The Queue: Highmountain

So far Highmountain is my favorite zone in the Alpha. I’m having fun there, and the scenery is gorgeous. With the draw distance turned up, you can really see it, too.

This is The Queue. We answer your question. We may have spoilers for Legion here, depending on what questions we’re asked.

Honestly, I don’t know that many classes that would have room for a fourth or fifth (in the case of Druids) spec. Warriors? What would the new spec be? We already have Arms as a weapon master, Fury as a berserker and Protection as the armored juggernaut, what more are we looking for?

Demon Hunters I could see ripping off the Diablo 3 class for a third spec. But most other classes, I have a hard time coming up with a spec they’d need. Paladins? I think they’re good. Mages? Yeah, I’m not coming up with anything.

I’ve thought about this one a lot, and that’s exactly how I thought they were going to do Hero Classes back in the vanilla days when we were completely in the dark about them. It turned out not to be what happened, but for a while there they were talking about making you sacrifice a character to turn it into a Death Knight, which people weren’t very enthused about (and I can’t say I blame them on that one) which is yet another variant on the concept.

WoW doesn’t have multiclassing, though, which is what the Prestige Class from D&D is really built around. If WoW had that, class balance would be entirely different and we might well have seen a situation where the game added character levels without adding class levels, so that all classes capped out at 60 (since that was the vanilla cap) and then you just kept getting more character levels as expansions came out, so everyone ended up with (as an example) a level 40 Warrior/20 Rogue/30 Death Knight/10 Shaman or what have you. That seems like it would add a whole huge bag of complexity and balance issues.

I don’t think it would be the biggest revolutionary step the game could take. I think it’s unlikely to ever happen, but they could do things like abandon leveling entirely and just constantly ratchet up ilevels with new expansions, or abandon gear entirely, or rip out PvP, or destroy Stormwind. It certainly would be a huge paradigm shift in the game, though.

I don’t believe Blizzard wants to do this, nor do I really think you could actually do this in story and have it make sense without one faction or the other ‘losing’ once and for all. Either the Horde crushes the Alliance and forces them to sue for peace, or the Alliance does that to the Horde — either way the players from the ‘losing’ faction would be unhappy. And simply saying ‘We have bigger fish to fry’ is only going to work while said fish are present.

Completely ignoring how the players feel about it, in terms of story many of the people of both factions simply cherish their antagonism too much. People like Genn Greymane and Sky Admiral Rogers hate the Horde. Genn lost his country and his son, Rogers lost her entire family. Many Orcs still hold grudges over their defeat during the Second War and their time in the internment camps. Blood Elves resent humans for Garithos’ actions, Dwarves come into land sacred to Tauren and dig at the Earthmother’s skin. Goblins and Gnomes see each other as technological rivals. Every Draenei has lost family and friends to Orcish hands.

Despite all my vows, vengeance burned in my heart.

And that’s the crux of it, really. As Varian said to Maraad, we’re all haunted by the past — the Forsaken, bitter over their fate and resentful of their former brethren for not accepting them as they now find themselves, cling to Sylvanas with a fervor born of pure desperation. The Tauren, having finally found a home and security cannot forsake the Horde that gave it to them, no matter what it costs them. The Gnomes, having seen Gnomeregan lost, serve the Alliance in the hope that they can still make a better world. None of these races, neither of these factions can escape the past, nor do they really seek to.

I could sit here and tally up the balance sheet, but it doesn’t matter. Our atrocities are justified. We did them for honor, or for survival, or because we were following orders. Their atrocities are shocking, horrific, and they justify everything we do in return. Does it mean one side hasn’t been the aggressor? No, it doesn’t. But barring the utter destruction of one of the two factions, Azeroth will never know peace.

I’d settle for being able to raid and run dungeons with friends of either faction.

Generally speaking, the Orcish clans in the modern Horde have lost much of their clan identity, in part due to the strain of being interned in the camps and suffering the effects of the lethargy that so many orcs went through following the Second War. Certain clans resisted this because they were isolated — the Frostwolves in the mountains of Alterac, the Warsong throughout the wilds of the Eastern Kingdoms — while the migration to Kalimdor following Thrall’s liberation of the camps helped accelerate the process.

After Garrosh came to power, he deliberately courted clans that hadn’t been part of the internment/exodus period and as such retained a stronger clan identity, such as the Dragonmaw and Blackrock. Indeed, he allowed a Blackrock Orc, Malkorok, to take control of the Kor’kron and used many Blackrock and Dragonmaw Orcs to inflate its numbers, turning it from an honor guard into a secret police and military arm of the Warchief.

The vast majority of Orcs still loyal to the Horde have lost even more of their clan identity as a result of these events. It was already out of fashion, now it’s seen as a dangerous reminder of Garrosh’s ‘True Horde’.

I hate pickles.

I ground to exalted with the Sha’tari Defense by getting a group via Looking for Group and farming those annoying orcs out in front of where Tanaan and Talador meet up, Bladefury Hold. I got to Revered in one day, and then to Exalted after I got a few Medallions of the Legion.

Okay, that’s the Queue for today. See y’all tomorrow.