The Queue: Oh brother

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!

You know, Brann’s all supportive of his brother in front of you, talking big about Magni’s sacrifice and how he’s really proud of everything he’s accomplished. But I really have to wonder — behind closed doors, was there ever a “So, my brother is a rock now I guess” conversation? I mean, all of the Bronzebeards just seem to accept this as a pretty normal occurrence.

Also, if Magni ever gets done with saving the planet and decides to settle down and start seeing people again, can we officially call it carbon dating?

I’m not sorry. Let’s get to your questions.

I mean…when you play World of Warcraft, you’re pretty much signing up for a never-ending pile of crazy events firing off one after the other. Nearly every expansion in WoW to date has covered the in-game equivalent of one year, with the exception of Mists of Pandaria, which took two in-game years. Azeroth is basically ground zero for frenetic world-threatening events at this point. I’m surprised the general public cast of NPCs aren’t more frazzled, to be honest.

Really though, I try not to pay too much attention to it. It’s nice to have a general timeline for quick reference in terms of stories and stuff, but when I’m playing in-game, I tend to just shove the whole timeline thing out of my mind altogether.

Anu was seeking a state of total perfection — it wanted to cast all evil from itself in order to accomplish that. I don’t think Anu knew exactly what would happen when it went through with the whole purge thing, seeing as how it was the only creature in existence at that point in time. I mean, there wasn’t really a handy self-help book sitting around to explain “Hey, maybe you don’t want to do that” or anything.

I’m pretty sure in hindsight, Anu fervently wished it had found something less universally destructive to do. Sudoku, maybe. Or knitting.

I suspect Wrathion has his own agenda at this point — and I think it’s entirely possible he’s trying to figure out how to pull off the whole purification process that created him. When you get his quest item in the Island Expeditions, the quest sends you to Blackwing Lair, and some of his Blacktalon Agents are stationed outside.

Blackwing Lair wasn’t just Nefarian’s home — it was his own personal laboratory. Even back in vanilla, Nefarian was experimenting. He’s the reason the chromatic dragonflight came about. The only logical reason I can see for Wrathion to hang out at that particular location is because he’s indulging in some experiments of his own, you know?

Of course, that’s all speculation at this point — he could just be sightseeing for all we know. But it’s interesting that that was the location he chose to wander off to.

Has a dragon ever done so? Not to my knowledge. Could they do so? Oh absolutely — but that’s a risky proposition that could end up with them getting caught or called out. It’s much easier to simply make up a persona, like the Prestors, and manufacture a past that makes sense.

Azeroth’s a big planet, so it’s entirely likely there are plenty of people that major NPCs haven’t met before. Masquerading as someone they have met before? That’s a lot more dangerous. And honestly, the only dragonflight that would indulge in that kind of subterfuge is the black dragonflight. They’re pretty much gone at this point.

I don’t think it’s really going to move in one direction or another — there might be a small initial spike when people come back to play Classic and potentially use any gold they have squirreled away to pay for their subscriptions, but I doubt it’ll last very long. Classic doesn’t cost anything to play, there’s no initial purchase that needs to be made for returning players. By that I mean that there’s no box price — it’s just that subscription cost. So if the market changes, it’s going to be a very minor change, and I think it’ll even out fairly quickly.

They are aquatic-only mounts, sadly, meaning you can only summon and use them underwater. There were quite a few people that were upset about this, but honestly, they aren’t the first underwater-only mount we’ve gotten, and I’m sure they won’t be the last.

At first I thought maybe it would be interesting if they could put the mount in a bubble, like they do with the various aquatic Battle Pets you can pick up. But then I realized I’d be traveling the world and looking at it through a bubble. Sure, that sounds kind of cute in theory, but I could see it quickly becoming annoying in practice. Maybe they’ll introduce some mount equipment that will let us fly them through the air? I mean…anything’s possible — but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.

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!