i have solved the eternal debate. why alliance > horde

[Solesk]

LESS RUNNING!

omg the horde does alot of running, and it's damn annoying.

little background. i've leveled two characters to 60 on the alliance side, rogue and priest. i loved leveling both, and to my surprise really like playing a priest. and while i love playing a holy priest end game, there are times i miss playing a shadow priest (which like most i played 1-60). but who wants to respec everytime they feel a longing? that's alot of money. it's not that i resent being a holy priest, i like it. it just so happens i like being a shadow priest also.

so i get the idea "i'll make a horde shadow priest!" that way i can keep him shadow and never respec to holy. he can be my hobby character so to speak. so i set right to the task. i create me an undead priest. i know, cliche, but with the new changes to shadowform i figure an undead priest in shadow form on a mount will look bad ass. especially if the mount is in shadow form also (like it currently is on test, sorta). and trolls... well they arent appealing.

anyway, back to the point. i'm up to level 16 now. and already i think i've done 10x more running than on either of my alliance characters. quests asside (which seem so far to be more running for horde) the zepplins are a pain in the ass. they arent even in the cities, they are half a city away outside of them. and in the case of undercity you cant even ride your mount most of the way (as i'm told you cant mount in the undercity).

i realise the undercity looks kinda small. but you find out real fast you can waste a ton of time there running around looking for stuff. and as a low level orgrimmar isnt much better. it's freaking huge and strewn out, and as a miner have been unable to find a forge anywhere in the central area (i asked in general and everyone said none). and i'll be damned if i'm running for 10 minutes to a remote part of the city just to smelt. arrrg, i'm really starting to understand why so many horde members call it world of runcraft.

the zepplins really seem to come into play when your trying to move between continents it seems. they are alot farther from griffens than boats are on the alliance side. and as near as i can tell, if you need to pass through the undercity to get to your destination (which i'm told is common) then your forced back to your newbie non mounted pace just to get to the bat. i realise it looks short, but i simply cannot imagine doing this 300 times over the coarse of leveling up and doing instances and not going insane from the repetition of it. i've already done it a couple dozen times getting to 15 and it's already really getting to me.

proof in point i just spent 30 minutes doing quests in silverpine forest and then an hour afterwards running to sepulcher, to the undercity, back to sepulcher, to brill, back to sepulcher, back to the undercity, back to sepulcher. that's 2x more running than actually questing. i'm sorry but they seriously need to do something about travel times. wearing out my a and d keys isnt exactly ground breaking gameplay.

if this continues through too many more levels i'm not even sure if i'll keep playing my horde character. anyway. sorry for the long rant. i didnt start off the post to be a rant.

[Lysandor]

He's right, Blizzard fooked us.

But it was too late to start over, so we stayed Horde. Well -- that and there are 2 alliance characters for every horde character on SH, but I digress.

I have a LOT of fun playing my alliance alts. Everything is easier, and there is a LOT less stupid running around.

Truth be told, I love both sides of the game. The alliance is your traditional fantasy stuff, and the Horde is very shamanistic.

But the running back and forth does suck. I have often missed the big buff of the war chief thing because it doesnt land on you if you are mounted in Orgrimmar, which I always am, as i run from the AH to the forge, and back again -- over and over and over.

[Hannibal777]

I don't know. I started off as an alliance as well with 2 55+ charatcers there. Now I am leveling up 2 horde characters. 1 UD warlock and 1 orc rogue. Especially my warlock which stayed in the undead area all the time, I didn't find the running to be too bad. When you quest in Silverpine you stayed there. When you quest in Hillsbrad, you stayed there. So not that bad.

I did more running as my shaman which quested mostly in the Barren but had to travel to Tauren Mill from time to time. Oh well...

[Jonas]

There's a flight path between Sepulcher and Undercity, one of the first quests you get between the two places should have gotten you the flightpath!

To address your point, though, yes, it's horrible, and it gets worse as you level up, thus the reason we say "Alliance is 'easy mode'" =)

[Macfudd]

Compare mulgore to the nice compact human newbie zone. All the mobs stand around in bunches, not wandering aimlessly. And you certainly dont get told "Hey, go find some random landmark, there's a woman there, it's off to the northwestish somewhere"

[Draxyn]

LESS RUNNING!

Feralas?
Felwood?
Badlands?
Wetlands?
Stranglethorn?

methinks you were 60 too long and forgot about how much the alliance goes back and forth as well.

[Viasmus]

Especially my warlock which stayed in the undead area all the time, I didn't find the running to be too bad. When you quest in Silverpine you stayed there. When you quest in Hillsbrad, you stayed there. So not that bad.

Yes, but Silverpine has a gap in quests from about 17-21, and up until a month ago or so, Hillsbrad was unusable. It still is on pvp servers due to poor quest layout (Level 33 alliance killing yetis in the caves with level 25 horde killing bears outside.)

[Agent-Jesus]

Shadow priest in denial.

[Mileron]

Feralas?
Felwood?
Badlands?
Wetlands?
Stranglethorn?

methinks you were 60 too long and forgot about how much the alliance goes back and forth as well.

Don't forget Duskwood. Back, forth, SW, Westfall, back, forth, back, forth, Redrige, SW, Westfall, back, forth...

Most of the other zones - Elwynn, Redridge, Loch Modan, Wetlands - at least have a path that you follow around the zone, rather than touching each edge of the map every other quest.

[Sehra]

Waah. Mulgore was the best newbie zone I've ever been in. Before I started my shaman I'd never even seen a gray elite before level 20, he saw 4 or 5. The main city is right in the middle of the fing zone, and is one of the best designed. And don't get me started on how sweet the blimps are compared to boats.

The Barrens, on the other hand, sucks ass. Hopefully the new flightpath coming in for Camp Taurajo will help.

[Pyre]

You clearly never did any of the higher level Alliance Ashenvale quests. That's some serious running.

Undeads are an abomination and a serious chink in game lore. Abolishing them completely would solve a lot of game mechanic problems. Rerolling as real Horde might help you out some.

I just got my troll shaman to level 20, and ghost wolf helps a lot with the Barrens. I'm looking forward to a lot less running time from now on compared to my mage and paladin, who didn't get any relief until level 40.

[Mileron]

I'm looking forward to a lot less running time from now on compared to my mage and paladin, who didn't get any relief until level 40.

I agree, Blink only reduces travel time by a tiny bit.

Though, the 8% boot runspeed helps a lot more.

[Vashanti]

I love my undead Shadow priest.

Although, I admit, I was very happy to get an undead horse to help with all the running.

[Draxyn]

At least in Duskwood you can take the bird to Sentinel hill and jog east a bit to get to the meat of the zone. But yeah, it's annoying as hell too.

Never done Ashenvale as an alliance. It was annoying enough as a Horde. The only reason I stayed was out of a sense of duty to help my greenskinned brethren finish clearcutting the joint.

[Pyre]

At least in Duskwood you can take the bird to Sentinel hill and jog east a bit to get to the meat of the zone. But yeah, it's annoying as hell too.

Never done Ashenvale as an alliance. It was annoying enough as a Horde. The only reason I stayed was out of a sense of duty to help my greenskinned brethren finish clearcutting the joint.

Several of the high-end alliance quests are set between splintertree post and azshara -- there's one in Xavian, two in the barrow dens, and one in the satyr camp. Even what I'd imagine to be the main Alliance Ashenvale quest involves a lot of running -- from near Maestra's Post at the beginning to near Felwood in the middle to east of Mystral Lake at the end, with lots of back and forth along the way.

Then there's the worgen quest, which makes you run from Darnassus to Ratchet, at a level where most Alliance don't have the Booty Bay gryphon point yet. Very tedious, mindless running.

[Inquisitr]

and that's why horde > alliance in all things

we have to work for what we get...you're just given it.

"running more than 2 minutes?!?!?! NO! this cannot be allowed!"

[Nimrangor]

If it were just five or even ten minutes it would be better. Usually by the time I get to where the mob is I need to kill is its gone gray from everything I had to kill along the way. Poor zone layout and drunk dev. make life for horde pretty miserable. Finishing my fire totem greyed out 6 other quests on my Shaman.

[Pyre]

"running more than 2 minutes?!?!?! NO! this cannot be allowed!"

I play the game to play the game, not engage in mindless tedium running from point A to point B in order to play the game. I hated it in EQ, and I hate it in WoW. Fortunately, it's much less prevalent in WoW.

[Qulidos]

I'll agree there are some poorly laid out regions (which I believe Blizzard is working on..) but some the quests are SUPPOSED to be like "go to east bumfuck and talk to joe dirt" so IMO, for the higher lvl stuff it shouldn't really be a point to whine about.

[Myngil]

I have a LOT of fun playing my alliance alts. Everything is easier, and there is a LOT less stupid running around.

Alts on SH too?


I love my troll, I love the Horde. I've made several horde alts and explored their lands to excess save for the tauren lands. I wanted to start up a druid, and since my choices were night elf or tauren I obviously went tauren. I just couldnt do it, when I started off I could explore and wander for hours. But not in Mulgore, please god not in Mulgore.

So a friend I never expected to play any form of MMO starts up an Alliance on a PVP server. I make a jiggly purple druid, and well she is now 41 and my troll has been abandoned since.

And the MORONS. I'm tempted to roll a stormreaver horde on my bf's account just to see if it's any more sane. If I had a buck for every time I heard the word 'fag' in general, I'd be practicing my new French Horn and then go for a cruise on my new mountain bike.
Sample of Guildnames on Alliance: Psychotic Kitty Ninjas. Peter Pan Boys, Terrorist Squirells, Ninja Pirate Lumberjacks, DeAtH In ThE sHaDoWs(yes, this is the correct capitolisation)
I'd go into playernames, but I've already complained about poobutter here