Well, you have to realize that horde of that level have just spent an awful lot of time running all over the Barrens, which I think nearly everyone despises. It’s huge, most of the quests are lame, there’s always hyenas getting in your business while you try and hunt whatever it is you’re hunting, theres a bunch of yelling NPCs going off every 2 minutes and lots of people asking the same 3 or 4 questions over and over again because they can’t be bothered to check their quest logs. It makes horde players want to hurt someone. If it makes you feel any better, in beta, alliance could be counted on to annoy us in Hillsbrad in the same fashion.
I love playing horde, but seriously, fuck the Barrens.
Yeah, yeah. You Orcs like to beat up on helpless Alliance players because you had a rough upbringing. It’s not your fault, it’s the society you grew up in. Cry me a river! :)
Seriously, though, I do wonder if different types of players are attracted to the Horde rather than the Allance. I honestly don’t understand why somebody would want to play as an Orc, and this from someone who finished KOTOR on the dark side path.
For some reason – totally baseless, I know – I just get the impression that a lot of the dipshits and bnetters who love to grief other players and live only for corpse-camping, etc, are inherently more likely to be Horde than Alliance. Are there any grounds for this kind of thinking, or am I just being, um, faction-ist?
I haven’t got WoW, but I always found the Orcs more interesting in Warcraft. If I were going to get WoW the Horde races are definately more interesting IMO. I’m also not even close to a griefer, heck in CoH my tank saves random people all the time by acting as an agro magnet if I see them in over their heads.
Yeah the Barrens is still too big and the level range is all over the map. Not a good zone theme to have for the second zone of the game for three of the four Horde races. Having played Alliance for most of the CB, but going with Horde in retail, there really is a lot to the complaints you see of Alliance favoritism on the part of Blizzard.
I hate all that griefer PvP crap, and was leery about the interest Qt3ers showed in joining a full PvP server, because I find Warcraft’s PvE to be interesting enough. That said, I’m much more interested in the Horde races. I think Blizzard shows more creativity in the orc & tauren backstories than in their treatment of Alliance races. Treating orcs as Klingons – honorable, but brutish, combat-lovers – isn’t high fantasy, but it’s a heck of a lot more accomplished than most MMOs do with their races. I’ll admit they show some creativity in presenting the Alliance races of humans & night elves as a lot more neutral than most other games, where they are simply paragons of good & righteousness.
Most of the early buzz here was for the Alliance side, however, so I’ve got a night elf main. While I like the lore surrounding the Horde side more, I’ve got to admit the Alliance zones & quests are more interesting than the ones I’ve seen with my orc warlock alt.
My conjecture regarding players & races is that high-schoolers who are way into Tolkien or console RPGs play night elves. Leaving the night elf lands is fun because I get to explore. More importantly, I no longer see swarms of night elves named Leggolaas, Aerrhis, and LLink.
I’m in a guild with a bunch of NZ’ers on Proudmoore also – except we’re playing alliance. If you ever fire up an Alliance alt, look me up (Skeev on Proudmoore).
(Mind you, I’m not in NZ m’self – I’m in Michigan, USA. Great guys in the guild, though it’s a little weird when I’m about to hit the sack on Thursday, and they’re all “TGIF!” and “woohoo, weekend!”)
As it turns out, the Horde now has a significant NPC presence in Ashenvale. I never explored the zone fully during closed beta, but I don’t remember Splinterwood Post, the fairly large Horde village…well east of Astranaar :D
I went to Blackfathom Deeps last night with a mid-20s party, fairly well-balanced but for the presence of a rogue (I kid, I kid)–and Zoram Strand was crawling with high 20s and low 30s Horde parties. It wasn’t a gathering raid, from what I understand. They just like to get together and camp the instance. Horde was roaming the Strand proper and was squatting all the corridors and tunnels of the temple itself. Just waiting for players like me to play their version of Red Rover. Well, we managed to die only a few times before we got to the instance, and we took out a couple high 20s shamans who were camping the portal, but it’s a long way of saying that Ashenvale has a much more significant Horde presence than people expect.
It certainly took me by surprise. Then I realized that the Barrens are just south. That whole southeast section of Ashenvale is basically Horde territory.
Also, I’m quickly getting the impression that the Hunter’s ability to track humanoids and run faster than everyone else in the game is not only a compelling PvP choice but will likely get nerfed in the near future. I just cannot escape this player class. With their movement speed advantage, they’re on top of me before I can formulate any sort of plan.
Why would you want to escape a hunter? They’re pretty fragile. When I try and get someone, the best situation for me is if they try to run away. They have no chance then. If they start towards me, then I have to work.
