What are the best ways to make the Alliance more popular and interesting?

[Akibaboy]

Just do politics. Different factions vying for different beliefs, and using economics and connections to change the landscape instead of just fighting like always. Create Alliance race conflicts outside the control of them that they can certainly denounce, but not outright stamp out because they'd be alienating entrenched powers. You don't need tales of corrupted leaders or shadowy puppet strings... we know that people can suck for entirely their own reasons. BfA was actually pretty great for displaying power struggles of people that just *wanted power* and weren't being mind-controlled into it for the most part. Or peoples that thought the changing tides of Jaina and the Alliance were displays of weakness and disrespected the sacrifices of old.

Unfortunately we lose a lot of that when expansions need to be made into "god 5 is going to blow up reality!" Warcraft RTS certainly had those themes floating in the background, but recall all the stories of Gilneas, Stromgarde, the politics of Lordaeron, etc. Guldan creating a shadow faction within the Horde for his own ends. Puppet leaders in several roles. That's all stuff that the Alliance lacks in large part, and makes them "boring"... but honestly if it wasn't for making the Horde villainous off and on, they'd be in the same boat shackled to the status quo.

[T-34]

As I understand it the factions are quite balanced if we take the total amount of players in account.
The "problem" is only to be seen amount the competent, competitive players at the top level of play = among a fraction of the player-base

And with the advent of cross-faction raiding, and possible also guilds, this non-problem will become even more non-existent.

For me the Aliance is boring, self-righteous, passive-aggressive, babbles on and on and on and on and weak.
For me the Horde is exciting, straight-forward, manly and to the point.

Nothing short of turning the Alliance in to Horde mark 2 will make the Alliance interesting for me.
A lot of people enjoy the Alliance how it is now, let them enjoy it in peace.

[Nerovar]

If anything, the reason that all those iconic subfactions were made neutral is because Blizzard was lazy and never bothered giving the Horde any equally important subfaction, aside from, idk... Earthen Ring during Cata? In the end, it was a lose-lose situation.

Sure, but what's more "damaging" to the feel of a faction - not having a lot of subfactions or having them but they're all open to your enemies which continue to invade your lands? You can walk through Ashenvale as a Horde player pillaging the Night Elves' ancestral homelands and then walk to the neighboring zone where Night Elves greet you happily as your quest givers.

I mean, ultimately this is mostly down to gameplay reasons but it's fucking terrible world building.

[Schwert]

As I understand it the factions are quite balanced if we take the total amount of players in account.
The "problem" is only to be seen amount the competent, competitive players at the top level of play = among a fraction of the player-base

And with the advent of cross-faction raiding, and possible also guilds, this non-problem will become even more non-existent.

For me the Aliance is boring, self-righteous, passive-aggressive, babbles on and on and on and on and weak.
For me the Horde is exciting, straight-forward, manly and to the point.

Nothing short of turning the Alliance in to Horde mark 2 will make the Alliance interesting for me.
A lot of people enjoy the Alliance how it is now, let them enjoy it in peace.

They're not balanced. It is quite easy to check server populations on multiple websites, and the amount of Horde heavy servers compared to Alliance heavy, equal servers practically don't exist anymore, is telling of an overall problem.

And the rest of this post serves to prove the issue;
They stopped writing the Alliance with any sort of interesting or unique concepts since around Cataclysm, and also shoved the few unique concepts they do have under the rug - or burned it.

Those of us who enjoy the Alliance "as it is now" actually don't; there's no narrative focus on our races that aren't humans, and the one major time it did happen, it was marketable genocide in a two faction game. And nobody likes to play the loser.

Blizzard just really needs to give the faction it's teeth back, something it lost when they killed off Varian, and let it's non-human races shine, and add unique race concepts to it that are actually popular by modern standards. The allied race situation was so horrifically lopsided with Zandalari and Vulpera vs Obese Humans and literally a gnome. (Dinosaurs and Extremely Popular Furry Race are way more popular.)

Night Elves need to go back to the vicious state they were in during WC3. Fix the male models so they don't look like slouching truckers.
The Worgen need to actually do something, and could also do with some model fixing so they actually appeal to their audience.
Dwarves are pretty much the most "manly" race the Alliance has and one of the most in general, and luckily they're taking some spotlight in Dragonflight.
Void Elves have 2 popular subraces and are an Eldritch race, something extremely popular right now, but they're not actually pushing them and just shoved them aside so Alliance players would shut up about High Elves.

Add something like Naga and Arrakoa and let them be as brutal as they're allowed to be, and actually write them into some sort of focus that isn't "oops the Night Elves lost something again" or "Tyrande's powers shut off after an omega flying fart" and people might get hyped about them again.
Feels like so many people who enjoy the Alliance aesthetics are playing other games because they're actually prominent.

[OwenBurton]

Sure, but what's more "damaging" to the feel of a faction - not having a lot of subfactions or having them but they're all open to your enemies which continue to invade your lands? You can walk through Ashenvale as a Horde player pillaging the Night Elves' ancestral homelands and then walk to the neighboring zone where Night Elves greet you happily as your quest givers.

I mean, ultimately this is mostly down to gameplay reasons but it's fucking terrible world building.

They should really try to significantly update some of the older zones, such as Ashenvale and Quel'Thalas....that would make returning players much more engaged. Most players probably don't even know whether most of Ashenvale is Alliance or Horde territory at this point, it's just very confusing.

[Mardux]

Figure out what makes the Horde more popular/interesting and then copy some of that.

For example it could be the rampant war crimes, genocide, bombings or exterminating your own allies.
Maybe it's due to the seemingly sanctioned botting, exploiting and rampant cheating that predominantly happens on that side.
It could also be the griefing, camp spawning and spitting during pvp encounters that makes them feel more cool.
Or we need more edge lord races compared the incredible vanilla flavored Alliance ones.

Well clearly those can't be it since Alliance already has those things going for it.

[Nerovar]

They should really try to significantly update some of the older zones, such as Ashenvale and Quel'Thalas....that would make returning players much more engaged. Most players probably don't even know whether most of Ashenvale is Alliance or Horde territory at this point, it's just very confusing.

I'm sure Blizzard doesn't know either.