The Queue: Not all heroes wear shoes

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 firmly believe that Thelbus Wimblenod is going to save us all. Without shoes. Because he’s just that kind of hero.

…either that or he’s going to turn out to secretly be a member of the Burning Legion that managed to infiltrate the Vindicaar with his mild-mannered, shoeless gnome disguise. One of those two things. Probably.

Well…maybe he meant in a spaceship. I mean, flying around on the Vindicaar is a lot different than just hopping through a portal, you know? It’s a lot more involved. There are engines and things. And possibly Dramamine to help with unexpected motion sickness due to space travel. As for Alleria and Turalyon, they actually have a dialogue option where they finally get to catch up a little bit with Khadgar. You have to talk to Turalyon to trigger it, I believe — there’s a dialogue option that says “Stay awhile and listen” that will start the scene.

There are more than one of those scenes scattered throughout the ship, incidentally — if you see named characters standing around, don’t forget to talk to them. They’ll happily chatter away and let you eavesdrop on some pretty good conversations.

I’m pretty sure, given everything the Kirin Tor has gone through thus far in the expansion, that the absolute last thing they want to do is open a direct portal right to the Legion homeworld. I mean…portals go two ways, you know. What’s to say the Burning Legion wouldn’t just come right back through? It wouldn’t exactly help that whole Legion agents hiding out in Dalaran situation at all.

I’ve said this before — I said it I think right in the midst of all the Suramar quests, or shortly after I finished everything — the Nightfallen would be the ideal new race to add next expansion. Treat them like Pandaren, let them choose which side they’d like to join. The city could easily be converted into its own starting zone, and the story almost writes itself. You, the Nightfallen player, are dealing with the aftermath of Elisande’s betrayal. You clean up the city and eventually, it turns into your capital.  {PB}

Alternatively, a different and more interesting angle for a starting zone would be to have the player participate in the events of the rebellion from the other side of the equation — as a resident of Suramar, rather than an outsider in disguise. You could even have a point where you interact with the heroes that are sneaking around Suramar and helping out right now, both in the story quests and the World Quests you get later on. That’s how you make your first contact with both Alliance and Horde.

Either way, it makes sense that these people we just helped would want to explore the world beyond Suramar, given how long they’ve been locked up inside it. There’s a logical reason for adding the Nightfallen as a new race, and people seem to like them a lot. I’d really rather see them added than any “new” race that just kind of popped up. We got our introduction this expansion, it’d be cool if that story led into us actually being able to play them, you know?

Not a weird retcon at all! The short story you’re talking about, Prophet’s Lesson, took place in Cataclysm. At that point in time, it seemed like the Exodar was repaired and fully functional. But that’s the last we heard about it for the next several years. It’s not too far out of the realm of possibility that upon further testing, they realized while the engines seemed to be all right, the sheer amount of structural damage the Exodar sustained in the crash on Azeroth prevented it from actually being space-worthy. At that point, they began construction on the Vindicaar, salvaging the engines from the Exodar and applying them to a ship that was built from the ground up and structurally sound enough to fly.

Velen wanted to concentrate on helping Azeroth at the end of Prophet’s Lesson, but there were people who didn’t necessarily agree with that. He may have had them start work on the Vindicaar at that point to reassure them that yes, he still fully intended to return home eventually. That way he could appease those that were upset that no action was being taken, while helping on Azeroth in the meantime.

At the end of the Exodar scenario in Legion, Velen tells Divinius to find Rommul and tell him to begin repairs on “the vessel.” He’s not referring to the Exodar there — he’s referring to the Vindicaar, the new vessel they’d been working on. The Legion did a number on the Exodar when they arrived, and they probably busted up the Vindicaar too. So it needed to be repaired before they took off with it.

Nah, I think they should leave them as-is. And you know how we got that final goofy little cinematic at the end of Mists, with the Orc and the Human dude sitting in a bar? I’d like to see one at the very end of Legion, with all of the Sons of Lothar finally returning to Azeroth, reunited. They cross the gates of Stormwind, maybe reminisce a little on how far they’ve come, soberly reflect on the journey they’ve taken and the losses they’ve sustained, and pause to just stand there in silent wonder, for the first time realizing…they’re home. They all made it. They all survived.

Then as one, they finally look up and notice all these statues, still stricken by the enormity of all they’ve accomplished…and Turalyon and Alleria start to laugh at how awful the damn things are. The others join in. It’s the first round of genuine, relaxed, things-are-okay-again laughter they’ve shared in a very, very long time. Maybe they don’t walk off into the sunset — maybe they just head off into the city square instead — but for the first time in a very long time, they’re all together, and they’re happy, and things are good.

End it with Alleria casually reminding Khadgar he still owes them all a round of drinks.

That is extremely doubtful. We’re dealing with the Burning Legion directly in this expansion. Why would we need more Demon Hunters, once the Legion is defeated? There’s little reason for it. The only way I could see it is if there were more Legion defectors like Lothraxion, but even then I don’t see it happening, because you’d need an alternate option for the Horde as well.

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!