Every time I switch factions in World of WarCraft, even for just a moment, I am completely surprised at the difference between the two. I don’t mean the actual aesthetic appeal of being a human versus an Orc, or how the questlines of both factions this time around are almost identical – rather, it seems two very different cultures emerged out of each framework. Whichever one you feel a dedication towards tells you a lot about yourself as a person, given you’ll be spending your time with this people for a long, long time (I must have hit the one year mark in terms of total time played – pray for me). Playing the game for eight years provides me with enough anecdotal evidence, I think, to say some constructive.
I’ll start with my preferred faction, the Horde. For whatever reason, most of the Horde players seem like college student age or above. Opinionated people from diverse walks of life all congregated around The Barrens’ and its General Chat, which introduced you straight out to the Horde mentality: super serious or super crass. Lately, with the rise of Garrisons, Trade Chat became the new Barrens’ chat (as it did in prior expansions), but that thing is filled with conversations almost 24 hours a day. Every time I log on just to get materials for crafting, I always see something like “Was Hitler really a bad person” or “Obama is an idiot” or “Our educational system is broken” or “debate about atheism versus religion”. Seriously, the fun never ends when you play Horde. Nobody seems to have any predilection to censor themselves once they realize that WoW makes them completely anonymous, and so they will just reveal their true selves. It doesn’t matter how reprehensible or weird; people on Horde are like a giant group of adult misfits. It’s fitting, given that’s how Blizzard has portrayed the Horde recently in its story lore.
Of course, that fun also leads to some heated differences of opinion, and a high standards of performance. See, you’ve got two kinds of people on Horde: the achievers and the complainers. Horde seems to think that World of WarCraft is a merit-based system, and so any wipes/failures in any content will almost always result in the blame-game. Someone will post healing meters (as if those meant anything), or damage meters, or tell the tank to go <blank> himself due to a perceived wrong. Then, if you’re the person in question, you had better make a case for the group keeping you. Or, you could just strike back with the same venom and fervor, if not moreso, to get them off your back. I suppose one must show that they are the biggest dog in the yard, so to speak. After that, everyone just works their hardest because “they have things to do” or “you are wasting my time”. There’s real incentive for these people to play well and fast, not just for public ridicule but for their own time management (assuming they hit the upper register of the age range, anyway, which they tend to do).
The Alliance, on the other hand, seem content to just play the game and have fun. If you had to make a real-world comparison, Alliance would be like the people who call for “tolerance” in every situation – it’s just a game, after all. Nobody ever gets mad at each other, and people just do their jobs. Rather than assume the strategy for people to follow (which, in Horde, always leads to wipes and the blame game), somebody almost always explains something complicated in advance. This saves the entire group both time and hassle, making us much more efficient. If things go bad, nobody gets angry; they just re-explain problematic stuff, and try again.
Even the trade chat staggers me with its friendliness. Everyone talks about the game, rather than Brian Williams constructing the Eiffel Tower out of steel and brawn. Everyone plays the game, talks casually about the game, and talks only about the game. I can imagine this arising from two factors: young kids play Alliance, and thus have zero interest in any conversations outside the game, or they are adults who just want to escape from the real world for a few hours in Azeroth. In a way, you could consider it a bit boring. Personalities never clash, and people don’t often jump into gigantic fits of rage over trivial things. At least outside of a guild context, there’s literally no drama.
Alliance even plays with teamwork and strategy without saying a single word, a concept I find hilariously foreign. Alliance just wins the majority of PvP situations, since they actually, without prompting, heal people up so they can continue fighting. Seriously, props to the healers on Alliance, because there’s no way a Windwalker Monk should survive without any PvP gear on and 3 people beating on him like he’s a pinata. But, I kid you not, this thing happens regularly. Healers don’t just decide you are a fine casualty, or just yell at the strangers who are causing the game to implode: they just work together and move onto the next challenge. They are coordinated without trying, and I have no idea why.
Simply put, Horde and Alliance appear like two entirely different cultures. New converts to either adopt the ethos of either one, and often find the other side just plain weird by comparison. As for me, I just like Horde. It is, for lack of better terminology, exciting. You never know when you’ll see a naked blood elf jumping up and down on a mailbox screaming WHITE POWER WHITE POWER for no apparent reason. Alliance has its fair share of weirdos (a black Human player named Willie Horton, for example – go look at Wikipedia), but usually they’re role-playing rather than reigniting real-world racial tensions. I don’t know if I want to live and breathe within that kind of digital culture, really.
The unreality of Alliance just doesn’t suit me all that well, I suppose. I like to see what people really think and feel; the more independently-focused mindset of Horde brings that out without fail. You meet similar people to your own personality type, and I think that’s why I never really connected with any Alliance character I’ve played. The atmosphere of one faction over the other will not appeal to all kinds of people. There is, of course, the danger that either one might transform you to something you don’t want to be – bad company corrupts good morals – but I am willing to take that risk. After all, God places everyone in a position where they can do the most good if they let then; these are my people in the virtual world, I suppose. The trick is not conforming to that world.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, [a]acceptable to God, which is your [b]spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this [c]world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may [d]prove what the will of God is, that which is good and [e]acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12
