The Queue: I hate the human man

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

There's a reason none of my human characters ever takes their helmets off. Because human men are the worst faces in World of Warcraft. Yes, worse than those orc female and troll female faces, you know, the ones no one picks. The difference is, there's no good human male face. Not one.

Arkainjel001 asks:
Q4tQ: I was working on a Warcraft timeline of pivotal moments and came to a sort of roadblock. With all the races working together against the Burning Legion/Scourge, after the Third War there was peace...for about 4 years. Then World of Warcraft starts with a divide in the factions Alliance and Horde. I realize things were still pretty tense and it was an uneasy truce, but what event or events occurred that disturbed the peace entirely and pit them against each other?

The events of Reign of Chaos saw the Horde under attack by human forces led by Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, from his daughter Jaina's city of Theramore. This ended when the Horde raided Theramore and killed Admiral Proudmoore. Then, if you check our chronological guide to the Warcraft setting maintained by Anne Stickney, you'll see the novel Cycle of Hatred is set one year before the events of vanilla World of Warcraft and covers a lot of what happens to make things worse.

Devin asks:
If you could be any class IRL, which would you choose?

I would be a warrior. Because only a warrior could survive all the stuff I mentioned in here. Or, conversely, would be dumb enough to let all the stuff I mentioned in there happen.

jpec07 asks:
Assuming you had free reign over the legendary questline, what would you change?

The PvP requirement. I get why it's there. I don't care. I don't like it. I'm not going to get any of my alts that cape because I absolutely refuse to do PvP content to get a PvE item. If I have to do PvP to get the cape, then the cap shouldn't be downscaled in PvP.

plviana asks:
QFTQ: Playing other MMOs with warring factions and seeing how interactions between players of said factions develop communication-wise, after 10 years do you think the inability to communicate with/understand the opposite faction is still relevant and justifiable in WoW?

I mean, I understand the reason it was put in place, but back then we were all teens prone to name-calling each other but now (and I'm making an assumption here so I could be wrong) most of us WoW fans are in our 30s+, some married with children! Does it still make sense to not allow inter-factional communication? I know it works in other games so is it still too far-fetched to think it wouldn't in WoW?

With that said, do you think someday Blizzard will ever drop this language barrier if enough ppl ask for it?

I just got done writing that I didn't even know if factions were relevant in WoW, so I'm probably already on the side of letting people talk to each other. Let me first state that I don't think WoW's fanbase having aged actually means we're better about trash talking each other. Plenty of people with children behave worse than those children when they play games or are out in public. I'm not sure at all about this idea that we get better behavior based on age. I also think it's kind of irrelevant - I see a lot of younger people in my WoW playing experience.

Ultimately, not allowing cross-factional communication is aimed at keeping us from cooperating, and forcing things to remain at a remove. It's intended to make the faction choice itself a relevant one, since you can't even talk to those people (and yes, it was rooted in player trash talk). Would it be a positive change to allow Horde and Alliance to talk? I personally think it would. But I can understand why Blizzard may not run to do it.

MTA asks:
If you were to be given a question along the lines of "Who in the Horde's past was evil and who is currently evil in the present", you would get name after name thrown at you.

However if you were to ask the same question for the Alliance, who would you go for, both past and current?

Garithos. Sucker wasn't just evil, he was so racist that he caused problems that well outlasted his death. A minor military functionary before the fall of Lordaeron, he absolutely ruined human/blood elf relations forever.

Pretty much every member of the House of Nobles in Stormwind that blocked Varian's attempt to pay the masons. Sure, there was a dragon there, but they were just acting out of greed.

Maiev Shadowsong. I'm not saying I'm happy about it, but her actions in the Wolfheart novel are just plain evil. Maiev as a murderer just is such a waste of a good character.

Major Kurzen.

There's more, but those are some I would list off the top of my head.

See y'all Friday.

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!