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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Do you have qualms about playing the other faction?
by Nik Mitchell 
Sep 21st 2011 at 8:00AM
Talk to any self-proclaimed altoholic: They'll tell you stories of rolling characters on both sides of the two factions that split the World of Warcraft. For many, their attachment to one side or the other is merely dependent on "What do I want to play today?" However, for me, playing the other faction has some serious consequences: pangs of agony, nervous twitches, tummy trouble, you name it.
I started WoW on one side but quickly found myself tempted to try the other (I heard they had cookies) and never looked back for years. I filled out all 10 slots with the faction I loved. Seven 85s later, I get the whisper from my officers that they are swapping sides as a pet project. The worst of all isn't really that I'd consider playing the dark side again; it's that my closest of guildies are happily getting entrenched. Lured by the real-life friend of another, lo and behold, they found a level 25 guild that would gladly receive some potential recruits... and now my guildies want me to join them, too.
Now don't get me wrong -- I don't deny the opposite faction their right to exist (well, except every time I get killed in Tol Barad), but it feels so completely wrong to be rolling this character (not to mention having to delete my mid-30s mage). What about you? Have you ever had a question of conscience to even begin to create a character of the opposite faction?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 8)
Miranda Sep 21st 2011 8:16AM
Actually I rolled my first Alliance character this week, wanted to try out brewfest on the other side. I have to admit i loved the Nightelf starting area but for some reason Stormwind feels very alien to me, I almost feel like I'm there under false pretenses and someone will eventually notice I'm really a Horde :)
puffcake Sep 21st 2011 8:17AM
Not so much "qualms" but I was introduced to the game as Horde, so when I finally started playing Ally toons when one of my buddies started playing, it was...weird. Overall, I prefer Hordies a little bit, mostly because I'm used to the capitals and I like their edginess a little bit more. However, I've gotten used to Stormwind, and I'm working on Ironforge; and even though the humans and night elves are a little too sweet and polite, I don't mind playing them either.
Calicia Sep 21st 2011 8:18AM
I only play Alliance, but not because I hate the Horde. I do it for gameplay reasons. My rogue main has Loremaster, Explorer and finished A Long Strange Trip. I love the expansiveness of WoW, but part of the feel of the game (for me) is based on the unknown "otherness" of the Horde. When I sneak in to Orgrimmar for a holiday event to try *again* to catch that @#$!@#$ fish, I'm in a stranger in a strange land. My pulse quickens and it's bit of a rush as I try to avoid guards and navigate the confusing (to me) levels and paths of the Horde capital. I don't want to lose that. My raid team server/faction changed and I just can't bring myself to follow. I miss them terribly, but I don't want to lose what I consider to be an important part of the game.
Again, this is not a "down with the Horde" thing. My toons are agnostic to the Horde v. Alliance kerfuffle.
KyoNeko Sep 21st 2011 8:21AM
I myself play mostly only alliance, i do love to play as horde as well, the only thing that stops is that i ain't able to play with my friends as horde or talk with my guild. sometimes i wish you could have multi fraction guilds and party's like the argent crusade (i think) takes both fractions.
Fletcher Sep 21st 2011 8:19AM
I have many 85s in both factions, and the only real scruple I now possess that stops me from rolling more of them on the other side is the fact that so many of the Horde's races are so ugly and have such terrible animations. Ultimately I'm on the side of the Alliance - which (in my not at all humble opinion) is to say I'm on the side of civilization in the war against barbarism and despotism.
These days, I don't have much respect for NPCs on either side, however. Garrosh is a belligerent idiot; Thrall is a short-sighted idiot; Varian has massive anger-management problems; Jaina has credibility problems; Magni is a block of rock in Old Ironforge; Lor'themar is a nobody (albeit a very well dressed nobody, these days); Velen is concentrating upon the war to come.
I long for the days when we had heroes like Lothar, Turalyon, or Saurfang; people who we could look up to, who didn't have the crippling emotional and psychological issues of modern leaders. Maybe the next hero class should be Psychologist?
/cast So Tell Me About Your Parents on Garrosh Hellscream
Liche Sep 21st 2011 8:20AM
Lok'Tar Ogar!
samhain Sep 21st 2011 8:22AM
I am (still) very faction loyal. I rolled a toon on the other side once out of curiosity but it felt like adultery. I guess that's the result of growing up in the 80's getting brainwashed "good vs evil" cartoons :p Or it's my sense of honor and loyalty. FTA!!
p.s. I don't believe that Alliance are "the good guys" and Horde "the bad". Just like IRL, I believe there is no intrinsic good or bad group of people. There's good and evil in all of us. I have some conspiracy theories about Alliance even, but that's something for another day. Just that my imagination went running wild when I first saw Bishop DeLavey in SW. >:)
Jay Sep 21st 2011 8:22AM
I consider myself to be an altoholic and have leveled quite a number of toons to atleast level 80. Until recently all have been alliance, then my main follow friends through a server/faction transfer and even though i've leveled Horde toons now I just can't feel at home and just feel awkward all the time.
Intellectually I understand that the Horde aren't evil and that they have lots of interesting plot possibilities and internal politics (oh yeah I'm a rp:er too), my emotional side however says that an good orc is a dead orc and I just can't stand Orgrimmar and have my hearth set to Thunder Bluff instead.
Funny how the mind works.
Kurtis Sep 21st 2011 8:22AM
None whatsoever. Now, it might make a difference that all of my 85's are Horde and my highest Alliance is 65. But my Horde guild even has a sister/alt guild Alliance-side, for those of us who want to switch sides from time to time. (Of course, there are nearly 500 toons in the Horde guild, and less than 20 in the Alliance... But I do happen to know that some of the guildies have Alliance alts in other guilds, so that doesn't really represent the total number of crossover players.)
Tnuptnuc Sep 21st 2011 8:26AM
I had to deal with the same issue near the middle of ICC raiding. I had only been in 2 guilds.... one that was a group of 7 RL friends who lived near me and a few of their long term WoW buddies (this was at the start of BC), and then when that split apart we all joined the same Horde guild. I went from 1 lvl 70 at the end of BC to 7 80s at the middle of Wrath. I was really loving the Horde side, but suddenly the same crap happened. The guild factioned into 3 10 man groups which wouldn't work together and kept trying to poach each others members weekly based solely upon the meters, not the good of the guild. None of the groups were interested in heroic 10m, so I really didn't see a point in continuing. I was one of the only one of my friends still playing and I wanted to raid. I only needed 25m gear, I would have taken 10m heroic gear, and I wasn't about to sit there and help the guild fight amongst itself so I stood back. After a few weeks of just not being able to raid, I finally took my newest lvl 80 (Orc Warlock) and transfered him to the alliance side of my server and ended up joining the #1 guild on the server. I left my main on the Horde side and after a month or two I did move over my Belf pally to a Dranei pally so I could have some instaqueues. Eventually my guild decided to try out a high pop server and they moved. I ended up going along with them, just with the 2 toons at first. I logged onto my horde toons to grab some gear to take with me, and was surprised to find that my other 5 80s had been gkicked b/c "I betrayed the guild by refusing to help them progress." Srsly? I had spend 2 years raiding 3 -4 nights a week with these guys, I did everything I could for them, I considered some of them friends, and my refusal to carry them through 10m content we had on farm was betrayal?
One by one, as money permitted, I moved all of my horde toons over to my new server as alliance. Two of them remained horde, my DK and my hunter, I love Taurens too much to not have any of them.
I lost a lot of Real ID friends and even a RL friend who just saw it as a real personal betrayal, not sure what to think of that but if 5 years of friendship meant that little then w/e.
I ended up moving my last 2 Horde 80s to a different server and they became 85 and I've loved it.
But after playing both sides, I realize there isn't really any difference. 99% of the crap each faction says about the other is complete rubbish. Both sides complain that they suck at PVP, both sides say the game is balanced against them, both sides say there are no good arena teams, both sides say the other faction is just a bunch of stupid kids, etc. But the truth is there really isnt' that much difference. Sure, the newer and often younger players do jump right into whatever class is the flavor of the month, and that can make a faction seem crappy for a while, but it happens all the time. It's gonna happen all the time.
It's been almost 2 years now and I still play both sides. I am about to hit 85 on the final character I plan on leveling unless another class comes out - this will be #12, my shaman. He was an orc, now he's a dwarf. In the end I ended up with 9 ally 85s and 3 horde. I started a goblin warrior and ran him up to 85 to see all the new content along the way on the horde side since I had done it so many times before. I also ran up a 2nd druid and 2nd hunter so I coudl experience the alliance side (nelf bear / cat and worgen boomkin / tree for druid, tauren and worgen hunters).
I can't say any one side is better than the other and I don't even listen to the stupid faction related comments. The game is heading towards a 3rd faction and / or the merging of the H&A factions based on the leaks from Blizzard, and maybe that's what we needed all along.
Look at ICC - sure, we fought the Horde gunships on the way to the top of ICC, but only b/c we refused to admit we needed each others help. In the end both factions suffered at the hands of the Forsaken and the minions of the LK. We have seem both sides stand side by side at the Wrathgate, I've seen Thrall nearly sacrifice himself to save the world, not just the Horde. Both sides aren't really at war with each other anymore outside of the pre-WOW lore, every new expansion just shows us a greater evil / common enemy.
TBQH I woudnl't mind fighting alongside my former Horde companions as we fight on the back of deathwing - would have been an easy way to bring back 40 man raids honestly.
TL;DR version - I started Horde, I went mostly Alliance, but love playing both sides. I won't play both sides on the same server anymore, that just causes too much bad blood, but I have no problem playing with whichever faction I feel is the best fit for my mood and my play style. I love my Alliance guild, and I love my new Horde guild, but I coudln't pick between the two, I'd rather quit than do that. I only belong to two guilds (not counting my twink guilds, that's a whole different ballgame there) and I belong to each of them b/c of the people, not because of the racials or the factions or the class combos, I play with the people that I want to play with. Maybe that's just me, but this is a social MMO, I'd rather play with the worst players in the world that are just damn good people that I enjoy being around, than playing with the best players in the world who are dicks. The game is about having fun and if after 5 years and 12 85s I'm not burned out, I must really enjoy the game. If I didn't have the players aroudn me that I did, I would quit.
It's not about the factions, it's about the players. Horde, alliance - it's all just cowpeople vs wolfpeople, belfs vs nelfs, orcs vs dwarves, it's all the same just different skins and a seperate set of chat channels.
zaababy Sep 21st 2011 9:32AM
Well said.
Tricia Sep 21st 2011 8:30AM
My main is a lvl 85 Blood Elf Paladin, but I have an even split of 5 toons on Horde, 5 on Alliance. I trend towards Horde more, but I play a decent amount of time as Alliance too. I think it's just a matter of who you have to play -with- sometimes. A lot of my Alliance friends have moved over to Horde, or moved to other servers so I play my Alliance toons less. However, Real ID has helped not feeling lonely at least. :)
IvanZephyr Sep 21st 2011 8:41AM
The only issue I have with playing the opposite faction is that I don't know many people on the Hordeside.
If others would join me, I'd have no problem switching from Blue to Red (And back to Blue if necessary).
sinceritystar Sep 21st 2011 8:31AM
The guy who introduced me to the game played Horde, so naturally I rolled Horde as well. I quit playing for awhile just after Wrath came out, so when one of my other friends and I decided to start playing again, we rolled Alliance, just to see what it was like. I finally hit level cap on my draenei mage, and started raiding. My entire guild quit for awhile, and came back shortly after Cata, after a server/faction change. Now we're all Horde again and feel more at home, but I'll never forget that I met some of my best friends in-game Alliance side.
I still casually play some Alliance toons, but none are level capped and they probably never will be. I do want to level them though, to see both sides of the WoW story.
Tom Sep 21st 2011 8:32AM
I don't have any problems playing the other faction, but there are races I just can't bring myself to play.
Shortly after Cataclysm was released I had to faction switch my Forsaken. I just can't play such a bastardly race. He's a Draenei now, and I feel happy that he's totally a good guy now.
Jen Sep 21st 2011 8:39AM
I've been Alliance all my WoW-life and that's where I feel at home. I've rolled Horde alts and I even got one to 85, but what kills Horde for me is:
1. All (or most) of my friends are Alliance.
2. I think the Horde races are uglier. My main is a druid and she's a hot cool night elf. I can't ever imagine looking at a tauren or (ugh) a troll. Blood elves are kinda ok and taurens and undead are decent... but there's no race I would *like* to be. On Alliance I always have the awesomeness of night elves and draenei, gnomes for when I feel like cute little death machines, and even my first even character, the boring human girl. The day they let blood elves be druids... that's the day I might consider a race change.
(Song time! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXMTHae0uVc)
Geo Lara Sep 21st 2011 8:40AM
My Alliance guild has a Horde night, and every time I play Horde it feels like being in Canada. Lot of things the same as being in the US, but just different enough to throw you off.
Luke Sep 21st 2011 8:41AM
My very first character and a recent Dwarf rolled for Brewfest have been the extent of my Alliance leanings but at heart I'm Horde for Life.
Other than that, the other side is just for playing the Auction House and cross faction arbitrage.
chaosdefined Sep 21st 2011 8:50AM
I'm for the Horde myself, being proud of my faction is part of the fun of the game I find. However, there are things that I like about the Alliance when levelling alts and seeing the world from another perspective. After all, levelling more than twice as one faction gets boring.
I love Ironforge and Stormwind, they are both such beautiful cities. Even Darnassus has it's charm. As much as I think the new Orgrimmar is cool, it'll never beat Stormwind from the air, or Ironforge for such beauty.
And then of course you have all the human buildings in Northrend, which seem to compliment the surrounds perfectly. All the small towns in Howling Fjord just seem to fit perfectly with the scenery, and look fantastic!
But then the Horde have far more interesting races.
WoWie Zowie Sep 21st 2011 8:51AM
horde were the previous "bad guys" in vanilla, but blizz has made their story more complicated since then. largely due to thrall and cairne. and the line was blurred with both justification and corruption on both sides.
but thrall left, and cairne died, and things have gone south since wrath.
a small case in point:
the horde has cooking dailies where you "steal from our own" taking rice from the trolls, and killing goblin and troll thieves that are stealing food crates. meanwhile the alliance's cooking dailies have you gathering apples for pie, and baking cookies for orphans. so when my 62 y/o mom plays wow guess which faction she chooses to play. will it be the one with the majestic castle? or the one with the dirt and spikes and polluted waters?
now blizz will have to figure out a way to make garrosh not as much a douche and possibly kill off wrynn to bring the factions' "goodliness" less defined again. for me personally, its merely a matter of which side is tending to win in the bgs more that day. if alliance is playing terrible I'll go onto my goblin rogue to run up my kill numbers. if horde is the one taking a beating i'll switch to my gnome mage. my faction loyalty doesn't go too much farther than that.