World of Warcraft’s factions of the Horde and Alliance are a key part of Blizzard’s MMORPG, but it was far from set in stone during development, with the decision to divide the playerbase into two camps coming together “nine months to a year” before WoW shipped in 2004.
That nugget of information comes from former Blizzard veteran Jeff Kaplan in a recent interview with Lex Fridman (via PC Gamer). Kaplan, a devout Everquest player, joined Blizzard during WoW’s development as a quest designer. He said the team would argue about whether to force players into joining the Horde or the Alliance, and that the feature’s biggest proponent was Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham.
“The Horde/Alliance decision was really controversial,” Kaplan said. “Because in Everquest it was mixed…[Rob Pardo] and I came from Everquest, where we felt like this was a horrible decision [Allen Adham] was making. And we argued.”
Kaplan said he, Adham, and others at Blizzard would have lunch every day and talk about WoW’s design, including whether pushing players into the Horde and Alliance was a good idea or not. Adham liked the fact that in a game with factions, you were always on a team and felt like there were people on your side, rather than being all alone in the world, Kaplan said.
“Some time before beta, Allen retired…I think it was nine months to a year before WoW shipped, which is kinda nuts,” Kaplan said. “Rob takes over as lead designer in Allen’s stead. And to Rob’s credit the first thing he did was go: ‘Allen’s a smart guy, the fact he was fighting so hard for Horde/Alliance? We gotta do it.'”
The rest, as they say, is history, but considering how much of WoW was long divided along faction lines, it’s a little shocking to hear it was a choice that was only locked in late in development.
What faction you join isn’t as major a factor nowadays, as in modern WoW players from both the Alliance and Horde can team up to complete quests or do dungeons together. But the identities associated with each faction are still strong and those old divisions still exist in the various versions of WoW Classic.
As for Kaplan, he left Blizzard in 2021 during the development of Overwatch 2 after nearly two decades at the company. His next project is a western survival game giving off some serious Red Dead Redemption vibes called The Legend of California. It will be published by Dreamhaven, the company founded by Blizzard co-founder and former CEO Mike Morhaime.
