The Queue: Sometimes I miss Cairne

Welcome back to The Queue, the Q&A column for all things Blizzard related. If you have a question for the Queue, leave a comment and you may see it answered!

I found it kind of sad but sort of nice that even though Cairne is gone, his ghost was updated with the new tauren model in time for Children’s Week earlier this month. I also found it really weird that I was still taking my orphan to go witness Cairne’s funeral several years after it actually happened, but we’ll just ignore that one. Question time!

When Azuka Bladefury broke into our garrisons and stole the Heart of Gorgorek, the Alliance side got a really heavy, emotional blow in their quest chain. On Horde, we got to go investigate where Dul’zak had gone. Dul’zak was some new recruit whose name I didn’t recognize. I found his body and couldn’t really bring myself to care about it too much, considering the first time I laid eyes on him, he was already dead.

As far as the Yu’lon thing goes, I didn’t really feel like I was supposed to find that a sad revelation — I mean, it was part of the whole circle of life thing, as she said. What I found sad was that the statue that had been lovingly hand-crafted by the pandaren over the course of one hundred years, the thing specifically created so that she could be reborn, was callously destroyed in a matter of seconds due to the continuing conflicts between the Horde and Alliance. Because of that, because of our actions, if Yu’lon died she would never be reborn. That was kind of a sobering realization and packed an additional punch to the destroyed orchard and sha-torn crater.

Well that would certainly give Wrathion a much larger army than he had before we went into this expansion, wouldn’t it? An army devoid of factional ties that has a pre-existing beef with the Burning Legion and the zest to take it out?

I’m pretty sure he said one final blessing because he knew there must always be a Lich King, and he knew going into that encounter that if we succeeded and the Lich King was slain, he was going to pop that helm on his head, closing himself off from the Light forever. Bolvar showed up to put a stop to that, of course, so Tirion returned to his old home — Hearthglen in Western Plaguelands. He took back the stronghold from the Scarlet Crusade, and is now overseeing the new recruits of the Argent Crusade from Mardenholde Keep.

New site design stuff is already underway. We won’t be using anything from the old site, as far as I know — I don’t think it’s really ours to use, and we’d rather start fresh with something new anyway, you know? We might have lots of familiar faces, but we’re a different website with a different focus. Don’t worry though, the new design stuff is being worked on, and we’re very excited to see it completed!

You can do those at the same time, yes — it’s $55 US to do so. When you transfer, you’ll be able to select a new race for your character, and re-customize it as you see fit. If the name of your character is already taken on the new server, you’ll be prompted to re-name your character as well — if the name isn’t taken, you should be able to just log in and go once you’ve picked what race you want to be, and what you want that character to look like. And remember, if you do change your mind, you can now change your facial features along with your hair color at the in-game Barber Shop.

As far as the story is concerned, yes, they might very well have done so, and the blame would’ve been squarely on Garrosh’s shoulders. Lor’themar was getting very tired of being yanked around by Garrosh Hellscream, and was incredibly angry about the fact that Garrosh shipped a sha to Silvermoon City. At that point, he was already considering talks with the Alliance about possibly switching sides, but Garrosh then moved on to have the blood elves help locate the Divine Bell, and later steal the thing right out of Darnassus. Had that not happened, Jaina wouldn’t have retaliated, and the blood elves might very well have ended up seceding from the Horde, if the talks went in the right direction. Lor’themar was dead serious about the possibility of leaving.

But that’s as far as the story is concerned. From a gameplay standpoint, no, the blood elves would never have left the Horde, because they are one of the Horde’s seven playable races.

That’s it for today’s Queue — if you have any questions you’d like to see answered, be sure to leave them in the comments below!