The Queue: Demon Hunter happy hour

With everyone hyped about the the Broken Shore and the Burning Legion invasions, that’s what we’re talking about today. There will be spoilers in the questions and, I imagine, in the comments — so skip both if you haven’t experienced these yet.

Seriously, spoilers follow.

Liz: I think it’s amazing. There’s no way you can argue that Sylvanas is a good guy, but if we can turn her utter ruthlessness against the Legion… you almost have to feel sorry for them. Just remember Ranger-General Sylvanas and her desperate defense of Silvermoon. That’s the kind of leader we could use now… if she still exists.

Mitch: I absolutely love it. I mean, that’s probably not a surprise because I fully admit to being a bit of a fanboy, but still. Outside of that fact, narratively it could be very interesting. Is Sylvanas going to become Garrosh 2.0? Not likely. She’s too smart for that. Which means she’s either going to do all of her for-the-Forsaken stuff in secret while making everyone think she’s a great leader, OR she’s going to realize that the Horde and/or Azeroth really is greater than the sum of its parts. This would either leader to her being an amazingly ruthless but efficient leader or sacrificing herself in the future to show character growth.

Liz: I sincerely hope it doesn’t turn into Garrosh 2.0. Slyvanas is far too interesting for that.

Mitch: In short, I love it. She’s a great military leader, and smart enough to know that playing dumb politics will remove her from power. She knows what has to be done to move her own plans forward, but that still requires what’s best for the Horde. It’s very interesting.

Liz: Sylvanas: The Leader We Need.

Liz: I have to say I’m shocked at how unimportant Vol’jin seemed in this cinematic. His tenure as Warchief has been quite unimpressive.

Mitch: Look, I agree Vol’jin had not only the worst run as a Warchief but also a horribly anticlimactic death. Part of me does like the fact that he just got overrun, though. I mean, that’s war. You can get hit with a stray arrow and that’s it. Donezo. _And_ his story is paving the way for Warchief Sylvanas, which is awesome.

Liz: Trolls always get the short end of the stick. Spear? Idk. I haven’t mained a Troll in a while. I really would have liked to see more of Vol’jin. It’s a shame he got the gig just before we ditched Azeroth. Seeing him try to bring the Horde together after everything Garrosh did… that would have been interesting.

Mitch: Yeah, the issue with Vol’jin for me is more that he had a lot of potential that I think Blizz just shoved aside to take the story in a different direction.

Liz: I like Sylvanas, but Vol’jin deserved better.

Liz: The Horde definitely should have said something here, a shout from the ridge, or the sight of a horde of demons overwhelming the archers would have prevented misunderstanding But… I don’t think it’s “we fight together or we die alone” as much as it’s “we die together or some of us live to fight another day.” Sylvanas knows that sometimes the only option is retreat.

Mitch:  I really think that the cinematic may have taken a bit of artistic liberty to make the Alliance side a more dramatic “carelessly turn and walk away” than it actually was. Like, Greymane saw what he wanted to see. Also keep in mind, Sylvanas just saw her Warchief die and she basically saved everyone’s butts by calling in her Val’kyr. You think she really would _also_ take the time to run to the ledge and say that Vol’jin was down? In my opinion, in that moment, she had to run. Plus, each side was responsible for one area of the Broken Shore. Horde had the ledge, Alliance had the front. Both sides did try to retreat, too. Alliance just got the short end of the retreat because of the Fel Reaver. Yeah, it would have been nice to give a heads up, but I don’t view it as a betrayal. I view it as everything going south and both sides assuming the other would do something that it didn’t.

Liz: Even just doing the animation differently would have worked to tell the real story. Show the demons coming up the hill and the Horde getting overrun. They can’t have evacuated any more cleanly than the Alliance.

Mitch: Yeah, it was a bit of a moment that felt more necessary for the narrative Blizz wanted, but I’m honestly okay with that. It worked for me, and I’m excited to see where it goes.

Liz: It had good dramatic effect. But I thought it was odd that the Horde get the whole story and Alliance only got half of it. Story-wise, it’s a great way to foster conflict, except it’s rather lopsided like this.

Mitch: That part was probably more of a production thing. That Varian segment was a BIG chunk of dev time and I’m sure they wanted all players to see their work.

Liz: Yeah, but why not let the Alliance see the Horde stuff? It’s there. It’s good. Instead one half gets one half, one half gets both halves. ANYWAY, back to the original question, I think Sylvanas did the only thing she could to save her people. Just like Varian did the only thing he could to save his people.

Mitch: Yeah, agreed.

Liz: There should be vendors in each invasion zone you should see, though, like commenters have pointed out, only those who have completed the Broken Shore can see the ones in Stormwind.

Liz: The BioWare podcast is on hiatus for now. It was partially a time thing — these podcasts take a lot of time and we all have more than enough work to keep us busy. While we really enjoyed doing them, we didn’t have a lot of listeners, but we’ll pick it back up closer to Mass Effect: Andromeda when there’s likely to be more excitement about BioWare.

As to the Tavern, it’s sort of on hiatus, too. We’re planning on seriously expanding it, giving it its own website to live on instead of having it all smushed up with Blizzard Watch content. (You’ll still find links here, though.) I don’t have an exact ETA, but as Blizzard likes to say… soon!

Mitch: Here, Liz, I think you dropped this: ™