Barrens compared to Goldshire was so garbage in vanilla at launch. Alliance aesthetics was so much more developed and implemented
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djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
it’s less about the moment to moment gameplay and more about the vibes and ambiance tbh. Players love zones like Barrens and Nagrand even though a good chunk of both zones’ quests are just hunting animals because the vibes of those zones are immaculate.
Frostbeard@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Blackmist@feddit.uk 1 day ago
I think Duskwood was peak WoW for me. I spent years chasing that early high, and never really found it in that game or any others.
Allero@lemmy.today 1 day ago
I’d argue the Horde aesthetics is meant of be raw.
Although I am myself an Alliance connoisseur. Darnassus and Auberdine still being my favorite throughout the Classic, despite some immediate confusion over the location of some merchants.
The Burning Crusade only reinforces this notion, with Silvermoon being initially part of the Alliance and growing to be the majestic city I love wholeheartedly. Truly a gem of the Horde.
djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
You may like the Alliance aesthetic more but there’s plenty of people who enjoy the Western feel of Barrens.
Hell, people are still making jokes about Barrens chat in this very post, do you see anyone talking about Westfall? If we wanna go off cultural relevancy, Horde is way more well known. Nobody cares about asking “Where’s the Defias Messenger,” but everyone knows Mankirk’s wife.
Frostbeard@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
I agree that the size of Barrens meant that the chat was something else. I meant that while Alliance got three zones that felt unique and populated, horde had one giant open plain.
Might be because I started as Alliance and switched to Horde quite early
djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 hours ago
Horde also had Silverpine if you weren’t hot for the plains, and it’s not like you were actually meant to level nonstop in Barrens from 10-20, though I won’t pretend Stonetalon is that much of a change of scenery.
But again, you’re comparing two very different vibes. The Alliance was meant to feel civilized because they’d existed in the Eastern Kingdoms for thousands of years. The Horde had only been on Kalimdor for like a decade, and their start reflected that.
Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 23 hours ago
You’re not wrong about Alliance zones feeling more fleshed out… but over the last two decades of playing vanilla WoW on and off, every single time that I’ve rolled an Alliance character and tried my best to commit, I would eventually see a primitive ass Horde outpost with hanging feathers and dreamcatchers, with some bulky spiked Orc and a noble Tauren standing there… and I would feel such an immense feeling of homesickness unlike anything I’ve ever felt in another game, and I would immediately delete that character and start over in Durotar.
Something about fighting for the honor of the Horde and the glory of the Warchief out there in an inhospitable land, with the inspirational swell of horns and indigenous drums just puts me in it. Like, really puts me in it.
ICastFist@programming.dev 2 hours ago
Kinda ironic that alliance zones are more fleshed out, but horde lore and characters tended to get much better treatment.