Alliance/horde differences in questlines, and lore

Community General Discussion
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Hello there!

I’m a new player here, I know some very basic things about WoW lore, but 90% of the things are not really clear for me. Many things I know are from the Warcraft movie. I’ve already googled these things, and read some opinions, but without much facts stated behind them. So, I would like to ask some questions. Answers may require some spoilers in the story, I do not know. I write this, so other newbies can skip reading this thread.

I chose to be an alliance player for more or less roleplaying reasons. Please correct me in the comments if I am wrong here. As I know the alliance is more or less the good guys here. They did some bad or even evil things in their history (I have no idea what, I just read arguments with these exact words), but they are considered the ‘light’ side in the story.

So, If I a correct with the above, then what’s the thing with the horde and the orcs? Is the horde considered evil? Do not think about such a great difference as between jedi and sith in star wars universe, but can we consider the horde the bad side here?

For me it all makes sense only, if they are the baddish. The story is ultimately based on the conflict of two sides where the alliance are the defenders, or not?

I do not really want to start a horde character, maybe never, but not at this point anyway. However, it would be a very good point for me in roleplaying aspect if I would know that the other side is the evil side in the game. I can not imagine an orc being a champion of light if you know what I mean.

At the moment, when my human character is in a conversation with an NPC, sometimes they refer me, call me as a ‘hero’. I guess my character did some great things in the story so far, defeated many main enemies in previous contents. But does the same thing happens to orc players for example?

On alliance side, my quests were mostly if not all the time, good things. Save this, kill that to save those etc. At the end of the questline I was the hero who saved the day. But what orc players do on the other side? Do they need to do the same, and be the champion of the defenseless and save orc villages in orcland, or do they destroy, burn up everything and do evil things?

Also, what quests do they have? Do horde players do the same quests for example in Kul Tiras as me, an alliance warrior? This would make no sense for me. Or do the horde players have a totally different questline made for them in their own continent? But again, sometimes I see horde players in Kul Tiras (and try to fight them, then I usually die), but it’s fun, I enabled the open world pvp party because of roleplaying reasons. I wanna slay orcs for the glory of the Alliance! :stuck_out_tongue: Also, if they do not share our questline how can they share our dungeons, or do they at all? Or the two sides have different dungeons and raids?

I would really appreaciate some help, to understand more the world, and how the quests work for the two sides.

Thank you in advance!

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Horde is kinda evil… You can compare this faction to Mandalorians if you know Star Wars universe. There is a lot about glory and honor but also murder and villainy because not everyone plays fair. From Horde point of view you will see a lot of Alliance being jackasses and as Alliance~ Horde being jackasses :sweat_smile:

When it comes to questing then it depends of the zone. There are zones with quests only for your faction with unique quests and zones where we play together with similar quests. Kultiras for Horde is similar to Zandalar for Alliance~ we have only world quests there and few story missions about war. Mostly quests are unique but objective can be the same (aka the same boss to kill for different reason).

Raids and Dungeons are the same for both factions (Mostly). Sometimes we have different starting quest for them… some are canon and some are just fillers for us to play. For example in BFA this Manor dungeon with witches is for Alliance lorewise… yet Horde can play it! Dungeon with snakes in Voldun is for Horde lorewise… You can play it as Alliance anyway.

Undead are kinda evil tho~ they had their reasons to fight humans but as good guy you would certainly question their methods! Not to mention that Goblins are like greedy humans that prefer advancement and profit over nature! That can be considered evil :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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No.

When you level up as Horde, you get told that the Alliance are the bad ones.

Search for the achievement “Two sides of every tale”, and get that done, for a BFA story perspective. I would really recommend it.

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The Forsaken aren’t all bad. I am not sure how their questing story for their starting zones go now(after the Cataclysm), but they were pretty sad originally, and I sympatized greatly with them. As of recently, you’ve got Derek Proudmore, which you will meet in both sides of the story. There are also story from the books that aren’t ingame, e.g. the story of when some of the Forsaken met their Human families in Arathi(?), in what was between Legion/BFA iirc.

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That movie has little in common with the lore.
I suggest reading wowwiki or playing warcraft 3.
The ingame story is a mess.
The timeline goes like this:
The Burning Crusade>Notherend>cataclysm>Mist of pandaria>Warlords of dreanor>legion>battle for azzaroth.
You start in cataclysm then go back in time the burning crusade then back to cataclysm.

Keep that in mind while doing quest.
Every expension is a different time period.

That depends on who you ask.
Blizzard claims there lawful stupid.
Alliance players claim they need to stop forgiving the horde and start becoming evil so they can be the one’s inflicing suffering for a change.
The horde claims there goodie two shoes who constantly make the horde feel bad because blizzard force the horde to be evil.

The horde is considered a mess.
The horde consist out of several groups all calling themself the real horde.

The honor horde: Basicly nice people who want to fight fair and defeat evil.
The old horde: Just want to burn, kill and torture.
The scourge 2.0: The forsaken are evil with a few execptions who just want to live there unlife is peace.
They blame others for making them be evil to survive but that is a lie they tell themselves to sleep beter at night.
Forsaken players dont even tell themselves that lie.
The real horde: The none playable horde clans.
90% of which are mass child murderers.
Frostwolf clan being the only known execption.

Not since mist of pandaria but blizzard cant let the faction war go.
So they come up with increasingly bad reasons for the horde and alliance to fight.
The horde and alliance have united so many times and there are so many factions who employ members of both factions race’s.
Really the only reason horde and alliance dont merge is because blizzard doesnt want them too.
There is little lore reason beyond old haterds die hard.

I suggest you do play a horde.
Best get both side’s of the story or check out nobble87 lore video’s:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Nobbel87

There is a good reason for the alliance to consider them evil.
Four attemps at slaughtering the alliance till the last man, woman and child was tryed by the horde.
Four failed attemps.
With the most recent one being the night elven capital being burned while full of civilions.

While some of them are.
About 10%.
The horde as a whole is evil.
There are those within the horde who are good.
Alliance is the exact opposite there 90% good with 10% evil people.

Reason i quit the alliance.
I coudnt stand seeing the alliance needing constant saving.

Horde quest are veriad.
Sometimes you save something.
Sometimes you burn something.
You always look badass doing so.

They have there own questlines.
Dungeons and raids are mostly gameplay and story seperation.
Blizzard useally tells us which side accauly did the dungeon/raid.
The other can just play it for gameplay reasons suchs as loot.

To understand world of warcraft:
1: Watch nobble87.
2: Know that blizzard is recon happy, alot of stuff in the game has been removed or alter to the point it makes the lore a mess.
3: Alot of lore is in books instead of ingame where it belongs.
4: Get 1 charater for both side’s to see the whole story.
And remember that alot of lore isnt shown in game.

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Watch this, for a set of highlights about the whole story so far. It’s very condensed, but gives you a general outline:

You can also refer to this timeline:

Now, to get to your more immediate question.

When I first started, facing that screen with all the races on it, I wanted to play Alliance, because I didn’t feel like being the Bad Guy (in what I thought would be a game I’d play over a few days at most!)

But some people will howl when you call the Horde the Bad Guys.

Well, I was right. The Alliance aren’t spotless, and the Horde aren’t evil, but that’s the closest first approximation.

The Horde was formed when the Orcs, having genocided the Draenei and blown up their own planet on their own world, opened a portal to Azeroth to escape from their crumbling planet and take this one. Now, they had mitigating circumstances, because they had drunk demon blood that made them crazy, but that’s Bad-Guy enough for our purposes.

However, they were led by Thrall, who was Good-Guy enough for a dozen Marvel films. And so there is this interplay of conflicts between races, with major characters who often take nuanced views.

The Orcs then made alliances with other races on Azeroth, each with its own reasons for banding together. Nobody could call the Tauren, for example, Bad Guys, but the Tauren joined because the Orcs helped them against the Quillboar who were attacking them.

Every expansion, a Great Evil threatens the Whole World, and both Alliance and Horde parties fight against it. So yes, as an Orc at 120, you are deemed to have faced down Kil’jaden, the Lich King, and all the rest.

Quests for Alliance and Horde are mostly the same, once you get past level 20-ish. Mostly. Both sides have an insatiable appetite for boar ribs and bear asses, and clearing out bandits and local Big Bads.

Both sides are Good Guys to the neutral factions you meet along the way, though some other factions side with Alliance or Horde.

In all previous expansions, Alliance and Horde did pretty much all the same quests, though they took and handed in the quests to differenbt sides. In BfA, there are three clear Alliance zones, and three clear Horde zones.

In BfA, Alliance befriend Kul Tirans by solving problems for them, while the Horde on Zandalar recruit the Zandalari Trolls and Vulpera by saving them from dangers. The Tortollans remain neutral, and give the same quests for both sides.

You will understand better when you level a character to 120 yourself.

Dungeons and Raids are the same for both factions. They involve fighting creatures that are a menace to both factions.

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Wow, thank you everyone, very great answers, I will watch the videos you told me! I am already 120 becasue I got a level up token from the game to 110 and reached 120 quiet fast! Another question come to my mind, are there many player choice that matters in the game? Like we can decide the outcome of a quest like in SWTOR? I let XY die or save him?

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No.
Horde get a few quest choices after massive outrage but the choice is fake.
You get the same outcome regardless and do the same things.
Execpt you are pretending to help the rebels instead of just helping the rebels.
All for 1 extra cutsence.

Wow story is compleetly on rails and your just along for the ride.

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btw…whatever they tell you about the tree, it’s filthy propaganda. That thing caught fire on its own!

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This is where I feel the Horde went wrong. The “old” Horde should have stopped existing with/after WC3. Thrall explicitly took the Orcs and showed them the shamanistic way of their ancients so the demon fuelled blood rage would finally come to an end.

The “new” Horde doesn’t need to fight with honour if there is no one to fight against. The new Horde is all about living in peace with the elements and making a way for your people, just like the Mag’har in (MU) Draenor are doing today.
The underlying issue is that a lot of people conflate “Horde” with “fighting” and specifically “fighting Alliance”. It’s a cheap way to manufacture conflict when you’re too lazy to whip up another villain of the week. “oh hey, remember those guys that’ve helped you just 2 weeks earlier? Yeah, you really hate their guts right now”.

The beauty of Thrall’s Horde in vanilla was that despite their monstrous appearances, the Horde’s races (except Forsaken, they’ve always been dodgy at best, evil at worst) have been peaceful people who just wanted to be left alone. That evolved into some sort of “fantasy metal” faction that had to fight all the time and then slipped into Warhammer style murder machines in Cataclysm. Cataclysm was the first expansion that struck me as a bit tone deaf, taking themes like genocide and death camps and making light fun of it. CAtaclysm was also the first expansion where the power differential between the Horde and the Alliance began to show its teeth. The Horde was shown as an unstoppable force of nature, whereas the Alliance was portrayed as too weak and/or too stupid to respond to the Horde’s aggression.
Leveling a Horde character through Cataclysm you’d often clash with Alliance and easily dispose of them. On the other hand, leveling an Alliance character through Cata zones you’d find that you never even come into contact with Horde and if you do you usually try to minimise losses. You never win though.

MoP was the next step, where the Alliance was promised their revenge. But ultimately MoP was a Horde expansion again, where the “Good Horde” under Vol’jin overthrew the “Evil Horde” under Garrosh. Note that everyone up to this point was on board with war of extinction against the Night Elves in Ashenvale and Stonetalon and flat out genocide in Lordaeron, Gilneas and Hillsbrad.
At the end of MoP, the Alliance had still lost all of their lands, had a nuke dropped on a city and were not given any reparations.

WoD was… special. Orcs enact genocide against the Draenei of AU Draenor, this time without demon blood. This basically retcons the “peaceful Horde” mythos of vanilla, seeing as all it takes to send Orcs into murderous rampage is just a half Ogre and some Goblin tech. At the end of WoD, Grommash is suddenly forgiven all crimes (sound familiar) and is made a “hero”, despite having the blood of thousands of Draenei civilians and children on his hands. And then Blizzard has the gall to paint Yrel (who has endured the genocide of her people and still chose peace over revenge at the end of WoD) as a villain in BfA.

Legion was more Alliance themed in terms of NPCs, but Horde still had the same level of quest/lore quality as Alliance had. I’d still say that Khadgar and Illidan count as neutral characters at this point, since they have no bias towards Horde or Alliance (Khadgar arguably has a Horde bias, but that’s debatable). The Horde still had a strong presence in Legion, with an entire zone belonging to a Horde race (Highmountain) and an entire patch being Horde themed (the liberation of Suramar).

And then BfA comes around, where the Horde (once again) starts a war against the Alliance and commits another genocide. Feeling cute, might burn an island full of children to the ground later. And the Alliance still does not retaliate, they are still portrayed as too weak to even lift a finger against the mighty Horde so that it takes a civil war inside the Horde again to even tackle Sylvanas’ forces. And then people wonder why - after a decade of being portrayed as stupid and weak - Alliance players are sick of this treatment and quit the game.

Note that this is all alongside being made fun of at every opportunity Blizz devs get.
And alongside second rate content quality:
quest zones cobbled together with filler quests literally weeks before the beta ended, a plethora of horses, no idea what the expansion is even about without playing a Horde character).
And on top of that endless cinematics about how Saurfang is sad and wants the Horde to be better.

The Night Elves get another slap in the face in the Darkshore scenario (it was altered slightly due to fan backlash, but it’s still Nathanos slapping Tyrande around until Malfurion shows up, and then he goes “fools! You made me use 10% of my power!” and flies away on dead angel wings. Nothing was gained, Alliance lost another 2 characters to the Horde. Yeah, because it’s apparently OK to join the people that murdered you and everyone you loved and cared for because “Elune has forsaken us”. I don’t even know what this writing is anymore.

So… TL;DR:
Horde is evil, but isn’t allowed to be evil not to upset the Horde player base. This means that Blizzard need to sneak in a civil war every once in a while to satisfy both the “need to fight the Alliance!” and the “need to be the heroes” factions within the Horde.

Edit:
Derp, sorry for the huge rant, I got sidetracked I guess. This just really upsets me. I used to love playing Horde until Blizzard decided that the Horde needed to be this massive “ARE YOU TRVE ENOUGH FOR THA HOOOOAAARDS!” parody of a Manowar album. I actually liked Thrall’s Horde, and ever since Wrath onwards Blizzard decided to push that aside in favour of an aggressive and bloodthirsty Horde. Playing Alliance isn’t fun either, you’re pretty much always portrayed as the stupid village idiot who gets pushed around by everyone else and is either too stupid or too weak to defend himself.

I like playing Sith Empire in SW:TOR, I like playing Republic too. Both sides are pretty clear cut int heir goals. WoW is just so all over the place with how factions are portrayed I could sue Blizzard for the whiplash.

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Your post needs more likes.
Well worded on everything that is wrong with the story.

Same.
I love how the empire was losing and your goal became to force a stalemate/peace with the republic just to survive.
Swtor shows that being the losers of a war can be a fun story if done right.
Pity eagames greed destroyed the gameplay.

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If you really want to get into the lore then there are 3 official books that start from the beginning of the universe and finish at wraith. They are called the chronicles. Volume 1, 2 and 3.
They are cannon lore. They actually say Horde defeated some raids and bosses and Alliance others.
They are not cheap but are amazing reads

Just Google Warcraft chronicle volume 1

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They are no one dimensional factions here, in terms of being purely good or evil and this is the reason why the world of Warcraft is so attractive to many people. There are still big and evil guys here and there, world ending events and champions to comat those, but the two big forces that shape the politics of Azeroth are not so black and white.

Alliance is this big, largely monarchic union between factions of Eastern Kingdoms (old Alliance of Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes and High Elves (the last ones are no longer really part of Alliance as 90% of them died during Third War and the leftovers become known as Blood Elves and also switched sides)) and Night Elves + Draenei.

Horde is more of a mix bag, as people already mentioned before. Both sides have done good or evil deeds, if you want to look at these from XXI century perspective or apply Geneva convention to them. Just remember that both factions are similar in strength and many of the attrocities they’ve commited in the past were rather strategically argumented (like the burning of Teldrassil and bombing of Theramore wiped the Alliance’s presence from Kalimdor, which should reduce their power to project their strenght on Horde controlled territories).

Alliance is more stable, because it is largely a monarchic faction, which means that kings are trained from very young age to rule over their people and therefore can handle the power better (at least in theory). There are also many smaller but prominent factions within, like orders of Light, knights, aristocracy etc. and so it is easier for them to maintain self-control. Meanwhile Horde is more of the-stronger-shall-rule type of faction, with warchiefs and chieftains being in charge there. Therefore whoever is in charge of Orgrimmar is also in charge of the entire Horde and already twice in the past this proved fatal - twice the faction was split because of their leader. On the other side - in the Alliance all prominent figures that got corrupted (Archbishop Benedictus) or rebels (Van Cleef) had to look for outside help to get their objectives done.

For Horde however, this is all going probably to change now. They will have a council of leaders, I believe, something more akin to the Alliance, but the war won’t stop most likely.

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First of all, welcome to Azeroth, I hope your stay here is long and enjoyable.

Horde vs Alliance is not good vs evil, both sides are battling the evil (The Old Gods, The Burning Legion and a variety of demons and other bad guys).

In the classic part of the game the questlines are totally different, as each expansion came out we started seeing the same quests, just performed from a slightly different perspective.

Like in any real war, each side believes they are the good guys.

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