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The QueueMar 18, 2016 11:00 am CT

The Queue: No Frills

I have a blood bubble on my retina and it’s blocking a decent chunk of my vision, causing me intense head pain when I read things. This is, you can probably guess, less than ideal when writing The Queue. But we soldier on, because we must.

Let’s look at some questions.


ORRINE

So I’ve read some lore from Warcraft Chronicles which answers some story questions people had in MoP. And considering that there’s as little as possible said about Legion-related factions and history, it seems that Blizzard saves game stuff for the game and we won’t find about those MoP-related (but not really) things in the game.

And now I’m torn because I don’t like Blizzard books like Diablo novel that took place between Diablo 3 and Reaper of Souls because I found it nonsensical: I already knew what will happen with Black Soulstone, so all characters actions were about moving plot from point A to point B. Yes, it was interesting to learn more about High Heavens, but that’s all.

Warcraft Chronicles on other hand takes something that would be really really cool that was hinted and would be interesting to learn about and just throws into reader’s face. I find that this book has much substance, but why isn’t it in the game? And if Blizzard is so flippant with this information, why not tell us more about things like Ra-Den in the patch where we met him?

The reason Blizzard doesn’t just put all this stuff in the game is threefold.

First, most players wouldn’t read it. People skip over quest text. People ask questions about things that are clearly explained in quests all the time, to the point where I (and I don’t work at Blizzard) find it absolutely maddening. I can only imagine how the quest team feels about it. If Blizzard went out of their way to have a repository of all the lore information we get in Chronicle somewhere in, say, Dalaran, the vast majority of players would never even go near it and every time a story hook involving that information came about, they’d complain that they had no idea what it was.

I’ve seen this happens hundreds of times. The Tribunal of Ages is in game, and I’ve run Halls of Stone many, many times, and every time I do, people complain about the RP. The Deathbringer Saurfang fight in ICC? People complain about the RP. People will simply refuse to digest the lore they’re given in game, be it a cinematic, a cutscene, in game books, you name it and people will refuse it.

Secondly, sometimes there’s simply no good place to put this stuff in game. A lot of the lore reveals we had in Warcraft III were actually in the game manual, not in the game itself. There’s only so much story you can pack into a game, much less backstory (and that’s what lore is when you get right down to it, backstory) and sometimes for narrative cohesion you simply have to streamline things. The tie-in media, be it novels, comic books, something like Chronicle or what have you, provides a way to put that story and backstory out there for the people who want it.

Thirdly, money. Some people (like myself) want the lore, and would read a big storehouse of it in Dalaran, and did read all the WC manuals, and do read the quest text and listen to stone faces in dungeons, and those people will spend cash on books and other tie in media. Blizzard is a for profit business. Why is there an Illidan novel coming out? Because we’ll pay for it, that’s why.


MYTHRIAK

Q4tQ: Has Wowpedia or Wowwiki already been updated with the Chronicles info? Not that I’m avoiding spoilers, but I may not go there if that’s true.

Since both are edited by the users, it’s very hard to answer this question definitively. I checked both last night and at least on one subject they did not appear to have been updated, but they could well become so as I’m typing this entry. If you’re bound and determined to avoid anything that’s in Chronicles then I’d say avoid them for a while.

Lacking the ability to constantly check both sites to see if they’ve been updated, as of 2 AM Mountain time they did not appear to be.


ELDER LANARUS MOONPELT

NOTE: SPOILERS

Q4tQ: In the Warcraft Chronicle it says that the tauren worship “the mythical Earthmother”. Is this saying that the Earthmother isn’t real? And while Elune was mentioned, An’she, the tauren Sun God, was not mentioned at all.

Really, my question is, did the Chronicle just blow up any hope that tauren mythology is more than just myths?

All it’s saying is that the Tauren has a series of myths. It doesn’t say one way or another if those myths are accurate. We’ll likely never know if the Earthmother is real, or just another name for (as a possibility) Therazane or Alexstrasza or Eonar or Freya. We just don’t know, and Chronicle very deliberately didn’t shed light on that. We know that Tauren were affected by the Well of Eternity, that the original Tauren were essentially the Yaungol and they moved north to become first the Tauren and then the Taunka.

As for An’she, he’s totally fake. (I’m kidding.) Essentially, Blizzard wants the option to not say anything about these guys for right now.


VONSNOOTINGHAM

In the notes for new alpha patch that just came down the pipes, they announced some changes to hunters that didn’t make it into this build but will be coming soon in upcoming builds. Seems like the squeaky wheel got some grease, baby! They heard the talk that while the three specs are all different and cool now, none of them maintains the classic hunter style of ranged + single pet. Obviously, SV went melee and MM lost pets, but less apparent is that BM is less about your tamed pet and more about having a whole gaggle of pets running around thanks to Hati and Dire Beast.

So for BM, “We’re going to try offering a talent choice that will allow you to opt back into having gameplay focus around you and your one strong pet, rather than the many Dire Beasts that it currently does.”

And for MM, “Marksmanship losing its pet has been one of the most impactful, but contentious changes we’ve made this expansion. We’re going to try returning the pet to Marksmanship, baseline, along with Lone Wolf as a level 15 talent (and very competitively tuned), so that this is a choice again.”

MY PRAYERS (read: endless bitching and moaning) HAVE BEEN ANSWERED! All I’ve ever wanted to do in WoW is proc Lock and Load while my pet tanks. I was resigned to playing BM and nothing BM in Legion, and never getting to play my beloved SV again, but with SV’s abilities migrating to MM, AND being able to keep a pet, MM is my salvation. MM, you were the only realistic choice when I maxed out my first toon in 3.3, and now, I’m coming home.

Now, I don’t play a Hunter, or care much about them as a class. (I’m interested in Survival, and I’ve done all three Hunter artifact quests on the Alpha, but that’s about it.) But I think this is a good move and I’d like to see it explored for some other classes. Seeing Fistweaving coming back for Monks in PvP makes me hopeful that perhaps we’ll see similar for other classes.

Could we get Gladiator back in some form for Protection Warriors? Could Frost DK’s get 2h weapons back? (And maybe those three Enhancement Shamans that still have Sulfuras in the bank and sigh every so often while looking at it would like 2h weapons back too.) There’s a lot of stuff that’s class defining and which I’d like to see at least explored.

That being said, I played Marks on the Alpha and man, Hunters without pets get their faces kicked in. So maybe the change is in part based around leveling. Making Lone Wolf a competitive DPS option but letting Marks Hunters level with a pet sounds like a good idea to me.


RETPALLYJIL

Q4tQ:   Don’t you think it’s about time for another Warcraft trailer? It seems odd that they have had only one in all this time.




I went over to Duncan Jones’ twitter and found that, is that one new? It looked new to me. Look, I can barely see, cut me some slack.

That’s the Queue for today. Thanks to everyone for bearing with the old blind man.

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Filed Under: Chronicle
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