Above the Sea and Fog But Still Perpetually Obscured.

Now, in my 2.5 years playing World Of Warcraft I have learned something.  Playing Alliance is a very sharp double edged sword.

About 80% of characters I have created have been Alliance.  Why? What has attracted me to playing Alliance and a tiny bit towards Horde?

In the beginning, my fiance’s friends played on a US server as Alliance and so we followed suit as noobs.  Instead of giving you a complete history of my characters, I’ll just mention the important stuff. My main (level 80 Dwarf Warrior) was my second character.  Its also the only character I’ve made to go beyond level 25 (exceptions being Death Knights which hit 58). My highest horde character is level 24 and you’ll never guess what race/class?

Guess.

That’s right, a Blood Elf Paladin. In fact, his namesake goes to this blog.

Now, many of the arguments I’ve heard against the Blood Elves is that they are not truly a Horde character but just a slightly evil and way too pretty Alliance character. They make a slight exception for paladins but that’s it.  The same people that make these arguments also believe either all or a combination of the following;

• They play Horde because they are underdogs.
• They think they are more mature.
• They can’t stand the way the Alliance look and that the Horde races (sans BElfs) are more aesthetically pleasing.
• They think that ALL Alliance players are younger than 15 and are immature, selfish, obnoxious and just plain annoying.
• They believe the Horde have something to redeem.

Okay, maybe a couple of these points I can semi agree with.  Horde players tend to be more mature but not by much and most of the time Alliance trade chat is filled with petty arguments that go on for hours (which seems to be far worse on RP servers for some reason.)

Now, onto why playing Alliance sucks.

In most circles that discuss WoW properly either at a gaming level or design level, the majority seem to be Horde.  In many conversations in these circles, if someone mentions ANYTHING about the Alliance, they will get shutdown with many people criticising their choice of faction.  Even wearing an item of clothing that says Alliance on it, while going into game stores will most likely result in booing from the shop assistants or them making some other comment if you purchase something.
Even while playing a Horde character, if you mention to someone that you have a main as Alliance, they will most likely give you a distasteful response.  I’m sure it sounds like I’m generalising here, but this is what I have experienced in the majority of situations.

At first behaviours like this are to be expected but after such a long time playing, it just gets old and very repetitive.

Now, you must be wondering why do I think that playing Alliance sucks. Why don’t I think that Horde players are all jerks? Well, if you were a Horde player, you would have very similar occurrences but not anywhere near as much I’m sure.

I would rather like to hear peoples comments on this especially from Horde players.

Next time: something hopefully un-WoW related.

Just thought I would start this new blog with something very topical right now if you are someone like me and that is the aftermath of Blizzcon!

Despite all the information getting leaked (see wow.com and mmoinsider) well prior to the event, some rather large suprises occurred.

• The permanent re-shaping of vanillaWoW lands (yay! no more desolate Desolace)
• Two new races (sure we knew, but not how awesome each one would be)
• Patch 3.3 Cross-realm PUG system. (As someone who has to PUG, this is awesome)
• Everywhere flying mounts (seems unfair to someone who has been playing since level 40 ground mounts existed but woo!)
• Heroic Deadmines and SFK (yeh, cool but not that cool)
• Opening of Gilneas and Mount Hyjal
• Level 85 cap (BOO! It should be 90)
• The simplifying of stats (At first I was all “NOOOOOOO” but then it made much more sense and was therefore all “YAAAAAAAYYYY”)
• Mastery, Path Of The Titans and Archaelogy (finally, some epic lore stuff to do!)

Basically, this is what I took from Blizzcon as being the most important points.  Most good, a couple meh and one crappy.

The two new races, Worgens and Goblins are pretty much awesome.  Their racials are also pretty spiffy but the Goblins seem to win at this.

O___O. Pack Hobgoblin and Best Deals Anywhere are bloody awesome.  The rocket belt ones are pretty cool also. At first glance you think this is incredibly unfair but makes sense lore and character design wise.

Sure, it may seem that they will get an unfair advantage but keep in mind that Blizzard haven’t announced their actual class specs.  Me thinks these won’t be very large and in so doing will try and counteract the Gnome-ing they will receive.

Now for Worgens.

Ok, so at first glance you may think that Worgens have pretty sucky racials.  Just think for a second.  You basically get two character models, both of which look amazing and in transformation you get one hell of a speccy animation. Darkflight is pretty cool but only 6 seconds. People that want to make money get a head start.  +15 skinning with no knife required.  Thats pretty cool and does allow for a whole other stack of leather or whatever which results in more money.

Sure, you may still be thinking “thats not so great” or as I’ve heard from some people “Worgens are so much more a horde character and should be so!”, then I present you three arguments.  Two pictures and one video.

These are insanely cool pieces of concept are, no?

Human form worgen is just amazing.  The mount shall be very interesting once it hits.

If this wasn’t enough, have a video.

Pretty damn amazing I reckon.  Hopefully the final product isn’t too different.

Well, I think my engine has run out.

Next time: another WoW topic!