Do Blizzard really have a Horde bias or is it just player's imagination and assumptio

[baskev]

So I've been Alliance all my time on WoW and even that kinda just happened by chance. It was cause I couldn't afford the WoW Battlechest back in the day and you had to have TBC to play as the Blood Elves. So I had to settle for the Night Elves cause I really wanted to play as an Elf. However, I've only really seen the game from The Alliance point of view. That was until the allied races and I created a Horde Demon Hunter to level up and unlock the allied races.

Now a lot of folks often spoke about them preferring the Horde story lines but BFA was just so much better on the Alliance. Drustvar was an amazing questing experience. I loved the zone and Boralus was a beautiful city compared to the Pyramid thing the Horde got. I did some of the old zones like Dragonblight on the Horde and The Alliance was just so much better. The Wrathgate story line for example on the Alliance is definitely a lot better than the Horde side.

Am just wondering what parts or story lines or quests were better on the Horde compared to the Alliance? And does Blizzard really have a Horde bias?

Bias, nope.

But do they forget about the alliance sometimes. Or focus more on the horde....yes.

Main problems people in this thread have are: story, allied races, racials, zones, focus, hero's etc.


People say: But horde towns are attacked more. Yes , but you always win it back. We just got 1 zone destroyed, 1 zone turned into a camp for kill night elves and 1 city turned into ash. And alliance city's are attacked to. But less yes. So less focus on them.

Horde leaders: Yes they are replaced fast, but they have big epic stories around them. most alliance hero's have not. Our last leader had some stories but died. His son is pretty much there to help along a horde hero's story. Always on the sideline.

Allied races: while horde allied races have their problems. They are what they wanted ( z trolls, other orcs etc). Alliance did not get what we wanted ( wildhammer, high elves, highborne, vry kul). Hell void elves and lightfored and mecha gnomes are not even races. There are void creaturs, the leader of the lightforged is a human and mecha gnomes are just normal gnomes with mad max stuff. SO you could not even count them as "races" .

Racials: Yes pvp racials where stronger in the start for the alliance. But for years horde racials have been supreme.

Zones/city: yes here the alliance wins ( for once).


But lets look at expansions why we think its more horde focussed:

tbc was good for both races.
Wotlk: alliance
Cata: we helped green jezus out the whole time.
MoP: started out as equal. But quickly became a horde civil war stuff and raid.
WoD: again, the start was equal. But they cut the alliance focussed raids. Story stop real fast. All it was horde , horde....and horde.
Legion: high mountain and val shara cancel eachother out. But suramar was a horde focussed zone, and patch all about a new allied race. Yes we got argus. with the very few quests there.
Bfa: Zone content Alliance wins, story overall again horde wins. It was about Saurfang, sillybowlady etc etc. Hell even the big city raid the alliance could be replaced with any other faction and it would not change the story that much.

So in my eyes/opinion. Its more horde focussed.

Think racials, allied races and story focus are the most to blame.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Grass is always greener on de other side.

This is the only true awsner.

It sure is, just ask Rastakhan!

[starstationprofm]

How tf can anyone think Blizzard has a Horde bias when they've had 2 civil wars in 2 faction war expansions?

[Littleraven]

I think the old school Blizzard absolutely had a Horde bias. Most of those people are gone now though so I don't think either faction is really the favored one anymore outside of some very specific examples like Danuser (the lead narrative guy) being Sylvanas fanboy number 1 and things like that.

I remember back during the like Vanilla through Wrath days though having basically every "face" of the company being a Horde fanboy and you would even see it ad Blizzcon when the Horde far outweighed the Alliance in terms of fans. Sure fan reaction doesn't really fall on Blizzard's shoulders but the Alliance was a bit of a joke up until Varian showed back up I think.

All that said I didn't really follow forums and stuff back in my early days of WoW so all of this could very much just be my experience and what little I did see.

[Fibh]

Short answer: Yes.

Gameplay wise Horde had better PvE racials for such a long time that a signficant portion of the playerbase went horde for them. That resulted in such a snowball effect that even now the racials are balanced, more and more guilds are going horde simply because recruiting is so much easier. So yes, because of Blizzard's horde bias mythic raiding is way harder as alliance than it is as horde.

Lore wise there is an even more clear bias towards the horde altough most people misinterpret that as "The horde has a better story". The horde doesn't really get a better story, Blizz writers are bad enough that the story is bad no matter what side you play. But the horde undeniably gets more attention, for better or for worse.
In any "big bad" story the characters we follow are neutral. Yeah, more often they used to be alliance, but when we follow them they are as neutral as a character can be. For who that's worse is hard to say. Horde has to quest with an ally character and alliance has to see 1 of their characters go totally neutral. The real horde bias is in any Ally vs Horde story. Every single 1 of those stories is in essence a horde story. The alliance just happens to be in there.

Look at the whole Garrosh storyline. That was start to finish a horde story. A story about changes in horde leadership, leading to a fracture in the horde, leading to extremism and infighting, to a fullscale rebellion by OG horde leaders. There is a reason that while the horde had an epic questline to reconquer senjin village and razorhill, the alliance had a robocat questline to spy on what the horde was doing. Because through that entire 2 expansion long storyarc the alliance were sidecharacters at best.
Same was true in the BFA ally vs horde story. That was a horde story. The story of a moral split in the horde represented by Saurfang and Sylvanas. Saurfang was the protagonist of the story, which is why we got half a million cinematics about him. Sylvanas was the antagonist of the story. The night elves were just sidecharacters in the story of their own genocide, to be used as plotdevices to trigger saurfangs character development.

So you can argue who's story is better. Depends on what you like, evil genocidal hypocrits or passive lawfully stupid pussies. But whether you think the horde's story is better or worse, you can't deny that it is the horde's story first and foremost, while the alliance just shows up cause they have to for gameplay reasons.

[splatomat]

The developers clearly favor the Horde in terms of who they write for. The Alliance seems to have become a complete afterthought in terms of most storytelling. How often was the story driven by Thrall, with Alliance basically just responding to his issues? How often was the story driven by Garrosh, with Alliance basically just responding to his issues? How often was the story driven by Sylvanas, with Alliance basically just responding to his issues? I mean, the last expansion literally had a raid encounter where Alliance players don't even get to play as their own characters; they have to experience it as Horde characters. Drustvar might have been a nice leveling experience, but Stormsong Valley wasn't. It was a chaotic, nonsensical mash that clearly was left for last (as they basically admitted to later).

Alliance players had entire dungeons rescuing or helping Thrall, and never complained. Meanwhile, Horde players have to help Jaina one time in Torghast or deal with Tyrande's very well-earned rage towards their genocide during the NF campaign, and they act like they're being flayed alive. The amount of pissing and moaning and bitching is unreal.

Horde players complain that their characters are all basically participants in war crimes, and that's true, they are. They complain that their warchiefs are constantly killed off, and that's true, they are, but its a consequence to becoming genocidal war criminals.

The problem as I see it is that the developers use the Horde as their protagonist and the Alliance just as a constraint/authority figure to "rail against". They want the Horde to be scrappy underdogs, but somehow also massively powerful. To use a Star Wars analogy, they want to give the Horde all of the good qualities of the Rebel Alliance AND simultaneously somehow all the good qualities of the Empire. They are this ragtag group of disparates who cling together for survival and also now somehow also control half the planet. Meanwhile, they kind of do the reverse to the Alliance: portraying them as huge and powerful, but it's just a paper tiger - a lumbering bureaucracy whose players get told it's winning every battle even though those same players are constantly exposed only to fighting retreats, failures, and losses.

[SugarPunch]

MDI were alliance for the NE skip ability, and MDI as nothing to do with how M+ how run in the game so who care.

So giving an example on how alliance racials are better than horde is not a sound argument because it goes against the mimimi bias?

[AngerFork]

There's absolutely a Horde bias at Blizz, though I doubt it's intentional. You can see evidence of it throughout the Warcraft universe, from in Cataclysm where the Goblins of the Horde are far better represented in game than the Worgen, to several expansions where the Horde consistently had the better racials, to Blizzcon where the devs joked about the Alliance battle cry being "we'll keep trying!"

That's to say nothing of all the Horde bias we saw in BfA, such as the mount situation (where the Horde got amazing rep mounts & the Alliance kept getting Horses) and the story (All about Sylvanas, Saurfang, & the Horde while the Alliance were at best background characters). The Horde got an entire secondary quest chain/event about being loyal to Sylvanas or the Horde, while the Alliance got a couple quests rescuing Jaina that were largely done by the end of the first patch. The Horde Allied Races all appeared to be far more interesting and varied compared to their Alliance counterparts. I mean, just look at the difference between Mechagnomes (which can't transmog a lot of armor slots) and the Vulpera.

Even in Shadowlands, I still see a bunch of it in place. In a story where Bolvar was the first one through the gate & Anduin appears to now be possessed by the Jailer, the story still seems to be mostly around Sylvanas while the others feel like background characters. Tyrande has gotten some attention, but even she feels a bit more in the background of everything. I also can't help but look at the current raiding situation of tons of players/guilds transferring to the Horde side for recruiting/raiding & Blizz's seeming lack of motivation to fix the issue as anything but more Horde bias. Had the issue been going the other way and Ion's guild was having recruiting issues as their players left, I'm not so sure we wouldn't already be seeing the start of a fix in 9.1.

[FelPlague]

So I've been Alliance all my time on WoW and even that kinda just happened by chance. It was cause I couldn't afford the WoW Battlechest back in the day and you had to have TBC to play as the Blood Elves. So I had to settle for the Night Elves cause I really wanted to play as an Elf. However, I've only really seen the game from The Alliance point of view. That was until the allied races and I created a Horde Demon Hunter to level up and unlock the allied races.

Now a lot of folks often spoke about them preferring the Horde story lines but BFA was just so much better on the Alliance. Drustvar was an amazing questing experience. I loved the zone and Boralus was a beautiful city compared to the Pyramid thing the Horde got. I did some of the old zones like Dragonblight on the Horde and The Alliance was just so much better. The Wrathgate story line for example on the Alliance is definitely a lot better than the Horde side.

Am just wondering what parts or story lines or quests were better on the Horde compared to the Alliance? And does Blizzard really have a Horde bias?

Blizzard does not have a bias.
Both sides get their time to shine, and people usually forget about one side having shined so the new one shining must be favored!

"Alliance bias!"
"The entire last expansion was horde though..."
"YEAH BUT THIS ONE ALLIANCE!!!"

there is a horde bias when it comes to players simply because for a fair few years horde racials were better, blizzard fixed that but the damage was done, the snowball started, and well now you can see it, the horde is far ahead of alliance in terms of progression.
other then right out making alliance stronger, or removing faction boundries, there is no way for them to undo "horde bias" as right now both factions are balanced, but most people high end are horde cause their friends are orde and their friends are horde and their guild is horde cause the guild that they compete with is horde and their horde cause the world first people are orde and maybe they wanna join them someday and if they want to they need to be horde so!

[Kithelle]

The first part is objectively and demonstrably false, the second is completely subjective. Lol.

The first one is true, and which is why every major raid guild is Horde (seriously why do some Hordies have to lie about this? Anyone with a brain knows raiding is dominated by Horde because many moved their for the superior racials)

Second one is true because all Alliance gets is horse this or horse that...oh look ANOTHER horse. Then it's Wyvern after Wyvern...tired of Wyverns? You can have Hippogryh after Hypogryph

[cparle87]

I just said main city. I didn't even mention the others. As you'd have to include Thunder Bluff when it was seized by Magatha

I figured from the OP that we were discussing purely HvA incidents. Magatha's thing would fall under an internal issue, like if the Defias Brotherhood had actually managed to attack Stormwind with that juggernaut of theirs.

[NordWitcher]

I figured from the OP that we were discussing purely HvA incidents. Magatha's thing would fall under an internal issue, like if the Defias Brotherhood had actually managed to attack Stormwind with that juggernaut of theirs.

The thing is that I’ve never quite understood why Blizzard left so many Alliance stories with open plots. I remember when I first started WoW, the Defias Brotherhood was a great storyline. It’s been years since I’ve played through the quests but they never really followed up on those story lines.

I think the Old World greatly needs a rework. Though I doubt they would do it now with the introduction of hormone time.

[Alanar]

It sure is, just ask Rastakhan!

Ok that is true good point.

[cparle87]

The thing is that I’ve never quite understood why Blizzard left so many Alliance stories with open plots. I remember when I first started WoW, the Defias Brotherhood was a great storyline. It’s been years since I’ve played through the quests but they never really followed up on those story lines.

I think the Old World greatly needs a rework. Though I doubt they would do it now with the introduction of hormone time.

Well. We wiped them out in Elwynn and Westfall, then infiltrated their headquarters in Deadmines and killed their leader. Going to Redridge we found a few more operations, put an end to those, then finished it off by killing their last leaders who were causing a riot in the Stockades. That seems pretty open and closed to me.

Then the Cata revamp has VanCleef Jr. picking up the pieces, gathering the leaders who went to ground and building up a new rank and file, along with civil disobedience in Westfall and burning down Sentinel Hill. We stop her, killing all the named officers and forcing her to fake her own death where she stays hidden until she's forced to work with the rogue order hall in Legion.

[CaptainV]

How tf can anyone think Blizzard has a Horde bias when they've had 2 civil wars in 2 faction war expansions?

Its kinda the point, the fact the Horde even gets that kinda attention/development while the Alliance just continues to be happy chappy mega family with no tension/growth is the exact reason theres a problem.

The Alliance gets 0 development time, most of the time its the side character, even in the most Alliance focused expansions like WOTLK and Legion, where a majority of the chars were Alliance, you end up dealing more with Neutral chars than Alliance ones.

There hasnt really "been" an Alliance-centric expansion like, ever.

[Kalisandra]

At the end of the day it's mostly balanced I think - at lest if we look at the overall picture - but depending on your preferences and when you formed your opinion I could see it not being the case for you.

Twilight Highlands in Cataclysm. The Horde questline was fully developed with a big intro cutscene, etc. The Alliance version was trimmed back from the Beta version because they couldn't get the bugs worked out, and the high point of it was a bloody wedding! Now, the wedding was kinda fun, but the whole thing was an aimless mess overall. They spent much more time of the Horde side, ran out of time for the Alliance side, and it really showed. Now that's bias.

Intentional or not the presentation of Alliance stories vs Horde in Cata was heavily Horde biased, in that the post-questline state of the world tended to show the post-quest world if the Horde had won in that line, but if the Alliance had the phasing tended to revert to the pre-quest state. Thus you'd think the Horde won every battle (and of course they got to take and keep a lot of territory).

Oh, and the zeppelins are so much more convenient than the Alliance ships! Not that this really matters these days, but we can't let that get in the way of a good gripe, right?

Oh, and then there's the matter of mounts in BfA. Horde got interesting mounts, Alliance got... horses. Lots and lots of horses.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, there is bias, but it's mostly player perceived bias based on specific comparisons. In a game this size, it's inevitable that some of the items divided between the factions are unevenly preferred. BfA had a lot of complaints about mounts, with Horde getting two "raise your mount" options with daily quests, while the Alliance had a long farm grind. Horde got a portal to Mechagon while Alliance had to take longer flight paths. Alliance had a more compact capitol while Horde had to run further to get to their mission table from their bank area. Horde "lost" Rastakhan (technically not Horde at the time, but he was built up as their big ally) while Alliance only lost characters like Telaamon. Alliance tend to be less angry about their racial leaders than Horde (I don't see any hate threads for Alliance comparable to Horde hate threads about Baine). Ultimately, I think that Horde had the better story up until Cata, but the transition/early Cata events evened it out a lot more.

There was some pretty serious Varian hate during Wrath. Declaring war over Wrathgate without any evidence it was more than a rogue Forsaken faction, or at most just the Forsaken. Note that there was no 'high king' of the Alliance at that time, so he had no right to start a war without consulting the other leaders. Of course, after the raid on Undercity the Alliance pretty much forgot about it and went back to trying to take down the Lich King while the Horde cheerfully killed both Lich King and Alliance forces.

In the pre-Cata days, when such things mattered, the Horde had nothing like the Wetlands corpse run. Whether something so 'character building' shows Horde or Alliance bias I leave to the reader.

[Mehrunes]

Let's see. One of the biggest pieces of "evidence" "supporting" "MUH HORDE BIAS" is Alliance losing zones in Cataclysm. Which was caused by the fact that between Vanilla and WotLK Alliance simply had more zones, giving them a much smoother leveling experience. Which Blizzard wanted to rectify in Cata. I.e. one of the main arguments in favor of MUH HORDE BIAS is Blizzard rectifying a previous case of actual Alliance bias (as in, one of the few cases where any bias could be objectively quantified in some manner). Also, there's patch 7.2. I.e. the only patch in the game's history that added faction-specific content BUT only to one faction. That faction being the Alliance. Because MUH HORDE BIAS, apparently.

And for all the Alliance whining about racials they somehow keep silent how in the same period where Horde racials were slightly stronger in PvE (which by the way was also in response to Alliance racials being the better option in Vanilla), the Alliance racials were so broken in PvP that there were entire expansions where humans alone outnumbered all other races combined in top arena teams.

Or take the smaller things Alliance players are harping on, because they still always leave out situations where they got the upper hand, even in similar areas. Park district? Sure, it was a ruin for long, but on the other hand in WotLK Stormwind magically removed a mountain range and got a giant harbor while Horde got copy-paste zeppelin towers. Twilight Highlands intro? It's almost as if Cataclysm was a rushed mess, where primarily Horde Arathi was largely not updated aside from one new quest hub that's just one tent with two NPCs and where Alterac wasn't even updated, it was flat out made completely devoid of content.

[Kalisandra]

I doubt blizzard really favors one faction over the other. The difference is prob from multiple people/teams being responsible for the quests. I also believe its a taste thing to be honest. I liked the alliance story way more then the horde story during bfa for example while im sure many people will not agree with me on that.

I found the Alliance questlines a lot more replayable on alts. The Horde questline was more cohesive and told a more complete story, but having done it once I had no interest in doing it again. The Alliance one, with each zone being more self-contained, worked better for alts where I didn't want to have to do the whole story yet again. Also Drustvar was, for me, the best zone in BfA.

[Gaidax]

Yeah, can confirm - Blizzard really have a Horde bias, just see all the threads. They also have Alliance bias, just see all the threads.

WTF Blizz, stop bias now!

[Kalisandra]

How tf can anyone think Blizzard has a Horde bias when they've had 2 civil wars in 2 faction war expansions?

That puts the spotlight on the Horde, and gives them screen time. That makes them and their actions the main focus, and thus there's Horde bias. The important characters in a book, a movie, or a show are not the ones who have 'nice' endings, but the ones that get the high word count, screen time, etc.

Also, the Horde leaders' and heroes' actions drive the plot far more than Alliance ones. So again, Horde bias.