Why is Orgrimmar the main horde hangout?

[St0rfan]

As a horde, I hang around Org mostly because Ony buff is within running distance of the AH and bank.

[Dr. Doom]

Now that you mention it, I actually don't know why people hang out at Org. I can tell you why I do though, it was like that in retail and orgrimmar always gives me fond memories of being inside my room in grade 7 on a rainy day trying to build up my engineering on my first toon. The walk from the anvil and AH though...

I think it's cause orgrimmar just looks better than UC, unless you are in a goth mood.

Yep, that's what I've been able to gather. "It was this way before, so it is this way now" along with people just hanging out where everyone else is.

But the root cause of why it ended up being like that in retail vanilla then became the question, and for what I can see, it probably went something like this: At the very first only Orgrimmar and Ironforge had an Auction House, so you needed to be there in order to be able to sell anything in a delayed manner, nobody can just market in trade chat 24/7.

When the other Auction houses were added, they weren't linked, so if you put up something in one city, only the people browsing in that specific city would be potential buyers. The safest choice was to keep doing it in the traditional AH, just so you had better chances and people were used to going to the spot anyway. When they linked all Auction Houses, there was no real reason to be in Orgrimmar anymore, but changing the tradition was seemingly too big of a hassle when compared with the geographic and layout advantages of Undercity.

[Killstick]

I think its mostly the basic layout. Where you have a big "plaza" close to the bank and AH.

Standing in UC would make me claustrophobic after a while XD

[Sorah]

Pretty much all I know of WoW is a year on this server, so my knowledge of the game is somewhat limited. Given that, I have a few theories to humbly present:

1. From a geographical standpoint, Ironforge and Orgrimmar are the central major city of each faction. Ports and hearthstones aside, the fastest way to go from TB to UC is to fly to Org then zeppelin to UC. The fastest way to get from SW to Darnassus is to fly/tram through IF to Menethil then catch a boat. With that routing, IF and Org seem like natural points for players to converge.

2. Also from the geographical standpoint, IF and Org are centrally located in terms of the entire map for each faction simply because they're the closest cities to inter-continental transport. While you could make the same argument for UC and Darnassus, there are features about these cities (aside from the point above) that make them inconvenient for primary hubs. Both of them, for example, are the only major cities of that faction on their respective continents and therefore feel somewhat isolated. Which leads into another point: in terms of major questing hubs, I feel Kalimdor is more Horde-friendly (point for Org over UC) while Eastern Kingdoms is more Alliance-friendly (point for IF over Darn).

Quest hubs influence where players gain rep. While that doesn't impact player to player business, rep influences other reasons a player might be visiting a major city (eg. restocking consumables, armor repair, visiting trainers, etc). This ties in with the next point:

3. Specifically to address UC, are Undead dominating the Horde player-base in terms of numbers? Do they outnumber orc and troll combined (to go back to the double start zone argument)? The only place I felt that they were significantly higher in number was battlegrounds, but that's merely my impression from casually gaming here. Thing is though, three out of the four Horde races start with neutral rep with UC, so unless the number of UD players significantly beat out the other three races combined, it's financially more expensive to much of the faction to base out of UC.

4. As for BRM, is it that much faster to route UC-Thorium Point over Org-Grom'gol-Flame Crest? Yes, the latter has a zeppelin involved but the former is quite a bit of flight distance.

[Thefilth]

Thunder Bluff is nice, but it's dangerous to run around in.

Orgrimmar and Ironforge have a few things in common. Most relevant to me is large open spaces. It doesn't have the crammed feeling that Stormwind and Undercity has.

Also, the flight from Undercity to Kargath is silly long. So every Horde raider simply puts their Hearthstone in Kargath. That way they can get to raid position after collecting world buffs, without losing half their duration on travel time.

[ismackyeinthegabber]

I can imagine that many people despise the default camera distance in WoW. Therefore they make a macro and zoom out further. Now you are always stuck on some ledges of houses in SW or on the ceiling in UC. THAT sucks!

[EinBaum]

I'm more of a practical person. Undercity doesn't have a hunter trainer while Thunder Bluff doesn't have an Engineering trainer. I think the trainer selection plays a role.

Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff are both in the center of Kalimdor. There are more leveling zones nearby than there are near Undercity. And the distance between TB and Org is so small that personal preference takes precedence I guess...

[Doofoos]

Cuz Org is the capital! And at Nost it does look like a REAL capital, flooded, loud, dirty ...
TB is the best city in my opinion - anvil\ah\mail\bank is sooo close to eachother.

[Simonich]

Aesthetics

[Zanbaka]

Now that you mention it, I actually don't know why people hang out at Org. I can tell you why I do though, it was like that in retail and orgrimmar always gives me fond memories of being inside my room in grade 7 on a rainy day trying to build up my engineering on my first toon. The walk from the anvil and AH though...

I think it's cause orgrimmar just looks better than UC, unless you are in a goth mood.

This, and the fact that UC is cramped up and the stairs are really annoying to navigate. Here's some other reasons why I prefer OG:

-You can only buy combat mana potions in OG (if you can get them elsewhere, feel free to let me know ), which needs to be restocked after every raid.
-Lootnyxia buff
-AH and bank close to each other

To be honest I'd prefer TB, especially since OG is such a crowded laggy shitfiesta during peak hours. However, due to constraints listed above it has to be OG when you are actively raiding.