.

I'm curious how many people chose Alliance characters simply because it's the default when you first start the game?

personaly Im a lover of the horder undead. moslty because they seem to be far more justifed in there actions then anyone else, there dead and pissed.
Plus after playing It rearly seems to me that the majority of alliance players are just plain mean or ignorent.
its jsut a shame now that all my friends now play alliance so Im stuck with it till the crusade.

oh well, at least I no longer have to deal with the pure ugliness of the horde area's.and the strange undead hatred of sunshine, I mean were evil but were not vampires...

I like gnomes the most basically cuz i am the smallest in my grade. It just shows my personality, that is everything i need. By horde i like tauren because when an alliance is attacking, and he could choose betweeen a tauren or an undead, he would choose the undead. (tauren looks stronger cuz he is bigger)

Wow...extremely nice thread.

Ive been playing WoW for a few months..ive gotten a gnome warlock to 29, dwarf hunter to 26, human pally to 14, gnome rogue to 15, NE druid to 10, tauren warrior to 13, troll warrior to 12, troll shaman to 10. I STILL cannot decide on either horde or alliance...

As how World of Warcraft stands now, the horde is much more appealing to me. I like everything more about them and their lore.

But im afraid of switching over and focusing on the horde. With the burning crusade expansion coming out, the dreine (spelling sorry), are AWESOME to me, personality, looks, classes, everything. The horde (in getting blood elfs), im afraid that ex Nightelfs will come to the horde and ruin the community of the horde. The whole PVP thing will balance out a bit more with the alliance getting shaman. Im just not sure what to do...horde or alliance? I guess I could be both, but i truely do prefer to stick with one race and class and level it.

I guess ill just keep thinking lol, I just wish I could finally decide. On the horde, im deciding between troll orc or tauren. Orc look the best to me, tauren have the best lore, and trolls have the best personality. Ill have to study a bit more before deciding.

N e ways, very nice thread. Ive learned alot.

It seems you misunderstood what he came up with. There is no or almost no age difference between alliance and horde players.

Im 28, Male
have a 60 orc shaman, 60 tauren hunter
also have 60 human warrior and a 60 gnome rogue

Trust me when i say that theres EXACTLY as many 8-10-12-25-50 year olds on both sides.

Ever think about that horde might have what you call a "more skilled" pvp community because they have their different pvp-oriented racials ? From the BG´s ive done on both sides and on four different servers its the same everywhere, no difference at all between maturity of players, corpsecampers or any of that stuff.
It seems to be like the old sports-phenomenon. My team is teh bestest and joor team suckz.

I quit WoW btw because of the lack of depth in the game. so bye bye

well i see why alliance doesnt like horde and all and was brought into the game by my brother he said go to the alliance i did i now jus have a little lvl 20 NE druid i dont like him but my brothers a lvl 60 NE rogue and he and his dumb self would declare war and find me eventually kill me and so i thought and i said im goin with horde lol hes been killed 88 times by a orc that was helping me kill him lol soo now ikm attracted to playing orcish warriors, vile undead warlocks and its still fun so my questions this why would you not play someone who supposedly "evil" it cant hurt and besides since the "good" alliance is out killing low level players which is messed up so why??? why cant u just be evil sometimes???

I role on Horde because they're more mature and the lore makes sense and lore wise they are good guys.
Humans-produced Arthas, Crazy LIght fanantics(Scarlet Crusaders), rascist, headstrong(Aewyn attacked Sargeras which went to her womb into Medivh sparking Warcraft1 OrcsvsHuman
Dwarves-Drink way to much, and would destroy and defile other people's land(Tauren's and Orcs) for their obsession of learning of the past.
Night Elves- Very arrogant(look at archdruid), attracted the Burning Legion with their magic and well and damaged the world and made it almost like an Outland(continents torn and maelstrom and lives lost)
Gnomes-Have no faith, corrupted dwarves by the Legions 1st invasion, and basically destroyed their own city.
Draenei-2/3 sided with Sargeras, destroyed their own world and Countless others and corrupted other races.
Compared to the Horde's history the ALLIANCE IS MORE EVIL!!

Horde are slightly more numbered then alliance and are starting to overthrow the alliance in battles but thatsa mainly as i said because of the numbers i chose alliace as i think we can overthrow they horde soon enough. and also alliance are more loyal horde are backstabbers dont trus them they always bakstab me wen i was horde

I hate how the undead is misunderstood. I wish all of you who just claim they're evil would try to play one, for only a day, and you would understand.

Alliance members are incredibly sneaky and fight dirty. One time I was at a Battleground when all of a sudden I was attacked by 5 Alliance members who all decided to jump me.

how can you complain about horde , i find horde to be loyal enough plus if one person is having problems everyone is willing to help them out...
alliance i find has more inexpeirienced players and horde has the higher ended guys...
PLUS HORDE ROCKS :b...lol

Why does everyone how this BS about Dwaves messing up the land? Are humans any better as they constantly expand and destroy the forests? Someone mentioned that a forest grows back quicker than a mountain, but I don't think it matters if the human buildings stay in place for hundreds of years. Then there are the Undead... you know all that plauge crap can't be good for the plants and animals around, not to mention the questionalbe long term effects of blight on forests and ground.

The also seems to be a lot of horde sympathizers in here on the "Good vs Evil" discussion. There is no "Evil" side but that of the Burning Legion. The Alliance (with the exception of the Night Elves because I hate them all) may seem more predjudiced, but think what they've been through. Imagine you getting attacked by strange invaders that look like the demons of your faith and tell me you wouldn't be inclined not to trust them. The Alliance didn't know anything about the Orcs until they attacked, and wouldn't you consider a race to be evil if they tried to mercilessly slaughter you without any provocation? So the humans faought back, and with the help of the dwarves they drove the horde back through the portal from whence they came. Then the second war comes along and the horde attacks again, so once more the alliance finds themselves fighting off the "evil" orcs. Then the third war rolls around and the undead show up, as well as the burning legion. The humans war with the orcs has cooled a tad bit, but with the orcs like the blackrock clan who can blame them for beign orc haters? Later in the third war, the orcs fought beside the alliance and seemed friendly enough. Now, if i was the leader of the humans, I wouldn't have trusted the orcs either. All the alliance knows of them is they barbaric ways they fought against them. Who's to say that the orcs aren't just acting friendly to lower the alliance's guard and finish them off after the scourge weakened them? It's for this reason that I don't consider either faction to be evil. All prejudice is based on one form of ignorence or another.

I'm 18, and I play a level 29 Dwarf hunter. I don't like night elves because 1) They are a very "stuck-up" race. 2) Every little boy that's into hentai can't help but play as night elf women for their sex appeal. And you bet Blizzard knows that, that's why they tried to make NE Females as whorish as possible. Make one and type /dance if you don't believe. I like the humans, but I think blizz really messed up the male human noses. I just don't like gnomes because they look stupid IMO. The only horde race I like is Tauren, and that's because a giant Tauren warrior in full plate with a greatsword looks sweet. My favorite race are the Dwarves. I'm a tall slender guy in RL, but I like the Idea of being a little fat muscular guy in WoW. I want my hunter to ride a mountain goat because it's the only mount as hairy as he is lol. this post was long, but I hope it makes someone think about where the alliance prejudice comes from.

Bugenhagen level 29 Dwarf Hunter (and self-proclaimed King of the Dwarves) on Tanaris

21, Male 60 NE rogue/60 NE Hunter

As far as everyone debating why alliance seem to lose to horde, there are more than a few reasons. One of which is mainly because of eyecandy, I agree somewhat with what others were saying about RP factor, and doing their skills and what not, a lot of alliance players, don't enjoy PvP. Thats why people who generally enjoy PvP are going to choose the horde. Its the eye candy that grabs most audience's attention, where as players who enjoy the storyline will choose a race based on their bg, and their ability to compare their realitys to their backgrounds. With that being noted, It seems that horde travel in a group more often becaue they understand the idea of having a priest and a mage at your side, they realize the tactics, and most Alliance players who PvP don't group as much, solo usually and think they can take the horde on one on one, not to mention, I rarely see priests on alliance side healing.

So tactically the horde will usually win, because alliance players, will choose to do what they want, and horde stick together, this coming from a 60 NE rogue and Hunter, I love PvP, and have seen it all too much before, you cannot complain about the differences of races or stats. But rather the actual ambition and motivation behind the keyboard.

NE LVL 51 ROGUE PVP

I don't think any of the sides are evil. Its not that cut and dry.. Tell you truth i like some of the horde characters.. Some might call me evil i guess.. i do good too i enchant ppl's stuff for free i pass on a lot of items i really don't need that others might.. Now for the bad i camped out two horde char. They where lvl 43 shaman and lvl 43 warrior. I didn't stay long alot of alliance people started to show so i left. Now was I bad prolby but i had fun i am pretty sure they have done it to other players.. Then sometimes i get bored and go to splinter tree and kill 5 lvls 20-30 at the sametime i might do it for about 20 mins then i will go on my way.. Most time when i see the lower horde I leave them alone.. Now if you are priest you have a 50/50 chance for me not to kill you.. i truly dont care for priest.. i have my own reasons..
i like to go to Tanaris to take a horde 1 on 1 but it always turns out a horde guys comes and helps them or some alliance comes runes the good fight.. got to go

And yet Bugenhagen your merely looking at two races instead of the whole picture of the factions. Though the orcs were evil in the beginning they have changed with Thrall and earning honor with dignity, and the Alliance lightening up. what's evil was the Alliance like Daelin Proudmoore(Jaina's dad) and the Draenei saying the orcs were and always beasts and destroying the fragile peace. And predjudice=ignorant + action is evil. And with most Draenei siding with the Legion and killing countless world is evil. And after all who brought the orcs to Azeroth.... it was Medivh the self proclaimed human prodigy.

Zezel:
-I don't know what you consider "honorable" play, but "i am pretty sure they have done it to other players" sounds eerily similar to the justifications cops in the 60s used to come down harder on black Americans.

-"I didn't stay long alot of alliance people started to show so i left."
I'm glad you had such good reasons to stop harassing them as well.

-"sometimes i get bored and go to splinter tree and kill 5 lvls 20-30 at the sametime i might do it for about 20 mins"
I really don't understand how this is evidence that the good or evil of the sides is not "cut and dry."

Sorry if I upset you, but I was a guildmaster for a short time and I have actually removed people from my guild for griefing Alliance characters.

One thing I've noticed about this thread is that people who have only played one side or another have been stepping in to say their side is the best. I've played both sides. I can tell you from experience that there is no age difference, maturity difference, or experience difference. One thing I HAVE noticed is that because of the population difference there is a vast difference in the way you must advance as an Ally compared to the way you advance as a Hordling. On alliance, you aren't playing with other characters. You, (and sometimes your friends with you) are competing with them for resources. There are too many alliance, and not enough monsters to slay in their zones. The horde, on the other hand, learn very, very early how to solo successfully, and shortly thereafter learn how valuable it is to stick with what few other hordlings there are in any particular zone. You learn to make do shorthanded, or you give up and roll an Ally.

As a simple summary: It takes far more trust and skill to four-man an elite quest from an instance, than it does for you and four of your closest friends to steal quest objectives from the other twenty allies in your zone.

But I'm a heavy RPer, so I'll stick with Horde for the lore as well. Alliance lore is... well, bland. In a basic sense it's just another story of how the elves, dwarves, and humans formed their everlasting alliance. I've read that about fifty times in poorly written fantasy novels; Blizzard is in the business of making games, not writing good stories. Horde lore isn't much better but hey, at least it's unique.

Someone above said something to the effect that "Anyone who thinks the undead are evil should roll one and see for themselves." I've rolled an undead... they are evil. Your starting quests involve poisoning prisoners, killing people who have disobeyed Lady Sylvanas, and attempting to engineer a plague in order to wipe out the remaining human population. They left a foul taste in my mouth, so I went back to my Taurens. Misunderstood is one thing... I know they didn't choose to be undead, but they do choose to continue a quest of calloused destruction therein.

I know this is probably the wrong place, but while we're on the lore subject I've really got to vent this. I'm really fed up with Blizzard's choice of new races for the Burning crusade. I was hoping the new alliance race would be something that actually made sense, such as the Cenarion centaur/dryads (heck, they had centaur heroes on the Night Elf faction in WC3), and the last thing I wanted on horde side was a "pretty" race.

Before the WoW expansion, there has only been ONE draenai in the history of Warcraft. In Warcraft Three there was a random monster that would spawn occasionally called the "Daenai Shaman." Somehow they've decided that a one-time use EVIL monster should be the basis for an entire race on the alliance, on the supposed side of "good." And how do they do this? They repeat the "corruption and redemption" story they’ve already used on the Orcs.

The Blood Elves are even worse... they simply don't exist at all as far as the previous games go. Blizzard actually had to steal lore, geography, and history that belonged to the Night Elves in WC3 and give it to the Blood Elves.

The history of elves in Warcraft goes something like this:
1) WC1: There are no elves. They are a myth.
2) WC2: WC2 contains some units on the "human" faction that happen to look like elves. They aren't High Elves, Blood Elves, or Night Elves. They're just elves.
3) WC3: Most of the elves disband themselves from their alliance with the humans and dwarves, and form their own clan, known as the "Night Elves." Some remain with the humans as priests or mages.
4) WoW: The Night Elves change their mind, and reenter the Alliance. Silly elves.
5) WoW BC: Blood Elves appear out of nowhere. Certain Night elf cities, heroes, and histories are randomly taken from the Night Elves and now belong to the Blood Elves, with no explanation other than "They've always been Blood Elves." WTF?!?

Ok, I really have to clear my head about this whole "Alliance is evil" fad. The basic story of Warcraft goes; Humans live happily in they're kingdoms, with only menial threats to contend with. Out of nowhere, a savage, giant, fanged race of bloodthirsty brutes surges into their lands and slaughters every man, woman and child they come into contact with. The humans, not ones to go down without a fight, fight back as savagely as they can and ultimately win because they were indeed the smarter, moral and stronger race.

Despite the fact that they were almost driven to racial extinction by the orcs, the humans decide to do the humane thing and not slaughter them like cattle, instead spending huge amounts of money and time building camps to hold the Orcs, in the hope that they will one day be rehabilitated. Then, along comes one sick, bumbling, drunk who decides to commit treason to gain superiority over his countrymen and subvert the orcs to his own will. Thankfully, an honorable warrior named Thrall put a stop to this and freed the orcs.

So, now the humans are living relatively peacefully in their own lands because the new horde does not wish to eradicate them.

Unfortunately, a former ORC named Ner'zhul willingly becomes the Lich King, agreeing to do everything he can to finish what the orcs have started and wipe humanity from the map.

At the same time, a large faction of demon-worshipping orcs have emerged and begin to do what they do best, killing humans without a second thought. Fortunately the humans still retain their superiority and crush the orcs. However, peace is short lived because now the undead have begun their rise. The prince of the Humans, eternally dedicated to the protection of his beloved people, eventually falls into madness after being tricked into taking up Frostmoure, something created by the ORC Ner’zhul a.k.a. the Lich King.

So now, the humans, once again on the verge of extinction, flee to Kalimdor at the behest of a mysterious prophet. There, they once again meet up with their old enemy and duke it out old-school for their continued survival. Overcoming decades of persecution and war, the human survivors agree to ally with the orcs to rescue Grom Hellscream, a chieftain who WILLINGLY gave up his newfound freedom to dink the blood of the Demon that originally corrupted his race.

Because of HUMAN aid, the orcs succeed and slay Mannoroth. Now, united, the humans and orcs meet up with the night elves to make the final stand for the world and succeed in saving all life on their planet.

So, apparently, the treacherous and evil dealing of one prison master, the war of a weathered Admiral, and the inaction of a handful of corrupt politicians suddenly wipes the slate clean of all the nobility and wonder that humanity has achieved and suddenly turns them into the evil, perverted, arrogant race?

And the Undead and Orcs are supposed to be misunderstood?

ZombieMan: You have your lore slightly confused. Yes, the alliance was defending themselves from demon-possessed Orcs in WC1, and yes they were "nice" enough to enslave the entire race instead of commit mass genocide. Yes, what portion of the Orcs that are still demon possessed continue to be a thorn in the side of decency, generally harassing the humans and attempting to open dark portals and whatnot.

But this trend changes... the Orcs that are still free flee the burning legion’s grip to Kalimdor at the behest of the prophet (sound familiar?), ally themselves with the noblest race in the game, the Tauren, and then proceed to wipe out the tribes of still demon-possessed Orcs that are harassing the humans there.

Meanwhile, the great human leader Prince Arthas spends his time culling his own citizens, murdering his allies in order to obtain weapons he fully knows are cursed, and preparing the world for the coming of the scourge. The scourge itself exists only because the Orcs were able to resist the demonic taint and rebel... by Arthas's examples, the demons would already have won if it had been humans instead.

But this is all irrelevant... at this point in the history it's survivalist time. The demons are invading, and those with the courage stand together to fight them, whether they are Orcs, elves, or humans. On the side of good we have the greatest heroes of the Orcs, what Night Elves have survived to fight another day, and... The human trash Arthas left behind when he betrayed the entire planet to the demons. Apparently, they’ve finally decided that their Orc racism is not worth being wiped out by demons. Go humans.

And so the humans AID the Orcs in defeating Mannoth, and AID them in defending the World Tree. The townspeople rejoice, for the demons have been beaten back, just in time for... some of the humans to betray the Orcs and attack them again, sparking the conflict in WoW.

There's something all of you should consider. In this game, THE humans are not evil, THE Orcs are not evil, THE night elves are not evil, SOME of ALL of them are evil. Is that too hard to understand?

Hello all. This has been an interesting topic and I found I just had to comment.

I started out my WoW days as a Tauren Druid. Before I started playing, I was set on having a Night Elf, as they were always my favorite race to play in Warcraft III. However, after watching the intro cinematic, I became even more interested in the Tauren than I had been previously from playing the Founding of Durotar campaign in Warcraft III.

Well, I enjoyed my Tauren immensely, though I always thought the Night Elf druids had cooler bear and cat forms (especially since the Tauren cat form has a nasty graphical glitch when sitting). Nonetheless, the more I played my Tauren, the more I began to dislike the Alliance (those darn NPC's were killin' me!). However, when my boyfriend at the time got the game, he made a Human Paladin. He and his best friend were both Alliance, and they encouraged me to be Alliance as well. At first, I was stubborn and remained a Tauren (though I traveled all the way from Booty Bay to Elwynn Forest at level 13 to visit my boyfriend with the help of a 33 NE druid who pitied me as I kept dying in STV). However, I eventually caved and made a Night Elf druid. I was quickly sucked into the Alliance. I quickly found that I was making more friends on Alliance than I ever had on the Horde, and found this to be appealing. At his 35th level (and my 33rd level), my boyfriend quit WoW. At this point, I had grown a great affection for my Night Elf and stayed with Alliance even though both my boyfriend and his friend quit.

My Night Elf is now level 62 and kicking some serious butt in Outlands, however, I have recently had thoughts about switching to the Horde again. I'm torn both ways; for there are things about both factions that I like and dislike.

Humans: Eh. My feelings toward them are rather split. Yeah, some are honorable and great, but then I look at how Jaina's father basically broke the truce and attacked the Orcs. Not sure what to think about them.

Dwarves: Dwarves are an amusing race. Their affinity for alcohol never ceases to make me smile. However, I'm not a fan of the fact that they have to mine and exavate any land that isn't a city.

Night Elves: As stated earlier, they've always been a race that I liked. Yes, they may seem racist to some, but to me it's just part of their duty to be distrustful to other races at first; who knows whether these strangers are friend or foe to their beloved glades?

Gnomes: ...Amusing to an extent, otherwise... yuck! Sorry, but as a tree-hugger in real life, I'm not a fan of their industrial society.

Draenei: Not much to say about these guys at this point. I do like them though, they seem to be an honorable race.

Orcs: Okay, I like Thrall and all, but being Alliance for so long has made me spiteful toward these guys. I can't tell you how many times two Orcish horde guards have come after me swinging axes and killing me because I was 25 freakin' level lower and just passing through. As a race, they are honorable and fierce, but they've just pissed me off in the past. ;P

Undead: Okay, I understand that these guys just want to find their place in the world now that they've broken away from the Scourge. Hey, they have a right to 'live'. But now they're trying to produce a new plague? Not sure I'm a fan of that.

Tauren: Okay, I LOVE the Tauren. To me, they are the most honorable race out there. I very much like them for their ties to Native American culture and because their "religious" beliefs greatly reflect those of my own. Tribes, totems, and nature; can't get much better than that for me.

Trolls: I like Trolls. I really do. I always thought they were a pretty neat race, mostly because of the Founding of Durotar campaign in Warcraft III (gotta love Vol'jin).

Blood Elves: My first impression was--"Those magic-abusing bastards!" However, after making a Blood Elf priest just for fun, I became rather fond of them. In fact, I now think "those human bastards!" because the humans turned on them when they found out the BE's had allied with the Naga to find a new source of magic. Overall, I like 'em.

So, there are my views.

Now, from my views, it would appear that I like more about the Horde races than I like about the Alliance races. This is true.

However, today I thought I'd try going back to Horde for a bit. I hopped on my 26 Tauren Druid and got into a WC group. Well, not only did the group break up shortly after the first boss, but it seemed to me that the people in the group were less than pleasant. Now, not to say that stuff like that doesn't happen in Alliance groups, but it was rather discouraging. Who knows? I may have just gotten a bad group. I may try again tomorrow and see how things go.

In any case, I am torn between the two factions.

Talarai (62 Night Elf Druid on Blackhand)
Raincatcher (26 Tauren Druid on Blackhand)
Real Life: Laura (19 year-old-female Human in Wisconsin)

I don't think you can rightly say whether or not alliance is "meaner" than horde or vice versa. From what I've seen, that's completely server dependent. Being an "altoholic", I've created horde and alliance alts on several servers and it's pretty much a mixed bag, from what I've seen.

I can't say I really prefer one over the other, as an altoholic, it sort of just depends on my mood which side to play. Horde if I'm feeling aggressive, alliance if I'm feeling silly and social. Gnome males have wicked mustaches (heh, heh pink ftw!) but Undead and Blood Elf racials, c'mon.

RL: Female, 23

I started out in the Alliance-because my brother is there and it makes sense so we can quest and go through instances. A month after I rolled in my druid and mage, I made a Troll hunter and a Tauren shaman.

All my characters (Night Elf druid, Gnome mage, Tauren shaman, Troll hunter) are flagged as pvp in a non pvp server. The other night, I was questing (as my mage) and the other person in the party asked, "Why are you flagged as pvp if you're only level 23?"...well, shortly afterwards a Troll rogue jumped up and hugged me. I understand, it was an easy/silly kill-he appeared as "Level ???".

And I'll agree, Horde players tend to be more "driven" and are a little more willing to take challenges, then again it could always just be the Horde players I come across. The Alliance players I know can care less about pvp.

I went to the Horde just to see what their side is like...in terms of story, quests and besides-my favorite city is Thunderbluff :). But, to say "All Horde players are mature" is really stretching it. I play in both Alliance and Horde equally-and I've come across really cool players, and some who get on your nerves. Yeah, real life creeps in WoW in the strangest ways.

I am a NE Druid and I have been ganked and corpse camped by Horde players mostly in my level range 22 to 25. Usually two at a time and usually when I am fighting a monster. Ashenvale and Astranaar seem to be happy hunting grounds for Horde players to hammer Alliance players.

I have also had some wonderful experiences with a Troll ?? and a ?? Tauren Druid who helped me when I didn't pull a mob correctly and I was in over my head, or simply didn't kill me.

There are good and bad players on both sides.

Bleh i have a lvl 70 hunter (ally) and its sucks so i made a belf rly goood :)

I think that it's really stupid to just say "All the 8 year olds pick alliance, so it's filled with complete immature n00bs who will ruin your experience and make your life a reck". I'm 11 myself and I think that age or faction discrimination is completely pointless. Both sides probably have enouhg people to rip your hair out and enough people to make your heart pirouette. I've only played with alliance, but my friend has told me of people just as immature on the horde

i have a lvl 63 orc hunter even though i have only ever played Horde.. i chose horde because i thought they were more intresting and they have more history. I have also found Horde players generally don't mind helping out each other. eg randomly asking someone to help you quest or give money.Even i once took a huge group of about 15 through Wailing Caverns cause i felt like it... in the end i ended up being mailed money from one of the ppl i took thru WC from one of there alts.... 30g... =D. From my obervation and reading of various articles i believe Horde are better for people looking to just have fun and group instance. Alliance i believe is for the more serious ppl who want to basically want things here and now. i also have several peeps who have alliance toons who say the alliance quests are dull and unexiting

oh.... and about horde being immature...all you alliance players create a horde toon and go to barrens.... you will have a tonn of laughs in Barrens Chat.... xD bloody hell i laugh every time i go to Barrens... i usually comment and get the FTW comment from several Toons..CHUCK NORRIS ROCKS..... FTW. Horde aint immature it's called having fun and socializing

sorry for the tripple post... but ROFL....me and 3 peeps JUST GANKED all of southshore for like 5 HOURS....LOOL i it was fun ganking ppl just as they LOGGED ON XD revenge for all those ganking/camping ally

RL 25 male
Ingame 62 male tuaren druid

My idea of the horde is as endangered animals..like lions, tigers, etc. And alliance as human beings who are taking over the world of the animals pretending to be the good guys. Think about it, how often does crossroads get attacked by high lvl alliance players? Every few hours. Its not the savage horde being savage. Its the good alliance with their pretty looking characters being evil that makes me don't like them. Being a horde player I have become very experienced pvp wise..because there are too many alliance and I have encountered thousands of them getting to lvl 62. Pve wise alliance are way ahead of horde because they have more players making it easy to find people to run instances. Doing more instances means your server's auction house is full of items and you have a decent gear. In other words alliance are more likely to have better gear than horde players, however, most of them lack the ability to pvp. I have also noticed that the people who play human race don't gank low lvl players as much as nighelf playing people.

WoW: 67 human pally, 65 dwarf hunter, 33 orc warrior

Yes, I play on both sides and I think they are both the same... about horde has power, alliance get over it! and horde your slow!!! they both have their weakness and resistances

P.S. PALLYS ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello again. With my UD mage I have reached lvl 65 then I quit WoW, at least for awhile, due to clash in my schedule. True Zombieman you are correct to a small extent. Peaceful humans?? Hardly, they had Medivh who helped aid the orcs to cross to Azeroth. And if you have done or heard of the Caverns of Time instance in where you must help him open the Dark Portal then you would know it's good for all. If the orcs never came the humans, like today, would go out and start a bloody war with the dwarves and elves and each other, the Alliance would never had formed, the Legion would sucessfully ensue a mass genocide and destroy all of Azeroth. The orcs in your eyes should at the very least be a necessary evil they helped ensure the world would be safe for all, be it alliance, horde, or neutral.

Im a 12 year old turning 13 soon, and i have very mature convosations with people double my age on the Barthilas server.

Yeah flying over the barrens chat is a bit of a laugh.

Although none of the 2 factions are evil alliance on many servers just dont do anything to help you whether your a horde or ally character ive never gone past an ally character without it ganking/trying to gank me yet ive prob rid past there alts and havent even thought of getting off my mount just to go 1 shot a noob over and over again until they rage quit for a few weeks.

when ive aggroed more then i can handled ive always had someone heal me or help me kill em off.

u are way wrong alliance characters are for kids every guild on the horde side i try to join are adult guilds only for adults there are many 10 year olds on the alliance

the horde covers 65 % of the hole game yea the alliance wants to take back 15% but ...

complete bollocks, sorry..... on our server there is waaaay, waaaay more Allies than Horde, and they seem to comprise of annoying 13+ year olds more than anything.

This topic turns 2 years old in just a couple of months. Awesomeness!

My two bits: I picked NE primarily because all of their classes have at least a limited form of "stealth" - which helps you to do many things including but not limited to:

i) Ambush
ii) AFK without getting killed
iii)Spectate fights

Cheers

33 blood elf priest
scarlet crusade

I started playing mmorpgs when i was 8, i played DAoC. After a few years i got hooked on WoW, playing hored. I enjoy the hored because its not as easy as what me and friends call "easy mode" aka Alliance. often times I watch the alliance stratiges, most of them being gank and over power. Though i love PvP im not one to gank, or over power. I have been playing healer types scence i started playing mmorpgs, so ive gotten good at my job. Alliance arnt half as organized as hored, but they have twice as many (if not more) people as us.

here is how it started with me, i first roleld an alli ne warrior till lv 26 bec i didnt even SEE horde there lmao! thats y i also rolled warrior :P it was fun and addicting, once i switched to the horde (due to allies being mean A-holes) i never looked back, i now hav a lv 40 troll hunter, 37 undead lock, 19 BE pally twink, and afew more alts, allianace r immature, and...mean. horde r friendly helpfull, and i LOVE my guild, and i h8 the little fagets that h8 horde bec ther "evil" or "ugly", bec allies r lame and ther actually more evil if u really think about it, (ne magic started the whole war, dwarf diggings, ect) so all u alli loving faggets...STFU, HORDE 4 LIFE!!!!

p.s. i forgot to mention how "honorable" allies r for ganking us in tarren mill and camping for 3 hours... yeah...real sports...

The Allies ganking Tarren Mill are just as "honorable" as the Horde level 70s, who gank for hours in Southshore, Ashenvale, and kill everyone on the shore of Stranglehorn Vale during the Fishing contest. I guess that is the only way the Horde can win ;)
Sorry, I am missing the nobility and maturity of a group that appears to be nothing but bullies, thugs and want to be badasses.

The Allies ganking Tarren Mill are just as "honorable" as the Horde level 70s, who gank for hours in Southshore, Ashenvale, and kill everyone on the shore of Stranglehorn Vale during the Fishing contest. I guess that is the only way the Horde can win ;)
Sorry, I am missing the nobility and maturity of a group that appears to be nothing but bullies, thugs and want to be badasses.

There're asshats on both sides of the equation. However, the server population is such that there are more Alliance than Horde, thus there are more Alliance asshats even if the relative distribution is the same.

I leveled Horde on a PVP server at release. Biggest mistake ever, since you couldn't quest in any contested zone without getting repeated camped by level 60s (Nesingwary's, anyone?).

And of course if you call them out on it Alliance gets all defensive and starts denouncing Horde as "evil". As if your average 14-year-old Nelf rogue would perform any act of altruism without being browbeaten into it by committee, or is capable of stringing more than 2 coherent sentences together. The hypocritical dichotomy between what Alliance think they represent and the behavior of most of the playerbase is poetry in the making.

Aha who cares which one is better? Does it really make a difference arguing?

Most people who posted here seem to have have played on official blizzard servers but since i am studying in my university me and my friends couldnt play on them. So i decided to host a private server.

one thing i can certainly vouch for is population is lower on the horde side. Initially during testing stages we had a few server resets and always alliance number came out higher.

Yes and night elves seem hell popular too. I have read about it on other forums and i read this huge long thread too and i cant explain how but yes horde seems more mature and supportive. I dont know how most of the morons, idiots ended up in alliance but they did.

So after playing with a night elf druid till lvl 40 i switched to orc BM hunter.

I cant comment on age though. All people on my server are 18-21 year olds.

Originally, I picked the alliance just because one of my close friends started an alliance character. I now regret this decision. The alliance tend to be much less supportive, and dare I say, hateful. So now, I am stuck with 2 level 70s going on 3 because I don't want to completely abandon those characters for horde. Also, i should add that humans are extremely common on the Nathrezim realm, and keep in mind that the Blood Elf zone looks horrid/ You should consider doing a similar test, only compair RP to PVP to RPPVP to Normal realms. It would be interesting to see which one has the advantage.

I play alliance because me friends play it too but i like horde more because they are C00LER

And the horde have so C00L cappitals thats an +

Only a ``little comment:

Don't play druid I have played tauren and nightelf
they are so bad!

Well, in my opinion, alliance forces are more banned together. I am 14 years old and i have some Humans (Alliance). The towns of Alliance are more beautiful and organised, sth that shows their developed civilisation. But the Horde's towns are not nice. (you must have noticed it!). Even though young players choose the horde. I thing that is because Horde are more violent (or they seem to be like that!), a fact that fits the young people. But except for that, the Alliance are good too.

P.S. Try a human!

I'm all about Horde, and I really don't like the Draenai, but that didn't stop me from helping one do a grinding quest that I also had to do(and I was Undead which was the amazing thing).

If I was an RPer I'd probably discriminate against the Alliance heavily just for being Horde, but alas that is not the case and I usually just treat people the way I want to be treated... although I've stolen the odd mineral node from hapless Draenai. lol

To say "the Horde's towns are not nice" is to ignore the beauty of Silvermoon City. Agreed, the orcs, trolls, tauren, and undead are certainly less westernized; however, to accuse them of being purely violent and disorganized is a failure to notice facts such as the peacefulness of the tauren, the complexity of the Undercity, and the unbreakable brotherhood between the orcs and the Darkspear (similar to the humans/dwarves, actually). Furthermore, to cite the Alliance as the antithesis of violence and savagery clearly overlooks events such as the internment of the Orcs and the slaughter of innocents in Tirisfal by the Scarlet Crusade. In fact, perhaps the most evil being in the game, Arthas Menethril, was to be king of the humans.

Remember, since the third game, the humans of Azeroth have become increasingly to the humans of Earth, and it takes no misanthrope to see the imperfection of our own species.

Quite frankly, the Taureans don't belong in the Horde.

Yeah, because humans would gladly accept a race of walking cows...

BEEF! It's what's for dinner!

I was actually quite suprised when they added the Draenai to the Alliance.

Purple squids from space, with a side of Soviet Russia. That's what they are to me.

Oh, another cool thing about the Horde is that they're stoners. I'm always finding hookas in Horde towns (there's a hooka in the tavern in Orgimmar where you kill Gamon over and over for fun).

As a level 69 NE druid I am very accepting of Taureans. Most of the time we share Moonglade, Centurion Refuge, etc. without problems. I am over 50 years old in RL, and most of the people in my guild are middle aged or pushing middle age, so that skews many of your stats and misconceptions.

I have been helped on several occassions by Taureans and, even shock of shocks, an undead rogue. And I have helped Horde players with a bad pull. I don't gank and if someone in my group does, then I let them finish the fight they started themselves.

But if you attack me or my friends, watch out ;)

I think working with a Draenai shaman is one of
the best possible combinations for a NE Druid.

wow this thread is amazing, I found it while google searching "alliance or horde" and am glad i did.I find all of the points so valid in their own rights.This also brings me to a conflict within myself just looking at the character choices ive made and how that might represent me i play a night elf hunter because the shadowmeld racial ability had a great appeal to me although the novelty quickly wore of i played it nonetheless and only to have my resolve to stay ally strengthened after meeting my best pal

A few simple points of interest I have to point out, although im not sure they have been said.

I play a 70 NE Warrior on Ner'zhul, and also have a 19, and 29 twink. Im 20 years old so I don't really have the time to play it ALL the time considering RL ordeals, but I find time here and there. Now to the point...

About the age differences on the game, noone can say that each faction has fewer younger generations, or annoying kids. The simple fact is there are a lot of them, and we have to deal with them whatever faction we are on. About the BG's and PvP. A Simple fact, Horde are more strategic in larger numbers, and alliance has no clue what "Kill The Healers" means. Ive seen so many alliance complain about how terrible they lose in BG's, so ive got one phrase for all my fellow allies. "Double-click hold" to move, and thats a start. Now as far as the horde goes (now now, im not nagging any particular person so bite me). The horde (And yes you know you do it) never go out anywhere without 2 people watching your back. Its not a bad thing ill admit, probably a reason your winning and im just trying to find a reason to bitch at you for it, but it makes it look bad on you guys side for you cant win a fight by yourself. Allies do it too but not as much so dont argue with me :/ - Enough rambling though, great game nonetheless.

Last night I was questing in the Black Temple grounds with a friend, who is a level 70 hunter. I play level 70 NE Druid. 3 Horde players were playing down the opposite side of the ramp and steps making good progress, and being peaceable. An elite pat showed up while they were fighting a group of orcs. We could have let them die, but I have a problem with standing by and letting someone die, who has played fairly, and is putting up a good fight. Yes, we helped them and they thanked us. If only we could just get along.....

Main: Cithalin, Lvl 50 human rogue. Nazgrel

Meh, I tried horde first, but in the end, i just couldn't stand the starting zones, and I than tried Gnome Warlock and night elf druid. It was pretty fun, but after getting bored, I made half a dozen alts, Eventually trying out rogue. In the past, I had figuered that humans are a pretty balenced race, and since i wanted easy access to Storm wind, I rolled Human. None of my other chars is above 25 now. I have nothing against horde, aside from the abominable starting zones. I do however, hate sublty speced rogues, simply because they, along with marksmanship hunters, are totally broken in pvp.
I chose a pve relm, simply because I don't wanna get ganked. I in general don't like pvp, and generally do solo pve or group pve, with my guildies if possible. Raided barrens a couple times when i was lower leveled, didn't really like it, and i have only wtfpwned someone once. They where flaged, and had just lost a duel. And an instance portal was right there, so i just backstabed an ran into Zf. It was impossible to resist. Aside from that, i generally greet all players with friendly emotes, such as /greet, /hello, or /wave. The majority of horde players respond in kind, with the exception of bloodelves. I would not call my self the most mature person in the world, but i find that most players i meet on both sides are pretty mature.

I also forgot. Since everyone's doing it, i may as well run down the races. This is based on my experiance.

Alliance:
Humans: Don't judge them as racist. The reason they hate the orcs is because it's kind of hard to forgive stuff like destroying a few nations. They make mistakes, but i would like to point out, that excluding outland, the second most common race of nutral npcs, after goblins, are humans. While human npcs outside the alliance tend to be nutral or evil, most of the humans of the alliance are good at heart.

Dwarves: They are a bit foolhardy, and they don't really respect nature as much as they should, but don't bash thier drinking, and don't bash the fact that they seek knowledge of thier pasts. Those who have no past suffer a difficult future.

Gnomes: I really can't say anything much, aside from the fact that they are the most technologlicly advanced playable race.

Night Elfs: While they are steeped in lore, they are a bit racist, and I really don't like the archdruid much. All in all, they mearly seek to preserve nature, and hate the orcs for what they did to the forests. Kinda stuck up....

Draeni (did i spell this right?): Lore is too damn confusing to comment.

Horde: (since i'm ally, i can't comment much)

Orcs: The orcs are having it ruff, but at heart are good peeps. Humans just can't really forgive them. They do, however, hate old horde as much as alliance does.

Trolls: Really just there cause they owe the orcs. A bit quirky, but not evil.

Forsaken: I really don't like them. Lore wise, they are a new race, and they don't seem friendly to anyone.<