Originally Posted by
ravenmoon
do you buy that?
Sounds to me a self created social issue, when you over 14 years pull all the cool the horde way, and all the best attributes that identified the alliance were present on the horde when the blood elves went over - effectively made the alliance fairly redundant and the horde having the best picks of what was to offer.
The observation is that end game content is heavily skewed in favour of the horde, they at least acknoweldge this, and feel this is purely social. Oh dear.. they just don't see.. ever asked themselves why?
I'll tell you why, because people who get into Warcraft go horde - everything is horde centric when you get into the game, from the lore , state, all the best things going, and this has created a buzz for the players who actually keep wow going.
Overall they say the populations are pretty even - but why are most casuals only alliance, because it doesn't matter who you play when you are casual, and most of those are old people (form the RTS days who stopped engaging with the game) or new people, who play humans because the models of every other race is just weird(yes they look weird - even blood elves with their overly long ears) I w ill never forget my first reaction to seeing Warcraft elves, I thought they looked terrible, the style has grown on me since though the overly large hands, and ears and eyebrows, but I got into the game.
My Opinion and Observation
If oyu really want to know what I think, here it is, otherwise the paragraphs above is the jist in a nutshell.
To be honest, the alliance is not distinct enough from the horde, and not focused enough at all, nothing screams exciting, or come to the alliance for anyone. The only thing going for it is if you look at the player models and prefer the look of a race that is on it.. but when you get into the game, the story, and as things come in expansions and patches, it's horde that's clearly the place to be.. only blizzard won't admit it because they're in the same bubble and bias.
Ever stepped outside Warcraft, and played a game like Wildstar, Swtor - games that have two factions or more, so including Elder scrolls and FFXIV - having followed those games and world of Warcraft, I can assure you I have never seen anywhere a faction more heavily pushed and favoured in a two faction system than the horde has been in the world of Warcraft over the last 14 years.
in my experience, it is easy to see, I have found it is horde fans, the real ones that never seem to accept this because they are so into the horde and any slight disfavour they thing that blizzard is favouring the alliance.. but if blizzard is favouring the alliance, why doe the horde always get the cooler things and are always at the centre of the story for world of Warcraft? The alliance in Warcraft has been super lame.. when you play SWTOR, TESO, groups like the Republic, the Aldmeri Dominion or Daggerfall Covenant, you never get the impression that one is more favoured than the other or more lame than it's opposite counterpart, regardless of how the story goes.. but in Warcraft you do.
Sounds to me they need to examine this mixture and decide what to do. But as it stands right now, for anyone who gets more involved in Warcraft, the horde is the cooler place to be. It has everything.. alliance elements, and horde elements alike .. it makes the alliance mostly redundant and they don't care enough to raise it's profile because they've mixed it up to much.
One solution out of it would be to take elven civilizations which are very alliance themed, away from the horde and exclusive to the alliance, and build a new concept on the horde with the blood elves and Nightborne that is more unique, then promoting both sides for what they are.
The only other solution is that faction doesn't matter anymore... and this is where they are going. In my opinion the blood elves on the horde and failure to sufficiently support and distinguish the alliance post a high elf exit, has muddles and completely undermined what the factions stood for and meant. They were built on the alliance standing for one type of things (humans, elves , dwarves - their concept of life, civilization, structure, justice, nobility, arcane magic etc) and the horde standing for something else. They changed this, but they did this by bringing more alliance elements into the horde, and then focusing all their attention there, this meant the factions looked less distinct over time, and as such had little meaning. And with all the attention /focus on the horde, the alliance seems secondary.
the faction concept and presentation is broken and flawed, this is why it's having so much trouble. There is little separating them, and little reason to pick the alliance over the horde from any vantage point Horde looks better, horde has better (even of the things the alliance is supposed to be about - and that's thanks to blood elf and Nightborne stuff being too high elven and kaldorei empire based which are too alliance themed)
The solution I has always been to take the horde in a more alien direction, but not a more alliance one, can you reverse what's been done? The only way would be for the blood elves and Nightborne to lose the alliance based civilizations and to remove that stuff form the horde, making the horde elves become something different, while the alliance ones double down on those things. Ensure that the horde becomes is cool, but the alliance also remains a powerful and visible symbol - then fix the social issues , and things will even out...otherwise, scrap the factions .. focus on individual stories of great characters, and let everyone hold hands and fight demons.