The Queue: Stormy weather

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!

I haven’t actually gotten a chance to do any quests in Stormheim yet on the Legion alpha, but the scenery is beautiful. Giant statues, overcast skies and random lightning? I like all of these things, yes please. Let’s answer some of your questions, shall we?

I can’t recall anyone saying Spirit was going away or changing in Legion, but it may either be something that was mentioned and quickly forgotten in the wake of everything else that came out of Blizzcon this year. Either that or (and this is far more likely) since we’re in the alpha stage of things, Spirit and how it is being handled is still very much in testing. I do remember them saying something about mana regen being a passive thing — if this is the case, then Spirit might be something a little different this time around. I wish I had more information for you, but I don’t typically play casters, and the only healing class that’s even currently available on the alpha client at the moment are Monks. We may hear more when more healing classes are added!

I would hope that Warcraft‘s fans have a little more class than that. Movie adaptations rarely match the books. I know when I went to see the Harry Potter movies in the theaters, I never heard a peep from anyone saying anything about certain book parts being omitted or changed in the film. Did I notice the differences? Sure I did — but I enjoyed the films anyway, because they aren’t necessarily meant to be direct translations of the books, and the spirit of the movies captured the books well enough that I didn’t really care about the changes. Given how so many of people involved with Warcraft are also big fans of the franchise, I think I’m probably going to see much the same thing with the movie when it’s released.

I don’t really understand why the transmog helms have never gone on sale — you’d think they’d throw those in with all the holiday sales they’ve been doing, but they haven’t. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea to have transmog stuff available in the store, but the items need to be really, really unique and special — something you just wouldn’t encounter in game — and they need to be reasonably priced. I don’t think the helms hit the mark on either of those fronts. Are they cool looking? Sure. Are they worth that kind of money? Not to me. I’m sure there are people who fell in love with the designs and paid for them accordingly, but I just can’t see myself spending a month’s subscription on a single piece of cosmetic gear.

Given that Blizzard has been trending towards offering cosmetic rewards in game, rather than in the shop, I’d say it’s doubtful we’ll see transmog items offered in the shop again. And that’s fine with me — I think they make excellent in-game incentives.

People tend to go back and forth between classic and vanilla — vanilla is a fairly basic flavor that is used as a base for sundaes and cookies. You add stuff to vanilla to make it better. So…if World of Warcraft were a sundae, the original iteration would be vanilla, and each expansion is a different topping, kind of.

The world would likely be a very different place. Pandaria might still be hidden away — or if it were discovered, I don’t think it the sha would have been anywhere near as prolific or prevalent. I don’t think the Alliance and Horde would’ve been at each other’s throats at all, Theramore would still be around, Jaina would still be striving for some kind of peace, and with Cairne, she might very well have gotten it.

Garrosh did a lot of damage during his reign as Warchief, and if Cairne had won that mak’gora, none of that damage would have come to pass. Sure, Garrosh was a popular figure at that point, but he hadn’t been leader long enough to establish that stranglehold of loyalty over the orcs just yet — and Cairne was someone that everyone respected, so I don’t think anyone would have had any kind of strenuous objections if Cairne had become Warchief.

It goes into effect immediately, you don’t get to choose when to activate it.

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!