WoW's Horde And Alliance Divide Was Only Agreed On Less Than A Year Before Release

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."