The Queue: It’s coffee o’clock

Now that summer vacation has started in earnest, I am no longer tethered to time or space. I am infinite, I stretch against the yawning chasm of space itself, I contain multitudes — and every one of those multitudes needs coffee.

This is The Queue, where you ask us questions and we supply the answers, just as soon as this cuppa kicks in.

Every expansion there comes a time when I think to myself that I’m at the point where I could totally find my way into a pug for the current raid stuff, maybe, and even go for the Ahead of the Curve achievement maybe… and then I end up just shrugging and soloing it next expansion for transmog.

Considering you could get it from Skinning and World Quests during current content, this is a pretty baffling decision. I would venture a guess that it’s one of those weird coding issues that always seems to pop up, because that seems like a bizarre move to do it deliberately, and kind of a weird thing to spend additional coding time on if it were a “fix.”

Right now in the Shadowlands alpha, in the rare occasion you get crafting materials they all seem to stem from Legion — Cursed Queenfish and the like. Also, this was the expansion when they added legacy loot. I would guess that the two together made it too tough a knot to untie to make it so you continued to get Felhide when skinning if the background code was confused due to the level cap – 10 + 1 of it all.

All of them.

Part of that is because we’re making our way toward a distinctly hell-themed expansion, but I find myself googling nearly every NPC at this point, just to see if devs are perhaps pulling a Dante. In The Divine Comedy, though obviously there are some historical and mythological figures that merit mention — off the top of my head, Achilles, Cleopatra, Judas, Brutus, Paris — Dante also cast some of his contemporary detractors into the pits of hell. Bastion seems suited toward classical references that I may or may not be aware of, while Revendreth seems suited to sticking NPCs in compromising situations. Regardless, I’m going over all these NPCs with a fine-toothed comb.

I know. This has been one of the most confounding lore handwaves for me even since Vanilla, and I’m not someone who gets frustrated or obsessed by WoW lore. Back in WC3 he was the driving force that led to Jaina’s betrayal of her father, and then he’s like, “my job here is done,” and that’s just… it? We let the most powerful mage ever just… fly off into the sunset as a raven? No forwarding address, no scrying mirror, not even a bunch of raven imagery watching over the Human races, just a Tolkien elf style deuces? We’re supposed to believe that one of the most meddling, devious characters in Warcraft canon just says bye?

Then he — of course — pops up again in the revamped Karazhan with Khadgar pulling his best Jedi impression, recognizing a presence he’s felt before. Well, yeah, Khadgar. For one I played chess with your former boss’s shade like a decade ago, so he’s definitely still kicking around here in spirit form regardless. For two — who were you expecting to show up, anyway? Ol’ Blanchy? Shifty Vickers? Maybe Colonel Mustard with the candlestick? Honestly. Then Medivh is all, “haha! You found me! I’m surprised you found me because I was here, at my literal house, where I live. Well, I guess I’m going to go find a different place to wait for death or whatever in the middle of this large-scale demonic invasion linked to the exact presence that possessed me from birth, good luck!” And Khadgar is like, “thanks old friend, see ya.”

Khadgar has to be the worst mage of all time. Top three, easy.

I’m sure somebody is going to jump in with but in the novels, and I have to say I’m really not invested enough to seek out tertiary explanations for why Khadgar is such a terrible mage. I just know that in the game? Yeah.

Yep! The specialization aspect of these recipes was removed, so any Leatherworker can make them if they have the patterns. Have fun storming UBRS!