The Queue: RSTUV

Sometimes you just feel weird. Right? I feel weird sometimes.

Let’s talk Blizzard.

I honestly don’t know. From what I can tell instead of the Broken Shore we’re getting two separate scenarios that will cover the Burning of Teldrassil and the Attack on Undercity. These feel like they will be the pre-expansion events, and I have no idea if they’ll be playable by lower level alts or just by max level toons. Whether there will also be something more — perhaps Alliance forces counterattacking in lower level Horde zones and vice versa — I couldn’t say, but there’s no sign of it on the beta as yet.

My gut says no, though. As cool as it would be to help get those Void Elves and Nightborne to level 110 in time for BFA, I don’t expect a similar event. The Legion invasions made sense because the Legion was invading, and they were a worldwide threat. Neither the Horde nor the Alliance really have the ability to go to war with the other on that scale. That’s the whole reason they’re looking for allies and trying to get navies in Battle for Azeroth in the first place.

That’s not really a question, is it? No. No, it’s not a question.

Nor do I think it’s even remotely likely. For one thing, the Tauren just recruited the Highmountain to join the Horde. The idea that they’d break ranks and join the Alliance just seems unlikely.

Plus, let’s be fair — the Tauren suffered at the hands of the Centaur for a very, very long time and the Night Elves didn’t exactly break their backs offering them help. As insular and xenophobic as the Night Elves were, they seemed perfectly okay leaving the Barrens to the Tauren and keeping to their lush forests to the north and south of the place. Night Elves lived in Feralas, Ashenvale, Darkshore… all places surrounding the Tauren and Centaur in the Barrens and Desolace.

It was the Horde under Thrall who saved the Tauren, and over the years the Tauren have become woven into the fabric of the Horde — even Garrosh felt like the Tauren were honorable and if not for Baine’s decision to rebel against him he would have been fine with them in his “New Horde”.

Now, it’s true that Malfurion and Hamuul were close friends, and Baine and Anduin had a few moments of mutual respect. But is that enough to turn their backs on Thunder Bluff, the land that Cairne led them to? I don’t see it. And I’m saying this as a diehard Alliance player nowadays. As much as I’d love it if there were Alliance Tauren, I simply don’t see it happening, even if Malfurion were to die at Sylvanas’ hands.

That’s not a spoiler, I just made that up as an example. As far as I know he doesn’t die.

Usually after an eye-injection day, I like to play something visceral like Diablo 3 and just ruin things until I feel better.

I often wonder if players could handle an expansion that really cut them off from home, from Org/Stormwind and all the other faction cities, and stranded them in a new world for at least half of the leveling experience. Imagine if the expansion after Battle for Azeroth something happened — a giant vortex, a rift between worlds, one of Mitch’s long tangents about why he loves a giant knife and murdering innocent people, whatever — and when you woke up you were in a strange new world and you couldn’t get home? All you had access to is the gear in your bags/on your person and the abilities of your class. No hearthing back to Org, no trips to Dalaran, just you, in a hostile new world you’ve never seen or heard of before.

Of course you’d eventually figure out a way home, but it could be really fun if it took you levels 121 to 124 or 5 to do it and when you did, you got sent back to explore this new place and head off any threat to Azeroth before it was too late.

That’s how I’d do it — an entirely new world, maybe one we’ve heard of like K’aresh or Xoroth, but not one we’ve ever seen before, and us stranded there.

Sure, we “ended” the Legion.

If you don’t count Sargeras not being dead, and there still being a near infinite supply of demons out there who are no longer under the control of a singular entity using them for his own purposes. I mean, Sargeras himself had to build a prison planet because when he killed demons, they’d just come back from the Twisting Nether eventually. Now that he’s gone, there’s nobody forcing them to go to Antorus anymore — they could end up anywhere. Meanwhile, the Nathrezim are now free to plot and scheme to their black little hearts’ content.

What I’m saying is, sure, the Legion is stopped for now. But it’s stopped in a way that means it could come back at any time Blizzard wanted to bring it back.

As for the Old Gods, as far as we know, only one of them has ever died and when it did it left behind the Sha, who were just about as bad and which fed on the darker emotions in mortal hearts. Both C’Thun and Yogg-Saron are still out there as far as we can tell, still able to manipulate mortals and get up to mischief. And even if we killed all of the Old Gods on Azeroth, there are more out there in the universe, and behind all of those there are the Void Lords, who are incomprehensibly powerful and alien entities that are unlike anything we’ve ever faced to date.

And that’s not even including entities like the Lich King who could lead the Scourge out of Iceccrown to conquer at any time, thanks to the Deathlord making him a whole new Four Horsemen who serve as super-powerful Death Knights and intelligent undead servants to increase his power. Or the being that Odyn traded his eye to in the Shadowlands for knowledge of how to create the Val’kyr and raise souls from the afterlife. Or Odyn himself, who seems like a right jerk.

Plus they could always just make up a new threat whenever they wanted to.

We’re not even remotely done.

That’s the Queue for this week. I’ll see y’all next week. Take care and be good to each other.