AD has always had numerical superiority on the Alliance, but I’ve noticed that grow more and more, while Horde gets smaller and smaller. What causes this? I really like how populous it is on the Alliance and how much RP you can get, but whenever I go to the Horde it’s almost empty. Orgrimmar has one half of a valley with some people, and that’s about it. The barrens and central Kalimdor is pretty much empty. The Horde has very few people and even those are spread all around Azeroth in very small groups. Then there’s the whole PCU vs non-PCU thing, splitting the population even further. What can be done to balance the population, and more importantly, what caused this?
While I can’t definitively say what caused the split between Horde and Alliance, I think it can be argued that people tend to flock to wherever the most of a given thing is. Many people went to Argent Dawn because it’s where most of the roleplay on the EU servers was and is happening, leaving smaller realms to slowly dwindle out to a niche audience of die-hards who remain there to this day.
In a similar fashion people go to Alliance on Argent Dawn because it’s a larger population to interact and engage with, which in turn makes the Horde smaller by comparison, and so it keeps feeding/looping, that’s my theory at least.
On a personal note I’ve always struggled to stick with Horde characters for a particularly long time due to the comparitively lesser walk-up roleplay available. I don’t feel comfortable making a character then committing it to a guild immediately, I tend to prefer having an existing character that I’ve developed on my own time and my own terms before moving in, so others who feel like I do (Which could be none, few, or many) may also be averse to Horde roleplay.
Oh, and humans are on Alliance side and a lot of people in fantasy games just wanna play humans. It is what it is.
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Compound this with 2 lacklustre expansions, though at least BFA provided alot of rp material and zones.
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Personally I like a good walk-up; I tried Og several times and it was not at all easy like it is in SW. Horde RPers I know say the action is in joining a guild and doing stuff with them, but that’s equally available in the Alliance.
I also wouldn’t underestimate the impact of the Alliance having an attractive, interesting, capital city and the Horde having … what they have … If you’re a fairly casual RPer you’ll be in the main city a lot and if it inspires you then that’s a big bonus.
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It’s probably a repeatedly propagating case of “if you build it they will come” drawing more people to the Alliance, which then leads to less Horde activity and so the cycle goes. Why that happened in the first place is anyone’s guess, but I think the Alliance always had a numerical upper hand on this server.
Or perhaps it’s all on Coldsháde killing the Horde in droves. 
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Its the damn High Elves!
When Horde get forced to be the villains (its morally grey, honest!! - Blizz) repeatedly for no good reason, along with shock-value mass murder, that seems to be a likely outcome, imo.
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Alliance has been bigger for as long as I’ve been here, which is about ten years.
Humans, stormwind, etc - all that is likely. Plus, conventionally attractive races are played way more. Horde for the longest time only had one (BE), and once people are in a faction they do not easily move.
Alliance RP is a lot easier. A lot of their cultures are easy to pick up and get into, with familiar fantasy tropes that can be imported from other games and setting. Elves, Dwarfs, humans, plus even werewolves and vampires!
On the other hand most Horde RP is very Warcraft-centric. Horde races and cultures like Orcs, Trolls and Tauren are either unique to Warcraft or have a unique interpretation. It takes more effort to get into, research and role play.
I don’t think the Alliance popularity is a problem that needs to be fixed. Although I do take issue with them getting superior War Mode bonuses so all Alliance are KoS for that reason alone.
What might help is if AD alliance RPers agreed to try do some scheduled Horde RP once a month with horde characters. Sort of descend on mass. Then they might find it more fun, and might even stay.
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I’m guessing it’s because Alliance have that LOTR style races, which is more wanted in Roleplay.
BFA killed Horde pride and the aftermath of the faction we’re left with is even worse.
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The pain of standing under the likes of Baine, the PAIN.
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Nothing wrong with the idea behind Baine, how they went about it however…
Alliance always had the big numbers.
As the population declines, drawn to other games or IRL, people will move where there is content offered, that is: Alliance.
The previous conflicts among guilds also left a huge impact IMO. If the community of the Horde is small and split, you’re going to look for a place that doesn’t host that kind of mentality.
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As some others already said, the numbers dwindling overall makes it even harder, that combined with the how the horde went out of bfa with the “breaking the cycle” and having no warchief anymore thing, didn’t help at all.
Honestly that too, because the old Orgrimmar looks like a city, the one we have now is just a circle with some huts in there. At least imo.
The whole thing about a “split” in the community only effects you if you want it to effect you.
That all said i think its important to not scare people away from the horde side even more. If you want to play on Horde you will find people to do so. And despite what the lore wants to tell us, its still just fun to scream lok’tar ogar and charging into battle.
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Horde’s not dead, what it lacks is walk-up / social RP in the cities. Stormwind’s activity dipped just as much; a look into SW discord’s event schedule they more irregular/unique events in August 2020 than they did in the period between February to June. I ascribe that to a combination of Blizzard’s terrible expansion and the easing of corona regulations that let people go out again.
As for Horde, I don’t mind the lack of social RP anyways because its content has always been dubious at best in Stormwind. If you really want Horde RP, join a good guild and have at it. There’s at least a dozen with events every night, many of them cross-guild and cross-faction events.
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This is the likely reason, time has marched on and people have grown up/out of the game. Silvermoon used to absolutely drown out Orgrimmar in terms of roleplay, these days it’s a ghost town.
From what I was taught was that Silvermoon was a kind of Goldshire for the Horde?
Also, wish Goldshire became a ghost town…
Maybe some corners, but there’s plenty of normal RP going around too. Certainly nothing as bad as The Quarantine Zone…
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The inn at the Bazaar is the location that ERPers use - the rest of the city is for the thinly-veiled ERP that people try to convince you they’re definitely not after, but in reality they are and they’re just too worried to openly admit it (which is just like Stormwind, in a lot of ways…!)
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