Alliance and Horde

The Alliance and the Horde are the two great powers of Azeroth's mortal races, and the game's story has set them against each other again and again. Choosing which race to play also decides which of them you serve.

• The Alliance is driven by tradition. Its peoples are bound by ideals such as honor, faith, justice and sacrifice, and they see themselves as defenders of Azeroth.
• The Horde is driven by unity. It is a coalition of very different peoples who joined together against a hostile world; it values strength and honor and fights for freedom.

Most races belong to one side from the start. Allied races must first be recruited in-game (see Allied Races). Four races are neutral and choose a side at the end of their starting area.

Your side decides which towns, NPCs, quests and reputation groups you can use, and sometimes which items and encounters you see. It is also the base of most PvP: battlegrounds and world fights are mostly Alliance against Horde (see War Mode).

For a long time players of opposite sides could not talk or group with each other. That wall has come down in many places: characters of both sides can now form cross-faction groups for most instanced content such as dungeons and raids, and since patch 10.1 they can join a guild of the other side. Questing in the open world is still shared only with your own side, so friends who want to level together should pick the same one.

The word faction also means the many smaller groups of NPCs in the world, each with its own goals, such as the home cities of each race or the peoples of a new expansion. A character's tooltip usually shows which faction it belongs to.

You raise or lower your standing with these groups through Reputation and Renown: quests, daily quests, dungeons and raids, or killing certain enemies. Higher standing can unlock rewards and new story. Midnight, for example, adds groups such as the Silvermoon Court in Eversong Woods, the Amani Tribe in Zul'Aman and the Hara'ti in Harandar.