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

[Kellorion]

Stop making the n. elves pussies.

Figure out the hierarchy. Anduin should have never been High King or the Supreme Allied Commander during Legion and BFA

Genn's arc needs more arc, he is only 'rawr sylvanas, grr forsaken'

[Combatbutler]

As the whole purpose of this thread is to brainstorm ideas as to how to improve the current lore, this would be the place to offer your own original ideas as to how that might be done for both the Alliance as a whole and for its marquee characters.

Quite simple, keep your established story in mind, when adding new things. It is the most simple thing that they could do. Otherwise fleshing out the races through quests, like rites of passage, exact dates of considered adulthood, apprenticeships, more rural stories, more fleshed out family dynasties, generational rivalries, political intrigue about pretty much anything, basic resources, money, knowledge, artifacts. But connecting it all.

Giving exact sizes to zones, its history, which could be explored through archaeology. Add hundreds of towns and villages etc. in the lore even if they are not in the game, Azeroth is ridiculously small

[Kehego]

Quite simple, keep your established story in mind, when adding new things. It is the most simple thing that they could do. Otherwise fleshing out the races through quests, like rites of passage, exact dates of considered adulthood, apprenticeships, more rural stories, more fleshed out family dynasties, generational rivalries, political intrigue about pretty much anything, basic resources, money, knowledge, artifacts. But connecting it all.

Giving exact sizes to zones, its history, which could be explored through archeology. Add hundreds of towns and villages etc. in the lore even if they are not in the game, Azeroth is ridiculously small

i could get behind this

there's more to the alliance than subservience to stormwind

[Aucald]

So exactly what I expected. It's okay by you to call Alliance players Nazis, and calling that out is just "bemoaning the fact that people have opinions you don't like or agree with". And you wonder why I don't make any serious effort anymore.

No one has called Alliance players nazis in this thread to my knowledge - but if they thought the Alliance was itself comparable to the Nazi regime, that's a valid opinion. It would be just as valid if someone thought that was true of the Horde, too. Thinking a fictional faction or person is terrible isn't an issue. If they think that needs to be changed about the Alliance to make it better, then that's a valid opinion for this thread, as well. I don't agree with that position, myself; but everyone's got their own perspectives and opinions.

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Quite simple, keep your established story in mind, when adding new things. It is the most simple thing that they could do. Otherwise fleshing out the races through quests, like rites of passage, exact dates of considered adulthood, apprenticeships, more rural stories, more fleshed out family dynasties, generational rivalries, political intrigue about pretty much anything, basic resources, money, knowledge, artifacts. But connecting it all.

Giving exact sizes to zones, its history, which could be explored through archaeology. Add hundreds of towns and villages etc. in the lore even if they are not in the game, Azeroth is ridiculously small

Adding in racial quests and additional flavor lore like chronologies, rural stories, dynasties, and what have you is all stuff I think would be to the good. I'm not so sure about the realism of adding "hundreds of towns and villages" from a development perspective, given that that would probably be an effective overload for almost everyone, but I think demonstrating in the in-game story that the world is bigger than presented would also be to the good. In that regard, as I've said previously, I think what WoW really needs is a good exploration expansion to really add to the substance of Azeroth as a whole. With multiple locales, and further development on how that affects the existing locations and nations of Azeroth.

[Combatbutler]

Adding in racial quests and additional flavor lore like chronologies, rural stories, dynasties, and what have you is all stuff I think would be to the good. I'm not so sure about the realism of adding "hundreds of towns and villages" from a development perspective, given that that would probably be an effective overload for almost everyone, but I think demonstrating in the in-game story that the world is bigger than presented would also be to the good. In that regard, as I've said previously, I think what WoW really needs is a good exploration expansion to really add to the substance of Azeroth as a whole. With multiple locales, and further development on how that affects the existing locations and nations of Azeroth.

You need some form of realism and this city state nonsense for entire continents is bullshit, the only writer that ever used even remotely somewhat logical numbers was stackpole, all the others used ridiculously low numbers for entire populations, the Frostwolf were a few dozen, less than a thousand draenei escaped from Argus, Alleria walked through pretty much all of Quel'thalas in less than a day etc.

This is incredibly bad worldbuilding at its very core and it needs fixing.

[Zalraki]

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.

[Soon-TM]

The appeal of the Alliance was further weakened because Blizzard turned a lot of their iconic subfactions and characters into neutrals in order to further cater to Horde players.

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.

[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.