The Queue: The sound’s off, but the TV’s on

Blizzard has been kind enough to give the Blizzard Watch crew a heads up about today’s Q&A, which means there’s no possible way for them to drop big news while the entire editorial staff is out and about.

…Right?

Let’s Queue.

I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t think Blizzard has ever done an open beta. The closest we’ve gotten to one is Mists of Pandaria’s, which people could get into with the annual WoW subscription thing.

As for a general beta — or more realistically, alpha — I think the chances of one dropping today are only high if they don’t announce pre-orders and Allied Races. If they do, though, I think they’ll want to give it a little bit of time before dropping the alpha. And by “a little bit of time,” I mean no more than three weeks. But that’s all a total guess. I’d be thrilled if we got alpha today!

1. My realistic hope for the Q&A is that we get Allied Races today as a pre-order bonus.
2. My pie-in-the-sky hope is that we’re told more Allied Races and/or a release window for the expansion.
3. My maybe-maybe-not hope is that we get detailed class information. How that information will present itself is up for debate, given we’ve had a chance to peruse datamining, but I’d love a class-based surprise answer.

Having them be skins for Sylvanas would be a disservice to both of them. That said, I think we’re more likely to get Alleria than Vereesa, since she has the potential to offer a much different kit than Sylvanas. Buuuuuut, no matter the case, I think we’re a long ways off from either of them. Please prove me wrong, though, Blizz.

After Kenneth’s shore leave was over, Salad Fingers decided to leave for The Great War (NSFW?) alongside his brother. Of course, he had to don his armor before doing so — hence the plate.

Canonically, I don’t think Blizzard would have killed them all off. However, as far as I know — which maybe isn’t all that far — the Army of Light was essentially trapped on Argus. If they had other forces on other planets, I think they would’ve reached out to them before reaching out to us.

More likely, it would’ve been a lot of time-consuming work to create the new models and races for atmosphere. Also, it would’ve meant everyone going, “Why didn’t we get X race as an Allied Race instead?!” Having Void Elves(ish) and Lightforged Draenei present means we’re exposed to those two Allied Races (and only those two) on Argus before they’re officially introduced.

Blizzard has mentioned we’ll actually be experiencing the Battle at Undercity in-game. My guess is that it’ll be a scenario like The Broken Shore. As for more quests, I’m hoping we get follow-ups to the Silithus stuff.

In any case, Blizzard always does some sort of pre-expansion event. Outside of the Battle at Undercity itself, I’d expect something on the scale of what we got before Legion.

No, you don’t have to choose — this isn’t even up for debate.

Obviously watch the Q&A.

Regarding Garrosh, that’s actually — and excuse me for linking to That Old Site — the result of a miscommunication. Stonetalon was a legitimately a different version of Garrosh than the one we ended with.

Outside of that… I dislike that Malfurion went from sleeping and noiseless to… well, existing in any capacity larger than that. I’m still slightly conflicted about all the hoops that had to be jumped through to make Illidan look like a good guy, but then he went and blew up Xe’ra and, I mean… that was just too good not to love the guy for.

OH! Grommash in Warlords. Dude basically hopped on the “Legion is bad” bandwagon when it meant looking good to us and he somehow got away with it.

RUAHHHHH!!!!

That’s it for today. As a reminder, if the comments section lights up after the Q&A, please feel free to use our Discord to ask questions if you have any — Liz will appreciate it.