The Queue: Stop judging me

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!

Look I know this looks really bad, Ms. Grunt, but I seriously didn’t ask for all of this booze. I only signed up once, I swear. There must have been some kind of shipping mistake. Yeah. Shipping error. Shouldn’t you be guarding something besides the mailbox, anyway? Look I’m just going to walk away and go answer some questions.

I’d like to see a short story about Thrall. Yes, I know, before you groan and say we’ve heard quite enough from Thrall already, let me clarify — there were a lot of moments in Warlords where I wanted to hear more about what was going on in Thrall’s head. Like how he dealt with seeing his dead parents alive, well, and totally oblivious to the fact that in another reality, he was their son. Or what exactly he was feeling after that mak’gora in Nagrand — what he felt like after he had to kill Garrosh.

I also want to see some short stories about the draenei. I would’ve liked to have seen some kind of short story about Maraad before he died. Or something about Yrel and how the Prophet’s death affected her. Maybe a short story from Vindicator Nobundo, detailing whether or not he actually went back to the Throne of the Elements — if he became a Shaman, or if that was even a question in his mind. Sort of an Unbroken part 2, if you will.

Not at all. The Forsaken are an offshoot faction of the Scourge, they aren’t really a “race” — and the same applies to the Worgen as well. They aren’t a “race,” they’re Humans that were afflicted by a curse. It’s not something you really want to pass along. The only upside to being a Worgen is that you’re far more resistant to being raised into undeath. It’s not impossible (see Worgen Death Knights), but it’s highly improbable, especially for Worgen who have gone through the ritual to balance the Worgen curse with their humanity, and drank the waters of Tal’doren.

The Worgen don’t want to pass on that curse. They don’t view it as a good thing — they’d probably be happy if the Worgen curse died out, right along with the Night Elves. The Forsaken, on the other hand, seem to be really keenly invested in keeping their whole operation of undeath up and running, and will happily continue to raise corpses as long as they’ve got val’kyr that can do the job.

Trolls. That’s one of the things we discussed on the latest episode of Lore Watch (which you’ll see posted later today!) — Trolls are amazingly capable of adapting to different environmental situations. They exist all over Azeroth, and each region is slightly different, from the Frost Trolls up in Northrend to the Sand Trolls down in Tanaris. If anyone could adapt to any kind of globally changing situation, the Trolls could, and would.

I’d like to know what happens to Magatha Grimtotem after you finish the quest chain she appears in out in Thousand Needles. If you haven’t done Thousand Needles since the Cataclysm revamp, I highly recommend going to check it out. I have a feeling we’ll see her again at some point, but I have no idea when they could slip that one in there.

I…you know my initial answer was no but I could seriously see them doing something like that at some point just for giggles. Or as next year’s April Fool’s Day joke.

It depends on the faction. Gnomes choose their leader by election, while the Trade Princes of the Goblins appear to gain their status through hostile takeovers and accumulating mass amounts of wealth and status. The pandaren used to have an Emperor, but it appears they don’t really have a single leader these days, as much as they have multiple organizations, each with their own leader.

Tauren chieftains pass their line down along their family — Baine is leader of the Tauren because he was Cairne’s son, and Cairne was the first leader of the united Tauren tribes. He’s the one that brought them together to build Thunder Bluff. Trolls are also hereditary, and Worgen are technically just Humans with a curse, so they’ve also got the whole hereditary monarchy thing going on. Orcs seem to be a little of both — the chieftain of the clan usually has a son or daughter that takes over when they die, but they can also simply be killed and overthrown, or step down and appoint another chieftain in their stead.

Night Elves used to have a monarchy, as evidenced by Queen Azshara, but once that fell apart Tyrande was chosen to lead as High Priestess along with Malfurion as Archdruid. Obviously nothing has happened since then in the way of leadership changing hands, so it’s a good question what the Night Elves will do if they eventually have to find a new leader! The Forsaken are kind of in a similar situation, only the other way around — they haven’t really been around long enough to have more than one leader.

Blood Elves used to work as a monarchy, but Lor’themar is Regent Lord, and has made it abundantly clear he has no wish to be king. As for the Draenei, they’re so long-lived that who knows how they really choose a leader. On Draenor, it appeared that Prophet Velen was the highest voice of authority, with the Council of Exarchs serving just below him — to become an Exarch, you have to pass three trials. We don’t know if that was applicable to Azeroth’s Draenei as well.

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!