This topic is about the different things that would be attractive and nice to see to improve the alliance and make it desirable to play and pick.
The aim is to improve it’s popularity, make it more attractive so that the faction imbalance would be corrected.
Right now, although populations seem even, the horde side is far more engaged, most of the people seriously into wow whether form lore or competitive play horde, the faction is very attractive and currently holds all the cards.
This is not about nerfing or improving the horde. This goes beyond the scope of this topic, such actions are for the developers to decide and your ideas for the horde while free to make should be discussed in another topic to keep it alliance centred.
What I know for sure, is that for the alliance to gain the numbers and attract players, it needs to shine, it needs to be attractive enough for horde players to switch to it and attractive enough for alliance players to want to play it and LOVE it. The last part is perhaps the most important.
What do you think can be done?
1. Racials:
Little can be done here. You can’t massively boost the alliance over the horde, racials are a delicate thing, and you don’t want to “lure” people with an increase you fully intend to nerf…and make gameplay unfair.
Saying that a slight buff in some areas might help. Examine troublesome of weaker racials and see how they can be made easier to use - reduce cooldowns? effects last longer? or increase the power? I can’t say by how much is deemed appropriate… but I can say that really any improvements must be very small.
2. Make alliance races more attractive.
Alliance races have a lot tot hem that people really love the fantasy about, but haven’t been utilised much on the alliance, or not explored shown weak. I will run through each race quickly of what I think would be really good to show or work on.
Humans:
The least work needs to be done here, they’ve had the most improvements and the built of attention, still, the biggest fantasy for humans is Lordaeron.
Beautiful Lordaeron, Fairy tale castles with spires and flags, as opposed to military castle like Stormwind - restore the fantasy - would be hugely popular
Night Elves:
Everyone loved night elf civilization when Suramar came out, a new capital for night elves even prettier, surrounded by a forest that’s even nicer than Teldarssil or Val’sharah, and a Temple of Elune that beats the Cathedral of eternal night. These are the areas of the night elves greatly loved. Do these better. Show these well.
Show night elves as powerful: Powerful caster priests haven’t really been seen, more night warriors, powerful Highborne/Moonguard, powerful balance druids, more Demon hunters, Wardens really tearing it up.
Finally some amazing developments, like using the Well of Eternity again to improve /build and empower, using the World tree and the Emerald dream to improve also and the Night Warrior too - power up, make it look good.
Immortality is huge prize too as well as more lore on the Star and moon powers and civilization side. People also want to see an improvement to the wild feral side too… so more druids being brutal in feral forms and being no nonsense.
Draenei:
Again here so much unexplored. draenei are great spell casters, mages too and technologists, we really haven’ had this area expounded, we saw Argus, Auchidouin and Shattrath anew in 7.3 and 6.x - but the alliance faction basically has not improved nor upgraded either. Time to show, maybe building new versions of those cities. an auchidouin, a mini Mac’aree city and a Shattrath city with a floating Exodar
Delving into the Atama’l crystals more lore on that, Naaru’ have different colours…what does that mean, also crystal technology that combines arcane magic with technology to have that futuristic vibe is a HUGE asset of the Draenei. So far we’d’ve just been focused on the light… there are other aspects of the Draenei.
Broken development and shamanism, this is another contrasting area tot he draenei for improvements… but ways should be looked to to make the Broken more attractive. Shaman themes are not popular amongst the alliance, that’s fine, however it has a niche audience which warrants some developments.
Draenei friendship outside humans has been woefully short. Hardly anyone would now Draenei and night elves are supposed to be close friends if they didn’t do the starting area, because the friendship hasn’t been developed. What an opportunity now. Draenei mages can work well with the night elven arcane side and build strong ties. The priesthood yes, but the light side is human connected, so what about the void side? After Velen’s epiphany and friendship with Illidan, perhaps Draenei priests of that side gain some exposure an d connect with night elven priests and void elves in a purple trio.
While the light focus connects them strongly to human, the technology can appeal to gnomes, the arcane and void to night elves and void elves. And maybe the spotlight should shift to that.
Dwarves:
Dwarves also have so much unused potential, I feel the Hobbit filmed drew a lot from the warcraft dwarf visualisation, but if you want to make dwarves really cool… they need the majesty of Erebor in a revamped Ironforge or opened up Grim Batol or Thaurassian city and they need the sort of badass portrayal we saw with Thorim Oakenshield and the dwarven armies.
Dwarves aren’t popular, but with all the cool customisations, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be. The problem is time has not been spent developing them, giving them a story, rhyme or reason. Unless you are an old warcraft player, you have no idea that the dwarf tattoos are wildhammer. Nor do you know really what they stand for much.
They need revisiting and they need to come of as hardnosed, and dangerous as we saw in the hobbit
Worgen:
The fantasy of the worgen is very interesting, that supernatural feel + the Gilneas nation. Reclaiming and having Gilneas as a home would be a huge boost for the Worgen fanbase.
This is a dual development like night elves. Worgen are the savage race of the alliance, at least in worgen form, and they have this human duality. So we want to see worgen tearing it up, and really being difficult to beat. Dangerous, savage and primal. And yet also the development of the human side… they are worgen in battle, but outside they are human… so Gilneas re-established, northern EK politics too.
People also want to see a connection with night elves and worgen, worgen in many respect are the embodiment of the savage side of the night elves by their nature, so we would see amore druid action with night elves and more forest action there, while more civilization side with humans, in contrast with
Void Elves:
What an incredible and cool opportunity here that is just wasting away. Void elves and high elves have and can be such a boost to both night elves and humans. The void elf side is purple, and star based just like the night elves, not to mention they have the Highborne connection tot he night elven Highborne the void connection tot he night warrior, and they are the perfect solution to help the druids with the nightmare that is void based - this is 101 and can be the new power couple race pairing of the alliance and friendship that rivals the nightborne/Blood elf.
It doesn’t end there, there is a high elf components to the void elves many alliance fans have really longed for. With high elf customisations available, high elf development can proceed. The Ren’dorei is a faction, it’s members can be racially void elves, but also racially high/blood elves . the Ren’dorei is both the name of a race and a faction where some of the members aren’t racially Ren’dori. It’s the same with the Illidari. Even the Darnassians, The Night elves are both a race and a faction - you can tell this because not all night elves are part of “The Night Elf” faction, which is why we now call them the Darnassians to distinguish the faction from the race.
With high elves in play with the void elves, we can have that human, high elf, dwarf original alliance trio that fans really love.
However it’s no point just having it possible through customisations, you have to develop lore, situations where humans, high elves and dwarves are working together, that is likeable. We’ve seen a lot of humans, so maybe the high elf and the dwarf can shine in this story, alongside the humans.
A void elf/high elf city - whatever you do for Silvermoon, do a replica for the void elves with void themes and high elf themes, give them a cool city, that is desirable, and an alternative that would be attractive to horde players too to want to switch over.
Gnomes/Mechagomes:
This was actually well done, the only thing I would add for this is to see more developments on what happens to Gnomeragan, and how the gnomes and mecha gnomes are reacting. Views on magic amongst mecha gnomes and how they help the other alliance races.
A Draenei/mecha gnome -technology thing could be very interest to show.
Conflicts:
Alliance races were always rather independent of each other, they’ve literally turned into the horde now, so oppressed ad small, and completely led by the humans… No one likes this. Split it up.
Night elves should be annoyed with humans for not helping with Darkshore, Humans should find night elves irritating, both with their serenity and "know it all " - especially Highborne types and druid types that love to “instruct”, sentinel types love to show off - at least that’s how it is perceived because they are good.
We’ve never seen night elves react to the deforestation and nature wasting the humans do, nor their inexperience with the arcane relatively speaking which Highborne types should be very parent to child like over -which should annoy. night elves meddling in human affairs, villages etc because they’re mistreating nature or not doing magic correctly - how insufferable.
Draenei should be upset with humans unable to see the value of void and fel like Velen did in Argus, this is rather bull headed, and yet there is a Lightforged elements. Maybe the Lightbound follow on to Azeroth in a huge arc of a shift in how to portray and represent the light in a conflict that arises.
I don’t want the alliance to erupt in civil war, but at the same time it is currently too idyllic, there should be disagreements. Suspicions. Human mistrust of purple elves (night and void elves) should be evident, some looking down at them during their refugee period “oh how the mighty have fallen” , same with the void elves, then being suspicious of the void, creating tensions.
Human pride, trying to out magic elves, out technology gnomes etc, and getting very embarrassed at their misteps and when the other races shine we should see signs of jealousy.
3. Controlled Free Faction Transfers
Once the alliance is actually appealing, free faction transfers would be a quick way to balance out things on overly populated horde realms, where mains are concerned.
Things is, without the alliance being desirable, this would be pointless, so points 1 and 2 at least have to be done, then frere transfers opened for a while and player flow monitored.
4. Really attractive/popular allied races.
This should be look at , doing something special for a new couple of allied races that is more appealing on the alliance side. I know this is very subjective, and off course, there should be great options all round. But I specifically remember in TBC, while the Draenei were a great option, the cherry on the cake were the blood elves, and as nice as draenei were, blood elves were what everyone wanted most.
Now, doing something of a similar nature with new allied races where the alliance option is the one that runs away with it, despite the other faction still having some desirable options.
My thoughts turn to a Naga elf race - naga are probably the most popular desired race amongst the monster crowds, and elves are extremely popular, so an allied race where you can have a sea elf form (night elf model with some scales on their skin but in a nice way, with pretty faces, stunning city, exciting lore) that can choose to fight in monster naga form I think would be a hit.
In addition why not throw in a forest race like the Sylvar, with some lore from the shadowlands, but give them an additional twist, like able to turn into worgen like wolf men, Sabaeron type cat men, Arrakoa type bird man, and a bear man type, and a Sylvar choose the animal wild god spirit to bond to, and that determines your animal form, which like the naga above you can use either in combat. Add that mystical night forest setting we saw in Ardenweald to it - whether it is the new teldrassil (or that’s what new teldrassil looks like in the night) or they actually start in Ardenweald - either way it’s stunning.
Now this can be very interesting, popular, because you get both pretty, and badass cool , with cute and majestic too. Don’t know what the horde will get, but i know ogres/mok’nathal have been asked for a lot, Venthy’r/san’layn types and there are lightforged forsaken -that look pretty enough and would be a good addition to the horde, but if you wweigh them up, would the naga and sylvar be the blood elves of the next expansion compared to the draenei of the Venhtyr and Ogres?
5. Misc Things
Additional things should be explored, I once thought about opening up shaman and druids to night elves and void elves - allowing the "prettier "option for shaman and druid classes to exist exclusively on the alliance. This means scrapping plans for Blood elf and nightborne druids and shaman - and serves as an incentive to
nudge a few players there. On it’s own it’s not enough, but added to the above, it creates incentive. Here are a bunch of things that could work very well or not at all.
Using class combos in this way can work well, Opening up a few more calss combos to the alliance might be another thing… example, Illidari warlocks could be a night elf warlock option that uses the Illidari night elf skins instead of a normal one opening up that option, with no equivalent on the horde for blood elves.
Eredar skins for draenei and Eredar warlocks , in fact making a bigger deal of high elves, Eredar, Illdiari and Highborne could be an attractive thing, especially if they put some lore behind an dress them up a bit These are famous groups players have wanted to get their hands on for a while, it is one of the more popular off shoots of the alliance so use them.
Concluding Thoughts
Notice a very common theme about the alliance: Majesty and badass. These races had a grandness to them that hasn’t been seen much in Warcraft, and they had courage and greatness but only in the lore, not in the experience of the game… this needs to be fixed.
Now to the 100 horde fans reading this, with these improvements, would you be enticed to switch to the alliance?
I guess the true test on how good these suggestions are would be the level of opposition from the rivals. When something is really good for htie opponents, rivals will never want it, they would oppose it and suggest less. So I will know I hit it right if I get horde opposition. However if i get agreement, I know that it isn’t as good a change as I thought it would be.
