Faction imbalance a social issue? Requiring a social solution?

[Simple Rick]

But cross-faction raid is more of a bandaid to that.
I mean, in today's world of discord and "always connected", keeping a few Horde guys around for raid is very doable, but they aren't part of the guild, they aren't contributing to anything.
They are effectively hired mercenaries at that point and, if they become more regular participants, would just be better off faction swapping.
That's kind of my point; there's still that divide and they are still Horde and, outside of discord/bnet, they are not part of anything that the Alliance are part of.

Don't get me wrong, good first step for sure, and maybe it's enough to 'sate the hate', so to speak, and I'm all for it if it helps people.
It just won't move the needle with actual populations, so recruiting pools will still be pretty meh, even with discord channels and forums being avenues to "recruit" to the Alliance-hosted raids.

I have no idea what you mean by contributing to the guild... its a list of names you play with. It isn't anything else the community is what you make of it.

[Swnem]

Well... it needs a social solution cause they aren't willing to let the Alliance racials be as OP as the horde ones were for years.

But, i do think everyone benefits from faction walls being removed. That is the only social change that can work.

Btw i see some people saying that it's cause something is more or less cool and that is simply not it. It's cause racials were OP and it escalated. Now it's cause theres just more people to play with.

[Jujudrood]

I have no idea what you mean by contributing to the guild... its a list of names you play with. It isn't anything else the community is what you make of it.

Believe it or not, some guilds out there have people contribute reagents for cauldrons, food, pots, things like that.
They cannot partake in guild chat, other in-game activities (M+, for example, unless cross-faction dungeon also comes along), PVP (unless cross-faction PVP also comes along), things like that.
Sure, the 5 mercenary Horde guys can just bring their own stuff and not need anything, but that kind of further disconnects them from the guild.

Maybe my guild experiences over the last 15 years have been wildly different from the majority, but that's where a lot of the bonding happens and where I've made many friends.
I get that's not everyone's bag, but is it really that rare now to where a guild is no more than just a means for a personal end?

[huth]

But cross-faction raid is more of a bandaid to that.
I mean, in today's world of discord and "always connected", keeping a few Horde guys around for raid is very doable, but they aren't part of the guild, they aren't contributing to anything.

They are contributing to making the raid possible. Since that's the main purpose of the guild in the first place, they're effectively members. You're awfully hung up on formalities that are completely irrelevant.

[WskyDK]

nah, horde racials were OP for too long and now that they're even the damage is done. People join Horde because there are more horde players doing the content they want to do. It's just that simple.

It really is. The high-end community gravitates, and stays, horde because that's where the high-end community is.
Overall faction population is roughly equal. it's a social issue

[Jujudrood]

They are contributing to making the raid possible. Since that's the main purpose of the guild in the first place, they're effectively members. You're awfully hung up on formalities that are completely irrelevant.

So guilds exist for raid only.
Got it, thanks.

[Simple Rick]

Believe it or not, some guilds out there have people contribute reagents for cauldrons, food, pots, things like that.
They cannot partake in guild chat, other in-game activities (M+, for example, unless cross-faction dungeon also comes along), PVP (unless cross-faction PVP also comes along), things like that.
Sure, the 5 mercenary Horde guys can just bring their own stuff and not need anything, but that kind of further disconnects them from the guild.

Maybe my guild experiences over the last 15 years have been wildly different from the majority, but that's where a lot of the bonding happens and where I've made many friends.
I get that's not everyone's bag, but is it really that rare now to where a guild is no more than just a means for a personal end?

Its more people have friends they play with then guilds they raid with. Sometimes the two overlaps but often they don't

[huth]

So guilds exist for raid only.
Got it, thanks.

Raid guilds often do. Social guilds usually don't. Part of the reason for the introduction of communities.

[Advent]

Open up cross-faction grouping in all forms, including: Dungeons, Guilds, Communities, Keystones, Quests (When possible), and Raids. Maybe leave PvP alone, idk. The whole point would be to widen the available pool of players for both Alliance and Horde.

[Simple Rick]

Open up cross-faction grouping in all forms, including: Dungeons, Guilds, Communities, Keystones, Quests (When possible), and Raids. Maybe leave PvP alone, idk. The whole point would be to widen the available pool of players for both Alliance and Horde.

It seems the most reasonable way... only other way would be to buff alliance till their racials are over powered and i don't actually believe blizzard wants that. there isn't any other social situation to make up for the massive opportunity cost at end game for going ally.

[gobio]

How can any horde player starting up BFA and still rejecting the idea of deconstructing the bull shit 2 sides non sense?

You watch saurfang did it in your face and your character cannot do it. It is bullshit from that point on anyway.

[ravenmoon]

the earth is a sphere that orbits around the sun. Most of us believe that and there are some who think that the earth is flat. sometimes what the majority believe is true because all the evidence and logic tell us that truth.

Tell me do you think there is a population imbalance in things like M + and pvp?

If you think that is true and I believe that that is also true, what would be the way to make guilds as a method return to the alliance? They left because they want to make that content, so the best way to make them come back is to give them an advantage in the alliance so that making that content is easier than in the horde.

the only way to get pro players back into the alliance is to give them better racials

Listen to What I'm Saying

Don't just read or worse, skim to the parts you disagree then hastily write a retort to "show me what's really what" actually read what I say, even the parts you totally disagree with, sometimes you may find I make sense about somethings a bit further along, but you wouldn't know because you didn't bother to read it all, you were more interested in telling me how wrong or stupid I was than actually trying to understand me even if you don't agree with everything I say.


You may totally hate what I say or disagree, but it doesn't change how I feel, and you can be sure that other people feel this way, maybe more than you think, maybe a lot more than you realise

People who are a bit like me don't usually come on forums and voice their opinions (I'm very much an exception of my kind, and my friend group), they won't tell you what they think or feel, nor analyse it - wow as it is is not too bad, though it could be better, it's okay.

But okay won't get you more subs, it won't generate more excitement, more fandom and popularity, okay will slowly get you less and less interested parties, and make you easily substitutable in the near future for something more exciting and better done.


Faction imbalance is because of an imbalance in the play/set up and how it's gone and is represented in the story and in the mindset of how they push the factions. In Warcraft, the horde is a horde, pretty, high civilization/ good elf type, do not belong in that set up. If you want to give them pretty elves, have a hard as nails/scarred/tough guy/ruined even monstery angle to them like the Illidari or San'layn have, also have a temperament that matches, the blood elf nation cannot be like the high elves. Yes the reason blood elves are like high elves is because high elves are popular, and blizzard wanted or hoped that popularity would fix the initial classic's population problem. it did, it's no longer needed. You may disagree on how I view this, but the factions have seemed confused, and the alliance lacking ever since the Blood elves went horde and were turned metaphorically back into high elves.


Meanwhile, your alliance has been made boring, not because good is boring or humans are boring, but because you (blizzard) have no interest in them (ii.e. not really that interested) and pay no real heed to making them so. You probably don't know what to make of them ever since the horde started sharing many alliance identifying qualities seen in the blood elves when they moved over. This effectively neutered the core philosophical and role distinction, the horde gained in one swoop all the trappings the alliance had via the blood elves, so they were no longer that different, you also no longer needed the alliance to experience that thing, you could do so on the horde via the blood elves.

You can't take these things away from the alliance, and give the horde better versions, and expect the alliance is going to be as interesting or attractive to people, it offers nothing the horde doesn't offer and offers better versions of the alliances main qualities than the alliance itself does... This is why the alliance has been bleeding members, is much smaller amongst the population that is into Warcraft and also seemed hard to write as well as the horde being hard to define now (it basically has high elf types wanting it to be heroic and valiant, and horde types wanting it to be ruthless and hordish having an internal conflict on what it should be, and intesne disagreement amongst the engaged community who are vastly horde - you got to see that this is why all of this is happening.. it is why the horde community at the engeaged end is much larger and why there have bene so many arguemnts on the direcetion and the identity of the horde.. high elves in the horde is at the very root of this) and so the original warcraft distinction is gone.

(and no attempts to fix it - which imo will only happen if you remove the high elf and kaldorei Highborne elements out of the blood elves and Nightborne who stay horde, accompanied by also blowing the alliance trumpet in a very massive way for a short period, i.e. doing it well). You have forgotten that people like your classic regular fantasy too. A vanilla hero story where humans and elves are being best versions of themselves and working together in a manner reminiscent of Tolkein's LotR is hugely popular and very rare to see nowadays. Everyone is trying to do something different and so the exception has become the norm, and their exceptions have never been that good anyway, meanwhile no one is doing the original well, and abandoning it as if it is some poisoned chalice when it is in fact the heart of the attraction to the entire genre and your biggest asset - tossed aside? To be different or contrary? why because a few armchair critics have an issue with high elf/human types and so you chuck something that was very popular in your series?.

Your original in this case is your human and high elf and dwarf (if you hadn't realised it)- the original wow alliance. Restore that bond, make it the pillar of the alliance, cause the high elves and the dwarves to shine, do them up properly, make cool cinematics of a dramatic return of the high elves, give the dwarves some majesty and real backbone like they are seen in LotR the Hobbit and how Warhammer does them.... Meanwhile, take the blood elves on the horde down a different path, away from the high elven past the story had them depart from anyway, with the high elves restored properly on the alliance, the blood elves are free to become less alliance like and something more unique. Doing so will help resotre a distinction between the horde and alliance and allow for some consistency. Further more, don't be afraid of the horde losing some popularity, it actually needs to amongst the hard core fanbase, and it would be easy to put a shine on it a litlte later, once you've enticed a few back to the alliance.

Other races like Draenei and Night elves can have their own thing but a bit separate from the main alliance, night elves were hugely popular once, once when they seemed quite the titanic race (as described in the WC3 manual), a race of pre-sundering magic geniuses and wisened ancient naturists with accomplishments that are still the talk of legend and unmatchable today, is something worth having around and doing right, let them be their own thing, as a nation/faction, separate from the horde and the alliance, but which touch both factions as face it the momentum with the original Warcraft races and their alliance/horde - if night elves are to do their job, they have to engage with those two (some may call it meddle, some interfere, some assist), or you can raise the night elves up exclusively alliance, - what I would do is that I would unite the Darnassians and Nightborne - a new kaldorei nation with all its diverse orders (druids, Highborne types, Moonguard types - basically it's own thing, it's already well defined), and have both leave the alliance and horde, but let a faction i.e. a small group of elves from both the Nightborne and Darnassian remain loyal to the alliance and horde representing the player base, that way the alliance and horde can really be focused on humans/dwarves/high elves, and orcs/trolls/Tauren/goblins - the other races are extra, some very important and playing minor roles others playing major roles, as powerful 3rd entities intertwined with the playable factions but apart from them (they have the player character in the two factions anyway - so they are involved but more like from the outside looking in, rather than how it is now, on the inside looking out - they don't need to be nerfed or anything, in fact it's better if they are actually more incredible than less, it's more exciting and it was this initial vein that got people terribly excited about the night elves, you want to recapture that, not destroy it, remember how disappointed people have been with the nerfing of that race - the reason this happens is because it's like you lied to them, you sold them something they thought was going to be amazing, but instead ended up not being).

[B][U] Blood Elves [/U][/B]
As for Belves, blood elves will still be on the horde, but the race's role would be minor (it has been minor from a narrative point of view on horde affairs, but this should continue, the race however would be far more visible and prominent on the alliance through the high elves. You want this, rather than a 50/50 sharing of space, to skew the elf focus back to the alliance and make it dominant there, because that is an alliance strong suit and defining suit (so whiles blood elves are still on horde, they are not major horde race, but high elves are a major alliance race - that should be appropriately reflected), just remember that elves on the horde is not a horde strong suit or horde characteristic (not unless you want to change the horde's characteristic, which is the very thing that has caused the problem i.e. making a major alliance race horde and only prominent on the horde which made its effect worse)/ So even if you make those horde blood elves different, cool and badass, which you should anyway, (no race on Warcraft horde or alliance should be lame), however you can fiddle the extent, influence and screen time different once get to raise and lower profiles accordingly. in this case, not only do you not make the blood elves prominent in the horde narrative, you don't spend too much screen time on them, either, you want people connecting the elves with the alliance, but still having a really cool and pretty alternative on the horde... the aim is not to actually nerf the blood elves or anything like that, it is to refocus the presentation and portrayals so you can have a more powerful and distinctive Warcraft fantasy that is also attractive. contrary to what you might think if you misread me and only pay attention to what people who have mis-understood me say I am saying (they're wrong--this is why you need to read what I am saying yourself and read it properly).

I am not trying to remove the blood elves from the horde or remove the horde or any such nonsense. In this vision, Thalassian kind are largely restored to being an alliance thing, which is what the original alliance of traditional Warcraft is based on anyway, in the era where things weren't muddled and it worked well for the fans. The horde don't have to lose blood elves at all or even have them nerfed, they just need to not be as prominent or focused on, whether that is in relation to the horde or by themselves. They should still get story and development, they would need a major arc that would show them becoming a lot more distinct from the high elves - I recommend taking them down the original WC3 TFT line when they joined the Illidari (when Illidan was not a villain, but an anti hero) and have an anti-hero bad boy vibe, basically high elves that would play dirty and dabble with forbidden stuff, basically high elves have let their hair down (or become highly strung), hard knocked enough to get scarred and corrupted by fel, and do things in order to survive abandoning the old ways in a way that will never come back or gain their goals. high elves that are a bit more like us, can be very selfish, addictive etc. This has a charm to it, and is different form the high elf mantra. Meanwhile the actual high elves can be well, high elves. See the good and noble, responsible side, it doesn't mean they are all soft too, you need to show some with backbone, but here you see the more graceful and beauty side, fragile and exquisite rare things that won't flourish in harder, harsher settings of the horde or power march of the blood elves. This doesn't have to mean weak either, ever seen an avatar of justice? A righteous guy who is resolved to end injustice or evil - he is not weak, he may not b scarred like a DH or go that sort of route (he isn't broken enough to think that the way to fight demons is to become them and hurl back their fire at them while mastering the struggle for your soul, but their is a different strength, their is a strength to wholeness, right mind, that allows you to weather many storms, and keeps your heart and mind keen, a strength that is incorruptible, it also has beauty to it. High elves can have diversity and something to offer rather than just lumped as plain vanilla. But never forget that a lot of people like plain vanilla, so don't knock it or avoid it, or write it away.

[U][B]What to Do With Night Elves[/B][/U]
when night elves are promoted, they are not done so in the alliance. They'd be a significant third faction influencing and having an effect on both horde and alliance, furthering their own agendas - as world protectors (druid types) or magic/civilization pioneers (Highborne types) or spiritual police (priest types), a small faction of night elves stay on the alliance, and a small faction of Nightborne on the horde, they help stir the alliance and horde towards the things night elves hold value - i.e. nature, magic, and protecting the world - global minded, this is what distinguishes them from other races who are into nature, magic or protecting - Night elves think of the world - this is how they were promoted )

To me, the story is in the perfect place. Night elves are almost wiped out, the alliance majorly disappointed them, all their great history, tradition, excellence, their way is threatened by extinction and people who could potentially become great lights, are on the rink of destroying themselves. Once Tyrande gets her revenge, it's time to move ot a neutral position. With Nightborne it's even easier, there was enough broken isle night elf help and admiration of their heritage to see some sort of corporation, and n one has forgotten both the alliance and the horde helped them, furthermore, disgust at the horde's handling of Teldrassil and how being in one faction only threatens to redefine them from being world protectors back to being world conquerors, inputs them in a good place to be a neutral entity that has a faction of in the horde, which they largely use in concert with the night elves they've reached an alliance with to help influence the horde away from more destructive tendencies. There are also other reasons to work with other night elves, if they don't, all things Kaldorei, the people, the tradition, the great works, and the race itself would be lost, Nightborne are not a numerous group either and they are a nocturnal people, a kaldorei off shoot, their survival and proliferation as well as their identity is best served forming an alliance with the Darnassians and being involve with their global protection and enhancement drives.

So in terms of horde and alliance factions, both Night elves and blood elves should diminish, this doesn't mean the end of either, quite the opposite for the Night elves, who should now have restored to similar levels of involvement we sw in WC3 , or at least to what the undead have , Blood elves progress as mentioned above. But now it's Dwarves that need some facelift. Being short is not the most desirable quality your player base would have. this is why dwarves need strong personalities, and defined concept, that come off well. The Hobbit movie series is really good way to show dwarves, Warhammer has them at the sort level of effectiveness that makes them desirable. As a key alliance race, you want them prominent in the alliance, and you want them to have a strong visible tradition.. this means they'd need some work. To pull up. Give it to them.


People love high elves and humans, even though it's boring to some, so why isn't the alliance having that? What is the alliance? it meant and represented something that was clear and defined and very different form the horde. People like that, and Warcraft was built on that.

It's not the only way to be as many other good products show, but it's the way Warcraft was, and it worked, it's all messed up.


Let me say this, faction mattering is a good thing, if you do it well, I've played games that don't have factions, and they have their merits and can work well when built up that way, but they are missing what Warcraft has, Warcraft has something distinctive for having this faction system that is the way it is.

Finally you can't keep having the alliance so lame. It's bad enough it's not the edgy faction (which people love), but to boot, it really is always getting the lesser end of the stick for most new improvements, and has been the case since TC.. from outside looking in, the alliance in wow is super lame as the supposedly equal faction to the horde.. it's not like this anywhere else. The Republic in SWTOR is leaps ahead and written better, the four factions of TESO it's the same.

Get into wow story, and lore, alliance just feels lame. But then when you have models like the BElf model, the orcs, zanda trolls and you've ported most of the alliance concept over to the horde, what's left to distinguish the alliance and make it attractive and appealing?


What does this mean? Well, lots more people are playing the horde at max level and this is the problem they've noticed.. but why? and what does this really tell you? It tells you that the people who get into the game, and really interested in it, find the horde more appealing and engaging. This is 100% because the horde has been the one engaged in the building of the game since TBC. Those who are into the horde are far more excited about Warcraft things, they dominate forums, even though total population wise they have no great majority. Social problems are exacerbating this, they are not the route of it.

Alliance players are not into Warcraft half as much any more, this is what happens when you constantly shat on the alliance. What I mean is that you are constantly giving the better stuff, and the better alliance stuff to the horde, writing the horde better roles, and promoting them more. It is only exciting to be horde, and if you're not horde what you get is generally more boring, less interesting and

[Rhlor]

Listen to What I'm Saying

Don't just read or worse, skim to the parts you disagree then hastily write a retort to "show me what's really what" actually read what I say, even the parts you totally disagree with, sometimes you may find I make sense about somethings a bit further along, but you wouldn't know because you didn't bother to read it all, you were more interested in telling me how wrong or stupid I was than actually trying to understand me even if you don't agree with everything I say.


You may totally hate what I say or disagree, but it doesn't change how I feel, and you can be sure that other people feel this way, maybe more than you think, maybe a lot more than you realise

People who are a bit like me don't usually come on forums and voice their opinions (I'm very much an exception of my kind, and my friend group), they won't tell you what they think or feel, nor analyse it - wow as it is is not too bad, though it could be better, it's okay.

But okay won't get you more subs, it won't generate more excitement, more fandom and popularity, okay will slowly get you less and less interested parties, and make you easily substitutable in the near future for something more exciting and better done.


Faction imbalance is because of an imbalance in the play/set up and how it's gone and is represented in the story and in the mindset of how they push the factions. In Warcraft, the horde is a horde, pretty, high civilization/ good elf type, do not belong in that set up. If you want to give them pretty elves, have a hard as nails/scarred/tough guy/ruined even monstery angle to them like the Illidari or San'layn have, also have a temperament that matches, the blood elf nation cannot be like the high elves. Yes the reason blood elves are like high elves is because high elves are popular, and blizzard wanted or hoped that popularity would fix the initial classic's population problem. it did, it's no longer needed. You may disagree on how I view this, but the factions have seemed confused, and the alliance lacking ever since the Blood elves went horde and were turned metaphorically back into high elves.


Meanwhile, your alliance has been made boring, not because good is boring or humans are boring, but because you (blizzard) have no interest in them (ii.e. not really that interested) and pay no real heed to making them so. You probably don't know what to make of them ever since the horde started sharing many alliance identifying qualities seen in the blood elves when they moved over. This effectively neutered the core philosophical and role distinction, the horde gained in one swoop all the trappings the alliance had via the blood elves, so they were no longer that different, you also no longer needed the alliance to experience that thing, you could do so on the horde via the blood elves.

You can't take these things away from the alliance, and give the horde better versions, and expect the alliance is going to be as interesting or attractive to people, it offers nothing the horde doesn't offer and offers better versions of the alliances main qualities than the alliance itself does... This is why the alliance has been bleeding members, is much smaller amongst the population that is into Warcraft and also seemed hard to write as well as the horde being hard to define now (it basically has high elf types wanting it to be heroic and valiant, and horde types wanting it to be ruthless and hordish having an internal conflict on what it should be, and intesne disagreement amongst the engaged community who are vastly horde - you got to see that this is why all of this is happening.. it is why the horde community at the engeaged end is much larger and why there have bene so many arguemnts on the direcetion and the identity of the horde.. high elves in the horde is at the very root of this) and so the original warcraft distinction is gone.

(and no attempts to fix it - which imo will only happen if you remove the high elf and kaldorei Highborne elements out of the blood elves and Nightborne who stay horde, accompanied by also blowing the alliance trumpet in a very massive way for a short period, i.e. doing it well). You have forgotten that people like your classic regular fantasy too. A vanilla hero story where humans and elves are being best versions of themselves and working together in a manner reminiscent of Tolkein's LotR is hugely popular and very rare to see nowadays. Everyone is trying to do something different and so the exception has become the norm, and their exceptions have never been that good anyway, meanwhile no one is doing the original well, and abandoning it as if it is some poisoned chalice when it is in fact the heart of the attraction to the entire genre and your biggest asset - tossed aside? To be different or contrary? why because a few armchair critics have an issue with high elf/human types and so you chuck something that was very popular in your series?.

Your original in this case is your human and high elf and dwarf (if you hadn't realised it)- the original wow alliance. Restore that bond, make it the pillar of the alliance, cause the high elves and the dwarves to shine, do them up properly, make cool cinematics of a dramatic return of the high elves, give the dwarves some majesty and real backbone like they are seen in LotR the Hobbit and how Warhammer does them.... Meanwhile, take the blood elves on the horde down a different path, away from the high elven past the story had them depart from anyway, with the high elves restored properly on the alliance, the blood elves are free to become less alliance like and something more unique. Doing so will help resotre a distinction between the horde and alliance and allow for some consistency. Further more, don't be afraid of the horde losing some popularity, it actually needs to amongst the hard core fanbase, and it would be easy to put a shine on it a litlte later, once you've enticed a few back to the alliance.

Other races like Draenei and Night elves can have their own thing but a bit separate from the main alliance, night elves were hugely popular once, once when they seemed quite the titanic race (as described in the WC3 manual), a race of pre-sundering magic geniuses and wisened ancient naturists with accomplishments that are still the talk of legend and unmatchable today, is something worth having around and doing right, let them be their own thing, as a nation/faction, separate from the horde and the alliance, but which touch both factions as face it the momentum with the original Warcraft races and their alliance/horde - if night elves are to do their job, they have to engage with those two (some may call it meddle, some interfere, some assist), or you can raise the night elves up exclusively alliance, - what I would do is that I would unite the Darnassians and Nightborne - a new kaldorei nation with all its diverse orders (druids, Highborne types, Moonguard types - basically it's own thing, it's already well defined), and have both leave the alliance and horde, but let a faction i.e. a small group of elves from both the Nightborne and Darnassian remain loyal to the alliance and horde representing the player base, that way the alliance and horde can really be focused on humans/dwarves/high elves, and orcs/trolls/Tauren/goblins - the other races are extra, some very important and playing minor roles others playing major roles, as powerful 3rd entities intertwined with the playable factions but apart from them (they have the player character in the two factions anyway - so they are involved but more like from the outside looking in, rather than how it is now, on the inside looking out - they don't need to be nerfed or anything, in fact it's better if they are actually more incredible than less, it's more exciting and it was this initial vein that got people terribly excited about the night elves, you want to recapture that, not destroy it, remember how disappointed people have been with the nerfing of that race - the reason this happens is because it's like you lied to them, you sold them something they thought was going to be amazing, but instead ended up not being).

[B][U] Blood Elves [/U][/B]
As for Belves, blood elves will still be on the horde, but the race's role would be minor (it has been minor from a narrative point of view on horde affairs, but this should continue, the race however would be far more visible and prominent on the alliance through the high elves. You want this, rather than a 50/50 sharing of space, to skew the elf focus back to the alliance and make it dominant there, because that is an alliance strong suit and defining suit (so whiles blood elves are still on horde, they are not major horde race, but high elves are a major alliance race - that should be appropriately reflected), just remember that elves on the horde is not a horde strong suit or horde characteristic (not unless you want to change the horde's characteristic, which is the very thing that has caused the problem i.e. making a major alliance race horde and only prominent on the horde which made its effect worse)/ So even if you make those horde blood elves different, cool and badass, which you should anyway, (no race on Warcraft horde or alliance should be lame), however you can fiddle the extent, influence and screen time different once get to raise and lower profiles accordingly. in this case, not only do you not make the blood elves prominent in the horde narrative, you don't spend too much screen time on them, either, you want people connecting the elves with the alliance, but still having a really cool and pretty alternative on the horde... the aim is not to actually nerf the blood elves or anything like that, it is to refocus the presentation and portrayals so you can have a more powerful and distinctive Warcraft fantasy that is also attractive. contrary to what you might think if you misread me and only pay attention to what people who have mis-understood me say I am saying (they're wrong--this is why you need to read what I am saying yourself and read it properly).

I am not trying to remove the blood elves from the horde or remove the horde or any such nonsense. In this vision, Thalassian kind are largely restored to being an alliance thing, which is what the original alliance of traditional Warcraft is based on anyway, in the era where things weren't muddled and it worked well for the fans. The horde don't have to lose blood elves at all or even have them nerfed, they just need to not be as prominent or focused on, whether that is in relation to the horde or by themselves. They should still get story and development, they would need a major arc that would show them becoming a lot more distinct from the high elves - I recommend taking them down the original WC3 TFT line when they joined the Illidari (when Illidan was not a villain, but an anti hero) and have an anti-hero bad boy vibe, basically high elves that would play dirty and dabble with forbidden stuff, basically high elves have let their hair down (or become highly strung), hard knocked enough to get scarred and corrupted by fel, and do things in order to survive abandoning the old ways in a way that will never come back or gain their goals. high elves that are a bit more like us, can be very selfish, addictive etc. This has a charm to it, and is different form the high elf mantra. Meanwhile the actual high elves can be well, high elves. See the good and noble, responsible side, it doesn't mean they are all soft too, you need to show some with backbone, but here you see the more graceful and beauty side, fragile and exquisite rare things that won't flourish in harder, harsher settings of the horde or power march of the blood elves. This doesn't have to mean weak either, ever seen an avatar of justice? A righteous guy who is resolved to end injustice or evil - he is not weak, he may not b scarred like a DH or go that sort of route (he isn't broken enough to think that the way to fight demons is to become them and hurl back their fire at them while mastering the struggle for your soul, but their is a different strength, their is a strength to wholeness, right mind, that allows you to weather many storms, and keeps your heart and mind keen, a strength that is incorruptible, it also has beauty to it. High elves can have diversity and something to offer rather than just lumped as plain vanilla. But never forget that a lot of people like plain vanilla, so don't knock it or avoid it, or write it away.

[U][B]What to Do With Night Elves[/B][/U]
when night elves are promoted, they are not done so in the alliance. They'd be a significant third faction influencing and having an effect on both horde and alliance, furthering their own agendas - as world protectors (druid types) or magic/civilization pioneers (Highborne types) or spiritual police (priest types), a small faction of night elves stay on the alliance, and a small faction of Nightborne on the horde, they help stir the alliance and horde towards the things night elves hold value - i.e. nature, magic, and protecting the world - global minded, this is what distinguishes them from other races who are into nature, magic or protecting - Night elves think of the world - this is how they were promoted )

To me, the story is in the perfect place. Night elves are almost wiped out, the alliance majorly disappointed them, all their great history, tradition, excellence, their way is threatened by extinction and people who could potentially become great lights, are on the rink of destroying themselves. Once Tyrande gets her revenge, it's time to move ot a neutral position. With Nightborne it's even easier, there was enough broken isle night elf help and admiration of their heritage to see some sort of corporation, and n one has forgotten both the alliance and the horde helped them, furthermore, disgust at the horde's handling of Teldrassil and how being in one faction only threatens to redefine them from being world protectors back to being world conquerors, inputs them in a good place to be a neutral entity that has a faction of in the horde, which they largely use in concert with the night elves they've reached an alliance with to help influence the horde away from more destructive tendencies. There are also other reasons to work with other night elves, if they don't, all things Kaldorei, the people, the tradition, the great works, and the race itself would be lost, Nightborne are not a numerous group either and they are a nocturnal people, a kaldorei off shoot, their survival and proliferation as well as their identity is best served forming an alliance with the Darnassians and being involve with their global protection and enhancement drives.

So in terms of horde and alliance factions, both Night elves and blood elves should diminish, this doesn't mean the end of either, quite the opposite for the Night elves, who should now have restored to similar levels of involvement we sw in WC3 , or at least to what the undead have , Blood elves progress as mentioned above. But now it's Dwarves that need some facelift. Being short is not the most desirable quality your player base would have. this is why dwarves need strong personalities, and defined concept, that come off well. The Hobbit movie series is really good way to show dwarves, Warhammer has them at the sort level of effectiveness that makes them desirable. As a key alliance race, you want them prominent in the alliance, and you want them to have a strong visible tradition.. this means they'd need some work. To pull up. Give it to them.


People love high elves and humans, even though it's boring to some, so why isn't the alliance having that? What is the alliance? it meant and represented something that was clear and defined and very different form the horde. People like that, and Warcraft was built on that.

It's not the only way to be as many other good products show, but it's the way Warcraft was, and it worked, it's all messed up.


Let me say this, faction mattering is a good thing, if you do it well, I've played games that don't have factions, and they have their merits and can work well when built up that way, but they are missing what Warcraft has, Warcraft has something distinctive for having this faction system that is the way it is.

Finally you can't keep having the alliance so lame. It's bad enough it's not the edgy faction (which people love), but to boot, it really is always getting the lesser end of the stick for most new improvements, and has been the case since TC.. from outside looking in, the alliance in wow is super lame as the supposedly equal faction to the horde.. it's not like this anywhere else. The Republic in SWTOR is leaps ahead and written better, the four factions of TESO it's the same.

Get into wow story, and lore, alliance just feels lame. But then when you have models like the BElf model, the orcs, zanda trolls and you've ported most of the alliance concept over to the horde, what's left to distinguish the alliance and make it attractive and appealing?


What does this mean? Well, lots more people are playing the horde at max level and this is the problem they've noticed.. but why? and what does this really tell you? It tells you that the people who get into the game, and really interested in it, find the horde more appealing and engaging. This is 100% because the horde has been the one engaged in the building of the game since TBC. Those who are into the horde are far more excited about Warcraft things, they dominate forums, even though total population wise they have no great majority. Social problems are exacerbating this, they are not the route of it.

Alliance players are not into Warcraft half as much any more, this is what happens when you constantly shat on the alliance. What I mean is that you are constantly giving the better stuff, and the better alliance stuff to the horde, writing the horde better roles, and promoting them more. It is only exciting to be horde, and if you're not horde what you get is generally more boring, less interesting and

there is no population imbalance in wow. the population of the horde and the alliance are even there are even realms where the alliance is far superior to the horde. the total numbers of players are even.

When the blood elves were added there was a real population problem in the total number of players. which does not happen now.

the alliance players complain that the pro players as method went to the horde, The alliance has practically the same population as the horde but the players of the alliance in general are casuals, RP and battle pet players.

the players of the horde disgusting the attention that blizzard gives us civil war, death and betrayal of our leaders is not something we like.

everything you say about wanting to play WoW like lotr is something RP players want. all you're writing is what a RP player wants and you know that the alliance is the faction that dominates RP.

all your RP speech is out of place here! because what we are proposing is to solve the disparity in between the horde and the alliance in endgame content. Nothing you say is going to make you want to kill Denathrius or the jailer faster. Go to the alliance because what the pro players are looking for is better statistics.

surely what you propose is going to make the RP players who are mostly alliance very happy. But that will not change that the pro players are in the horde, because they want to kill faster and more efficiently as we saw in the covenant elections where people choose a covenant not because they like it but because it gives them an advantage.

give the alliance better racials or eliminate the factions that is the solution for this. all that you propose are not real solutions that make people who want to have the first kill world go to play the alliance.

what you try to do in this thread as in other threads is to want to put your RP wishes trying to camouflage them with a problem that is solved as mechanics in the game such as racial ones.

I could give you another answer about everything you propose if you created a thread according to your proposals! instead of using a problem created by racials and that can be solved with racials.

Create a topic called "I Hate Blood Elves and I want the alliance to have quelthalas as a starting zone."
I'm really surprised! do you think the blood elves are the center of attention of the horde? The last expansion where the blood elves were the center of attention was TBC, the center of attention of the horde in these years were orcs, forsaken and trolls. taurens, goblin and blood elves were always secondary! Or are you forgetting that lorthemar for the common wow player was known as "Who?"
Then we can discuss all this in the meantime my position on the current issue is the same as we all have, giving better racials to the alliance solves the problem.

[Tanaria]

[B][U][SIZE=4]SNIP

Rhlor - this is just another long waffle about "Waah, waah, waah! I want Horde Elves and Horde Cities."

He doesn't want Blood Elves to progress beyond some wierd obsession with their W3 TFT period, which isn't actually reflective of the Silvermoon Elves at all. That period was dedicated to the Sunfury Elves who were the Elves who did take things too far. Did dabble in Fel and the Void and eventually joined the Legion. It's as though he believes that what the Sunfury did on Outland is what all Blood Elves did, yet we know this isn't the case. The Sunfury Blood Elves and Silvermoon Horde Blood Elves took different routes and in the main, the Horde Blood Elves took up arms against the Sunfury and their demonic masters.

Silvermoon Blood Elves, Horde Blood Elves who Sylvanas vouched for, did what they could to survive with Silvermoon's Magisters, Farstriders and Blood Knights. They, along with Sylvanas' forces, managed to beat back the Amani, defeat the invading Night Elves and defeat the leader of the Scourge forces.

It's also quite insulting that Blood Elves have to go back to this writing, which is regressive storytelling and that they aren't allowed to move out of it because one little man who hates Horde Elves, has an issue because once again it's "waaah waaah waaah, I want Arcane Elves with Arcane Cities."

He's so hypocritical as well (and a little racist), since he says "Oh yes belfs can be cool in this period of time that I'm obsessed with, but your races' role should be very minor."

[Gorsameth]

Snip

So much words and all of them still miss the forest through the trees.

If I go Horde, I have 100.000 people who want to raid and do M+ with me.
If I got Alliance I have 1.000 people who want to raid and do M+ with me.

That is the crux of the issue. None of this RP or lore and 'feeling' bullshit matters in this issue. There are plenty of Alliance players and both Horde and Alliance total populations are roughly equal. The Alliance does not have an image or identity problem.

The simple issue at hand is that there is a bigger community of 'hardcore' PvE players on Horde and therefor its easier to find groups and likeminded individuals to do content with. That is why people switch from Alliance to Horde. So they can find other people to do PvE with. Not because they want to jerk off to blood elves.

[Rhlor]

So much words and all of them still miss the forest through the trees.

If I go Horde, I have 100.000 people who want to raid and do M+ with me.
If I got Alliance I have 1.000 people who want to raid and do M+ with me.

That is the crux of the issue. None of this RP or lore and 'feeling' bullshit matters in this issue. There are plenty of Alliance players and both Horde and Alliance total populations are roughly equal. The Alliance does not have an image or identity problem.

The simple issue at hand is that there is a bigger community of 'hardcore' PvE players on Horde and therefor its easier to find groups and likeminded individuals to do content with. That is why people switch from Alliance to Horde. So they can find other people to do PvE with. Not because they want to jerk off to blood elves.

and the alliance currently dominates the RP! the RP realms are almost entirely alliance!
someone who wants to get the jailer's first kill is going to give a shit if quelthalas is horde or alliance. what revanmoon is doing is trying to gain followers in his fantasy RP but all of us who play WoW know that that is not the problem! the problem was always the racials!

[Gorsameth]

and the alliance currently dominates the RP! the RP realms are almost entirely alliance!
someone who wants to get the jailer's first kill is going to give a shit if quelthalas is horde or alliance. what revanmoon is doing is trying to gain followers in his fantasy RP but all of us who play WoW know that that is not the problem! the problem was always the racials!

Racials haven't been an issue for years. They might have been the initial catalyst for the move to Horde but at the moment its simply inertia.

Changing racials now won't matter, doing 1% more DPS does not weigh up against having no one to raid with.

[Rhlor]

Rhlor - this is just another long waffle about "Waah, waah, waah! I want Horde Elves and Horde Cities."

He doesn't want Blood Elves to progress beyond some wierd obsession with their W3 TFT period, which isn't actually reflective of the Silvermoon Elves at all. That period was dedicated to the Sunfury Elves who were the Elves who did take things too far. Did dabble in Fel and the Void and eventually joined the Legion. It's as though he believes that what the Sunfury did on Outland is what all Blood Elves did, yet we know this isn't the case. The Sunfury Blood Elves and Silvermoon Horde Blood Elves took different routes and in the main, the Horde Blood Elves took up arms against the Sunfury and their demonic masters.

Silvermoon Blood Elves, Horde Blood Elves who Sylvanas vouched for, did what they could to survive with Silvermoon's Magisters, Farstriders and Blood Knights. They, along with Sylvanas' forces, managed to beat back the Amani, defeat the invading Night Elves and defeat the leader of the Scourge forces.

It's also quite insulting that Blood Elves have to go back to this writing, which is regressive storytelling and that they aren't allowed to move out of it because one little man who hates Horde Elves, has an issue because once again it's "waaah waaah waaah, I want Arcane Elves with Arcane Cities."

He's so hypocritical as well (and a little racist), since he says "Oh yes belfs can be cool in this period of time that I'm obsessed with, but your races' role should be very minor."

if someone wants to play with a WC3 TFT illidari they can do it the DH are playable

[Tanaria]

Racials haven't been an issue for years. They might have been the initial catalyst for the move to Horde but at the moment its simply inertia.

Changing racials now won't matter, doing 1% more DPS does not weigh up against having no one to raid with.

When the dwarf racial was tested to give the alliance an advantage, many of the big Horde guilds were planning on going to the Alliance.

This was changed and they remained where they were.

Still though, this doesn't back Ravenmoon's waffle, as people were aiming to play Dwarves - not Void Elves or Night Elves.

if someone wants to play with a WC3 TFT illidari they can do it the DH are playable

Exactly.
If you want to play a "bad boy blood elf" you can either go for a Blood Elf Demon Hunter or a Void Elf, since they are part of that edgy, bad boy thalassian elf with additional features that are the exact opposite to Blood Elves.

In fact, isn't this what he's asking for? Differences...I mean, Alliance have got their Void-touched Magister and Farstrider Thalassian Elves and Horde have got their Magister, Blood Knight and Farstrider Thalassian Elves?

[Rhlor]

Racials haven't been an issue for years. They might have been the initial catalyst for the move to Horde but at the moment its simply inertia.

Changing racials now won't matter, doing 1% more DPS does not weigh up against having no one to raid with.

make the difference be totally unfair in favor of the alliance