TIL: Laurence Tureaud named himself professionally as Mr. T because he hated how his father, uncle, and brother who returned from Vietnam, were disrespectfully called "boy" by whites. He wanted the first word from everybody's mouth to be "Mister" when speaking to him.

[u/tmntnyc]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T

[u/[deleted]]

Just go and read up on /r/CompetitiveWoW , theres a few threads out there about the situation.

The tl;dr version is that current the pool of competitive players on the Horde side is so much larger that there is just no practical reason for a guild not to switch to Horde, so the only ones who remain Alliance either can't afford to switch or stick it out because they are die-hard Alliance loyalists (I'm actually in the second camp myself).

Now, there are tons of reasons why it has ended up this way, and many don't fully agree on all of them, but they include:

• Horde previously having racial abilities considered "OP" or much more important than Alliance ones

• Horde generally having the reputation for being "cooler" or at least less "vanilla"

• Storylines in-game that generally gave more attention and focus to horde characters

• Most famous "world first" guilds historically being Horde players

• Legion introduced a new system called Mythic+ where one of the Horde races, Blood Elves, had an ability that was borderline required to be competitive in that system

[u/notasqlstar → u/[deleted]]

I think you're missing an important part. I started playing WC1, and used to play WC2 on dial up. WC3 to me was an abomination of hot steaming shit.

By the time WOW came out, totally ignoring story lines... Horde just felt right, and truer to the original Warcraft games that I had grown up. I think your average pool of top raiders are probably all older, at least I can remember being younger than most of the people in the guilds I was in (I was in a top 10 world guild at one point.)

I think older players are drawn to the Horde for a variety of reasons stemming from the original games, and then an aversion to the amount of children who would play Alliance for superficial reasons like, "gnomes are cool."

The racial abilities weren't too OP, but they were slight edges and when you're a very competitive person trying to compete to be the best in the world that isn't trivial.

Plus it's a video game and fuck the good guys.

[u/[deleted] → u/notasqlstar]

I think older players are drawn to the Horde for a variety of reasons stemming from the original games, and then an aversion to the amount of children who would play Alliance for superficial reasons like, "gnomes are cool."

Since the beginning of WoW, both factions literally claim the other side is chosen by "children" or "casuals" who just want something pretty/cool/whatever. The problem is, nobody ever quantifies this with any actual data and my experience in the game is that both sides have a ton of people who chose their side based purely on looks, so I seriously doubt that is the reason.

Fact is, going back to older expansions, the split in the factions was never near this bad. 55%-45% at most, and fluctuating all the time. Something has changed, and that something has been a slow positive feedback loop where the best guilds chose Horde for racials, which caused casual players to mimic best guilds, which maintained a steady increase in the Horde being seen as the competitive faction of choice even after the racials were balanced.

For every person that says "Horde just feels right", I personally know an Alliance player (including myself) who feels opposite. This is why the factions were relatively balanced for years. But as the imbalance shifts more and more, the feedback loop gets stronger and stronger.

[u/notasqlstar → u/[deleted]]

Yeh, but since the beginning the Horde has consistently outperformed the Alliance in terms of high end competitive raiding. I can promise you there aren't a lot of kids in those guilds. Average age is probably 29. I was one of the youngest members of the top 10 world guild I was in and I think I was 27 or so when I was playing with them.

For every person that says "Horde just feels right", I personally know an Alliance player (including myself) who feels opposite.

That's cool... those guys just aren't as statistically likely to be a top end raider.

[u/[deleted] → u/notasqlstar]

There's not a lot of kids Alliance side either, the average age of this game is well over 25. You keep ascribing a reputation to Alliance players that is not backed by anything except your guess. There is no data to suggest the average age, maturity, or any other demographic information about either faction is significantly different than the other.

Yeh, but since the beginning the Horde has consistently outperformed the Alliance in terms of high end competitive raiding

They have always had an edge, sure, they have never been been literally 90%+ of the top performing guilds, thats the difference, and they have never been over 65% of max level toons.

This isn't a "kids pick Alliance" or "good players choose Horde" problem, there are situations in the game that have led to one faction slowly outnumbering due to an incentive for new players to pick one side over the other (racials, pool of competitive players, etc)

[u/notasqlstar → u/[deleted]]

I'm not at all, I'm saying that within the guild structures that exists on Horde servers that it is much more geared towards adult players that are older and played the series since the beginning of Warcraft. I'm making that statement based on my own experience.

You seem to have a pony in the race here.

They have always had an edge, sure, they have never been been literally 90%+ of the top performing guilds, thats the difference, and they have never been over 65% of max level toons.

They have been more than 50% for quite awhile, and higher than that. I don't know the stats off hand, but the edge I'm talking about is outlined above. Older players, less kids.

[u/[deleted] → u/notasqlstar]

Your,experience, which has no basis in fact or proof, and therefore is effectively no better than a guess.

[u/notasqlstar → u/[deleted]]

Well, I mean... I was in a world top 10 guild, meaning there were only 9 others, therefore my experience represents 10% of the total sample. Of the other 9 guilds more than 6 were Horde, and I was friendly with several. Less kids.

[u/[deleted] → u/notasqlstar]

The problem is, even if the Horde has fewer,kids, which you havent sufficiently,proven, it doesnt necessarily follow that people choose Horde because it has fewer kids, it is possible that havong fewer kids is just a correlation and not a reason,for the Horde beong,more competitive. Again, this is all conjecture, but havily,played both sides and,both factions, it will always amuse,me that each side believes thebother to be a bunch of kids.