The Queue: Don’t blink

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!

Sometimes I forget about the visual value of looking up every now and again. And sometimes I forget just how massive the Dark Portal really is in Outland — and that there’s a giant stone dragon head just kind of looming over the edge and keeping a baleful eye on every person that comes trotting through the thing. This is your reminder to turn your camera straight up every once in awhile, whether indoors or out, because sometimes what’s up there is really, really cool. Or creepy. Take your pick!

I don’t really write the tinfoil-hat stuff to be right, honestly — I write it as a means to explore what we’ve got so far, where it could potentially go, and to strike up discussion about both of those things. Usually when I’ve got one of those topics in mind, it’s because I see a spot where a couple of different story threads could potentially be pulled together, and the signs all point to them being pulled together in an interesting direction.

It’s one of those things I just kind of do with any game I play, if I’m really into the story behind the game. Don’t ask how many weird ideas I’ve had about Dragon Age. Just be thankful I haven’t actually published any of them.

That said, I’ve had more than one tinfoil-hat theory turn out to be correct over the course of writing the column. I don’t really expect any of them ever to be right, but I do tend to be quietly pleased when they are, mostly because it means, for a brief moment anyway, I was thinking like Blizzard. It’s fun to play guessing games and try to puzzle things out!

Yes. That very first cinematic, the one where Khadgar told us to run through the Dark Portal and we came out the other side only to see mass waves of countless, very angry orcs? That felt absolutely threatening. And then we dismantled all of it and got out of there relatively unscathed, and it all kind of got a little easier from there, didn’t it?

I don’t think I’d expect anything, because “expecting” something is automatically playing a dangerous game where you’re just asking to be let down. However, I think that there are a boatload of various art assets — tables, chairs, doodads, paintings, beds, etc — that could all be handed over for players to drag and drop where they please. Each race has its own set of art assets, even, so players could theoretically tailor their homes to whatever aesthetic they  like the most. I could see them limiting things from a faction perspective — an orc building a night elf themed hideaway would be a little odd, for example — but I’d rather they didn’t. People love customization. I don’t quite understand why anyone would want to limit player creativity in that aspect, it feels counterproductive to me.

Maiev would have to come back from wherever she’s escaped to. In my head, anyway. Although I wouldn’t make her an out-and-out “we need to kill this person” villain archetype antagonist, because that’s too cardboard for someone like her.

Absolutely. He even says as much when you defeat him: “At last, this is the death I saw!” That’s why he drank the blood of Mannoroth, because he knew he would have to, at some point. There’s only so far you can run from destiny — and maybe he was trying to do that, a little, by following Grommash Hellscream in the first place. But once Gul’dan showed up that second time, I think Kilrogg realized his future was in fact an unavoidable certainty, and that the time and place were correct and he needed to down the blood and start the beginning of the end, for him.

Not even close. Where was Korfax during Wrath, anyway? Why didn’t we just turn that guy on the Lich King? I’m pretty sure he would’ve just gone bonkers in Icecrown Citadel, running from hall to hall screaming like a maniac, axe over his head and cutting down anything in his way. I’m also pretty sure he would’ve done that Deathwing drop from the airship without a parachute. And stormed Orgrimmar single-handed. We really need to get that guy a promotion. He’s like the second coming of Bolvar Fordragon.

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!