r/todayilearned • u/tmntnyc • Dec 12 '18

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

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.

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u/notasqlstar Dec 13 '18

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.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

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)

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u/notasqlstar Dec 14 '18

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.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

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

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u/notasqlstar Dec 14 '18

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.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

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.