The Queue: Memorial Day
by Alex Ziebart 
May 30th 2011 at 11:00AM
Today is Memorial Day. If you're an American and you know what it is, great. If you're an American and you don't know what it is, look it up. If you're not an American, you may continue to do whatever it is you do, unless you live in the U.K., in which case I demand you mail me Jaffa Cakes.
No, don't actually do that.
mik3st3r asked:
What is the story behind the dragons in the elemental planes? Most specifically, the stone drakes. Did they simply form from rock, or were they part of one of the dragonflights, and somehow got bound eternally to deepholm?
They're just stone elementals in the shape of a dragon. I think at some point, Blizzard realized that its lore structure for dragons is a bit ... adolescent? One of the first things kids do when they get creative is start color-coding things. I think every writer in the world has gone through a phase where they thought color-coding things was the most brilliant idea ever. Having "black dragons" and "red dragons" as specific species of dragon can work fine, but when you break sentient/sapient creatures down into rigid organizations based on color and make that your canon, it is not only rather childish, it is also extremely limiting. Also a little racist, if you want to put way too much thought into it.
I feel that at some point in World of Warcraft's lifespan, Blizzard realized that yes, those color-based barriers are foolish and they want to do a lot more with the idea of dragons than preestablished lore allowed. They said to hell with it and started making whatever drakes they felt like making. Nether drakes, Twilight drakes, proto-drakes, stone drakes ... the more drakes they add to the game, the less effort they put into trying to tie them to the preestablished dragon lore. I think we're better off that way, too. I like having these independent dragon variations. I like that much better than "My skin is green, therefore ..."
TL;DR: At some point, Blizzard realized dragons aren't the Power Rangers and stopped worrying about that dragonflight thing.
Tim West asked:
What time will the BlizzCon meet-up be? The Benefit Dinner is at 7:30pm – 11:30pm and my $500 requires me to be there.
Before I even start to answer this question I want to make a clarification so people don't start jumping to conclusions: We have not yet finalized plans for our BlizzCon meetup. We are not ready to announce a venue, so anything I say about event scheduling here is tentative at best. The only guarantee is that we will be doing something Thursday evening.
With that out of the way ... historically, our meetups have started between 6 and 8 p.m., and they last until whenever people leave or our venue shuts us down. This time around, we may need to implement a definite time for the end of the party, because we started receiving noise complaints as the clock approached midnight last year. While everybody going to BlizzCon is up partying that night, people visiting Disney and other attractions in that area are not.
Last year, I believe the final party attendees were flushed out around 12 a.m., and we did have a number of people who attended the benefit dinner manage to swing by our party for awhile. However, it looks like Blizzard's benefit dinner is running later this year than it did last year -- last year's ended at 10, not 11:30. You might be out of luck for attending the bulk of the WoW Insider party. However, the staff is all over the place that whole weekend -- if you're looking to meet someone in particular and we have them in California, chances are good we can hook you up with a handshake or a sweaty, sweaty hug at some point.
EidlonImp asked:
I'm going to surprise my baby tomorrow night by stuffing some dates with manchego and wrapping them in Bacon, but all we have in the house is turkey Bacon. That should still be good, right?
Does he/she like turkey bacon? The answer to that question will answer yours. Turkey bacon is very different from regular bacon, so if you don't know whether or not your baby likes it, you should probably take the extra trip for real bacon, if your goal is romance -- unless by "baby" you mean a literal baby and not your significant other, in which case you should probably reconsider feeding a baby stuffed dates.
Palamedes asked:
It seems for the past month or two, 6/7 days of the week the Queue is answering questions on the VP to JP conversion rate. Why is this?
...
Noyou asked:
Happy Memorial day! Brat vs Hamburger for your holiday feast? (no substitutions please) Also, favorite side dish for your outdoor grilling pleasure?
As I am a Polack from Wisconsin, I enjoy nothing more than getting my hands on a warm, juicy sausage and cradling it between two halves of a nice, fluffy bun. I'm a brat man, though I'm certainly not going to turn away a good hamburger if offered.
Also due to being from the Midwest, most of my side dish recommendations come in the form of noodle salads with either mayonnaise or Miracle Whip as a primary ingredient. My girlfriend is from the east coast and finds all such dishes vile, so I assume all of you not from the midwest would feel the same. I'll skip the noodle salads and go to my family's non-creamy side dish fallback:
Sour Cucumber Salad
3 cucumbers
1 onion
1 c. sugar
1 c. white vinegar
Peel and slice the cucumbers and the onion as thick or as thin as you'd like. Throw them in a bowl with everything else. Salt and pepper to taste. Marinate for an hour or two, stirring often. Hooray, you're done! If you want, you can add other vegetables to it -- wedged tomatoes, pepperoncinis, or sport peppers, for example.
Dang, sport peppers are a Midwest thing too, aren't they? All of you just need to relocate to the Milwaukee-Chicago region.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 10)
Wallert May 30th 2011 11:05AM
Question for the Q
Will bosses in Firelands award more valor points than current bosses since there's less of them?
Or will raiders be expected to do more dailies to cap out valor?
Kaphik May 30th 2011 11:06AM
Looks like daily heroics and heroic T11 fights, to me.
Kaphik May 30th 2011 11:05AM
Actually, the colored dragonflights are probably directly influenced by Dungeons & Dragons.
Rob May 30th 2011 11:11AM
D&D had a pretty simple split, colored dragons were evil and metallic ones were not, going back to at least AD&D monster manual 1. I kinda like the theme of different families of drakes having different goals and attitudes towards humanoids. Weis and Hickman expanded on this theme in their dragonlance series, but while they created a new world the lore was from existing sources; AD&D MM1 and Deities and Demogods.
vocenoctum May 30th 2011 11:15AM
IN addition, the Flights are the titan organized evolution of proto-drakes and the titans seem like the kind of ADD guys that would color code them for easy identification in times of reformatting.
Knob May 30th 2011 11:39AM
There are coloured dragons in the Witcher universe as well, so it's quite a common thing.
Deathknighty May 30th 2011 12:52PM
I think you have ADD confused with OCD. ADD eans they get distracted easily. :D
Jeff May 30th 2011 2:54PM
@Deathknighty: No, "AD&D" means "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons".
LynMars May 30th 2011 2:43PM
As of 4.0, even D&D's gotten away from "you're this color dragon so you must be good or evil." Letting sentient beings think and decide for themselves, imagine! Culture may have some strong influence (Drow, for instance), but I like the loosening of the "X race are bad, Z are good" definitions. The different gods they have are set up pretty much the same as they were, if they survived the streamlining conversion.
ashtin May 30th 2011 2:54PM
you are right. They copied the dragonflight colors from original dungeons and dragons. Because world of warcraft if anything is not original in a lot of its concepts. But best watch my tongue lest the fanboys downrate me and start raging and bashing in on me for saying something even remotely negative about wow.
Cizal May 30th 2011 3:42PM
every fantasy game borrows heavily from dungeons and dragons, it's not a question of originality, because under that logic pretty much no fantasy game is original.
loop_not_defined May 30th 2011 4:24PM
Meh, don't really agree with the summary of dragons in today's queue.
-Color coding dragons might be a rather tired trope, they serve a very distinct purpose in WoW. The dragonflights are actually guardians of the planet, and each flight is responsible for different aspects of that planet - so far so that their leaders are actually called Aspects.
-All following dragonflights have also served very distinct purposes. Nether and Twilight dragonflights are part of an evolving storyline rooted in the Black Dragonflight. Protodragons are the precursors to today's dragonflights. Stone and Storm dragons are....well, they're just there. So far. The stone dragons aren't even really obedient to the matriarch/mother of Deepholm - the Stonemother - shy of being beat into obedience. They seems to have absolutely no relation to any other existing dragons, which cannot be said of...any other dragons.
I honestly don't have a problem with Blizzard expanding the dragons and their related storylines, but all previous dragons *actually had storylines*. Also, their role in terms of flying mounts is to the point where finding a non-dragon mount is, well, frustrating.
SINisterWyvern May 30th 2011 4:50PM
@ashtin
Basically everything fantasy wise can roll itself on back to Tolkien themes. That's kind of why it's the fantasy genre. There's a difference between copying and taking influence from.
You won't get downvoted by fanboys because saying wow isn't original, you'll be downvoted by people that understand the difference because you're an idiot.
Vaeku May 30th 2011 4:56PM
So if the dragonflights are the Power Rangers, does that make Aman'thul the Zordon of WoW?
And if so, then that means that Sargeras is the Lord Zedd of WoW, which I approve of.
Khirsah May 30th 2011 6:13PM
Given the topic of conversation, and the mention of chromatic and metallic dragons as used by AD&D and Weiss & Hickman, I felt obligated to comment, just so my name is in the thread.
For those that don't know, Khirsah was the Bronze Dragon that Flint Fireforge and Tas Burrfoot rode into battle, though they knew him only by his common name "Fireflash".
I would also like to give a +1 for those that mentioned Tolkien as the father of the genre. The themes, races, and vision he created inspired so much. Everything from AD&D to Dragonlance to WoW to Harry Potter owes its very existence to Tolkien.
Deathknighty May 30th 2011 6:16PM
@Jeff
Ah. My apologies for the unnecessary nitpicking.
Jabadabadana May 30th 2011 6:33PM
... and Tolkien borrows from the Norse Sagas and early authors like E Nesbit and general European mythology and... they borrowed from... (this can trick can go for awhile.)
Practically nothing in this world is actually original at this point. Deal with it.
Sometimes things become cliche because we like them, or they work well.
Khirsah May 30th 2011 9:39PM
@Jaba... While it is true that very few things are totally original, you can pinpoint certain times, people, and works that mark turning points or shifts in whatever you are talking about.
For example, in philosophy, Socrates marks a clear turning point. In music, most people credit Elvis with being a catalyst of change. And in thr fantasy genre, it is most often attributed to Tolkien for having the most significant influence on modern work.
Obviously, the examples above are just that: examples. There are plenty of those examples in any subject. Einstein, da Vinci, Shakespeare. Basically, the people whose work marks that time between "before" and "after". And I certainly think that Tolkien is one of those people. And, in my opinion, he is the last one we've seen in the fantasy genre.
JattTheRogue May 30th 2011 11:48PM
"D&D had a pretty simple split, colored dragons were evil and metallic ones were not, going back to at least AD&D monster manual 1."
"the titans seem like the kind of ADD guys that would color code them for easy identification in times of reformatting"
"I think you have ADD confused with OCD. ADD eans they get distracted easily. "
"@Deathknighty: No, "AD&D" means "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons"."
@Jeff: Pretty sure Deathknighty was referring to the comment about the Titans, not the one about the monster manual, in which case he is absolutely right and ADD is Attention Deficit Disorder and should have been OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Carry on.
Adegan May 31st 2011 12:11AM
Actually, only four of Shakespeare's plays are believed to be original works. All the others were rewrites or adaptations of existing stories and histories.