Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsPride (in the name of the Horde)
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Feb 21st 2007 at 10:12AM
Lok'Tar! For the Horde! Strength and honor! Ew, I'd never play an Alliance character. Look, it's another stupid night elf female. If it's red, it's dead! All the kiddies play Alliance ...
If you're Horde, you hear things like this every day. The Horde has a large number of loyal partisans who take great pride in being a member of the faction, and think less of anyone on the other side. The Alliance are pretty boys, little kids, ezmode, uncreative. The Horde has all the best heroes, the Horde are the real players, the Horde are the true good guys of WoW. You can't go five minutes in Orgrimmar without hearing one of these sentiments.
But, as Soy of Auchindoun points out, Alliance players don't seem to have the same vocal pride in their faction as Horde do. I've played both sides, and the most I've heard Alliance players call the Horde is ugly and evil. Which admittedly aren't good things to be called, but that's more about the lore than a direct attack on the players behind the avatars. Several players noted that underpopulated races seem to have more pride than overpopulated ones -- you'll see more troll, dwarf and draenei pride than undead, night elf and human. Perhaps that's the reason the Horde feels the need to claim superiority -- since they're the underdog on most servers, they have to do something to keep from feeling like scrubs. Also, the Horde has less prettiness, sparsely populated cities, and are widely perceived as evil. With all that on our heads, it's no wonder we need Horde pride. Adversity has strengthened our spirit and caused us to band together.
I started out as a night elf and ended up as a troll, so I don't really have too much faction pride. I feel a little proud whenever a Horde guild gets a world first, and I do like being a rare class/race/gender combination, but eh ... there are as many annoying people on my side as on theirs. Or, as Borogove of Proudmoore says, "Alliance has more idiots, Horde has more jerks. Pick your poison."
Are you proud to be a member of the Alliance or the Horde? What about your race or class? Do you really hate the other faction? Who do you think has more to be proud of?
Filed under: Horde, Alliance, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, RP
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Matthew Rossi Feb 21st 2007 1:38PM
I play both Horde and Alliance. Horde are more self-righteous and will jump through hoops to talk about how they're not evil even as they take quests to poison entire forests. I remember on my Tauren Warrior having to hear an undead player go on and on and on about how the Forsaken are justified in planning the deaths of every single living thing on Azeroth.
Just in leveling my Tauren I've had blood elves and undead in Outland give me quests that involve feeding poison to captive Draenei... who have done, what, exactly to any Horde race? Nothing. The Orcs sold their souls to demons and destroyed the Draenei people. Undead want to kill everyone. Trolls are cannibals who eat their captives and give you quests to create 'forest magic' to torture and kill their captives. Tauren ignore Magatha and her willing alliance with beings who want to kill everyone that lives, as well as her plotting against Cairne. And blood elves? Victims of great suffering and hardship, they now seek to inflict suffering and hardship on everyone else.
If you play Horde, you play a member of a group that has suffered calamity in many cases brought upon themselves. Orc suffering comes from their willing alliance with the greatest evil in the universe and their willing commission of genocide against others. Quite frankly, the Alliance showed great mercy in not putting every single one of them to death when they had the chance: it's more mercy than the Orcs showed the Draenei. Undead carry a horrific disease that reanimates corpses and which, at first, resulted only in mindless shambling monstrosities that needed to be put back down. Expecting anyone to suddenly go "Oh, it's uncle Frank's horrible rotten corpse" and be at peace with that idea is absurd, and the Forsaken's desire to create a new plague shows that the mistrust is warranted. Blood Elves refused millennia ago to stop using arcane magic even though they were warned what the consequences would be, and now they blame everyone but themselves for their hubris.
Are the Alliance perfect? Not hardly. Humans are base and venial (the Defias Brotherhood and Onyxia's easy manipulation two good examples), the Dwarves are insular and focused too much on old conflicts (The Dark Iron Dwarves storylines), the Night Elves are aloof and divided between two ancient power structures (Frandal and Tyrande) and often know far more than they're telling, and the Gnomes are culpable in the destruction of their own city. The Draenei, meanwhile, are teetering on the edge of breaking - even Velen, their inspirational leader, displays a hunger for vengeance that's disturbing. Arthas was a human. Kel'Thuzad was a human.
But Gul'dan was an orc, and so was Ner'zhul. Arthas may yet destroy his world, but Gul'dan actually already did it. The Scourge may well corrupt all life into unwilling servants of the Burning Crusade, but the Orcs went willingly to their slavery and killed anyone who didn't join them.
I play Alliance and I play Horde. There's just as many lore-based reasons to hate the Horde as there are to be enamored of them.
steve Feb 21st 2007 2:02PM
If you really want mature players roll on an RP server. There's always a few hardcore guilds on them that don't RP and are just there to watch all the weird-ass shit that happens. I actually caught a level 69 night elf warrior doing some sort of prayer ritual at the altar of shadows one night while I was making cloth. It was a riot.
Zuuler Feb 21st 2007 2:44PM
@40
We are finding out now though that not all the orcs drank the blood of mannoroth and therefore did not become corrupted. But the alliance has quests to go out and kill the Mag'har orcs, who have done nothing to no one.
In the orcs defense, they were more or less tricked into drinking the blood of mannoroth. Seeing how they eventually broke away from the corruption leads me to believe that had they known what was really going to happen, they would have killed Guldan and that would have been the end of the story as we know it.
Darkspear trolls have sworn off cannibalism, but like all horde races, they have their own agenda to fill separate from that of the horde.
Much like the forsaken, who if the day comes, needs a way to prevent their own demise. Sure at first it might have been weird that zombie uncle bob got his memories back, but once people started to realize the forsaken weren't all bad you would think they would stop hunting them. Instead you have the scarlet crusade doing all they can to destroy them, and no one willing to help except for the horde.
High elves took precautions to prevent their magic from causing another calamity through their runestones. And had the alliance took the threat of the undead plague a little more seriously, the high elves homeland would have never been ravaged, and there would be no blood elves.
Rudi Feb 21st 2007 3:00PM
I play Alliance because I like playing gnomes. Gnomes are the anti-emo, the anti-drama, the all-fun race. I play WoW for fun so I play a gnome. ;)
MyriOfThrall Feb 21st 2007 5:15PM
My first toon was a human mage, now at level 63. I also have a Night Elf hunter and various other Alliance toons.
I rolled a Blood Elf Priest recently and am slowly leveling her. Do I like her? Not really. I prefer my Alliance toons any day. But I told a friend I'd give Horde a chance. I've often said that I hate the Horde, and at times I do, but I realize that we are all in it for the fun.
If Im out questing and see someone in trouble, I will lend a hand, whether it's a Horde or Alliance. Just because there is a human being on the other end of that toon. Many times I have had trouble myself and Horde have helped me out.
I've found that there are jerks and idiots on both factions, I guess it just depends on where you are or who you are with.
If you are Horde and are flagged near me, I don't care if there are 15 of you to fight. I'll fight you. Just because I have the guts to. :)
BTW, Im in my mid 30's, work 40 hours a week, own my own home and have a family. WoW is a nice break from reality.
Tainted_Mage Feb 22nd 2007 4:12PM
You wanna know how proud we are of our race? take this in.......our guild is UNDEAD ONLY.....
NC FTW!!
Matthew Rossi Feb 21st 2007 3:43PM
@43
So not all orcs colluded with demons. Enough of them did, and those are the ones who erected portals and invaded other worlds. The alliance quest to kill the Mag'har comes from a Draenei broken who has seen his only friend killed by them.
How were they tricked? Sure, Gul'dan didn't say "you'll be slaves if you do this" but Grom still walked right up and drank demon blood knowing what it was.
It's the same nit-picky BS from all Horde players. "We're not REALLY bad." Tell it to a Draenei. Personally, as I level my Draenei toons my previous Horde characters become more and more distasteful to me. Even in Outland, the Mag'har come right out and say that the only good Draenei is a dead Draenei, and for why? Because the Draenei are finally managing to fight back. Corrupted or no, Orcs are the ones pushing that war.
Nyx Feb 21st 2007 3:51PM
@43
You're so right. The Alliance have no quests to whack the Scarlet Crusade, and we're definitely not sent to Scarlet Monastery to beat down some of their leaders - nor do we do an endless chain for Fordring later that involves redeeming and murdering their leaders and reviving the Order of the Silver Hand. Certainly there's no quests that we could take from the Argent Dawn that show us into Stratholme. We're just not interested in the Scarlet Crusade.
If only we could be sent to murder the Scarlets by a Dreadlord, or a bitter, vengeful undead who's working just as hard as he can to make everyone's lives miserable. Sorry, better luck next time!
jaydlawii Feb 21st 2007 4:14PM
I rolled both and while I would perfer a Horde Toon, I play Alliance. There are definately more people on the alliance side most servers have a 3:1 ratio. That would make me joing the Horde. The reason for my Alliance with theh Alliance is because A:more RL friends on the Alliance. B:Quests seem to be better and more thought out. C: Auction Halls are better stocked. D: it seems that there are more natural resources available. Ie Herbalism seems much easier for an Aliance then Horde, same with Blacksmithing.
Overall the questing experience is better for the Alliance then the Horde so it wouldn't surprise me that the Horde has better pvp players, the questing just isn't that good
zxox27 Jul 12th 2007 2:44AM
@40
Out of all the comments I read, the only one that makes any real sense is this one.
chaz Feb 21st 2007 6:05PM
Yes! Yes! Keep fighting!
Hordsies are bad! Alliancies are bads!
Round and round we go...
Kymala Feb 21st 2007 6:14PM
Horde eat kittens.
enough said.
Mayhem50 Feb 21st 2007 11:35PM
I love hating the Alliance and when i roll one i can never seem to play one past lvl 7 before i feel dirty.
Lets face it, it would be no fun if there was only one side and getting in your enemy's face is half the fun.
So having said that.... FOR THE HORDE...In your face Alliance Noobs, my your gnome never spawn children.
Krianna Feb 22nd 2007 1:58AM
I think it boils down to what the little kids who will only play to MAYBE 20 pick as their first characters. I'm sorry, but yes, an 8 year old making a character with daddy is more likely to go Alliance. And they'll be vocal.
People set their notions of stuff very quickly, and are reluctant to change-- I've played both sides into the 50s, both with a guild I adore. Horde has it easy for transport, Alliance (the ones I've played) have better racials, and there are LOTS of jerks/idiots/children of all ages to go around.
Michael Feb 22nd 2007 2:28AM
I was never into Hordee dont no why and to the comments that Night Elfs are an Over Used Race i agree but the only reason they are over used is beccos their the only Tall Powerfull Looking Race on Alliance.
We have a gnome..which say its all in the name lol. a Dwarf(which are a Powerfull looking class but being only about 3 feet tall its pretty Intimidating to face a Tauren)
Human Which i dont get why people would by and play a fantasy game and play a human....
but this is Pree BC oh i wish that we had a drenai to start with.
While on horde Most of there Characters are Tall,big and powerfull looking. Also Wearing Full T3 Plate Gear on a gnome warrior does not have the same affect of a nigh Elf or Orc.
Michael Feb 22nd 2007 2:31AM
and i dont get how people can say Horde are the evil race of WoW
Humans....are the most evil of all
Krianna Feb 22nd 2007 2:34AM
55- Yes, because all the human groups are plotting to poison and destroy the elves, gnomes and dwarves.....
/pity
Reygar Feb 22nd 2007 10:35AM
i play a lvl 70 human warlock on Duskwood(US) and when i see horde around, i have a macro that looks like gibberish to other alliance but the horde see it as "I L O V E Y O U" i even help to kill their mobs once in a while. i got nothing against horde....except the ones on pvp servers lol
yotix Mar 6th 2007 8:16AM
It seems to be accepted as "general knowledge" that some of the most dedicated, highly skilled WoW gamers play Horde ... while many complete noobs, idiots and rip-offs play Ally side.
But, basically, it's always the same: 90% of humanity consists of morons. So it should not surprise anyone that 80% of WoW players are morons as well (regardless of their faction).
Finsythe Feb 27th 2007 5:27AM
I have rolled chars on both factions, as such my pride switches depending on what char I'm playing. I play the game to have fun and kill the time I would otherwise be spending doing some other unproductive activity. It's all in fun, or at least it should be. All of these arguments about immaturrity more on one side or the other when in actually the argument in itself is immature.