I personally always kinda prefered humans due to they are the most iconic race to the Warcraft universe.
Humans in Warcraft have such rich lore and fantasy to it that it is just a interesting roleplay aspect to explore.
Hearing from everyones perspective it proves that truly yes Humans and the races of the Alliance are far more popular then the orcs and trolls and so on. Cause for us, the players, it is very alien of a culture and theme they got so its harder for us to get into. Playing Alliance like a human or Night elf or hell even a Worgen who are in a fact humans just cursed, we can find it far more easier to get into.
Then there is a larger problem which is the fact that Horde AD RP is very different compared to Alliance on the fact of “How to find RP” and that is easy to explain. Alliance got a FAR wider and larger population of RPers and content that its pretty easy to walk around Stormwind and stumble into something random. Horde is less so but i would not say its impossible, i myself was a Horde main Rper and i had some fun random encounters, but they are not as friquent and far more dependent on luck and you to step forth and start some RP. Not to mention that Horde RP Community does not have a close nit of a hub like Alliance does. You can say that Orgimmar sure or Silvermoon is the big hubs for RP on Horde side but also in truth there are a TONE of guilds and Horde rpers not even visiting Orgrimmar or Silvermoon. The RP on Horde is very outspread, taking on the aspect of more…Wandering Warbands. Except the Blood elf community who are almost or are legit their own community on Horde side and are far more close nit and cooperative with each other then say a guild of mix races or the more “Savage” looking one.
I do say this in short: People go where there is most content. Right now that is Alliance. And people go where they can mirror themselves and not feel alien. Right now that is as well Alliance or Belves. This is just a small take of what i think and have seen.
I’m saying only one thing “Male human paladin” is a fantasy that seems to appeal to a massive amount of people. Unfortunately I also witnessed that a great amount of people that do so are mainly RPing themselfes as being more pretty and having holy powers!
As for the reason -I- play alliance however… I was a horde player from vanilla to Warlords of Draenor, where I took a break. However during WoD I also gave RP a try and quickly figured that Alliance had people… everywhere. Stormwind, Redridge, Duskwood and even Westfall had random roleplay.
Horde on the other side was… barren. Sure I could’ve joined a guild, but… what guild? Who are they? Where are they? Do I need to make characters tailored for their guild? The amount of “Orc only” or “Undead only” guilds were a factor where I could not see myself.
So… I stuck with Alliance. Began doing PVE on Alliance and even RPed with my PVE alliance by swooping down in Stormwind and still getting random RP encounters. Some times more and some times less enjoyable, but there was always some.
When I tried Horde again, I had literally no RP until guilds I tried began running events… And logged off once the event concluded.
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Make Horde great again 
Would it be of interest to maybe prepare some kind of transition opportunity for people, now that Shadowlands is on its way? The pre patch may be a good time, for instance. What I mean is that the Horde side could set up some kind of large social RP event, OOC or IC, so that new horde players can go there and meet with everyone and see what it’s all about. Maybe during a week or so?
I guess it would mainly entail being somewhere and just like, helping people get into their characters. If someone comes with a Goblin, have them meet the Goblin community there etc… Sure some of you would have to spend a week somewhere where you normally are not, but it would be a community effort.
I do like that you brought up about Social RP events. That is something else that Horde tends to lack, not fully but on scale. Alliance have fare more RP content offered with DMs setting up social events almost every week or every month. Horde does sadly not (Except the belf community)
I think the bigger reason for that is cause…For some reason…Horde as in the RP and its races, are very VERY split. There this tendency that races of the Horde shall stick with their own. And so certain social events are harder to set up and people tend to make a event that is around a specific race or its own specific culture.
But anyway yes, Horde could just need more community wide love with content offered and somehow bring the Horde community together instead of bubbling.
Cause it tis be one of the reason i have at least caught that have many Rpers not wanna RP on Horde. Alliance (As many said before) is just so much easier to find content.
The game play may also be a factor. (Old news if this is not true anymore feel free to let me know) Alliance is very much into PvP far as I know, many reasons for that but humans have or had one of the best race abilities. It make sense that people pick the larger group or stronger race because numbers.
I’m sure some of them are into RP too, this is a RP server after all.
Depending on the current state of the game, story etc you may see it shift from time to time but I doubt it will do so in a way that truly make a huge difference.
I shall open a can of worms and mention it again: How Alliance content appears, this is my personal opinion more appealing to the eye and RPG scenery in regards of cities etc.
- Alliance used to have this image of being the ‘‘good’’ guys
Largely supported by Warchief #whoevencounts going rogue and the intervention of the Alliance being key to saving the day. Which is why I’m personally happy that there are fractures within the Alliance at this point, while the Horde - for once - seems to have its leadership in a somewhat stable place.
I think this can also explain why a lot of Horde races don’t mingle too much. So many of the races in the Horde come from vastly different backgrounds, some of which are pretty grim. Warmachine orcs, cannibal trolls, megacapitalist goblins, undead humans born of unholy magics. Etc.
If you play very typical characters of these races, they would make going down to the pub for a drink or attending some elven dinner party feel pretty “off.”
Of course, people usually bend the strict tropes of their race, but when compared to the Alliance races who are much more easy to co-mingle as, it definitely makes sense for me why Horde races stick with their own kind. As a troll player who sticks heavily to tribal troll characteristics, I would rather attend a ceremony of sacrifice to the Loa rather than go to a ball.
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For me, it’s because humans have the possibility of being far more diverse/interesting characters than some other races, due to their rich background and expanded lore presence. Same could be said with night elves.
Blizzard tends to write a lot of Horde/non-human/elven races very stereotypically. Orcs, despite their varied backgrounds and appearances, all seem to share very similar values and personalities; same is truer tenfold for tauren and goblins, and a little less true for trolls (thanks to their varied tribes).
Obviously, it’s up to players to create their own compelling character, and no race inherently restricts that. I’d just argue that humans in particular have a better starting point for creating a unique and creative character, when compared to most Horde races and even most Alliance races (especially gnomes and dwarves). Compare to difference in personality and character on Anduin and Mathias Shaw, or Lothar and Flynn Fairwind, or Illidan and Jarod, or Lor’thamar and Kael’thas, etc. And compare those diversities to the differences between Gallywix and Literally Any Goblin, or Baine and Cairne, or Garrosh and any WoD Warlord.
There’s also the fact that Alliance RP is “objectively” easier to start out on for some new players; random RP is a lot more appealing to a brand new player than having to join a guild right off the bat (or hang around a tree in Orgrimmar).
Horde population is also, like Zolkhan said, far more split than the Alliance population. The infamous 75:25 split (or whatever it is nowadays) is worsened by the fact the Horde’s largest population, blood elves, tend to stick to their own and do their own thing. The same can be said of undead. Because of this, it could be argued the average Horde player will only experience 10-15% of the server’s roleplaying population depending on their race, making unguilded roleplay very unappealing. Horde evidently has larger communities in general than Alliance (most being PCU), meaning no one’s gonna actually be starved for RP, but it’s definitely a very different experience to the more casual and free-flowing Alliance.
3 Likes
We’re pulling up to being as big on Alliance as on Horde and will probably (sadly! I am a Horde main at heart) eclipse the Horde side eventually based on how much easier it is to recruit on blue side
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Definitely predicated upon literary and visual interests, personally speaking. Arthurian knights (Howard Pyle’s books, the musical Camelot, and even Excalibur from 1981). Same reason I’m going to choose the Venthyr; Dracula is one of my favourite novels of all time, simple as.
Walks in, scratches bum, grunts at the original poster and then leaves the thread.
Felt very Orcish to me! 
(I don’t do RP so apologies if I’ve broken unknown rules of RP etiquette!)
Before Allied races Alliance used to have a lot of the typically ‘pretty’ races, which attracts RPers who would obviously like the idea of RPing something attractive over not. Not only that, but as people are constantly told ‘RP is bigger on Alliance’ it’ll make more people want to RP on Alliance than Horde, perpetuating the difference. Despite this, Horde RP is still very much enjoyable but unlike on Alliance, you have to go out and find it and create your own scenarios and open up to the community with them.
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picks up her Gryphon and goes home
Thanks for all of your answers.
It seems you all have the same explainations globally.
I can’t quote all of you but I agree the fact Horde RP is more thematic, that bring out Horde is really divided:
- Lore created Horde “united as one” artificially with races really different each others. Green skins can have some tribes common points, maybe Taurens too. But the other races played as “racialists” one. Alliance is naturally united despite some races difference.
- You are all completely right to notify Horde RP is guild focused, joining a Blood Elf thematic RP guild is barely impossible with a Goblin contrary too Alliance and their humans declinaisons. ( Humans/Gnomes/Dwarves/Worgens…). It’s easiest to create a community with all races, open more RP perspective.
But all of these reflexion are like datas analysis, that’s suppose you have all of you calculating before faction and character choice and creation.
Can we conclude that was purely instinctive to chose alliance for most of you all?
Because humans. 
Many people have also changed factions over time. For example, I started as Horde and moved all my toons to Alliance at around MoP and WoD, simply because Blizzard was doing everything they could to turn the Horde into this metal genocidal warband that basically had no remorse to take a dark path again because “duh, conquest is cool.”
And then when you add a garrison with zero representation of blood elves and undeads and zero redeeming lore, I knew I had to switch for good.
Other players may just be on Alliance because there are more players, this reinforcing the lack of balance. etc etc
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I’ve never understood that. Specially when there’s the big cheer over being able to make a character that represents you and I’m like “I want to be a blue elf, and a grey dwarf, and a big cow woman!”
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Big problem with humans is that they are just standard fantasy stuff. I do get that people want to play something comfortable though.