There have been a lot of discussions and polls lately about which realm will have the higher population. Will it be Order or Destruction? The concensus is that most people want to play Evil because that’s how it was in World of Warcraft.  There’s also that whole psychological philosophy that we as a people more readily play the evil characters because that is a side of ourselves we are less likely to express in reality. Blah blah blah. All things considered, both sides are fairly balanced class wise. There isn’t one particular class that makes either side more appealing because it’s overpowered. So why is it that most people want to play Destruction in WAR? I think the answer is very simple.
Destruction has the most character. The Destruction races stand out more compared to the Order races. Chaos, Dark Elves, and Greenskins are a lot less cliche in a fantasy setting than High Elves, Dwarves, and Humans(Empire). People want to play the guy with a crab arm and tentacles coming out of his back. They want to play the lumbering orc or the goblin with a squig and scream at the top of their lungs about the size of their waaagh!. They want to play the skanky half naked witch elf in a metal bikini and bite people.  Destruction wins the award for best first impressions. It’s not Mythic’s fault at all. It’s really no one’s fault. That’s Warhammer. That’s what Games Workshop created.
However, in the end I think that both sides will be evened out. Order has a lot of really neat classes. The Dwarven Engineer, the Shadow Warrior, the Warrior Priest, and Van Helsing, err I mean the Witch Hunter…. they all look amazingly fun.  I really believe that once people look past the superficial and get a chance to see the races closer up they will realize that Empire, Dwarves, and yes even those nasty Elves have a rich lore and a lot of opportunities for character development.  While I will definitely have my main characters be Destruction I will definitely not deny myself the opportunity or the fun of playing Order.
I’m pretty much of the same mindset, due to my friends leaning towards the Destruction side, I’ll prolly roll one of those as “main character”, But I certainly will make a few Order alts just cause the insane coolness factor of most of their classes.
I’m all about the Empire at the moment, I mean, Witch Hunter, Warrior Priest, Bright Wizard, and Knight of the Blazing Sun. *Drool*
But we’ll see at open beta, I guess that’s when I’ll decide for sure 🙂
Yeah, my first love is the Chaos Chosen but the Order classes are freaking awesome too. Bright Wizard, Witch Hunter, KoTBS, they’re all amazing.
I think… both. Two servers, one Order and one Destruction. I get the feeling that more people are leaning toward Destruction, so Order might end up being the underdog, but we’ll see. Both sides offer some pretty choice classes.
I think the wide variety of classes and unique mechanics will play a much greater role in determining which side to choose in WAR compared to previous games. And trust me, Order has some amazing options even if you’re a Destruction-minded person.
Also, there’s a bit of moral gray area between Order and Destruction. Who is more evil; the Witch Hunter who condemns first and asks questions later (once you’re a corpse) or the Black Orc who is genetically predisposed for mayhem and murder without the capacity for peace?
Just like WoW there will be some servers with higher population on one side than the other, and overall probably Destruction will be top in terms of numbers purely because they’re more out-and-out “cool”, the other thing to factor in is that in WoW PVP Servers have more Horde than Alliance, whereas PVE servers are the opposite.
I myself will be Order, the same way I was Alliance in WoW, not sure if I’ll be another Dwarf though XD
Alliance outnumbers Horde in WoW by a significant margin (WoW Census. I think it will probably be closer in WAR because the RvR crowd has a different mindset than the PvE crowd, but I would bet that Order would still have a numerical advantage.
Imbalanced sides are my number one fear for WAR. It’s the thing that will make the game pointless, and I’m not sure how it can really be fixed. In WoW, Alliance far, far, far exceeds the population of Horde, but it doesn’t really matter, because PvP has no impact on the world. One side dominating the other in WAR will be much much worse. That said, I go where my guild goes, and they’ll most likely pick Destruction. I really hope that Mythic finds some way to keep the realms at least somewhat balanced or else their game will be no more than an interesting way to spend a month, like PotBS.
I think the servers will be tilted towards Order, as it has the larger number of ‘pretty’ classes / races.
Personally, I’m planning to make classes on both sides, so I guess I’ll have to be on two servers? Then it’ll depend on where I have friends to see which side I concentrate on.
Tholal makes a key point: In WoW horde outnumbers alliance ONLY on PvP servers.
Having played on WoW PvE servers, I can tell you that there’s a lot of (less hardcore?) players who enjoy battlegrounds and Bone Waste skirmishes, but who don’t want to be ganked by max-level characters while questing in Stranglethorn. This type of player generally favors alliance over horde. If Warhammer is successful, it will need to appeal to this type of player as well as the core PvP crowd.
When comparing with WoW, keep in mind that there were a lot of sociopaths on WoW PvP servers who encouraged more casual players (even those who enjoy PvP) to roll on PvE servers.
Finally, when making predictions, keep in mind that the game most similar to Warhammer is DAoC, and everyone here is familiar with the Albion zerg. Bottomline: The “average” gamer likes playing humans.
@Lepinski
“The “average†gamer likes playing humans.”
I like how you put this and I totally agree. I would be willing to bet seriously money on a human zerg becoming a serious problem for chaos players. (or all of destruction)
I am unashamed when I admit that I have a serious competitve streak and I LOVE locking horns with other players on the field of battle. Going full blown RvR or PvP is the only way to do that to my satisfaction. PvE servers feel like i’m playing with my saftey, water-wings on.
I’ll be playing Order, mostly because i did the Horde thing in WoW for 2 1/2 years so I really don’t want anything to do with Orks. Empire may end up being heavily populated, much like Albion was in most realms in DAoC, but I think the draw of the Destruction forces in WAR should be enough to counterbalance that. I think server-wide Order vs. Destruction will be reasonably balanced, my concern is the racial pairings. Most polls show there are a LOT more people interested in Orks than Dwarfs, which means those tier zones aren’t going to be much fun for Dwarfs. Yes, you can just go to where the people on your side are (Empire, probably), but wasted content isn’t much of a solution.
At least Mythic has a history of more aggressively trying to balance realm populations than Blizzard has.
I choose both…. But seriously folks, I don’t have that much time on my hands. Prolly whichever my friends choose and knowing them it’ll be whichever has hotter babes in it. :P. Personally I like to play the side that less people play, you get more of an underdog, “gotta group to survive” mentality in pvp land.
I suspect the ‘hot babes’ crowd will flock to the Witch Elves. High Elves and Empire might have perfectly good female character models, but I don’t think any other race/class combination starts out in a bikini :p
[…] “Order vs. Destruction: Which Will You Pick?” Keen asks. Me? I say, why not pick both! […]
god damn it this is just like wow but the orcs are ugly as hell dudes this orc dwarf and elf is geting kinda gay just like lord of the rings the biggest pointless gayest movie ever made dude but its your choice jumping around in gay green blue things with big axe chopping everyone in a dress fags u must agree with me thats kinda gay but trailer rocks i must agree that they make a gooood movie out of it but not like lord of the rings god damn it its all about some little gay hobbits walking but its your lolz iam saying over 10 millions are gay okey good luck with game have fun….AoC rulz
[…] I’ve been waiting to comment on the Warhammer Alliance class poll because I was hoping to see a drastic change after a week. Given that the poll has been up almost six days now and the current trends are staying firmly in place I guess now is as good a time as ever to say “I saw this coming“. […]