The Queue: If you liked it then you should have upgraded it to 710

There, there’s your Beyonce joke about the legendary ring quest. Don’t say I never gave you anything.

I’m going straight into the questions this time. I kind of went nuts with the prehistoric mammals yesterday. Going to do a couple of Diablo III questions up front.

Certainly it’s possible. There have been rumors of a second Diablo III expansion for a while now, but nothing concrete from Blizzard yet one way or another. With the incredibly positive response to Reaper of Souls, I have to think they’d like to keep that momentum alive but time will tell.

I personally hope for a Diablo III expansion that deals with loose ends like the fate of Leah’s soul, what happened to the Prime and Lesser Evils when Malthael shattered the Black Soulstone and used their power against the nephalem, and if my theory that Anu and Tathemet are going to return and wage war across the face of Sanctuary holds any water.

And speaking of that theory…

Okay, so in D3 and D3:RoS, we see the following events.

All of the Prime and Lesser Evils are imprisoned in the Black Soulstone.

Diablo uses Leah’s body to emerge as a new Prime Evil, able to use all the power of all seven evils at once. Diablo’s assault on Heaven nearly succeeds in destroying the Crystal Arch, the remaining spine from Anu himself that spawned Heaven and the angels – only the nephalem proves capable of stopping Diablo.

Malthael steals the Black Soulstone and uses it to attempt to contain all traces of the demons throughout all existence. Since humans are descended from angels and demons alike, this would have meant their destruction, but the nephalem intervenes, and Malthael destroys the Black Soulstone in order to use its power against the nephalem.

It doesn’t work, and Malthael is defeated and destroyed. Therefore, we’re left with the following –

The power of Anu was released onto Sanctuary at the end of Diablo II when Tyrael shattered the Worldstone.

The power of all the Evils was released onto Pandemonium when Malthael shattered the Black Soulstone that had been imprisoning them. This means that potentially, Anu and Tathemet can now be reborn – and it is entirely possible that Anu already has been reborn as the nephalem.

It’s just a theory, mind you. But I think we were seeing the setup for Tathemet’s return between the release of the Book of Cain and Diablo III’s story.

I know that our overlords are anticipating covering HotS, streaming some play, and otherwise doing all sorts of content for it. Personally, I know I’m slavering at the idea of talking about how the alternate skins of Shan’do Illidan, Betrayer Malfurion and Warden Tyrande hint at an alternate universe where Maiev Shadowsong is the High Priest of Elune.

I’m very old. For me, it’s just history.

Serious answer: I’ve always enjoyed prehistoric animals. I remember the school book club (I don’t know if they still do this, but back in the dawn times, schools would have these clubs where you could buy kids books for cheap) had a book on dinosaurs and I bought it and read it cover to cover. So from age four or five on.

Honestly, I prefer it when legendaries are weapons. I liked how they made Quel’delar work, where you could get it in 1 and 2h varieties and tailored to various classes, and there were non-sword rewards as well for people who can’t use swords. An approach like that, where there was (as an example) a legendary weapon that could be a 1h sword, a polearm, a staff, or a mace based on who was getting it, perhaps.

I’m just not a really big fan of capes, rings and so on as legendaries. I know, I know, the One Ring, but man, Excalibur, Stormbringer, Mjolnir, these things are weapons for a reason. And that reason is that you hit things with weapons.

As far as we can tell, no, orcs don’t have ‘gods’ per se. If we had to give a name to their beliefs, they’d seem similar to animism – orcish shamans deal with a host of elemental and ancestral spirits, essentially negotiating (and in some cases, threatening) with them in an attempt to intercede for their people.

Okay, that’s the Queue for today. I’m up again tomorrow, but I probably won’t talk about Epicyon.