The Queue: Chute worms

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!

Well no wonder the Burning Legion was able to take over the Tomb of Sargeras so easily. Looks like the ol’ elevator to the Avatar’s got a nasty case of chute worms. Those things start attackin’ the joists and you can forget about your foundation, yessir. Whole structure’ll tip right in on itself in another two, three years if you don’t do something about it.

Yep, looks like we’re gonna have to tent the place.

A lot of people. Blizzard people. We don’t know when it’ll be, but there will be another one at some point. Personally, I’m eyeballing this year’s BlizzCon and thinking we may very well hear  something there, but that’s more of a hunch due to timing than anything else. Expansion announcements have typically been every other year. Mind you, Legion’s felt a lot different in terms of content release, but since we haven’t heard a peep about a patch 7.4, one has to wonder, you know?

Technically speaking, no — the Wyrmtongue are demons. They aren’t a mortal race. On the other hand, they do bear a striking similarity, don’t they? Kind of makes you wonder if maybe they were Kobolds who decided to join up with the Burning Legion, lore-wise. I don’t think that’s likely, however — honestly the Wyrmtongue seem to just be WoW’s version of the Diablo treasure goblins, more than anything else. We don’t have any extended lore on them, they’re just minions for the most part.

I actually like the idea of Tyrande being a Warden, just because it feels like if she wasn’t a priestess, that would’ve been the most logical place for her to go. She kicked a lot of butt in Warcraft 3, and she’d have as much reason for beef with the Legion as anyone, given her role in the War of the Ancients. I’m not quite as keen on Betrayer Malfurion or Shan’do Illidan, but Warden Tyrande? I’ll take that. {PB}

Out of all of them, though, I’d have to say I love the universe as presented in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. It took a little dirtball of a town in Tanaris and gave it the kind of vibrant life it just doesn’t have in game. The idea of shady clans and a seedy Goblin city is pretty cool, and they put a lot of work into those factions. Part of me hopes that if we see Undermine someday, it’s set up like that — only all Goblins, of course.

I don’t really think we’re going to see any of that alternate universe stuff in WoW. Part of the fun of games like Hearthstone and Heroes is that they’re able to stretch the boundaries of lore and get away with cool alternative stuff. WoW did the alternate universe thing with Warlords, and…well. I don’t think it was quite as successful as it could’ve been.

I feel like the way the game typically tries to make our characters seem less powerful is to give them something so monumental to fight that it feels like a battle they can’t possibly win. I’m not sure if that’s the best tactic, but it seems to be working to some degree — at least until we find the all-powerful weapon of amazing awesomeness and start kicking butt with super-charged vigor.

I do like the idea of being “normal,” but I don’t know if we can ever quite go back to that point. Our characters are heroes. By this time, they’ve got a substantial reputation behind them. The only way I could see that happening — and this would be interesting — is if while we’re away on one world or another, it turns out time on Azeroth is flying by. So we leave, everyone knows our name. We come back, nobody remembers who we are. Maybe we exist in some historical tome or another, but nobody on Azeroth actually believes we are who we say we are. I mean, we must be crazy, those heroes died hundreds of years ago, we can’t possibly be the same people.

I don’t know how easy that would be to feasibly pull off, but it might make an interesting twist for the story.

The only Artifact appearances I am currently using are the Envoy of Goldrinn variation of the Scythe of Elune, and the original version of The Fist of Ra-den. Every other Artifact weapon I have on the stable of alts has been transmogged into a normal weapon. It’s not that I hate the other weapon appearances or anything, it’s just…there comes a point where weapons get too flashy, you know? I don’t know if it’s just the limits of weapon modeling, but when weapons start getting too chunky, less like blades and more like they’ve been carved from foam, that’s where I step back and say nah, thanks, but I’d rather be toting a level 42 green from Zul’Farrak.

Incidentally, I’d pick the Scythe out of the two. The only reason the Fist hasn’t been transmogged is that I haven’t found a fist weapon I’d like to replace the appearance with just yet — that and since you can’t see it when I’m not fighting, it’s not quite as in-your-face. The Scythe is just pretty to look at without being too terribly flashy, and it has enough lore behind it that I’m happy to tote it around.

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!