The Queue: Schoolhouse Rock

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!

It entirely depends on what you enjoy, I think. There’s more content than ever I can do as a solo or small-group player. I don’t think that phrase applies at all. It’s a game and it has given me a game to play. Likewise, I haven’t heard too many complaints from raiders. I don’t think a lack of content has been a serious problem this time around. Legion‘s gearing being a horrible, random mire has been a complaint, but not a lack of things to do. It isn’t even all repetitive grinding, either. Suramar provides an endgame storyline — something I’m not sure we’ve seen in WoW ever before in any significant or notable way.

Sometimes, I suspect players who have burned out on the game but haven’t realized it turn to blaming the game itself instead. This is what I did with Mists of Pandaria. I wasn’t enjoying myself, and to this very day, I blame the expansion sometimes. I don’t think it was the expansion’s fault. I just needed a break from the game and wasn’t willing to take one — or perhaps unable to take one, given my job here. Whether I want to or not, I always need to be aware of what’s happening. I’ve never been compelled to quit the game, but I have certainly wanted to take breaks.

Maybe that isn’t necessarily the case here, but it’s something worth considering.

I could be wrong (and I hope someone points out below if I am), but I don’t think Hearthstone adventures have ever gone on sale as a holiday thing or otherwise. Their price is their price and they stay that way until they get rotated out of Standard play.

Children and their associated needs are generally not represented in World of Warcraft. Azeroth is no doubt much larger than it is actually represented in-game. Not only are there no schools, the gameworld simply isn’t large enough to sustain a population. Look at Stormwind: It’s meant to be a huge urban center. For such a thing to be possible, Stormwind would need significant agricultural support. Every urban center in the history of the world has needed immense agricultural support and I don’t think a mage’s ability to conjure food would change that so drastically that it wasn’t needed at all. Urban centers produce complex goods, services, and protection. Rural areas provide materials and sustenance. That’s how it works.

All we see in World of Warcraft are the couple of farms in Elwynn Forest. There would need to be significantly more farmland than what we actually see. But do we need to see that farmland if it isn’t providing gameplay? Maybe not.

Schools and all of that thing are probably in existence, we just don’t see them in-game. However, there are a few in-game institutions that probably play a role in education. In the real world, religious institutions often had a significant role in education, and not simply theology. In Middle Ages Europe, monks were some of the most educated people around and acted as historians and educators, too. Northshire Abbey, and other religious centers in and around Stormwind, probably have a role in educating human children. The same probably applies to the Temples of Elune and so forth. I could see orcs not necessarily having a schoolhouse, but their Shaman act as educators. Dalaran, too, is almost certainly equipped to teach both the young and the old. Jaina Proudmoore, as I recall, was taught in Dalaran both as a youth as an adult.

Kids just aren’t that interesting to have around unless they’re relevant to what’s happening in the gameworld. See: Vanessa VanCleef, as you mentioned.