The Queue: Resident Permanently

It’s 12:35 AM as I type this and yesterday I finally, after eleven years, became a permanent resident of Canada. This is a really big step for me for a lot of reasons — it’s one big hurdle on the path to becoming a Canadian citizen out of the way, for example — but mostly it’s a huge relief and a weight off of my back.

This has nothing to do with the site, except it kind of does — I started working at the predecessor to this place back in 2007. It’s been a decade and whatever little corner of the internet I can call mine has been greatly expanded by y’all and the games we all talk about here. I’d probably not be here without you. And I don’t know if I’d have been able to get this done and finally be where I wanted to be. So thank you.

Let’s talk about stuff.

Yes, Xe’ra had Alleria locked up instead of killing her (as was heavily implied she was considering) at the end of the A Thousand Years of War audio drama, and when you restore Xe’ra Alleria mentions it to Turalyon.

As for Jaina and her issues, it’s not a cut and dried issue. I’m generally on team Jaina — I want to see more of her, find out what she’s been doing during this whole Legion invasion, and I generally think she had a point. But at the same time, the immediate situation was one where refusing to work with the Horde was basically saying ‘let’s go into this fight with the world destroying cosmic menace while also fighting those guys’ and it was borderline suicidal. We know that Sylvanas didn’t retreat from the Broken Shore to betray the Alliance — her position was untenable and if she hadn’t retreated the force under her command (including people like Baine, Thrall and an injured Vol’jin) would have been wiped out. Jaina doesn’t know that, but we can go watch the cinematic.

Now, Jaina doesn’t have to be 100% factually correct to have good points and be an interesting character and I definitely want to see more of her in the future. (Unless they do something dumb like make her a raid boss or something like that.) The fact is, the Horde has done nothing to repay Jaina for repeated efforts to make peace with it except kill everyone she’s ever cared about. She’d have to be an idiot to trust them at this point. Since she’s not an idiot, I’m not surprised she refuses to do so.

Xal’atoh, Desecrated Image of Gorehowl is a portion of Y’Shaarj’s power formed into a weapon. We don’t see it happen, but it’s explicitly stated. Garrosh himself created the weapon using Y’Shaarj’s power while he had the Heart at his disposal. So yes, it’s quite possible that Alleria created a new bow out of the power of the Void.

I don’t personally want that, but I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that just because I don’t want something it doesn’t follow that no one else wants it or could use it. I’m sure lots of players would like to be able to skip to the end of a raid the way people can skip to Sapphiron in Naxxramas. I don’t know if it needs to be a Timewalking thing, although it would be kind of cool if they also gave us a Timewalking Lich King or something similar.

I have hopes that the Timewalking Black Temple will stick around post-Legion so who knows?

But I can see people wanting your idea even if I personally don’t.

It is from the audio drama, specifically the part where after 500 years of searching Alleria has found Locus Walker and is studying the Void with him as her cranky Etheral Yoda.

In addition to that lore reveal, we also discover that Titan World-Souls predate the worlds they gestate inside — the worlds form around the World-Souls as they come to seek warmth and security around a star.

Really, make time for the audio drama. It’s worth it.

Honestly this has been my experience with Enhancement all expansion and it’s the reason I gave up on leveling mine. It’s the Fury Warrior problem all over again, except with Fury I had alternative specs I enjoyed playing while I was leveling that allowed me to survive long enough to get the gear so I could play Fury if I chose. Enhancement was my go-to Shaman spec, and while it can be quite strong and the Artifact makes up for some of it, I just don’t like it anymore. Before, I had abilities I could use to mitigate spikes of incoming damage and stay alive and now I’m heal spamming Maelstrom away trying desperately not to die if one add comes along.

I still love the concept of Enhance, but I’m not thinking I’ll play it again for a while.

Here’s my dream — eventually something awful happens, and the original Worgen that Malfurion banished to the Emerald Dream escape. This gives us playable Night Elf Worgen. Now, I know this would require either a completely new starting zone or some serious handwaving, but I didn’t say it was likely.

However, even if Night Elf Worgen didn’t become playable, they could easily be established as a new faction of Worgen. If we had an expansion featuring the Old Gods, the Worgen could end up freed to help defend the Emerald Dream from them and could make a tentative peace with Malfurion and the Cenarion Circle, and potentially even offer the Worgen curse to any who wanted to fight. So you could see in-lore examples of Worgen of other races, even if in game only the Gilnean ones were playable.

And yes, if they ever showed an Orc Worgen I’m calling it a Worcgen.

Okay, that’s the Queue for today. It’s been a roller coaster of a week for me, and now that I’m finally a permanent resident, I think I’m going to go reside. Take it easy, all.