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The QueueNov 21, 2016 11:00 am CT

The Queue: Monkey music

Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A feature for all of Blizzard’s games! Have a question for the Blizzard Watch staff? Leave it in the comments!


MASKEDMENACE ASKED:

Thoughts and or comments on the Heroic Tavern Brawl? I saved the gold for it but now I’m a little scared to try it because I’m more of a casual player and I think I would be throwing away my gold. I wish it was something like arena just with better rewards.

The Heroic Tavern Brawl is for seasoned, hardcore players, and the developers have said as much. It’s for the players who think they have what it takes to get 12 wins, but are willing to eat the cost if they don’t. It really, truly is not meant for casual players, and I would not recommend trying it if you’re a casual player. Put that gold toward packs, adventures, or plain ol’ arena runs.


PEPE STORMSTOUT ASKED:

What, in your opinion, is the worst part of Warcraft lore? I don’t mean what you personally dislike (personally I don’t really care about elves, for example), but more what you think is an example of bad worldbuilding, something that has restricted Blizzard’s ability to explore certain themes or new stories or just something that plain doesn’t make any sense. In other words, something that, in your opinion, was a mistake to add to the lore and something that the setting would be better off without.

I’m not sure you can eliminate “personal dislike” here because it’s totally subjective. The thing I think is a fundamental error might be another person’s favorite part of the story. I think the Titans, for example, are a dreadful thing to focus on, because it detracts from the agency of the player characters — or just plain mortal characters. Yes, the Titans are gone, it’s up to us, etc etc. But ultimately, they’ve created some “great destiny” plotline which tends to be self-fulfilling and you know it.

I also think Warcraft leans too heavily on corruption. The Warcraft universe, effectively, has no free will. It doesn’t matter what decisions you make or what you do with your life, corruption is as easy as a bad guy cackling and pointing at you or whatever. Boom, you’re evil now, no longer in control of your actions. Look at Val’Sharah and how easily one of Azeroth’s ancient guardians — someone who dedicated her entire life to protecting Azeroth and its creatures — became a menace and had to be put down. Did she make any personal decisions which brought her to that point? No. Absolutely not. The bad guy “corrupted” her and then she was bad. That’s dreadful, and it’s a theme we see repeatedly.

Ultimately, I think any story which takes choices and decisions away from the characters (PCs or NPCs) is boneheaded. You don’t write these amazing characters and then put them into a plot where their personality is erased.


CHRTH ASKED:

how’s Arms compared to Fury for leveling/WQs?

For leveling and World Quests, I don’t think there’s any comparison. Arms is better. Arms has crazy burst damage against non-elites, decent AOE, and incredible self-sustain through Second Wind. Fury deals damage and that’s it. Against a mob where you’re pounding on it for ages and you have a heaeler, Fury will no doubt pull ahead, but that’s not the situation while soloing. Arms is the master here.


ZEL ASKED:

In Mass Effect 2/3 Mordin Solus sings a Salarian version of “Modern Major General”, Who would you most like in Blizzard stuff to sing showtunes?

Overwatch is the only Blizzard universe wherein Earth actually exists, so… Winston, I guess?

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