The Queue: Which came first, the warlock or the mage?

This one’s never going to be solved, because we know that Doomguards were created by the Titans to hunt down those that engaged in sacrificial magics, implying that there were Warlocks before the fall of Sargeras. We know that the most famous Warlocks, Archimonde and Kil’jaeden, were Mages on Argus before Sargeras came and converted to Warlock magic as a result, and that the modern Warlock tradition derives from their teachings, so even former Orc Shamans who became Warlocks learned from Kil’jaeden’s teaching of Gul’dan and thus learned from a former Mage.

In the end, all we can do is go on with The Queue.

People are going to suggest the Plaguelands, and if you’re playing solo, I agree.

If you’re playing Alliance I’m going to suggest Feralas. When we did that zone people in the group got impatient, but I was enjoying it and it has a lot of quests and several stories to cap off the experience.

Northern Stranglethorn starts below level 30 I believe but the Cape of Stranglethorn is 30 to 35 and is a solid experience for anyone. If you’re interested in the Horde/Alliance conflict, the Southern Barrens is also 30 t0 35. You could pretty easily go Southern Barrens to Dustwallow Marsh to Thousand Needles to Tanaris and not have to move around much at all. All of these zones were revamped to greater or lesser extent in Cataclysm, so even if you leveled in them back before they should have surprises for you.

First off, that’s not unique to PvE realms. It happens on PvP realms too.

Secondly, my personal feeling is that it’s a crappy thing to do to people, but I’m not the PvP police. My wife and I often head over to Dolanaar in Teldrassil because there are max level players who like to sweep through the area killing everything. They usually way outgear us but it’s still closer to a fair fight than picking off the level 10 cooking trainer or what have you. We know that’s exactly what they wanted, so in a way we’re rewarding them for their bad behavior, but it at least lets lower level players get their quest on.

In terms of value, no, they don’t get honor for it or anything. They’re just doing it to lure out higher level players, or because they like killing things and feeling like unstoppable gods.

I’m going to get real here. Don’t write about a Warcraft novel. They’re fine entertainment but even if there is one written in the 20th Century don’t do that. There’s a vast corpus of literature composed in the years 1900 to 1999 and some of it is the greatest work ever conceived by human minds. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany, Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor, I could just write the entire Queue about this subject. There are so many amazing books written during the 20th Century, don’t just scrounge around for a Warcraft novel.

I mean, I love Warcraft, but seriously. If you haven’t read Dhalgren, you owe it to yourself to do so, multiple times. Heck, most of Terry Pratchett’s output was during the 20th Century, or Douglas Adams, or the entirety of Carson McCullers.

That’s because, while Mages can become drunk on their own power and essentially corrupted by it, Warlocks are engaged in a practice (Fel Magic) that is inherently evil. Why? Because Fel Magic requires some sacrifice of life energy to fuel it. On world where Warlocks are in the ascendant, worlds like Draenor before it was destroyed, everything starts dying. And Warlocks know this, they just don’t care.

So if you’re playing a Warlock, you’re playing an evil person. Now, your particular Warlock may have reasons for what he or she is doing — that’s fine, many evil people throughout human history have had what they believed to be perfectly valid reasons for the things they did. You want vengeance on the Orcs for destroying your home, or the Humans for putting you in camps instead of mass executing you for invading their home and burning their cities, or whatever. The point is, in order to even be a Warlock, you have to trade other beings lives for the magic, it’s a form of sacrificial magic and the Titans viewed it as so abominable they created beings just to stop it.

So there are no ‘good’ Warlocks because Warlock magic is evil, full stop. There’s nothing wrong with playing the class or preferring it to Mages, it’s purely a lore distinction.

Our own A. K. Hamid liked to show off this fan-made concept for a Nerubian expansion, and I agree it’s pretty solid, so I’m including it here. I’m not really fond of his choice for end boss, but overall I think it’s a very imaginative look at the story potential for the Nerubians.

And that’s The Queue for today. I’ll see you guys Friday.