Having been on both sides of the fence, I can safely say that most of what people are saying, is correct.

There is one paticular issue that I did not see mentioned.

In the current(gone as of Dec 5th) ladder ranking system, a player's ranking is determined only by how many of his fellow players he passes in points. The rankings allow players to have access to powerful in game equipment.

Due to the population imbabalances, some alliance people find themselves competing against 4 times as many people as their horde counterparts for PvP rankings. Those who were considering the extreme time investment for those rewards, often switched to horde to compete against far fewer individuals.

Thus more hardcore and devoted horde PvPers exist, in this sense.

My second point is nerves.

Someone mentioned the crossroads (horde side) as a town, a hub of activity for players 10-30. Well, it served another purpose. Alliance characters could reasonably reach the crossroads with little effort. A trip south to the jungle and a boat ride across. For elves, it was just the other side of the woods.

Horde players most definately learn how to PvP at a younger level/age then alliance. They learn how to be effective against the impossible odds. Most importantly, they learn not to choke under pressure and take loss in the game as part of the fight. Alliance characters, no matter the level are less experienced and often choke.

There is one factor that stands out really in any PvP environment, and even in statistical analysis if you will: fade out the factors that affect both sides and then you come across the one or ten factors that are not the same. While the population might make it seem like a factor (and it may be) I would say that the existence of unique classes and unique abilities is far more powerful in dictating PvP outcomes.

I would venture an educated guess that after both sides get paladins and shamans, the PvP win ration will become much more balanced, and whatever imbalances occur then will only be attributed to racial abilities.

However, as a personal estimation, I say that after paladins and shamans become available to both races, PvP will be much much more even. Then we will see just how much better one player group is to another (the new guys against the MMO vets)

No, that's complete bull. Maybe if you're young, unknowing, only THEN will you think you are incapable just by model size. I'm a female night elf hunter, and against a tauren is just the same as going against anything else, even ugly orcs or undead.

In my opinion, the reason the Alliance continually gets owned is due to the fact that they lack the teamwork necessary to complete the mission. Too many of them scatter to "do their own thing" when, in fact, we should be working together to accomplish the goal at hand. When I go into the BG and the team works as a whole, Alliance wins 9 out of 10 times. I'm not saying zerg, but just teamwork. Zerging is a pet-peave of mine.. zerging and then moving on leaving the recently claimed node undefended = stupidity.

One issue skirted but not fully addressed: replace "competitive" with bloodlust.
However metaphoric, there are players that derive pleasure from killing other players. My personal experience - on the Horde side of an AB, I was somehow BG leader. I noticed a total lack of organization and realized people didn't have their mind on the tactics of the battleground, but were basically farming HK's at the GY. In BG chat I urged players to protect our nodes, etc. One fellow replied, "I'm just here to kill people".
I actually found that a little disturbing.

When you get down to it, PvP rankings in general reflect "who has killed the most players".

While I really enjoy my Tauren shaman even more than my pally, and have spent a fair share of time in the BG's, I do think a certain percentage of players that roll "evils" are endulging their dark side, to put it politely.

I can't comment too much as I haven't played a huge amount of BG, especially since it's gone cross realm. Mostly when I've played with my horde toon, we got whomped though. Seemed like our horde pugs were often up against alliance pre-mades or else our pug was just worse than their pug. I haven't played enough to be included in a lot of premades though, so maybe the horde premades are generally better than the alliance premades.

One of the most aggressive pvp guilds on our server is alliance. They are one of those guilds where members are always flagged when out and about in the game (even though it is a pve server) and tend to travel in packs and attempt to trigger people to accidentally flag in pve settings (like by mobbing an item in the game that other players need to click on so you may accidentally attack one of them while trying to click on that object since they are always flagged)...so they probably get lots of practice.

Maybe now that BG is cross realm, things are different. My husband joins a lot of pugs in Alateric valley with alliance and he says they nearly always win in that BG because it seems to be set up so that it's a bit harder for horde, though he says alliance ususally loses in the otehr battlegrounds.

One comment in the article sort of bugged me. Girls tended to create alliance chars over horde? Not true.

I'm a girl with horde chars, I have an orc char, cow chars and undead chars. 'Pretty chars' were never a consideration. I am there to game, not admire my char on the screen.

As for the bg's. In the horde bg's there is little 'leading'. At the beginning of my bg 'career', I was amazed at how the horde pugs would group up and head out. Most of the time there was little or no directions, they just did thier job with amazing results.

Alot of the time any talking was to crack jokes. Oh, occasionally there would be the 'look at me' tard that just had to yell and scream that everyone should do things differently and those tards annoyed everyone else. There seemed to be a given 'respect' if you will, to eachother and you kept it, unless you were a complete dolt, at which point, we generally let said dolt do what they will... alone.

Out of curiousity, I did level 2 toons to 60 on the alliance side and pvp'd there as well. While I don't completely agree with the 'population' theory, I do think that it has some basis in fact. There ARE alot of alliance, and getting into a pug with a familiar face was rare.

Basically, I would choose a tank to back up and run with that tank unless that tank proved to be ..unreliable, not a team player or just plain out for himself. Being a healer means to back up the team and if the tank I chose to follow wasn't a team player, then he didn't get heals very often as I preferred to heal those working together.

On the alliance side there tended to be a lot of future heart attack victims playing. They would scream alot whine, complain and someone else would jump in to yell at them. It almost seemed like 'ego' was the rule of the game, not teamwork.

The cross server bg's really relieved some of the queue stress for alliance. I however prefer my horde mains. There is less screaming and more playing. Less stress and more fun.

Why is there a difference? I can't even make a guess. It just is. Perhaps the theory that more team oriented players don't play the 'prettier' side? I have come up against some amazingly played alliance chars that turned my priest into stew meat in short order. I have also come across some that my holy priest was able to solo kill.

Ok, my rambling is done.

Birds of a flock:
The mob mentality and intimidation may play a role in pre-screening the match before it even begins.
Having pre-made groups join up together as a single entity, normally weeds out the 'good' players, leaving behind the chaff, or the 'good' player w/ chaff.
The 'good' players will first scope out their competition and notice right away the majority of the competition are all from the same server, usually a very good indication of a pre-made group. Having self-fulliling prophecies feeding fuel to the fire, this player will assume there is no chance to win and leave. The next person joined in and sees and imbalance in the group and also leaves, continuing this chain reaction.
Now the people that stay either don't know better or are just there to tough it out, a hopelessly skewed situation.

With the imbalance in population on many servers, the queues for the horde side (I assume) is usually very low. Meaning it is more worth their time to leave an unfavorable battle to join another battle which they are already queued for.

Geography plays a large part in AV where the opposite is true and alliance seems to do better than the horde.

Another specialized side theory I had: since the alliance population is much larger than the horde, there is a higher probablility of more people using those online 'services' for battleground powerlevelling. Those people either do poorly or simply wait around idling and not contributing to the battle.

I have two things that I think deserve mentioning.

The first is that, as far as I have seen, Paladins are not really a poor class to PvP with. In my battle-group there is a high paladin population for some reason, and as a result horde almost always looses Warsong Gulch. Two paladins run down the field, one picks up the flag, and then they simply alternate stone-form (if dwarf), bubbles, and blessing of freedom. They never get slowed, barely take any damage (plate) and bubble and heal whenever their health gets low. It's almost impossible to stop them from running flag.

Shamans, on the other hand, wear only mail and heal at about half the efficiency of a paladin. Ghost Wolf, their equivalent of blessing of freedom if you will, has a two second cast time unless spec'd to reduce and is all but ineffective against movement impairing effects. Druids are hardly an improvement, as they wear leather only and simply cannot be expected to withstand a wing-clip spam.

Even worse is how shamans work with druids compared to paladins. A paladin can simply bubble/blessing of freedom the druid, and ZOOM instant flag run. Shamans can... heal druids very inefficiently. If they can still keep up after the ghost-wolf cast time.

It's not that much different in the other battlegrounds either. You can't say know to an efficient healer that wears plate, can become immune to damage, and can perform full-heals to themselves or others with 1 mana. (Cooldown notwithstanding, that's pretty darn good.)

The other point I'd like to make is the fact that the "i rol hord cuz it pwnz in pvp" factor has its backfire moments. As many poor PvPers on alliance must switch to horde as good PvPers, hoping to use the fabled "horde stigma" to power themselves through PvP despite their lack of skill.

I will say, though, I play both horde and alliance. I prefer horde because it fits my personality better to be in a back-against-the-wall situation, and in world PvP that's what the population difference does. On the alliance side, your mandate is implied to be something along the lines of "Fight for the security of the Alliance, protect its strongholds, and eradicate the evils of the world at all costs." On horde, your implied mandate is somewhat simpler and, in my case, far more attractive: "Survive."

This is probably why Horde has been known to focus more on defense in Alterac Valley than Alliance; Defense is, by definition, a loosing battle in AV. Horde players like to feel like the underdog, fighting to the last breath and holding nothing back because, hey, you got nothing to loose anyhow.

Apologies for the long post. Is anyone still reading this?

Not often you read a forum and agree with pretty much every post there :)

I hadn't taken the populations into account before, I had thought that maybe the pop. difference made it "harder" to play as horde, so you learn to play better. But its not the group with the individually more powerful characters which wins in PvP, its the group with the strongest Teamwork/leadership. And the famililar face arguement comes across as very strong. I wonder if the cross-realm battle ground has weakened this effect?

As for Pallies vs Shamies? Straight away I would say that I know that before end game, I would rather not have any pallies or locks in a PUG. But endgame for 10 man UBRS, I'd rather have 2 of each, since their presence makes everyone life easier. (Im refering to Locks who spread curse).

So Pallies are better in bigger groups, because they have more targets to heal/res/buff. This really helps in AV, but less so in the other 2 BG's.

Dont really understand Shamies, so I wont comment, accept to say their offencive power is more useful earlier on, whereas the stronger you get, the more important defence becomes.

I'm a proud member of the Horde. Sure I've tried alliance PvP and questing but I never did enjoy either.
Firstly, Horde don't always own in BG's i have two 60 Horde on different servers who are exalted with AV and I've still only seen 2 Horde victories even with cross-realm feature.
Also, the Horde are certainly not "evil" in their culture but seem to attract a darker crowd of players. I think that this might be developed as you play because most Horde seem to lose their compassion after not being able to turn in many quests at the Crossroads and Tarren Mill because most of the quest givers are dead due to constant raids despite the dishonourable kill. Very hard to meet a horde player who doesn't follow the "if it's red it's dead." motto.
Finally, Horde don't seem to hold back. Less so with the Undead but much more with the other races is a "Bushido" implied by the NPC's that your goal is to die killing as many alliance as is possible. This seems to infect all but the veteran PvP players and results in Horde players charging senselessly, but often acheiving good for the team by doing so, while alliance seem to be more conservative and focused on ensuring that they don't die. The paladin and shaman classes seem to represent this mentality quite well with a light, damage-dealing shaman, and the heavy, damage-absorbing paladin.
By the way, AV, is the Frostwolf clan's home...you alliance are the evil invaders.
I've talked too much, congrats if you are still reading this!

If you are part of a pre-made, 90% chance that you're probably going to win. If you are fighting a pre-made than it is a 90% chance that you will lose. If it is a rare pre-made vs pre-made, then it is up to the gear and organization of the teams. If it is a PUG vs a PUG, then its anybody's game and it dependes on the individuals...those are my favourite.

Alliance definetely seem to have a higher population and better gear. I've got 3 horde chars and alliance outnumber us 4:1 on each server. On the horde servers people with their tier 2 and tier 3 sets are revered and idolized. Most horde can tell you who on their server has or was the first to have a weapon like Thunderfury. Whereas, in cross-realm BG's I very often encounter ally pre-made's with 5 or more people in the group wielding the legendary weapon.

By the way, having a much larger population does give the alliance a strong advantage because they have time to make and organize groups and the large amount or players means more guilds, groups, instances and therefore, gear. It if very difficult for a casual horde player to make a pre-made with a low population and so they will join a PUG and square off against an ally guild of PvP addicts who have been dying to join a battle for the last hour.

Despite the arguable alliance PvE and population bonuses, it almost always seems to boil down to the individual.
How badly do they want to win this?
How skilled are they in PvP and with their class?
How well do they understand game mechanics?
Can they take or give orders?
What is your personality like? >>> Personality affects it alot...it decides who you will ambush, where you will go to fight, when you will run and what strategy you will use.

Thats all folks.

Very good article. I believe it is to do with the immaturity of the alliance compared to the Horde. I have been on both sides and the difference in maturity is obvious. All horde players can still have a laugh, but they just choose the right moment to do it.

After all my times in the battlegrounds i also noticed that the horde basically never run off on their own, they allways have backup, apart from the odd player, which is completely different to the alliance where you get kids just wondering into their own death

Horde have a better pvp racial array, and shamen that won't heal are more effective than paladins that won't heal.

However, Alliance has more raiding guilds due to a larger population to draw from. But raiders rarely pvp in pugs, while I'd say a significant majority of the rest do. Thus, you have instance-geared PuGs losing to Horde semi-organized teams, which in turn are beaten by Alliance raiding teams.

I've finally broken the RPG addiction, so I'm speaking for the perspective of a "recovering addict".

I've done PvP in Everquest, in Dark Age of Camelot (fairly extensive) and WoW (limited) in my 10+ years of MMORPGs.

Of all the listed reasons, the one that resonates most with me is the "Newbie = Good Guys" one. New players are, by and large, attracted to the pretty and/or good-aligned races when they first sign up to play. They basically learn the game as good races and then, once they've learned HOW to play their classes in the PvE environment, they take their skills to the Dark Side for the next phase of the game, PvP.

I know in Camelot- which had three warring factions- Albion, which was the Arthurian mythos, had by significant margins the highest player populations and I always felt that was in at least part due to player familiarity with Camelot (after all, it's in the title!), King Artur, Lancelot and all those folks. New players are probably less familiar with, say, Firbolgs. So new players chose Albion as their starting realm, learned the game basics and then, after being told just how bad Albion was in PvP (and it was unless it had a HUGE numbers advantage- 3:1 at least), prompty re-rolled in one of the other two realms, thus depriving the realm that needed experienced players the most.

But in all the various games, class balance is probably the second biggest factor.

Or, should I say, LACK of class balance.

In DAoC, Albion had one more class than did the other two realms, and all realms had essentially the same basic skill set. So Albion had those skills spread over one additional class, which meant to cover all the necessities in PvP (tanking, damage, healing, speed), you needed one more Albion class than you did the other realms (or even two more than the Norse). With more party slots going just to cover the basics, there was less spots for redundancy (more dps, more healing, etc.). Advantage- anyone but Albion.
Game developers seem totally unable to balance classes evenly and that would seem to be endemic to all games.

Honestly, I think the cross-realm BGs really took the wind out of this argument's sails.

Before that, a collection of high profile pvpers could mold one of the sides into a true pvp machine. A new pvper would come into the mix at lvl 60 and be taken under the wing of the "veterans" and really schooled on how to run that BG an what their roll was.

This could be reinforced by the fact you'd be seeing the same people in the same BGs over and over, and didn't want to find yourself on the outside looking in. If there were true leaders for that faction, you needed to conform and join their ranks.

Now there are just too many folks thrown into the mix. You're dealing with eight different realms, and there's a pretty good chance if you have a problem with some guy you won't see them ever again.

Not to mention there is next to no chance one guild leader will contact your guild leader to discuss you working against the team in a BG. Chances are a guild leader on Onyxia isn't going to care what a guild leader from Kel'Thuzad has to say.

Auto-raid invites also foster this. Getting black listed before this was a possibility and usually kept folks on the up-and-up. Off doing your own thing? Fine, you're booted. Sitting under the bridge AFK? Fine. Booted. In each of those cases you paid a penalty for going against the team. Now, the players in your BG can do nothing but sit there.

The accountability is lost. As a result its a lot more of a mixed bag.

Many of the theories in this article are no longer valid, after the crossrealm BG's were implemented.

Longer wait times for alliance = nonexistant.
Extra practice for horde - no longer.

I agree wholehearted with the gear imbalance favoring alliance, but even that argument is fading because it seems that everybody and their brother is wearing tier 2 gear now.

I'd love to see Blizz release the statistics for all the battlegrounds, but I'm sure any imbalances (if any) would lead to rioting in the streets.

I think a good analogy is to look at the comments here. Everything is reasoned, no flaming, no silly posts. Clearly Horde.

I have spent more time in Alliance but recently made the jump. I think it is interesting that you get a lot more "evil" sounding names in the Alliance side, as well as many times more rude people. Horde players are more helpful and rarely rude, even on city chat.

I agree that the que times were a big difference so a lot of that might be nonexistent now. When I was alliance I would get physically tense in PvP because it was so rare. As Horde, as people have said, you lose, you res. What an advantage. But also, I've been attacked maybe once ever in a newbie area in Alliance. As Horde? It seems like it's always there.

Well, have read the article and the comments...
And tbh most of what was said does have a bearing.
However I completely disagree with the original postulation. There are, as I was told as a child, Good and Bad everywhere. I have played Alliance and Horde, reaching 60 on the Ally side and only 12 with the Horde. The reason for this was when i started playing, (early '95), the population on the Horde side was virtually non existent. Brill was, forgive the pun, a Ghost Town. Where as SW was a bustling city, full of players, and seeing as I was playing an MMORPG I decided to stick to the Alliance. As for the age/"noobness" issues, I think you'll find that you will have both in varying amounts on both sides on all servers. What I will lay a lot of credence with is the team work that tends to be displayed by the Horde, and again this was explained in the article, smaller population, (players are more likely to know each other/better sense of community), much shorter queue times = more experience, so what tends to happen is that people on the Horde side tend to organise quicker. As time goes on you will see this balance out. In short the statement "Horde players are better than Alliance" is the same as saying "Everyone in England drinks Tea, wear Bowler Hats and Stand up whenever the National Anthem plays". They are both sweeping statements, and as such can not be given any validity.

A point in question would be from James above, "I think a good analogy is to look at the comments here. Everything is reasoned, no flaming, no silly posts. Clearly Horde"

Again a statement with no factual back up. Also since the latest patch the new moan is that non "hard core" 'pvpers' are obtaining the PVP kit to quickly, I think what this really boils down to is people like to group off and have a good old moan. Blizzard in response to this decreased the honour gained now by 30% I believe, and now that’s another issue to be flogged to death on the Official and Unofficial forums.

Too many factors affect the out come of a BG, for any viable discussion of this topic.
In my opinion of course. : >

BRegards

UKJ

I'd like to post an interesting tidbit about the "size" of the models, i dont know if its entirely true that horde models are bigger, therefore scarier, and thats an advantage. But I have noticed something else related.

I am an elemental shaman, and therefore in battlegrounds, my job is too nuke. stand back and cast spells for high damage. It is true that horde work well together and i always charage with a group. Of course i always stay in the back, because this is my role. Except, i'm always the first to get targeted and shot down. why? I think its because i'm a tauren. Tauren are huge. Easy to click. everyone clicks them first and fires away.

Now, i usually go for the casters (clothies) to hurt first, so i look for the guy in robes, click him, and fire away. This however is not due to size, just class. A shaman however, looks just like a warrior (unless there are totems around them). why everyone would target the tauren warrior (whos actually a shaman) in the back is beyond me. Unless, its his size. Most alliance sizes are around the same, so they're all just as easy or as hard to click. being a big tauren however, i find that i'm usually one of the first to die in a group.

I guess this serves as a counter argument to the "horde is bigger so they win more" arguement in the article.

very good article by the way, i agree with most of it, especially the part about maturity and mutual respect on the horde side. Not alot of talking has to be done, the horde knows what they need to do and they do it, backing each other up on the way there.

Huix, I would like to point out it wouldn't be hard to click on any of the Alliance characters with the TAB function. As for why Horde own Alliance, it's because they are a more devoted and maturer faction.

Well a Tauren is CLEARLY much stronger than a human (look at size for example so its no reason they lose i mean how is a human sppos)ed to beat that

I wonder whether the addition of the Blood Elves to the Horde will have an effect on the "types" of people who choose Horde characters, as the Blood Elves will certainly attract more players concerned with "prettiness".

I think that the myth of Horde being better at PVP is starting to crack with the divergence of the battlegrounds. With the advent of cross server battlegrounds, Horde do better in the smaller battlegrounds, but Alliance do better in Alterac Valley, where they are more motivated, more knowledgeable, and better coordinated. Some of the Alliance are finally realizing that they are better than some of the Horde.

An addition to the argument that Horde's shorter wait times mean they get more practice and therefore get better:

Being able to get into more games has meant Horde were able to get faster reputation gains and faster access to pvp-specialised gear.

Youth and maturity do not necessarily go hand in hand. To be successful in a BG, the entire team needs to be focused on the goal. So what if people have different strategies to win? ie 5 players at 3 nodes for AB, versus 3-3-3-6 group where the 6 roam around causing disruption/distraction. There are older players who have a certain mindset on which strategy should be executed, and they will fight amongst themselves on which plan works best, resulting in disorganization.

Many times, greed exceeds team work. A player looking to upgrade to rank 14 gear needs honor. If his team is winning or will probably win, why not go HK grind for more honor in addition to the bonus honor from winning? For instance in AV, if you're on offense, you're most likely not killing many horde. If you're on defense, you're getting HK honor and bonus honor.

If you want to look at it this way, maybe the mature players actually cause your team to lose. They will be looking out for their own self-interests for whatever reason, such as AFK pvping because they have other things to do (TV, homework, work, chores).

I play for alliance and I can comfortably assure you that for the most part horde always beat us in bg's. In my case, we just never work together as a team and NEVER stay as a group, always going solo. It is a complete mess and I'm seriously considering switching to horde because wow is all about pvp...

I've played both alliance and horde. I started with my NE rogue (I know stereotypical) but I also had an Undead Rogue as well. Kept going with the NE after they both hit 20. However now I've noticed on alliance that we still lose BG's (I am now just at 48). But here are the typical comments before the BG starts :WSG:"just everyone go on O nobody cares cause we'll lose" "just camp midfield and get HK's" once the thing starts it's every man for himself. I see the horde coming out in groups of at least 3, so they tear through the alliance. Arathi Basin seems the same "just run around and cap flags, forget defense just run around in a giant 15 person mob" "why do you bother trying to do anything lets just lose as quickly as possible so I can get my Mark of Honor (little honor in just standing there and losing)to buy my PVP gear". That's the alliance's problem, the mentality that "we will lose anyway so it means we shouldn't bother with strategy". I hate this with a passion. I think I like the challenge and tehrefore continue my masochistic journey through PVP, but be sure of this I will go down swinging my daggers. And we have won from time to time but I have to say that it's about 20% alliance wins to the 80%horde. Go Alliance!!
p.s. sorry if it I vent/rant, but it's frustrating when people just give up before the BG even starts. So on goes the quest of being a good PVP'er even though the prospects of victory are much less.
p.s.2 and on a side note, if the queue for BG's on alliance is sooooooo long why not try to actually win and organize. If you want honor you get 3 marks for a victory, instead of 1 for a loss. Therefore, you spend less time in queue, in bg's etc... if you actually cared. Ok sorry about that, but I am done now :)

I will not go about this at lengths, from my observation Horde much smaller population is easier to organize for BG's. That being said I have a heavy PvP friend who almost never loses with his premade group vs Horde, in his words the shock of having premade Alliance BG group makes victory easier.

That being said I have yet to see Horde win any open world PvP (non PvP server now, normal before) against anything roughly resembling equal odds. Horde is fewer and therefore optimizes better but when that advantage is taken away their performance drops. My personal favorite was being part of PuG of 7 (mage, instance blues - not PvPer) that defeated Horde premade 9 in Eastern Plaguelands. Nothing like watching Blood Guards, Stone Guards and Centurions run around in circles not sure what to do because Alliance wimps suddenly broke out of PvP optimisation mold.

In my opinion more often then not Horde is a one trick pony. PvP servers however are a completely different story and I really would not lump them together with RP and Normal servers of WOW.

Without reading all the comments:

I think all of the mentioned reasons might come together at some points. However, most effects on PvP outcome are due to maturity of players (saying this as NE, and yes I like my hair), imbalance on sides and pre-made groups, which may be derived from the first two.

1. Maturity: often seeing this in random groups, everyone runs around doing something that noone else does, or try to zerg with half of the zerg size since half team runs around. No organisation, really. BG chat stays empty mostly even when trying to start some talk. I'm druid and often running out of horde base in WS telling "I'm coming on west side of map"...which leads to nothing, 3 hordes, most times more, come and get me while my "team" is zerging somewhere else, ignoring me even if it's not that long way to me.

2. Imbalance of sides. I totally agree with the ideas about practicing and competing against less people, maybe even side switching due to shorter waiting times. Another fact is simple...alliance doesn't finish matches! I myself am mostly queued for all BGs, when I'm in WS to long (not losing instantly) AV pops up. Sometimes I go, leaving my group weakened, sometimes not. Due to that there is a high change of players during a match, with downtimes because invitation isn't instantly followed by joining. Worst thing I experienced with that was a pre-made group I was grouped with by random. They were leading 2/0 in WS against a horde pre-made and suddenly left the match, leaving 2 or 3 alliance against 10 horde. Horde won without problems, when they got their 3rd flag 6 alliance players were in the match. I seriously can't remember seeing a horde player popping up in their base because anotherone left earlier. Because there are nearly no waiting times for BGs horde doesn't have to queue for all but plays the BG they want to play and don't leave it unfinished.

3. Pre-Mades: Have to admit, I cannot compare this with a hordes view. My point is: 80% of my WS matches are against pre-mades, 60% in AV against groups with a considerable proportion of horde group being pre-made groups. Even with those exceptinal groups that work as a team there is nearly no way to withstand them, because pre-mades have practiced working in their setup, have teamspeak and even more organized chat communication. Thus most matches are predifined as alliance loss when people join them.

4. Maybe classes. Without wanting to swing the nerf bat, I've never seen that much (shadow) priests and warlocks on alliance side. A shaman, a priest and a lock defending a flag are hard to overcome. Flag stealing and running is hard when feared or with that slowing totem. And I see more healing-allowed classes that really heal.

5. Racials, shamans: AE stun is huge. Not only in groups, even when it hits a single target it is pretty cool. It is a stun, sheep, fast, easy to "target". Often results in enemies death, especially for classes that need to heal sometimes. I don't know all the tricks of shamans, but the slowing totem is annoying enough in group pvp. WS has tunnels, drop a totem and leave the alliance behind. In groups some may have ways to get through the effect, like blink or charge, but some will stay behind, while whole horde can freely move. Same on AV, having you're movement slowed after rezzing on a GY while that is under attack sucks.

(sorry for post length)

One thing to add about alliance equip advantage:

It's fading I think, have seen enough horde in T3 in BGs already. Plus alliance has more non raiding custom players that don't even have MC equip, more in pvp blues.

And PVE takes time too. High end equipped PVE players don't spend that much time PvPing and therefore have less experience/skill in PvP. And who fears protection specced warriors in PvP? They are really capable of flag carrying when healed, but even then very voulnrable to CC but are more like a half empty spot when it comes to zerging down defence or an incoming group.

Horde have the PvP advantage no matter what in certain BGs. Anything from "horde stick together" to "shamans are overpowered" are farce myths. That is stereotyping the competition.

Horde have always been outnumbered on whatever server they were on. Blizzard gives Horde hidden abilities/advantages when they enter a BG. This varies from class to class, and the amount of horde vs alliance. This can be a 5% damage increase, or a 2% crit increase or increased resistance. Alliance get no such advantage, even when outnumbered.

There is an overall lack of raiding on horde side. The BG advantage gives those who enjoy the game on horde side a chance to get a set of gear. Racial abilities are also a factor. They only give slight 3- second advantages, but when used right, they are devastating to alliance. One such example would be Will of the Forsaken for Undead. This practically makes an UD Rogue against an alliance priest or warlock an easy kill, provided he has insignia on the horde on as well.

Due to the outcry of Alliance "never" winning BGs unless there is a premade, Blizzard has since changed AV to a PvE based style of play, where it is a race to kill NPCs. This is essentially easier to do for alliance than it was before, because it doesn't require almost any PvP and based on Graveyard placement, can easily head to the end-boss and win. This is why if you join AV in allinace, there is a 30-60 min wait to go (because alliance actually wins that one), and if you're horde, you're immediately in.

Blizzard put these hidden rules in place to attract alliance members into playing horde more, while letting alliance have a BG they can actually win in (AV). Notice though that AV is not a true PvP BG, it is objective based. Also notice all the epic gear tokens you need to turn in are from AB and WSG.

I completely agree with what Casper posted.

Personally,i think Blizzard has done a great job,in terms of 'balancing' .Everything by default is infact balanced, it only depends on how an individual perceives that balance.

Of course Blizzard knew less people were going to play Horde ,so they simply give them better racials. Making up for being outnumbered.

once again,all balanced. (maybe not completely,but close enough)

So I think the main factors are personalities,maturity (as mentioned repeatedly), and the overall psychology of each player in general.

I play NE currently,simply because i've always taken a liking to elven races. Although yes the losses in BGs can be frustrating. but that is actually what makes winning fun when it actually happens in my opinion.

I won't stress how maturity affects everything,as it has been mentioned enough times lol

-End of post-

I play mainly Alliance, since playing the Tolkien-type 'Good' always was attractive to me. I have little experience with Horde, except for a recently created orc shaman.

My comments can therefore not be seen in relation to how the Horde is played, just from my experience with teamwork in general:

The Alliance PvP'ers are often a bunch of solo-going whiners. Any attempt at organizing is met with scorn.

For me, playing the stereotype NE rogue, I had hoped to gain some reputation with, say, Silverwing, as I enjoy PvPing. However, if Alliance is demoralized and disorganized, AS WELL AS underpowered (since the teams are equal size and the Horde chars are inherently more powerful to balance PvE), PvP becomes a race for HK rather than Rep or tokens.

When it happens (1 in 4 times or so) that an Alliance raid turns out to be good, I try to fit in as a damagedealer and showstopper. But if not, there is always the HK to harvest to get the blue gear...

I have played both sides and just wanted to comment on the racial abilities. Both sides have good racial abilities for PvP however from what I have seen it is usually the horde that actually makes the best use of them. A lot of alliance that I have played with have used their racials foolishly (i.e. shadowmelding in your WSG flag room). At that point your racials become pretty useless if anyone can predict when and where you are going to use them. Granted some are easier to understand and use than other, but contrary to what people think they are all fairly powerful.

Like Lisa above, I'm female and I prefer Horde.

I saw elsewhere on this site that as many females played Horde as played Alliance.

I'm a quiet loner who enjoys exploring and competition. Pretty female characters bother me, I'm not sure why. Perhaps I am jealous. In real life, sometimes it annoys me when I am called "pretty", so perhaps I just want to escape from that. It's hard to interact with others as a male char, too. I role ugly/plain female characters (mostly Horde).

I think this theory might have merit: people who role pretty Alliance characters prefer socializing rather than getting good at the game, and people rolling Horde do so to get good at the game instead of to socialize.

I am a recovering WoW addict, and I played Horde from Beta up until about 3 months ago. I gave that whole Alliance bit a spin, but I couldn't even bear the newbie areas.

In any case, I found all of the information that I read here interesting, and many of the posts from fellow readers to be enlightening as well. It is funny, and I heard it mentioned before, but when I was reading through the comments I couldn't help but think to myself that the vast majority of the posters were Horde. It would be interesting if there were a drop-down menu for these comments that allowed you to select your faction, so we could take their point of view in context.

All in all, I applaud your hard work and research, and have really enjoyed reading all of the comments left by level-headed people. There's just one commenter in particular that I feel the need to address, and that is Casper. In his comment, he states that Blizzard coded special hidden advantages for the Horde into PvP such as bonus Critical Chance and increased damage. Are you serious? You can't honestly believe that.

Well before the BG's became their own servers I would say no due to the fact that most of the alliance on my server (gurubashi) spent vast resources cause of our advanced end-game progression into twinking out alt's with gear that helped tip our significant imbalance in PvP past the point of friendly competetion and into the realm of massacre's though since the various patchs and revamps on the PvP system this has started to shift and the status quo is returning to Horde domination of most battle grounds about the only way some of us tip the scale in our favours is by running Pre-made twink BG groups

This may have already been said I made it threw 1/4 of the posts. My theory is that most horde characters are veterans of the game. Their Toon being their 3rd or 4th lvl 60 character where as most alliance players are fresh to the game relatively speaking. I know that when I started Wow I didnt even consider playing horde. After a year and a half of alliance only I did.

My apologies in advance for the length of this post.

I believe that the author of the article has made several good points about the reasons that Alliance often is at a disadvantage in battlegrounds. And I'd say, all things being equal, Horde PUGs will win over Alliance PUGs. Sure, many of the points raised above are no longer relevant, but even after the Burning Crusade there will be imbalances between the two sides. I think, at level 70, Horde shamans will noticeably outnumber Alliance shamans for some weeks to come (and vice versa for paladins).

As previously stated, often Alliance will fail to win battlegrounds because the members are acting individualistically. Many Alliance guilds are geared more toward PvE raiding than PvP, so it's difficult to get a group together in-guild.

On the other hand, there are guilds out there that are not totally dedicated to PvE raiding. Some are organized to *do* PvP, and some have more flexible schedules that at times allow for mass PvP. Given an experienced group working together, it's very possible for an organized Alliance group to win against even a well-prepared Horde group. (I speak from personal experience. As an aside, paladins do make good flag runners in WSG.)

Unfortunately, not many people get those opportunities. Some are not in guilds, and some are part of guilds that don't generally do group PvP. It's these people that the article talks about, and in these situations the Horde generally has an advantage. It can be overcome in certain ways, but the general problem as it is may never be totally overcome.

Also, a rebuttal to the arguments saying that the population imbalance has gotten better with the multi-server battlegrounds: The problem with population imbalance is across NEARLY ALL the servers. The problem may be worse on some servers than on others, but the fact is, the problem is universal. In fact, on some servers (where the imbalance was low), the queue time problem has become WORSE. It may be the Blood Elves will decrease the imbalance somewhat, but I suspect the population imbalance problem is here to stay, at least for some time.

The Burning Crusade has made a few indirect changes to the structure of PvP (Alliance shamans, Horde paladins, Blood Elves, etc.). We'll have to see just how much change is wrought. I expect the overall difference to be fairly subtle, but then again, it's possible that it's greater than I suspect.

Okay, to keep this thread updated. I would just like to say that recently in the lvl 10-19 Warsong Gulch battelground bracket. The horde has been super bad. Most of the wins went to the Alliance.. Whereas before the release of burning crusade, the horde ruled for that part. I don't know if it's because of the twinks or whatever,since every single match Alliance is consisted of 2 of them. but without them. the horde gets wins easily.

I play Alliance, and in the BGs, a lot of players simply want to "get their mark and get out." They believe they have no chance against the Horde, so they don't even really try.

This attitude is infectious to be sure. When one player informs the group that they do not wish to try to win, it creates a domino effect.

Honestly, I feel it's the other way around. I play Horde and it seems like I lose in the BGs more than I win. I haven't kept count or anything, but that's just my viewpoint on Horde vs Alliance: the Alliance seems to win more.

Of course, I've only been playing in the 10-19 bracket in Warsong Gulch. I don't know what other areas are like. The Alliance just seems to have a lot of twinks.

I believe that the problem sprouts from the population of the two.

It's a universally known fact that there are more alliance players than horde players. Hence horde players get more BG time.

I consider myself to be a top notch alliance player with at least as many killing blows as deaths, yet, we always loose! why? i know for a fact that becoming a good pvp player requires experience and lots of it. on average, it takes longer for alliance players to get good at pvp as they simply do not get enough action. Also, most alliance players new to pvp do not bother to get the honour gear which really makes a difference.

As a result of this, most of the good pvp players switch to horde because they are playing for better items and it's clear they can get them faster with the horde.

This is also the reason why it slightly evens out towards higher levels i.e. players are more reluctant to drop a lvl 50 alliance player for a lvl 1 horde player.

I'm a horde shaman player that does a lot of pvp. This article is interesting but there are only a few issues that I truly see as real factors.

Regarding Racials: Hordes does have it better. Undead especially, but Orcs stun resist is good as well. Still, does count for the difference. BTW - my stomp is good but doesn't last 5sec (as quoted here) ... it lasts 2 sec and takes .5 seconds to cast and is interruptible. It ain't a get out of jail free card.

Regarding Populations: Aye. This counts for the real difference between how we pvp. Horde PUGs do better because we are more experienced and we are on a roll (last game stunk, im going to try something new next game, wait 5 minutes, enter game). Now, here is a rub; a flip side to this coin; could lots of PVP opportunities be a distraction? Answer - it is when you are not well geared. Blizzard has made gear the most important part of any character class.

But don't take my word for it, allow me to illustrate. Before 2.0 when the hour got late, the alliance groups got really good. Here is why? Good alliance players are in PVE during peak hours. Why would they waste there time in pvp queues. They saved it for later when the lines died down. In the meantime they got those epic items on that 4 hr MC raid. Then, still riding high from the raid, they join PVP as a PRE and beat the snot out of every "amazing" horde PUG that's out there. And the reason they win is the same reason that Alliance PUGs loose; because everyone plays his/her part. Add to this great gear and they can win against Horde pre's all night.

Horde "advantages" are erased by Alliance gear and economic "advantages". Now this might not be fair, as one is perceived as earned (alliance) and the other given (horde). But not exactly true. See, while i can play a lot more pvp games I can't get raids or groups to run instances to get that great gear ... and at the end of the day; assuming that everyone plays their part (pallys heal and free-action, shaman's heal and nuke, warriors don't go soloing without a healer) and everyone goes for the objectives (u don't win BG's by scoring the most killing blows) gear wins and that's how Blizzard intends it. So economics tilt towards alliance and that's undeniable.

Let's observe this in action. When Blizzard made the BGs the primary focus (just before 2.0) Horde lost almost every AV (it was so bad we had to form a cross guild PRE). What happened is that all those epic Alliance players turned all their efforts to running fast AV games (the most honor bang for your buck) and whooped the Horde groups. Why? We had more xp ... they had better gear. Gear rulz and all of us PVP people know it!

FYI - Alliance has advantage in AV, no questions. When was the last time you saw Horde ninja the Aid Station? Truth be told, you can't while those towers are shooting arrows in your back. However, two Alliance rouges can ninja RH quite easily (and often) because you don't have to contend with the arrow towers.

PSS.
Last point, it almost seems like Alliance is shocked that they might lose some (maybe even slightly more) BGs? Shocked so much that they need to take it to a MPORG shrink? It's akin to killing a rouge ... he just looks at you in amazement wondering how Blizzard has so over powered you and your class that he might possibly lose a solo fight? I'll tell you why ... because it was an undead warrior Warlord in epic plate ... now go gank some noob priest you fool!!!!

It's numbers. Works for and against the Alliance.

I started just post-BC, and from what I've read, battlegroups haven't changed Horde performance in the BG's all that much. We have to wait longer in queues, now. Well, maybe WSG. WSG in my battlegroup is a toss-up - if you're on during 'regular' hours, Horde has a pretty good chance of winning, even if half the team are nobs. Into the 'late' hours, all the Alliance twinks and pre-mades come out and it's a tough fight again.

Arathi Basin, that 'advantage' as it were goes out the window. AB is Horde territory again. I have seen Alliance teams win AB because of the same reasons they lose - disorganization. Only it's the Horde side that's disorganized and not working together. That's not to take away from the Alliance victory, go Alliance.

My hypothesis is the Alliance numeric advantage lends itself to a more relaxed PVP style. Generally speaking. My server is 2:1 Alliance to Horde. If Alliance raids, we have fewer defenders. When Horde raids, we're outnumbered by the Alliance defenders, and by a wide margin. Packs of Alliance world PVPer's can show up and don't really have to fight all that hard to defeat the other side, simply because of the sheer volume of fire they can put out. Dollars to donuts, they probably don't realize what an advantage they have, and new BG players are expecting similar ease.

When you take away that numeric advantage (as in a battleground), you really notice the difference.

In my battlegroup, the Alliance seems to have a morale issue. There've been countless times where they've been winning the battle (either needing to cap the last flag, or ahead in points in AB). If the Horde team manages to hang on just that much longer (hold off attackers, or re-cap some nodes), the Alliance seems to just fall apart. When it's gut-check time, they fail. Then the Horde sacks their flag runner and we cap, or we stave off attacks from disputed nodes and they turtle. Despite having fewer nodes. wtf?

My server, anyway, is a little peculiar. It kinda is a martial culture on the Horde side. For instance, there's always dueling going on. Not as in, "lol we're in an instance let's duel." But people of close level in the same town - lots of dueling. I see far more duels accepted than refused, and lots of respect afterward. People share tips on how to fight better, observers commentate and offer advice, that sort of thing.

Finally, totally not related, but I rolled an Alliance toon to see what it's like on the other side. World Defense? Quiet, ALL THE TIME. Horde-side, World Defense channel is always going off. Very odd.

So, yea... those are my findings. Battlegroups and the introduction of paladins and shamans to the opposing factions hasn't changed all that much.

I don't agree the horde are the "underdog/back-against-the-wall" victims that everone is saying they are; who inspiringly raise themselves up to be good players as a result of this population imbalance. It makes more sense that the alliance would be considered the underdogs, when you take into account the poorer pvp abilities, (according to your servey); lack of maturity; lack of experience; lack of teamwork (as a result of not being forced to play together at an early stage, such as with the level 13 horde instances).

In my experience as an alliance character, I have found that due to the constant losses in pvp, and the gankings as a result of horde being more willing to stick together in bgs, (and who are often not more than a little vindictive, heaven forbid you outplay one! They all seem to take that as a personal insult and will target you consistently if you dare to do well), definitely makes the alliance characters who do tough it out (to quote one of your contributers), have far better playing skills than they otherwise would have, as equally good as the best horde players. However, this doesn't make any difference at all at the end of the day unless we just get lucky and come up against a less vindictive horde group than usual, and a more considerate alliance group than usual, who are willing to stick together. In my experience, both are rare occurances.

Win or lose however, it's the consequences of losing all the time that bother me, (although losing all the time does get frustrating in itself). I've noticed in alliance battle groups, anyone who dares to enter under the "8" level of the bracket, gets absolutely ABUSED by the other players. They are regarded as parasites, who drag the team down etc, and are blamed for causing the alliance to lose.

I will say here, that I have had my butt saved by lower levels a number of times. This maybe because I dont' harrass them, and often take up for them, so they tend to stick with me and we look out for each other - I like to play pvp and don't like to wait until I am a higher level either. But it's more than that. Because lower levels ARE more vulnerable, they tend to stick together a little more than the egomaniac higher levels who will only play when they are at the top of the bracket, and who ultimately lack skills as a result of this. Their levels may be high, but their pvp skills lack, namely those of teamwork, and understanding the strategy involved in winning AB, for instance. This leaves the alliance at a distinct disadvantage in skill levels. High dps doesn't matter if you are dead, ganked by 5 lower level hordies!

Basically, from what I have observed, teamwork is the name of the game in pvp, and this belief that you cannot beat horde unless your team is all at the top of the bracket, makes the game decidedly less fun, and teams more abusive. Consequently, alliance groups are often beaten before the game starts.

I have observed horde sides, who have lots of lower levels, convincingly thrash high level alliance groups. Maybe the horde DO win, afterall, because of lower population rates. Maybe this makes it so that they have to take any level player to get a group together. Their levels seem to make no difference to the outcome. We still usually get our arses kicked, low levels or not. How many of us have had our arses smotethed greatly by an orc warrior 3 or 4 levels lower than us? I've seen it happen heaps! It's because the warrior probably has played at all levels, has had to develop strategies to defeat the higher level alliance members. As a result of this constant practice, support and support from team-mates regarless of what level they enter in, as well as being able to learn the strategies required to win in pvp games from the more experienced players, can now outplay most of the higher level alliance players in the bracket anyway.

I really think it's an attitude thing with alliance. It seems that in general, our moral is so low from constantly losing, that we look to scape goat anything and everything. So as well as having to put up with losing, we often have to put up with our team mates abusing us for not levelling to the highest brackets before joining the group.

I have seen healers not heal lower players, seen them abused to no end, being called parasites etc etc. and have even been at the receiving end of this treatment myself, for daring to enter the in the 20-29 bracket at level 27. So, at the end of the day, it's little wonder that the alliance lose. And I doubt it's because they regard themselves as the underdogs, that the horde consistently win.

The Horde isn't "evil", we're just misunderstood. And yes, better.

And no, joining the Horde won't necessarily make one a better player. Horde demands better players, it doesn't make them. What isn't mentioned here is how many people rolled Horde, couldn't hack world PvP, and went Alliance to die less? Not sure you can measure that.

Horde has better players and pvpers than the Alliance. If it makes any difference, anytime alliance attack a horde city on Durotan atleast. They run with their tails between their legs, when they get owned.

Unless it is 20 Ally to 1 Horde, they will give up and leave.

Personally, going EZmode, isnt the way to play this game. And I felt the Alliance side, was way too boring to play than the horde.

And Horde gets to bring Thrall to Outland, Alliance get nothing.

On the cool factor, that is atleast a 10.

I play WoW for 2.5 years now. My first MMORPG. Chose alliance because the PvP aspect didnt sound appealing to me.
And when I started, that is what I was told in threads. Horde is for the pvp minded Alliance for the PVE typos.
I would have chosen Horde if it had been the other way around. Always liked playing Thrall in Warcarft III series My first pvp kill was a nub accident and embarrased me tbh because the guy I killed was a lvl 22 vs me lvl 27
Still green and a HK but nowhere near a fair fight. THe accident part was that I saw an alliance player (in Westfall) getting killed by something that looked like it had escaped from Duskwod and wanted to help him out.
I realised later that he was 1 of the opposing faction. The whole pvping scene didnt appeal to me for lack of the fair fight involved. Whatever side you were on, killing an other player usuallly seemed to happen by 2-10 people
mobbing 1. It had a very anti social feel to it. So I went Molten COre, BWL and never changed my mind until recently.
PvP can be fun, I still prefer a fair fight and those are hard to find because the BGs are in fact unbalanced.
So I got interested in the why of it, which makes this article interesting. So my opinion....

Horde more experienced? Think so yeah.
Horde more mature? Doubt it very much. I have met total noobs on both side. And the tendeny of horde players to post things like "Alliance sux", "Learn to play" and other patting themselves on the back remarks dont show much maturity at all imo. Having a smaller community horde can single out their noob members better though, Alliance is more anonymous, to many of them to keep track of and flame down.
Horde more organised? For sure. And they have their prio for targets worked out too.
Racial abilities might play a slight role but isnt decisive.
Horde being bigger/ more intimidatting? Might work first time. After that its only handy because they are easier to spot in the field.

Main difference in my experience in BG is that horde are more determined and group minded. They really play hardball and usually dont give an inch. Also they are capable of singling out an opponent, even in a group, and concentrate on that person (now why do alliance healers dont heal? Because they are dead).
I learned a lot of them in the BGs though. Made me improve my skills from total nub pvp to fairly decent. Win or lose I can usually make it to the top 5 of damage dealers. And I off heal as well.
Overcoming a premade horde group in AV is a big challenge and very satisfying. Too rare though. A 1 in 10 win ratio will eventually kill the fun in pvping.
I doubt I will roll Horde for the pvp part though. I like a challenge, rolling over an opponent every single time? Might as well go farm ore nodes, thats boring too.

Alot of good info up there for sure, but the thing that always enters my mind is i'm on a RP server, and most people play both fractions, now alliance constantly lose most BG's (not AV but the others)..yet alot of the same people play horde and aliance and win as horde but not alliance. So just because a player switches to a horde character dosen't make him play better one night that the next. if you can't play well on one race, your not gonna play well on both.So I still think there's a advantage to horde races. Not the amount that most Alliance cry about but there is an advantage in my mind.

this was a fascinating article and confirmed a suspicion i have had about the personality behind the computer. i have often wondered if the players who choose to be a "horde" character may not in real life be a slightly more aggressive player, more prone to play pvp, and better tacticians. i only say this because in real life, the players i meet who run horde characters are seriously hardcore "gamegeeks" more often than my alliance friends, who are more casual players.

i would like to make one point about the toon size...i think it makes a difference, but for me it is the opposite. when i see a bunch of horde running at me, i often target the tauren cuz he is huge and very easy to "click on". that may sound silly, but if i do not have time to choose my target based on class, the easiest one to click gets shot first, until i can scroll thru targets and find the healer, whoever it may be. if i ever start a rogue, its going to be a gnome cuz those little suckers can hide in a blade of grass

anyway...thanks for an interesting read. i have often thought mmorpg's are rich ground for sociological research.

The main thing that i have noticed in bgs is that your lvl makes a difference. Alot of Aliance players that i see in bgs tend to be on the lower side of the lvl bracet. For example, a 40 has no chance against a 49 in a bg. Plain and simple twink or not the 49 just has to much hp. I have noticed that on my server alot of the aliance guys tend to be on the lower end of the bracket, lower than 5. Normally i play ab and when i was in my late 50s i noticed more low lvl aliance players and alot less high lvl players.
When the majority of your team is low lvl your gonna loose.

i start my short comment saying that i don't speak a perfect english so you'll notice some mistakes.
i disagree with your opinion about ally attracting noobs. i think this is false. i've some friends in ally and some friends in horde. the horde ones say (as u said) :" there are more ally players because children look at an undead and hate it because it's not pretty..." but the same people alongside the horde are totally noobs. they chose horde becouse they think they are more adult (if they are children in real life) and less children (if they are adult in real life). i prefer alliance for this.... i hate people who want to see themselves adult.
if someone choose ally because he/she wants to be good-looking and normal, he or she is not a serious hardcore player
if someone choose horde because he/she wants to be unusual and ...i don't know...virile, he or she is not a serious hardcore player...
but this is only my opinion

*This statement is based purely on my experiences as a level 54 gnome warrior, 70 human mage, 70 undead mage and a 48 troll hunter.*

I have encountered a massively greater number of "stupid" players on Alliance than I have on Horde.
By this I mean hunters with +str/spell dmg etc gems, gear and enchants, warlocks who put DoTs on CC marked targets, tanks who can't tank, and generally people that think they know everything when they are quite obviously wrong (i.e. a NE druid who was convinced that you got bonus honor for returning the flag yourself, and constantly abused me for returning "his" kill and stealing his honor).

This doesn't mean all Alliance are retarded. But I think more of them are, and that's my opinion based purely on the observations of over 2 years of play.

umm... hell yes! in WG all they have is excpierienced, well-communicated twinks with lots of strategy plans. we (alliance) have low lvl mo-fos priests who think theyre good enuf to take on a lvl 19 twink hunter.

Quit with WotLK.

7 Alli 70s
3 Horde 70s

:( Damn those beautiful mecha chickens. I totally agree with Elmo. If not for the mecha chickens and cute gnomes I could have started on the smart side.

My Horde experience was much more positive than my Alli one in almost all respects (it was harder to get lower instances because everyone seems to be an experienced alt who got plevelled through or couldn't be bothered. Me, I just liked the lower level instances...).

In PvP, _especially_ EoTS... Horde is so much better. You call for help, you get it. Much less fighting stupidly midfield. Someone calls a tower as we ride out... and people know what to do. Most of the BG chats are actually constructive.

Pity I came to Horde so late in my WoW playtime, perhaps I might have stayed longer if I hadn't been so burned out by then.

I think that the demographics of who plays what side have changed significantly since the release of wotlk and the introduction of bloodelves and dreanei. For example I used to play alliance but then switched to horde following the introduction of the 'prettier' blood elves, also i hated loosing bgs on ally side and felt more confident in my skills on horde side, this psychologically could have made a difference to performance and I suspect self fulfilling profecy may have some influence to player performance.

F (23)

Erm... Im from the server Bronzebeard and Horde are only 20% and Allience are 80% yet horde wins could you please add >in your server