Do alliance players really think the theme of wow is good alliance vs evil horde?

[Trassk]

Now obviously before making the observation, its worth pointing out this isn't a generalisation to all alliance guys and girls, because I've known plenty who favor alliance over horde, but still understand the horde story and even read about it and have favorite horde characters. I myself am horde but there are those alliance characters I like also.

Despite that, there seems to be a group of alliance players (and to another extent even horde players) who honestly believe the sum up of wow is about the alliance, who to them are the archetypal good guys, fighting the horde, who to them are the archetypal bad guys.

I can understand faction pride, god knows I've preached it enough on forums, but having faction pride, and actually acknowledging the story on both sides and whats happening is something else. Just because the alliance has its share of fascist zealots doesn't mean all the alliance is like that, and I appreciate knowing who is and who isn't. Its the same what we know in real life, if someone is a racist or bigot or just a general douche, or if someones open minded and someone with a good attitude.

So, to the less 'aware' people, who seem to care enough about the lore to acknowledge there own faction with a sense of pride, but not aware enough to understand how both sides has its equal share of good guys and bad guys, why is this so? I mean sure, you could argue, like how in real life, there are people who live in there own little bubbles and everyone outside that bubble is trying to hurt them, or anyone against there religious views are evil (according to what a dusty on book tells them), but for a fictional game like this, where we have the option of playing both sides, and seeing the story from both angles, why is there still this one sided mentality?

[toomes211]

I don't. I've played alliance since the game came out, the theme seems to me more that the alliance is just that, an alliance of friends, and the horde is more of a brotherhood banded together for survival.

I'm not really sure where this good vs bad came from, except perhaps garrosh? He's been a enormous jerk since they brought him into the limelight in WoTLK.

[Ladey Gags]

Yes, there are many Alliance players who believe the Alliance is the inherently good white knight faction. Just like there are many Horde players who think the Horde is the angsty, evil, bad guy faction.

It goes both ways, and both ways are wrong. People who actually pay attention to the lore know that both sides have had their evil and heroic moments.

[Granyala]

Id did think that.... until Garithos (asshole) and that other Admiral, whose name i forgot, that needlessly attacked the Orcs in Kalimdor back in WC III.

When I read "Lord of the Clans" I started to respect Thrall. Reading his reaction to Tarethas death really hurt.

[Daetur]

Because at face value, the Horde is presented as more brutal, warlike, and "primitive." While they are not any of those things, that is the impression that the Horde races give to the uninformed, and we've been conditioned to think of those things as "bad."

Yes, there are many Alliance players who believe the Alliance is the inherently good white knight faction. Just like there are many Horde players who think the Horde is the angsty, evil, bad guy faction.

It goes both ways, and both ways are wrong. People who actually pay attention to the lore know that both sides have had their evil and heroic moments.

I was going to comment on this as well. There are just as many Horde players who play on Horde side because they think it's the evil faction because that's more "badass" and "cool."

[Trassk]

I don't. I've played alliance since the game came out, the theme seems to me more that the alliance is just that, an alliance of friends, and the horde is more of a brotherhood banded together for survival.

I'm not really sure where this good vs bad came from, except perhaps garrosh? He's been a enormous jerk since they brought him into the limelight in WoTLK.

well, remembering much from vanilla and tbc, people had this opinion of it even back then, before garrosh came to power. Even with Thrall as warchief and cairne and the horde fighting against the same evil the alliance were, it was still believed by some that the horde were the bad guys and the alliance the goods guys.
Back then I could kind of understand why new players would have this, since wow was new and not many people knew about the backstory of warcraft then.
But in its current time, you'd think more understanding of the story would have reached people. Yeah, there are always going to be those who religiously try and yell out how the horde is evil (really, players do this, not just npcs), but for those others, you'd think it would hit home by now its not black vs white in this story.

[Aquamonkey]

Alliance:
Humans, Night Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Draenei, and the savage Worgen make up the illustrious Alliance. Proud and noble, courageous and wise, these races work together to preserve order in Azeroth. The Alliance is driven by honor and tradition. Its rulers are champions of justice, hope, knowledge, and faith.

In a time when chaos and uncertainty reign, the Alliance remains steadfast in its determination to bring light to the darkest corners of the world.
--Darkmoon Faire Cataclysm Promotion: Fortune card

The noble races of the Alliance are bound together by proud traditions of nobility, honor, faith, justice, and sacrifice. The many different Alliance people all contribute their technical, arcane, and spiritual wisdom toward the goal of a peaceful and just world. Take up their banner to represent the high ideals of the Alliance throughout Azeroth and beyond. For the Allliance!
--Pandaren choosing screen

Horde:
The Horde is made up of orcs, forsaken, tauren, trolls, blood elves, and most recently, goblins. Misunderstood and cast aside, these diverse and powerful races strive to overcome their differences and unite as one in order to win freedom for their people and prosper in a land that has come to hate them.

In the Horde, action and strength are valued above diplomacy, and its leaders earn respect by the blade, wasting no time with politics. The brutality of the Horde's champions is focused, giving a voice to those who fight for survival.
--Darkmoon Faire Cataclysm Promotion: Fortune card

The proud nations of the Horde are loosely joined in an alliance of convenience against a hostile world that would see them destroyed. Focused, ferocious, and sometimes monstrous, the Horde values strength and honore, but struggles to keep aggression in check. Join the horde and fight to build a world where their people can live free. For the Horde!
--Pandaren choosing screen

[Pugbot]

Now obviously before making the observation, its worth pointing out this isn't a generalisation to all alliance guys and girls, because I've known plenty who favor alliance over horde, but still understand the horde story and even read about it and have favorite horde characters. I myself am horde but there are those alliance characters I like also.

Despite that, there seems to be a group of alliance players (and to another extent even horde players) who honestly believe the sum up of wow is about the alliance, who to them are the archetypal good guys, fighting the horde, who to them are the archetypal bad guys.

I can understand faction pride, god knows I've preached it enough on forums, but having faction pride, and actually acknowledging the story on both sides and whats happening is something else. Just because the alliance has its share of fascist zealots doesn't mean all the alliance is like that, and I appreciate knowing who is and who isn't. Its the same what we know in real life, if someone is a racist or bigot or just a general douche, or if someones open minded and someone with a good attitude.

So, to the less 'aware' people, who seem to care enough about the lore to acknowledge there own faction with a sense of pride, but not aware enough to understand how both sides has its equal share of good guys and bad guys, why is this so? I mean sure, you could argue, like how in real life, there are people who live in there own little bubbles and everyone outside that bubble is trying to hurt them, or anyone against there religious views are evil (according to what a dusty on book tells them), but for a fictional game like this, where we have the option of playing both sides, and seeing the story from both angles, why is there still this one sided mentality?

Eh, I am no trolling but it doesn't really matter anymore. The factions might as well share the same cities and group together. I honestly see the possibility of such in the future.
I am not sure when it was changed, but use to you couldn't faction change, you couldn't have an alliance and horde character on the same PvP server, but I think you could always on PvE. And obviously alliance had paladins and horde had shamans. Taking away all of this has taken away the identity of the factions.

There is no faction identity except in the books and maybe the quest info, but we don't have to read that anymore either.

I would prefer to play WoW where everyone was able to attack each other out in the world.

[Trassk]

Yes, there are many Alliance players who believe the Alliance is the inherently good white knight faction. Just like there are many Horde players who think the Horde is the angsty, evil, bad guy faction.

It goes both ways, and both ways are wrong. People who actually pay attention to the lore know that both sides have had their evil and heroic moments.

I know right? If anything I think the reason why it becomes more intresting knowing the hordes story, is because its always had such an obvious mixed bag, well the alliances hasn't been as obvious. With the horde, you had good guys like Thrall, durotan, draka, saurfang, eitrigg, cairne, vol'jin and the like, but you also had ones like gul'dan, blackhand, magatha, in a way sylvanas and the like, so the horde has more obvious bad guys and good guys.
The alliance has its Jaina, Varian, Anduin, Velen, lothar, uther, tirion, but it also had Arthas, kel'thuzad, Garithos, Blackmoore and such. Yet, people seem to want to draw on the horde being bad because of the black sheep in its faction, yet don't want to draw on the alliances own.

[Deleted]

Up until Cataclysm, no.

[CaptainV]

I don't really think the Alliance is exactly evil the biggest issue really is that the writing team don't really take enough of an effort to show the dark side.

Its becoming black and white when it doesn't need to be which is worrying, lately the trend for cata and mists is horde=eviler than alliance.

Is the alliance "Good" no way, but its not being given that grey shade enough save chars like admiral rogers showing us those minor moments of questionable chars and evil chars within the blue and gold.

Its really the fact that the story hasn't given us "enough" long term vision to say "okay" the alliance is no saint but neither is the horde, both are equally good and bad.

So far, it seems Varian is the shining paragon of wisdom while Garrosh and his True Horde draw ever more darkening things upon the Horde itself in general, not to mention Sylvanas crazed plague spewing mania.

What the alliance really needs is for the next expansion to twist it on a 180, the next expansion should focus on a theme of revenge for the alliance and the horde going on the defense for once. Then we can see the balance between the two factions come out when the war criminals of the alliance start getting over aggressive and attacking the hordies that didn't do anything to deserve it. A camp in Taurajo doesn't really signify a major loss for the Horde that suggests the alliance is remotely evil.

You want something notable? Have the alliance trash the entirety of Bilgewater to its foundation by carpet bombing, have them storm the Tauren and troll camps in stone talon and destroy them in violent bursts of flame.

Have the Horde in the northern Lordaeron suffer terrible counter attacks from napalm and the undead that were risen but not involved in conflict suffer for it.

Show the Alliance that if it is capable of evil, then it can do something Evil, to make it so.

You want the Alliance to look bad? Make it look bad. Give the alliance some memorable villains, rogers is a good example, and more chars like herself and potentially the cunning Moira Bronzebeard could escalate into power and become prominent dangers to all of Azeroth.

Its about showing, not just telling, and showing the damage tells more than telling people that the Alliance has done X and Y too.

Don't get me wrong, id love to see the Alliance be evil for once, I really want it to happen in fact, it would give the Horde a chance to finally show its lighter colors while showing that the Alliance isn't entirely flawless.

[iamthedevil]

I never thought anyone thought that. Maybe the 12 and under crowd.

[Nerraw]

I didn't until Garrosh dropped his little nuke on Theramore. Once he's gone though, it'll be the same old again.

[Ivion]

The Alliance vs Horde isn't Good vs Evil.

It isn't even Grey vs Grey.

It's Ideals vs Survival

The Alliance is founded on ideals, everything from Wrathion to the Darkmoon Faire to the Pandaren choosing screen builds this. Tides of War, Anduin asks Varian if they aregoing to war and Varian says yes, "But not like them."

The Horde doesn't really care about ideals, every race except for the Tauren and Blood Elves don't seem to have a use for the very concept. Survival is their prime directive and their every action reflects that.

[Talen]

So, to the less 'aware' people, who seem to care enough about the lore to acknowledge there own faction with a sense of pride, but not aware enough to understand how both sides has its equal share of good guys and bad guys, why is this so? I mean sure, you could argue, like how in real life, there are people who live in there own little bubbles and everyone outside that bubble is trying to hurt them, or anyone against there religious views are evil (according to what a dusty on book tells them), but for a fictional game like this, where we have the option of playing both sides, and seeing the story from both angles, why is there still this one sided mentality?

Because while both factions do indeed have their own good guys and bad guys....the balance isn't 50:50 and it isn't equal across both factions. Even Blizzard has stated the Horde are the bad guys.

The Horde are usually the aggressors.
The Horde are involved with more atrocities
The Horde questlines are more morally dubious

Put simply - the Orcs in WoW are still too much like the Orcs of WC1-3, and the Forsaken are downright black, never mind grey, inn their outlook and presentation.
Sure, both sides have good and both sides have bad...but the worst of the Alliance is pretty near the best of the Horde.

That is also a failure of storytelling. The Alliance could have done with a good bit more of having its shine scuffed up and tarnished. But at least the Horde has a chance to regain some of its former shine now that Garrosh and his lot are being dealt with - Forsaken excepted.

The mistake, such as it is, is not with others. It is with you and others who somehow see "both sides has its equal share of good guys and bad guys". Sure, the Hodre had Thrall et al...but they don't represent the standard. They represent the exception.

The Alliance has not launched a war of genocide and aggression. The Horde has...three of them.
The Alliance does not count the Forsaken amongst its members.
The Alliance does not include a race of cannibals and death worshippers

Sure, the Alliance has bad elements. But those bad elements are bad despite the Alliance. And the Alliance can and does work against them. And in them Horde...in the Horde, they become factions leaders and source of pride and inspiration.

EJL

[valtharim]

Eh, some do and some don't, I think. Whenever I show any of my non WoW-Playing friends the cinematics for WoW, they almost automatically assume the Allies are the good guys and the Horde are the bad ones... It's just sort of a stereotype that goes along with Orcs and Undead-type creatures.

[Zaelkath]

I have an Alliance Warlock and a Horde warlock. Both of them I consider to be not really evil, but more chaotic good.

From both sides I have seen examples of both good and evil.

[Deleted]

as an Alliance Player,
No. They are just different ideology's. there is evil in the game without a doubt, look at the scourge, or the old gods, or the Sha. However the Horde are not evil. Just the unruly next door neighbors who like to party all night and throw junk in your back yard when they think your not looking

[foxHeart]

The orcs are bloodthirsty, honorless dogs who live for nothing but violence.
The tauren actually seem halfway decent in some respects, outside allying with some super scummy races.
The forsaken are all about corrupting and polluting everything around them, no matter the cost.
The trolls are just savages.
The blood elves are mana parasites and are comparable to the forsaken in plenty of ways in terms of shady tactics they imploy.
The goblins are seedy, douchebag mercenaries who are all about themselves and their money. Like the blood elves and forsaken, they're in an alliance of convenience. Or, more honestly, just a part of the Horde because the Horde needed more races and, hey, they had to get them from somewhere!

There are of course Alliance villains and people in the Alliance who have done some shady things, but for the most part they are not the aggressors - the Horde is. But people are so obsessed with being the underdog and loving it that they actually fool themselves into thinking the Horde has any honor whatsoever. Cause hey, the Horde is just misunderstood and is really the victim here, amirite.

[The One Percent]

I like how people think this is real.