While I agree that soft factors can greatly influence initial impressions, it eventually boils down to the "hard" factors. After 50 runs through a place, pretty graphics and awesome scripts are much less exciting. At that point, it's all about how painful and/or boring the actual work is, relative to the rewards.



EDIT: Interestingly, after lots of runs, the most entertaining encounters seem to be the ones where people are challenged in ways that cause them to die (or similar) if they mess up, yet the encounter is still possible to win without them. This creates internal competition and lots of heckling if someone messes up, which keeps it fun (and encourages people to pay attention). Excellent examples are Nefarian (lol, melee hunter. lol, the priest killed a rogue), C'Thun, and perhaps most of all: Heigan.

I've thought about this too a lot. It would be very fun and chaotic. One of the ideas I had (I'm sure others had it too) was that say one race from Horde and one race from Alliance says "Right, screw this. We're tired of this constant bickering. We like <that other race> more than you either way. We're leaving you and forming <Faction C>".

Eg, nelfs and taurens buggers off and forms a faction based on living in peace with nature because dwarves and gnomes are evil and undeads are abominations, or whatever.

Add to that one to two new races (to give them all classes) and you have a much cooler world with three factions instead of just two.

It'll never happen, but it's fun to imagine :>


One thing I didn't like from the start of WoW is the very strict Horde/Alliance clash. It would be really cool if you started out as neutral to all and depending no what quests you did you gained faction rep and losed rep on the other side.

A perfect example of this is Grand Crusader Shoulders. A naxx trash drop whoever designed them needs to be shot because they are essentially cream colored imperial plate shoulders.

They are higher item level than Avenger (T2.5) and the Epic PvP shoulders and have stronger stats all round yet they've been sharded almost every time they have ever dropped because they are so god damn ugly.

Shoulders are something you can't turn off and have to look at every second you spend playing. It's a major soft factor.

First of all, very good topic imho.

I would like to comment on select excerpts in this thread:

1. I don't think that Horde/Alliance imbalances will ever go away, at least not on the old server. If I look at the newer German realms most of them started with a fairly balanced ratio only to degrade to ratios worse than on older realms. On some of these realms Org is a real ghost town. A sexy race will not alleviate this problem. I also don't think that it is an issue that the Horde does not have classical fantasy races (quite the contrary imho) but that many people chose their avatar in order to identify themselves with them in an abstract way (at least those who don't gender bend :D). Others simply want to have an aesthetically sound look (very debatable imho - some of the alliance models look rather ridiculous on the long run - but nevertheless: how many female dorfs do you see?).

2. Concerning instances: I really liked DM every time I went there. It was much more spacious than those tight instances like scholo (even though my class is not restricted by this design decision).
In terms of raids I think the greatest design problem has always been the level of difficulty and the quantity of the trash mobs. This is a point where Blizz still seems to be either unsure or too much stuck to the philosophy of creating time sinks. Most boss mobs are fairly fun to fight, even though tank and spank fests still occur in endgame raiding. Some fights should have been less extreme (e.g. extremely long Twins fight that gets boring once you have them on farm, Ouro (which is very frustrating for melee)) but especially the boss fights in AQ 40 aren't as bad as most folks picture them. Imho AQ was more a failure in terms of itemization since most folks do want to collect a shiny cool looking set (and we all agree that the AQ sets look strange at least and aren't very attractive for some classes in terms of their abilities).
But if I had to name the best designed instance, that would be ZG. It was well tuned shortly after the release of the zone (it wasn't on release) and introduced interesting new fights. Furthermore they did the right thing when they thinned the trash pulls out. AQ 20 followed in terms of bossfights which are pretty fun but the whole zone is too bland, too boring.
In terms of the 40 man zones Naxx is the best hands down in terms of atmosphere, interesting fights and overall design (even though I haven't seen everything and most likely never will see it ever). But I can see the evolution from MC over BWL and AQ40. Without AQ40 there would never have been such a design as Naxx imho. From an optical pov AQ 40 is lightyears ahead of its smaller partner, its pretty detailed if you care to look for it. On the other hand BWL contained a lot of recycled graphics (in terms of architecture, mob skins etc...come on, three bosses looking almost identical to each other? boooring). Of course AQ isn't as detailed as Naxx - but thats the evolutionary effect imho. Furthermore, the most fun fight ever even when repeated week for week is still C'Thun imho (speaking from my limited experience in Naxx, having never been to 4h and beyond, as well as Loatheb).

I rolled my character as human for several factors:

1. Friends rolled alliance
2. Enjoyed using humans in the Warcraft RTS games
3. Contempt for the change in Horde being somewhat blameless in their actions in the prior Warcraft games
4. Contempt for every other Alliance race save Dwarf
5. Diplomacy

As a whole I like the horde races more than alliance races (save Human and Dwarf and sissy Tauren) but enjoy facing off against the horde a whole lot more.

Perhaps down the road the population imbalance will start to even out but thus far the Draenei have been presented in a much cooler fashion (the delayed announcement of who the 5th alliance race is, seemingly better femme model). Rerolling horde just for Blood Elves is a difficult proposition because you'd have to have a base on another server where it wouldn't become tedious to go through all the annoyance of going from 1-60 again (ganking, resource gathering, finding folks to work with, etc).

I think any "bonus" given to people for rerolling horde would be met with disdain by both horde and alliance players - it kind of seems like a slap in the face to me.

I personally think that the loot available in AQ, is a large contributing factor for it's low popularity. On the road to Naxx, you more or less have MC and BWL. ZG, AQ20 and AQ40 are nice detours, suitable for equiping people for pvp, and to spend extra time, getting the odd slot filled where you haven't been lucky to get your main set items.

ZG has is own merit as the stepping stone for latestarting 40-man guilds allowing them to get raiding and improve their gear, while still gathering the final players. AQ20 was a continuation of that line of thought, but the need for a stepping stone going from MC->BWL is less apparent, since its more a case of learning the encounters, and a second 20 man instance won't help you there. Once you have BWL on farm, you are more or less ready to start working on Naxx. You can still go into AQ40, but if you have to split your progression nights, i'm pretty sure you would want to focus on Naxx. This is ofcourse assuming you were not in a pure reroll-guild, destroying content through consumable abuse, where people were still in half-blues on your first Nefarian kill.

Great thread! These soft factors are a major factor, not only for the large amount of people who do not raid more than 3 times a week, but also for the hardcore raiders. Eye-candy, setting and atmosphere, dungeon layout, it all plays a huge role in how much you enjoy the game. But I think it's on a different level than the mechanics discussions that are popular on these forums. Understanding the mechanics allows you to become a more knowledgable and better player, trying to get the most out of your character. Apart from playing interactively with friends, playing in a beautiful environment with the right atmosphere and well-designed content is what keeps you interested.

BTW, something not mentioned yet: a lot of people enjoy playing the good guy, which IMO is a larger factor for the Alliance:Horde ratio than the looks of both factions (sex appeal in a game character? *shiver*).

But that's the thing, isn't it. The Alliance just look like the good guys. They are pretty much the bad guys. Industrial, users of slave labour and so on. Certainly more so than the eco-friendly Taurens or down trodden Orcs. The Undead are a bunch of bastards mind. I still get mad about that time they tricked me into poisoning that pretty lady Tauren. :(

One of the things I've always liked most about being a Horde and specifically Tauren player is the feeling of being the real good guys.

So I agree and disagree. Folks want to play the people who look like the good guys.

True! My main char being a Tauren, I can't agree more.

But at first glance the Alliance are the medieval knights who fight for the Light, and the Horde are the bloodthirsty unholy barbarians.

One factor imo being ignored is ease of access. I simply like BWL because its so close to Ironforge, and even Naxx is a single flight path away - mount up and go AFK for 5 minutes. Whereas getting to Silithus is such a pain in the ass. Meeting stones certainly go a long way in helping. Imagine however if raid leaders could "queue" for an instance just like a battleground at each of the major cities, would certainly make raid starts go much faster. Yes, it would be abused to let people zip around the world I suppose but I've never understood Blizzard's childlike insistence that somehow walking/running/riding/flying around for 20 minutes makes the game immersive.

To the person complaining about lore progression - the expansion does nothing here. Lady Prestor still hangs around the boy king, Van Cleef is still madly toiling on his ships, Balzaanar still leads the Scarlet Crusade, etc. In fact the lore is pretty much shot to pieces - no spoilers, but little makes sense anymore with Kazzak, Nozdormu, the Burning Legion, Ragefire Chasm, etc.

The expansion does bring in a ton of new lore, some if it wildly confusing and contradictory, much of it pretty interesting. I did enjoy a lot doing all the new quests and all the new chatter. Still, the feeling that your actions have little impact continues.

I'm not sure how accurate warcraftrealms.com's data is, but looking at this graph I don't see there being much of an issue of faction imbalance on PvP realms. Sure, on PvE realms it looks pretty bad but world PvP imbalances are non-issue on PvE realm anyway.

There are some older/transfer EU PvP realms that are extremely skewed towards Alliance since they attracted lots of raiding population but in general, all PvP realms I've been on have actually been dominated by Horde in world PvP, maybe due to perceived PvP nature of Horde racials attracting more aggressive crowd.

I remember reading how Asian realms are actually overwhelmingly Horde so there are some cultural issues at work, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any census data from there.

I had a nice longish post written out, and then my browser ate it. Here's a version that I think actually came out longer...

I wonder how much effect the prettiness of the starting areas/capitol cities for Horde vs. Alliance, as well as the character models, have on new players. I started as undead, then switched to human because my guild was rerolling, and spent several levels going "whoa! Elwynn is so much...shinier than Tirisfal!" Everything from the outside environment to Stormwind vs. Undercity to the low level food you can get (mushrooms and cave mold for Horde, fresh bread and Shiny Red Apples for Alliance) is much, well, happier-looking. Obviously this is intentional, and personally I didn't mind the Horde aesthetic at all, but I wonder how much the different feel affects new players.

Someone else mentioned the loot in raid instances affecting general opinions about the place. I noticed this in my guild. We only ran ZG and AQ20, but I got the feeling that people were often more excited about ZG. Sure, AQ had some very nice epics (for our level of gear), but its loot tables were so full of class books (let's face it, just not as exciting for most people as instantly-equippable new gear, even if it actually improves your performance more) and Qiraji whatevers for the CC rep turnins that we often only got one blue per boss. Stupid Buru had to drop the Fetish of Chitinous Spikes all the time, too. In ZG there was just plain more stuff dropping, including the Primal Hakkari items which you pretty much just had to show up for raids to get enough rep to use, in contrast to the long and horrible CC grind. Not to say that people are greedy and lazy, but, well... people are greedy and lazy ;)

Interesting idea way up in the thread about people liking building-based instances more than cave-based instances, but from an Alliance perspective at least, it seems like all your cave-based examples are just harder to get to. WC, RFK, and RFD are all pretty out of the way, and RFC is obviously not much of an option. Then again, SM is also a pain to get to if you're Alliance. Deadmines is mostly a cave but I hear a lot of people saying it's their favorite instance ever (based on the ship part, I think, so maybe that doesn't apply...). This has degenerated into babble so I'll shut up now, just wanted to comment on the idea.

(edited to remove too many smilies)

Character aesthetics are certainly a factor, but in my opinion, city aesthetics are just as important. Orgrimmar is just plain ugly. I hate the place. Undercity isn't much better. I do like Thunderbluff, though. Being a druid, after every raid, I portal to Moonglade and fly to Thunderbluff, rather than taking the portal to Orgrimmar (I also go afk for this flight). For the Alliance, Stormwind and Darnassus are much more aesthetically pleasing than anything the Horde has to offer. While Ironforge is "pretty", it still looks better than Orgrimmar and has a much better atmosphere.

P.S. I hate Orgrimmar. :P

It's true. WoW is my first MMORPG so I didn't know what class/race combo to roll at first. But when I played Warcraft 2 and 3 I strongly favored the Troll Headhunters/Berserkers so my first char ended up being a Troll Hunter. Everything was fine until I reached the... Barrens. I just couldn't stand it, it was boring and way too big and intimidating to play there.
So I rerolled to check out the other side: A female Mage (from my favorite Diablo 2 class: Sorceress). And wow, Elwynn was great. SW was only a few screens away and I was impressed after entering it so I stuck with Alliance. I kept my level 10 Hunter until about 1 year after release before logging back on him, laughing at his level 3 LWing and then deleted him for good. Honestly, racials were not the reason I chose my faction for. It was my gaming background and how the environment was designed. I *still* have trouble leveling a Horde alt because of the friggin Barrens.

Yeah, Elwynn rocks your socks. :P

PS: I am one of the people that love post-Emps trash. Maybe that's because I've only done them like 3 times total but I like the idea of hard trash. It feels great being one of the few survivors at the end and Mindslayers totally play into the Druid's strengths.

As a big fan of the Watch Tower Rush strat, I love Orgrimmar. Plus, it's easy to navigate, has lots of roofs to jump around on and you can actually see the sky, unlike in Ironforge. UC is boring but easy to navigate, TB is just really nice looking and hilarious to watch newbies fall off from. Silvermoon City is just awesome and I know I'm going to spend all my afk time there. Compare this to dreadfully boring Ironforge (aka mini BRM), the good-looking labyrinthine roads of Stormwind, the desolate paths of Darnassus and the whole in the ground that is the Exodar.

Horde have it good in terms of cities.

[EDIT]

I also love the Barrens, the whole African Savannah feel of the place and the lone trumpet background music. Plus, all the quests are conveniently located in three hubs that are all linked together with Wind Riders and you can easily get past level 20 in one zone. Also, who doesn't love Barrens chat?

While I definately agree that aesthetics had little to do why many raiders consider AQ40 a design failure, I think it's foolish to completely dismiss the importance of aesthetics even when discussing hard core raiders. Speaking personally, I know if dungeon is monotonous in appearance without much detail or definition I'll lose interest much faster. I really hope Blizzard considers this when they design future instances.

I would argue that the love affair with bwl is solely loot and time based then anything else. The actual design of bwl especially boss order and trash location is pretty horrible.

If you sit down and break down which bosses have the most learning curve and their order in bwl its very poor placement. The razoregore vael broodlord early progression for horde guilds that I personally played through was some of the most frustrating raiding I ever did in wow.

The bwl is a great instance cheering is a result of the bliz tweaks to the instance and the fact once you put it on farm you can walk in and out in a very reasonable ammount of time. This is the opposite for aq40 and where the despise comes from. If you break down the boss order and trash its a very well layed out instance but the real problem is it dosent get much faster after the 10th time you have done it.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is graphics are fluff for most players and even if aq40 had the most amazing unique boss models in wow people would be impressed the first couple times but after that first impression the interest would die off to the real deciding factors.

Faction the graphics are much more important because the first impression of a player is a serious time investment if they remain with that character. For example my first character at release was a troll because I liked the model in the preview screen(hideous in gear at 60 and combat animations suck) and my friends were rolling horde. I had 0 idea how racials and shaman vs pallies would affect me later on. In hindsight my decision would of been much different at the very least I wouldnt of made a troll thats forsure.

I was completely shocked the first time I played BGs as Horde because I always assumed that the sounds would be swapped if I was the other faction. When you cap a flag as Alliance, you get a triumphant sounding horn. When you cap a flag as Horde, it sounds like angry war drums. Also, when you win a game, the Alliance music is so positive sounding whereas the Horde music just sounds so evil.

It is weird how all the lore says that each faction is evil in its own way, and Blizzard has says they don't necessarily want to villify most of the Horde, that they allow things such as asthetics and sounds to perpetuate exactly the opposite.

Since the start they've added two more FPs to the Barrens, Ratchet and Camp Taurajo. Its still pretty big for pre-mount travel though.

This is pure perception. The Ironforge/Stormwind music is more American/European in the vein of traditional classical music (high-brass horns dominate the melody parts) where the Orgrimmar/Horde music is much more African and tribal with heavy drums and low brass, which emulate the sounds from large horns. Both Darnassus and Thunder Bluff have more windy, simple themes that are not complex instrumentation to reflect their nature-oriented background. The Undercity is just plain creepy and that's how it's supposed to be. To me the Alliance music is very pompous and the Horde music is much more tribal and raw. There are numerous cultures in the world where the rhythmic Orcish-style music is proud and noble, and personally I am still stirred when I run in the front gates of Orgrimmar and the war drums thunder.

The 'races' in WoW aren't as much different races as different factions or cultures that have different apperances. Basically, they're all good guys, and the "evil" ones are actually just confused (forsaken), or fanatics that let their beliefs cloud reason (dwarves).

Basically, it all comes down to if you wanna be the good guys who look good and live in pretty forests or snowy mountains, or if you wanna be the good guys who look hideous and live in barrens, plains, or corrupted, evil forests.

I don't know about you, but it looks lik a pretty clear choice to me. Never really liked the stance WoW has taken to racial differences. Basically, there are none. They're all just humans that look different from one another and have different ideologies. Would be much more fun if orcs were bloodthirsty beasts, the fpoorsaken truly united under thier queens hell-bent quest of destroying everything living, and the trolls just wanted to eat everybody.

For me, the WoW lore lost all its meaning when I read that dwarves could be paladins. From there it was just downhill, really.

I found it odd and disturbing that both MC and BWL felt more connected to the game world lore-wise than two instances that had world events sponsoring them (aq and naxx). I guess it was the fact that you spent so much time at later levels hearing about blackrock, etc. You really felt like you were accomplishing something worthy in the game world when you went through those instances, ony included. The fact that you gave a faction buff in your capital city only added to that.

Wheras aq40 and naxx seemed to be motivated by PR rather than lore. They lacked any real connection to the game world. It's sad that you found out 99% of the lore connection to the instances on the wow homepage rather than in the game... I'm not an RP'er or a lorehead by any means but I'd like to see a reason other than neat equipment (btw aq40 gear is some of the most ass looking gear I've ever seen in any game) for going into an instance. Essentially those two instances were like multi-tiered rare world spawns.