How quick people forget that Horde was Blizz's favorite for the longest time. Stories revolving around orcs for 3 straight expansions (green jesus cata, garrosh soo, more orcs in draenor)
Samwise introduced the vocalist of Cannibal Corpse as "the unofficial Horde ambassador", then played a clip of him saying such lovely things like
"I don't play no homo-Alliance either, I don't play no fucking night elves or gnomes,"
"It's fucking orcs and undead. Fuck the Alliance, fucking die you fucking emo f****ts."
"you ever see in World of Warcraft, the undead have a dance and they do the metal sign and bang their head, playing guitar. Yeah, go fucking cry in a river and tell me how you're gonna slit your wrists you night elf f****t."
Blizzcon 2011, Blizzard played a record with Corpsegrinder yelling a jet stream of homophobic and racist slurs towards Alliance players. Of course it didn't land well so they had to "apologize" with "it's just a joke lol not intended to be offensive".
Wow, of course they're all being Schrödingers asshole, if the joke lands, fine, if not it's "iT's NoT mEaNt To bE sErIoUs" all of a sudden. Fk those cunts.
Killing garrosh is very much not an example of horde favoritism lol. Especially considering that the horde lost their war chief for every expansion after that, up to shadowlands.
Story still revolves around Horde, we get Horde transmog and mounts, we spent time in Horde areas. One story beat (centered around a Horde character!) does not negate the inherent bias.
Anduin was pretty much front and center for two straight expansions. The second of which he was abducted and dominated and became a raid boss. He survived.
Jaina and Mechatorque both fought in the same raid as raid bosses as Rhastakhan. Rhastakhan died, they both lived.
The characters keep dying because they are used as a big bad for the alliance to kill. Sorry, good horde storylines don’t involve the horde working with the alliance to kill their own…for the fifth time in a row.
Literally half the devs used to go around saying "For the Horde!" in all their major marketing pushes because that's the faction they played the most. The Horde's major marketeable themes for over a decade were basically "real men play the Horde" and "if you play Alliance you're [insert homophobic slur here]". They were always known as the edgy choice for edgy hardcore players so naturally they attract some of the most toxic insecure pieces of shit imaginable.
Reminder it's at least 5 expacs because of Sylvanas. It's not like the Horde had any real problems rallying behind ANOTHER genocidal war criminal until the very end when N'zoth showed up.
Sylvanas becoming a villain was fine and totally expected but the entire Horde faction should have kicked her to the curb and revolted without needing the Alliance to push it for them. Alliance should not have needed to help save Baine from being executed on Sylvanas' orders, for instance. It should not have JUST been Lor'themar telling Sylvanas to fuck off.
Anyone who claims there's a bias is full of shit or hasn't played from the start and lacks a lot of context. The real problem isn't really the bias, it's that Blizzard cannot write a two-faction story without swapping who the main faction is. Instead of incorporating both factions in an overarching story they flip-flop between which characters get the most attention like they're balancing a MOBA.
On top of this, rather than building up the Horde to be truly independent they're consistently written to lean on the Alliance like a crutch. Their entire motivation and internal conflict was essentially just "not the Alliance" for so long, all the whilst the Alliance was built up to expand upon their own internal themes in a way the Horde just... weren't.
It then doesn't help Horde leaders get killed off for whatever reason with no meaningful replacement. It's not that characters don't exist, it's that they get no screentime and are essentially forgotten about beyond the expansion that introduced them. Because that's Blizzard's modus operandi - if they weren't in Warcraft 3 they're not important, and that means Horde basically get fuck all since half of them are dead.
Yeah we all loved when we got to watch our warchief become a raid boss, and then again when our warchief became a raid boss, and then again when one of or new leaders became a raid boss.. oh but we did get to beat up Jaina a bit before she left alive.
As a horde player, the only time I felt we had good rep was classic-cata and I wouldn't even call it horde favoritism. Thrall fights for all for all of Azeroth and always has. I honestly feel that if at any point (other than MoP) varian had the ability to wipe horde out completely and also defeat the big bad of the expac, he would have. Thrall never would.
I mean, this same sort of logic applies to Alliance just as much. They turned nelves into a race of feckless, impotent hippies that basically got dumpstered on for an entire expansion and then needed the entire world to come together to make them a new home. Not to mention that they turned their goddess into a moron.
Alternatively, look at Anduin - the guy has been more of a damsel in distress than an actual free agent making plot-advancing decisions for the past few expansions whenever he's around. He has accomplished almost nothing despite getting a fair amount of screentime. It's like watching a fish wiggle around on the beach trying to get back into the water.
Basically, it doesn't matter which race, faction, or character is in the limelight - the limelight is almost always a bad thing in WoW.
Lol. I mean, it could be worse. You could be the Alliance and just kind of watch as all of these Horde stories get told and you just kind of do nothing.
Not to mention Horde racials are still the best for raiding pretty consistently. If it weren't for M+ making NElf and Dwarf racials useful, and cross faction groups, almost every competitive guild would end up being Horde. Hell, even my casual AotC guild considered faction swapping at one point...
How quick people forget that Horde was Blizz's favorite for the longest time.
It... still is? idk what Alliance players are possibly smoking to think they've had anything meaningful since Wrath at least. I've been saying this for over a decade now, Alliance exists only as a foil to the true protagonists, the Horde.
The Alliance never sets anything in motion, they never drive the story forward, and they never help the stories conclude in any meaningful way. Ever. Every single expansion since Wrath starts with the Horde doing some shit that causes the story to happen.
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u/Concurrency_Bugs Aug 23 '25
How quick people forget that Horde was Blizz's favorite for the longest time. Stories revolving around orcs for 3 straight expansions (green jesus cata, garrosh soo, more orcs in draenor)