Try playing Alliance exclusively for a year.

Then come back and read your post again and see if you feel the same.

I'm going to be downrated too, because I agree, in part, with Transit.

Having a series exploring story options for both sides, stipulating that you are going to start with the Alliance because you feel they are *currently* less developed, is one thing. But I was a little turned off with the notion of an "Alliance only" feature. And I play both factions extensively, though my main is Horde.

In fact, let's look at my main, a Belf paladin. Not a lot of story development for me, either, since for me race>faction. I would love to see an article in this series exploring what could be done to improve the Belf storyline. Or the Dranei, since that is my Alliance main.

Or what about the goblins? After level 10, their storyline pretty much peters out, just like the Worgen. Where did Gallywix go? Does anyone know? Will there be a new goblin leader?

How is Baine feeling these days about Garrosh? Ever going to do anything about the guy who killed your father and now appears to be leading the Horde into civil war? Who knows?

Really, the advances in Horde storyline come down to the Orcs and Forsaken, and a tiny bit of the trolls. Why not make this a series for everyone?

@Amaxe

I have played the Alliance side. And up until recently actually raided on both the Alliance and Horde side at the same time! And on a pvp server! (My Alliance guild fell apart, so I moved my toons so that they would all be with my Horde guild. I regret it now with how well the lfr system is, but whatever.) I like leveling characters on both factions.

The complaints I hear on the alliance side were until recently the complaints I heard on the horde side. And maybe because I am older and watched my nephews leave for college, but a lot of this bickering reminds me of when they were younger and they would argue over who got the bigger piece of birthday cake.

Sometimes you get a bigger piece, and sometimes your sibling does. When someone goes to a dinner party, even ones that they pay for, not every serving is the same size. There is no INTENTION of giving someone a bigger piece, it just happens.

Blizzard is trying to make a entertaining game for all it's players and not just half of them. Are they perfect? No. But they give it a damn good try.

I really wish the rhetoric would just calm down and I think this series will not help that. I play this GAME as a way to reduce stress in a very long work day. It reduces stress because it is a game and a hobby, and I treat it as a game and a hobby. I come hear to get news on my game and hobby. This is going to be a series I avoid because it will not serve any of those functions.

Considering how calm and well though out your comment was, it is surprisingly illogical.

And that's coming from a purely Horde side player. The Alliance leaders are not currently doing anything and having them involved more would be better and more dynamic not only for the Alliance but for the Horde as well.

Asking them not to do a series based on Alliance leaders out of fear that this entire website might turn into some form of the Blizzard forums is absurd. I think the reader and commenter base here has proven to be much more mature and reasonable than that.
(Myself excluded of course, Alliance Bias! Ahhhh!)

As I think about it, the other thing that bothered me about this feature is that it implicitly endorses some of the sentiment that has become absurd on the forums. There, it is not enough to argue that the Alliance storyline is currently not quite as well developed as the Horde's. No, it has to be that there is ZERO Alliance story development, that Blizzard hates the Alliance and loves the Horde, that the developers, especially Chris Metzen, are basically evil/bad/unAmerican/drunk, etc.

I get that Ziebart goes out of his way to avoid the ridiculous hyperbole that characterizes the forums. But I guarantee that this article is going to be used for ammunition.

"But I guarantee that this article is going to be used for ammunition."

Oh yeah, what could be more official and influential than a 3rd-party character recap?

@clundgren

Some points about your comments and I really have to wonder how much you have played as a goblin.

1) Blood elves got the Reliquary, which is the Horde's version of one of the biggest things that the Alliance had going on- The Explorer's League. While I agree that your blood elf leadership is AWOL, just like the Alliance's is, the blood elves haven't been lacking for lore. WotLK had a lot of Blood Elf story in it (Quel'dalara sp? as an example). Compared with what the draenei had gotten since BC, there are a lot of players that would love to trade places with the blood elves.

2) The goblins after level 10 just peter out? Did you not play in Azshara which was a goblin-only zone and continued the goblin story? How about Ashenvale/STM/STV/TH/Tanaris/Badlands which featured Bilgewater goblins extensively? How about that TH intro in which the goblins play an integral role?

Sorry, but compared to the worgen, who's story does disappear right after level 13 and basically get's overwritten by the night elves, the goblins make it out very good. They are featured in damn near every single 80+ zone while the worgen are limited to just 2 worgen showing up and a couple we aren't even sure are.

3) Baine? Play through the tauren starting zone and you'll see what he is thinking about Garrosh. Also, read the Shattering as well.

The Horde storyline is about the orcs, because the orcs run the Horde. They created, they are in the leadership position and the other races serve at Garrosh's beck and call.

Transit: The solution is to get one child to cut the cake and the other to select which piece he gets. That's the fairest possible way to deal with the cake dilemma.

Though you might want to remove the knife from the first's hand before the second picks.

@KLRMNKY

I have played every zone in the game, for both factions, and I stand by what I wrote. The goblins are used more frequently as npcs than the worgen, but their storyline is undeveloped after the starting zone. Azshara, for example, is hardly a "goblin-only" zone. It is a catch-all zone that goes in many different directions, and is meant to be accessible to every Horde race. The culminating storyline, as much as the zone can be said to have one, has to do with the Aspect of Magic. At 85, you still have no idea what happened to Gallywix or any of the other questions about the goblins that are left dangling.

The only race less developed than the Belfs since BC are the Dranei. I know, I play a lot of both. The fact that you had to cite the Quel'Delar chain, which is only accessible from a rare drop in instances that are barely run any more, is an example. The reliquary? Please. Hey, at least Velen gets off his butt once in Cataclysm, even if it is just to make a house call in the Swamp of Sorrows.

Baine? Yes, play through any of the race's starting zones, and you would find out as much about them, or more (well, except Elwynn Forest. I'll give you that). And as for reading outside material...far more of the "canonical" material has to do with the Alliance than with the Horde.

And this is just the sort of tit for tat that this argument always comes down to. Sigh. I suck.

If your argument is "please don't, because people will be stupid about it," we might as well just close down this entire site.

(and the official forums, and MMO-Champ, and...)

I agree as well, but the momentum on this issue is beyond reprieve now. People complain about Malfurion being neutral while Thrall somehow is considered Horde by the same people. I've been loving WC lore since WC3, and I appreciate the defeats in the story even more than the victories, they make me engaged emotionally and give me passion for why I am questing, which is why the dwarves and night elves are always my favorites. But I've just about had it with the WOW community, it's devolved into nothing more than memes and absolutist thinking more and more with every expansion.

The criticism that is constructive, like faction leaders needing to be fleshed out more, get's drowned out in the faction favoritism bias.

It boils down to 'People are having a really good time playing internet Martyr over the issue and neither facts nor reason are going to get in the way of this'

This will probably be the last time I post anything on Wow Insider for a long time. Not because of the replies to my comment or the voting down of my comment. In fact, I was not going to respond anymore to this thread but I just saw what Wow Insider "tweeted" about this post.

"Have you checked out our latest take on that whole "Horde favoritism" thing yet? You should."

Really? Was this article or series about Horde favoritism? Or was this series supposed to be ideas to flesh out alliance leaders.

With this tweet and other unbalanced articles like http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/11/30/know-your-lore-the-war-begins/

I am beginning to question the sincerity of this post and of Wow insider in general.

Did you write this because you guys actually feel this way or are you just trying to make the commenters fight because you guys feel it will make more "hits" on your site?

I am hoping its the first, but I am beginning to think it's the second.

If so, this is seriously unprofessional and quite frankly not a site I want to waste anytime with. Other sites report what is going on with Warcraft without going out of their way to inflame their readers. I used to tell the players I raid with to refer to here about any news but not anymore. I will keeping my eye on Wow insider but unless I start seeing some better professionalism on this site I think I will be going elsewhere for my Warcraft news.

To be fair, before this ker-fuffle, we had articles on why Sylvannas should die, why the Alliance should get to burn down Ogrimmar and how unfair it was that the Alliance wasn't allowed to burn down Undercity.

Sigh. I forgot about those.

I really loved this site. What happened?

What happened? You started ignoring the "opinion" tags up top that say when an article isn't news, that's what happened.

Seriously, what happened?!?

You blew this fun and interesting and debatable topic way WAY out of proportion.

Bye now.