The Queue: A very Star Wars Hallow's End

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

We're all nerds here at WoW Insider, so when Disney acquires Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, we have to mention it. Our first question today touches on that, then we jump into scenarios and more!

@Medros asked:

how upsetting is the Lucas Arts purchase by Disney? My inner kid nerd is weeping.

This has nothing to do with World of Warcraft, but oh well! I'm not weeping, I'm thrilled. Disney isn't all rainbows and roses, but it's pretty darn close. They have consistently put out great films and animation since the 1920s. Every single person living in the United States of America, and probably much of the rest of the developed world, has at least one good memory of something Disney has produced. Somewhere in all of our heads is a Disney musical number just waiting to bubble to the surface.

When most people think Disney, they only think cartoons. Cutesy animals and whatever else. That's not the reality of it at all. Just about everybody loved The Avengers, right? Right. For some reason, the exact same people that absolutely adored The Avengers are lamenting the death of Star Wars, expecting it to turn into little baby cartoons. Newsflash: The Avengers movie exists because Disney made it. Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment back in 2009. Every Marvel movie made since then was a Disney production.

Even if they did push more Star Wars aimed at a younger audience ... so what? Have you seen Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the children's show that runs on Cartoon Network? It's some of the best Star Wars material we've seen in years. It's fun, it's exciting, and it's accessible to everyone.

Yeah, everybody hates how aggressively Disney lobbies for copyright and trademark extensions, but you would do it too if you owned the most profitable, most recognizable animated features in the world. The system effectively forces them to do it. Do you think Disney will let something like Mickey Mouse or Mickey Mouse cartoons end up public domain? Never. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

It's undeniable that Disney makes quality productions. This could be the best thing to happen to Star Wars in a very long time. The only exception is in the realm of video games, because Disney tends not to handle gaming very well -- but let's be honest, Star Wars games haven't been at their best in recent history anyway.

Gabe1 asked:

When you queue for a scenario, does it look at class at all or does it just toss you in with whoever? I know there are no heal/tank/dps roles selected, but does it look at what classes *can* do a role? Like would it make sure it doesn't make a group of a hunter, warlock and a rogue? I know I've had groups where I was the dps and we had two healers...neither of which wanted to switch, so MAN was it slow going.

As far as I know, it doesn't look at role at all. I frequently get in groups that are 3 DPS, no possibility of tanking or healing. And that's fine, that's what scenarios are supposed to do -- get you in there quickly so you can start playing.

Having an extremely lopsided scenario group can make things not particularly fun at times -- 3 DPS in certain scenarios is a huge pain -- but you can usually complete the things no matter what your group is like.

jchamsay131 asked:

Anyone else find the story telling in a lot of the scenarios kinda... lacking?

Just got around to doing a bunch today and while I could sorta piece together what we're doing through previous quests (We're here to wreck some Sha! etc) There's really not a lot of narration, cutscenes (asides Theramore afaik), or anything to make the whole experience very immersive.

Scenarios are meant to be fun little romps, so I don't think we'll ever see extensive cutscenes in them. Something that you can complete in 10 minutes isn't going to have 5 minutes of cutscenes every time you do it. However, I do think they could do better at telling you what the heck is going on, at least. Most of the scenarios appear to have quests out in the world that tell you to go to X scenario and explain why you need to do it, but I found most of those after I'd already done the scenario.

Perhaps if the scenarios were all explained in one, static location, there might be less confusion about what the heck is happening when you zone into one.

Putting too much story within the random scenarios themselves will just slow the scenario down, which runs counter to what scenarios are supposed to be. Certainly, though, there could be special scenarios that are more story-focused. Temporary scenarios that are delivered with patches, perhaps? World events? Holidays?

Kevin asked:

What all classes would ethereals have if they did add them in the next expansion?

I'd go with mage, warlock, priest, monk, rogue, hunter, paladin, and warrior. They wouldn't get death knights, druids, or shaman. They wouldn't be Light-worshipping paladins, but rather some other sort of mysical warrior like the Sunwalkers. They'd be something like the members of the Protectorate in Netherstorm.

I am way, way in favor of playable ethereals. I've wanted one since I first saw them in Burning Crusade.

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