The Queue: Weird Fishes

This is Bubbles. (The one standing next to her is some weird fish mage whose name doesn’t matter right now.)

Bubbles took a sabbatical for a couple years, but she’s back to fulfill her job of lobbing balls of water at fools with deadly force to help her master. Dutiful and unquestioning. Water Elementals are known for harmoniously agreeing with those who summoned them, rather than entering nebulous “contracts” or being employed against their wills (which usually leads to constantly plotting revenge, and that’s antithetical to good water flow).

We’re in The Queue, a daily Q&A column that delivers answers to questions day after day, with consistency and a dash of spunk.

In a sense, though it’s not exactly “farting” per se, but it has been known to cause real diplomatic concerns.

Blizzard announced some very controversial changes to Frost Mages that, for the most part, the community took pretty badly. Mostly the loss of the second charge of Ray of Frost, Icicles no longer being rapidly generated out of combat, Glacial Spike only lasting for 60 seconds (which in many cases would prevent it from being used as an opener in combat), and Glacial Spike being decoupled from Frostbolt “because some players couldn’t find Frostbolt in their spellbooks.” Yes, you read that right. Yes, it’s ridiculous.

Thankfully, after the community rallied against these changes and made several posts about how they were detrimental to the spec, Blizzard has decided to revert the changes to Ray of Frost, at least.

Developers’ notes: After some internal testing and feedback from the community, we’re opting to revert our planned changes for Ray of Frost.
The 12.0.5 Hand of Frost changes have been reverted – Rank 4 of Hand of Frost will once again grant 2 charges of Ray of Frost.

Sadly the Glacial Spike changes seem like they’re not beign reverted for the time being. So I guess a handful of confused players who can’t find Frostbolt on their spellbooks win, and a community of players who love Frost Mage lose. But I wouldn’t say the spec is “RIP” despite that bad change persisting.

I have the same impression as you. Some forces, like the Titans, definitely want to “recruit” it, or shape it to become one of them (or something similar to that). It’s possible that other forces in the cosmos have similar goals, while the Fel might want it destroyed, and perhaps the Void might want it consumed, so it can grow stronger from it rather than reshaping it. But yes, I do think you’re right that it’s like a cosmic game of kiss/marry/kill, with Sargeras probably being the one interested in doing the kissing and everyone else on the other two camps.

It’s hard to know for sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say “no.” Zul’Aman is already an enormous zone as is, and that landmass appears to be roughly as big as the ZA that’s already in the game, making it a whole full zone that most likely has very similar style and thematic to the ZA that shipped. I just don’t see Blizzard releasing two massive troll zones as initial/leveling content, when the other zones are so diverse among themselves in themes and aesthetics.

It makes more sense, to me at least, that the new troll zone of Atal’utek (assuming it really does come, though that seems very likely), was always meant as a continuation of the ZA story, giving it time to breathe, rather than running right after it.

Some players have speculated that the order of zones and events got kind of scrambled in the Worldsoul Saga. Zones that were meant to appear in The War Within supposedly got postponed until Midnight (like Harandar). NPCs like Orweyna showed up in TWW but didn’t do much despite being in a major cinematic — same with Thrall and Anduin. We got the Coreway in Dornogal, but we didn’t actually follow it through to the World soul like one could imagine we would.

So I’d like to continue that thread, to the end. I’d like to see the bottom of the Coreway, actually reaching the Worldsoul. It’s high time we got a glimpse of it — we’re in the crest of the saga at this point. I want the end of the Coreway to be “at war” with the Haranir: half-dormant Titan constructs and machinery clashing with ferocious animals and being strangled by enormous roots. A first taste of the war for the world soul in a more concrete fashion. And Azeroth herself slumbering down there, actually shown to the players for the first time.

I really dig his cover of Baby One More Time, even though that’s definitely not the type of music I usually listen to. So something along those lines.

I guess I’d go with I Want It That Way. He’d bring the humor while still making it sound good.

A question after my own heart <3

There are a few I could list, but I’m gonna stick to the one that’s not only super iconic, but relevant to World of Warcraft: Field of Fate from Street Fighter Alpha 2 (and later Street Fighter V).

A grassy field with a storm on the background. Lightning and wind set the mood. Simple, clean, and effective.

It’s the place where our protagonist Ryu fought a more formidable opponent than him in Sagat. Ryu briefly succumbed to the forbidden powers of the Satsui no Hado, and ended up defeating his foe and giving him his iconic chest scar.

A location and event which were seemingly referenced in World of Warcraft, in the Nagrand finale cinematic, where protagonist Thrall fought a more formidable opponent than him, Garrosh. Thrall called upon forbidden powers (the elements, which he wasn’t allowed to do in a Mak’gora), and ended up killing his foe.

This has been The Queue. Take care, friends, and be careful the next time you consider challenging your mortal enemy to a duel to the death on a grassy field, during a storm. There are real consequences to that kind of thing!