This question goes back many many years, its not something that's only apparent in the F2P bracket, but across the entire level ranges as a whole - way back in Vanilla, to BC, to Wotlk and Cata.
The difference in population and faction player quality still has a significant difference even after Blizzard introduced Paid Faction Change.
I want to point towards The Daedalus Project (
The Daedalus Project: Introduction: The RL Demographics of World of Warcraft), a study conducted by Nick Yee in 2005 to get a statistical analysis on the demographics of WoW players. A VERY INTERESTING READ, I think anyone who's ever played WoW should read through the study and check out the graphs/charts - they give a huge insight onto our community/playerbase and why people pick certain races/classes/factions. Even though the study was conducted in Vanilla, I think many of the findings are still true to this very day.
When Blizzard abolished the Battlegroup system and made BGs world-wide, it only increased the oversaturation of the BG population by Alliance even more. Considering a lot of realms from Vanilla/BC already had 2:1 or some cases even 3:1 ratios of Alliance:Horde, you can see how the pool of players on Alliance became overwhelmingly huge compared to Horde-side.
There is a 11-page section devoted to the findings of Alliance VS Horde demographics, attempting to provide reasoning for why Horde tended to win more BGs than Alliance (Back in Vanilla). Some of the explanations the data (including responses from surveyed WoW players) was able to give:
The study found that some of the main reasons many new players roll Alliance:
- Most people want to be the "good guy", they want to be the human, the elf..... not the ugly Orc/Undead/Horde which are I guess indirectly implied as the "bad guys"
- Alliance races are somewhat more "roleplay friendly", see above - they are the "Heroes" of the Lore, so to speak
- Younger players are attracted to picking Night Elfs/pretty races (back in Vanilla before the advent of Belfs)
Alliance Attracts NoobsMany respondents argued that players new to MMOs were more likely to choose Alliance because the character models more readily resonate with the “good guys” as portrayed in movies such as Lord of the Rings (i.e., human knights in armor and elven archers). And because new MMO players have less experience in raiding and coordination, the Alliance suffers from this in BGs.
WoW brought a LOT of new players to MMORPGs and many just went straight to Alliance because most people do not want naturally to be a bad guy. Experienced MMORPGers (who know that game/class/combat mechanics must be mastered, browse forums for tactics/add-ons, use TeamSpeak, etc.) are past that stage of 'I'll be a good guy and defend the Alliance against the Empire/Horde). Most, if not all, Horde I know come from that pool of vets. (WoW, M, 38)
Reasons why people on Horde pick that faction
- They want to look intimidating/badass, Horde players also tend to be more PVP-inclined (which is evidenced throughout the entire history of WoW - most of the top Gladiators/PVPers are Hordeside is one example, and even before Arenas, most of the top World PVPers back in the day were Horde. There are exceptions of course, like Swifty etc)
- Horde toons look fierce
- Back in Vanilla, when Shamans/Paladins were faction-exclusive, Shaman was cited in the study as a better offensive class - so this could have influenced more hardcore PVPers to pick Horde over Alliance
Players who prefer the Horde score significantly higher on the Advancement, Competition, and Mechanics motivations than players who prefer the Alliance. In other words, players who prefer the Horde tend to be more achievement-driven, more likely to enjoy provoking and challenging each other, and more likely to be min-maxers. On the other hand, players who prefer the Alliance tend to score higher on the Role-Playing and Customization motivations than those players who prefer the Horde.
See here for the discussion on Alliance VS Horde demographics:
The Daedalus Project: Does Horde PWN Alliance in PvP? A Baker's Dozen of Possible Reasons
There is plenty more than what I cited, but I tried to find the relevant things relating to your question.
I highly urge all of you to check out the full report, its really quite fascinating stuff (to me at least, I'm a bit of a nerd).
As for how this applies to F2P Alliance/Horde population, I would reckon that many of new F2Ps are either new to MMOs/new to WoW and default to Alliance for the reasons above. And ex-WoW P2P players who are switching to F2P will probably make the decision based on an existing community, or based on their prior experience (I know I chose to roll Horde on AP for the shorter BG queues based on my P2P experience).
more competitive games and way quicker queue times. faster now then they were in CTA lol. *crosses fingers queues stay this way til next week*
