The Queue: The ol’ razzle dazzle

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 forgot that sometimes, Ragnaros has legs. You know, it’s a little weird how much less intimidating he seems when he can stand up and walk around. Blob of animate lava goo? Unnerving and a little scary. Big humanoid lava dude? Suddenly strangely comical. No idea why!

I don’t think it was really a missed chance — but I think Blizzard went in a different direction with the Nightborne than I thought they’d go. Logically speaking, both factions were so involved with helping out the Nightborne in Suramar that neutrality felt like a forgone conclusion. Mind you, I mostly based this reasoning on what we saw in Mists with the Pandaren. It felt like a very similar situation — highly isolated group suddenly encounters both Alliance and Horde, who help to save said isolated group from certain doom.

I suppose the biggest difference here is that the Pandaren have always been portrayed as neutral. The Nightborne were once Highborne, way back in the days of ancient Night Elf civilization, long before Alliance or Horde even existed. Those ancient ties could have led the Nightborne to automatically go where their descendants had gone — the Alliance. Or, given their rocky history, those same ties could push them into the arms of the opposing faction — the Horde.

So I mean…I get it. I do get it. But for Alliance players who dedicated all that time to helping out Suramar at level 110, that entire experience now feels like a gigantic waste of time, in some ways. And that’s a pity, because it was an amazing post-leveling experience.

The rest of them make perfect sense — I mean, Turalyon’s going to go Alliance every time, and due to the Lightforged involvement with both Turalyon and Velen, I can’t really see them choosing the opposing faction. The same goes for the Void Elves — whatever their origin story happens to be, that’s Alleria at the helm. Alleria’s not going to side with the Horde, ever. There’s well-established reasons why she wouldn’t. We know there were at least some Blood Elves dissatisfied with the Horde — go back to the Dominance Offensive quest chain in Mists and you can see it. So that makes sense.

Highmountain are Tauren — of course they’re going to follow the other Tauren out there in the world. Dark Iron? They’re going to go where their leader went — to the Alliance. Zandalari? Notoriously focused on fostering and promoting Troll superiority, so they’ll go where the Trolls are.

I just went over WoW in the latest KYL, but I’ll reiterate — I miss the days where we got a ton of short stories and a couple novels per expansion. I feel like Legion of all expansions was ripe with opportunity for dozens of them, starting with additional class-themed tales. Don’t get me wrong — I appreciate that this expansion was loaded with so much story content. But I like novels and short stories as well, because they give us a much closer look at big-name heroes and familiar faces in lore that we don’t know quite as well as we could. In gameplay, Khadgar’s got just enough time to dole out some directions for quests, or deliver a little cutscene. In a book, we’d be able to see his thinking behind all of that, and how he feels about what’s going on, you know?

And given the tremendous success the cinematics team has enjoyed over the past year, I’d be happy with an animated series from any one of Blizzard’s IPs, honestly.

You’re thinking about this a little off, here. These aren’t exactly “new” races we’re getting. They’re allied races — offshoots of races that already exist in game. Highmountain Tauren aren’t their own race — they’re Tauren. They just look different. The same applies to the Zandalari — they’re Trolls, they just look different. Tauren can be Druids, so can Trolls. That was already well established prior to the advent of allied races.

In other words, this isn’t a case of one faction getting more class options than the other. It’s just applying the existing rules to these new allied dudes that popped up. And there are exceptions couched in lore — Nightborne aren’t getting Druids because these guys are former Highborne. They have more in common with Blood Elves than with Night Elves. They’re attuned with magic, not so much the nature angle, so no Druids out of them.

The same goes for the Lightforged — they’re Draenei, who have always been able to be Paladins, so they get to be Paladins as well. Meanwhile, you’ll note that the Highmountain can’t be Paladins, despite Tauren Paladins existing in game — and it’s the same kind of distinction as the Nightborne, in a way. Tauren Paladins were a recent development, specific to the Horde in recent years. The Highmountain were isolated and missed all that, so they can’t be Paladins.

To go back to your question — there’s always the possibility of more race/class combinations, regardless of allied races. You mention the introduction of a Night Elf Paladin — that’s way more likely to point to a new race/class combo than anything the allied races have to offer.

Ignore the idea of one class being more faction-based over another. We had that back in vanilla, when Paladins were only Alliance-playable, and Shaman were only Horde-playable. They dropped that distinction in Burning Crusade, and they aren’t about to pick that back up again.

Considering that involves giving the recipient a super-charged dose of the Light, I feel like if it did anything, it would involve incineration. The Light isn’t very friendly to the undead. The idea is interesting, however, and it’d definitely be a different kind of solution to Sylvanas and her people’s perpetual procreation problem.

Wardens aren’t really there to watch over people — they’re jailors, assassins and bounty hunters more than anything. Their job isn’t so much “keep people safe” as it is “keep those bad guys safely locked away in prison. If they get out, hunt them down, drag them back, and lock them up again.” That’s what the Vault of the Wardens essentially is — a giant prison.

I’d say just from a logic standpoint, those Warden towers were built after the Sundering, watchtowers to make sure nothing bad was headed for the Broken Isles to try and break into said giant prison. I don’t know if that’s canon or not — it’s never been clarified one way or another — but it makes sense.

Actually, the answer to that question really is Niuzao. He represents fortitude — courage in the face of adversity, which I like. I also like the fact that he is a very pretty giant shaggy yak. And I really appreciated that he was the only August Celestial that never got too over-the-top with the whole doling out of lessons. We messed up with Yu’lon, and that made me feel bad. Chi-Ji delivered encouraging platitudes every time he spoke, and that got a little annoying. Xuen was pretty judgmental — understandably so — and I got tired of having to pass test after test with the dude.

Niuzao? He’s just chilling on the other side of the wall, where none of the other August Celestials would go. Hanging out in the middle of horror-show central, bravely fighting away out of sheer stubborn perseverance. I like that.

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!