Horde vs. Alliance

I didn't start out with a favored faction. Everyone I knew played Alliance, and I joined in. I actually liked the Horde a little better when I started, especially the Tauren. There was something about their laid-back, nature-loving, granola-crunching society that appealed to me.

The thing I didn't like about playing a Tauren was how long it took to get from here to there and back again. I spent more time running my first shaman from place to place than I did actually questing! That, combined with having my character take up a good third of my screen (I didn't start out with a widescreen monitor), and with BC making shamans available to the Alliance, I didn't spend much time playing Horde.

I still had this feeling of defensiveness when others I knew would bring up the Horde vs. Alliance debate, though. I'd really enjoyed the other faction, and felt bad abandoning them. I felt awkward in those sorts of debates also, because they invariably devolved into name-calling and sweeping generalizations. Alliance players are a bunch of selfish children with hero complexes. Horde players are a bunch of power-tripping, emogoth jerks. Blah blah blah. On and on.

Those things annoyed me, but there are a few things that amuse me, when people make assumptions about those who play the other faction. As Alliance, I have heard over and over how Horde is so awesome at PvP. How it's not fair that they've got people who actually use strategy. How they protect their healers. How they do everything right, but my fellow Alliance are a bunch of drooling idiots and that's why we never win whatever battleground said person is whining about this time.

What's so hilarious about that? My sis-in-law has been doing Wintergrasp the last few days, and a few things she said sounded eerily familiar. Alliance know what they're doing in PvP. Horde players can't get it together, and are a bunch of drooling idiots who can't...

I was laughing too hard to hear what else she said.

No matter which faction you're playing, the players behind the characters you see are just people. Sure, a few personality types seem to gravitate toward certain races, but it's silly to just assume. I know I'm not your typical annoying gnome, but when I'm playing Weeinsanity I'm sure Horde players don't know that. Not every dwarf is a rude, obnoxious, node-stealing asshole, for example. Not every blood elf is a vapid, self-centered, node-stealing bitch, either.

But we all know that all undead are emogoth teens who equate penis size to dps meters. Some stereotypes are just true like that.