Hey guys, I just got in from EarthCon, which let me tell you was a blast. They announced the next expansion, where they’re adding a new continent to the game, although there was a lot of nerdraging over it. Turns out the new continent had been mentioned in the game before, but just as a running joke, so now some people are like, “Seriously? They’re actually going to do a whole expansion about Australians?”

I can’t say I totally disagree with them, to be honest. I mean I love this game, but they showed some concept art for some of the new mobs there, one creature called a Platypus and one called a Wombat, and really, dude, they’re not even fucking trying anymore. There was also one called a Kangaroo, and if nothing else I guess now we know what that murloc must have fucked to spawn the first gorloc. So good job there I guess.

Anyway, I’m pretty wiped out so I’m just going to do a couple quick letters this week.

Dear Warchief,

You told my wife that “Hellscream’s eyes were upon her” and now she won’t…you know…with me. Could you please tell her that you meant it metaphorically? Thanks.

–Very Frustrated

Meta what? Oh wait, you mean metamorphosis? Because no, here’s the thing, yeah, the warlock I have assigned to your wife is demonology, but he doesn’t actually have to go into demon form to use his Eye of Kilrogg. So I think you might be going for overkill there.

Still, sorry your wife is holding out on you these days. Especially what with that thing she does with her tongue.

Hey mon,

Horde > Twilight’s Hammer! Remember the Wrathgate!

–Bob, Echo Isles

Dude, seriously, you picked the wrong guy to try to slip a Wrathgate reference past. You know I was actually in COMMAND up in Northrend for like a year, right? And hate to break it to you, but we weren’t fighting the Twilight’s Hammer at the Wrathgate. There were no Twilight’s Hammer anywhere NEARBY. It was all Scourge and Alliance and that nutjob undead Putress group that tried to overthrow Sylvanas.

Look, I’m all for talking smack (by the by, fuck you, Varian), but if you’re going to trash talk over major events would it KILL you to do your fucking homework?

Hi Warchief,

I was just questing in the Barrens and something occurred to me. Right now after years of adventuring I’m powerful enough that the enemies in the Barrens aren’t much of a threat, so I tear through them fast. But that got me wondering, since the Horde obviously has lots of very powerful warriors, why don’t you just send some of them to the lower level zones to handle the problems there? The quest givers in those areas act like the enemies are posing a threat but your garden variety soldier in Twilight Highlands could take them all on at once no problem.

–Malkar, Orgrimmar

First of all, nice job with the cool little AA internal rhyme scheme with your signature there, Malkar.

As for your question…I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I didn’t even know about this myself until I became Warchief, although once I did find out, it made all kinds of sense.

Like you said, Malkar, if you’ve spent any time at all traveling around Horde territories, you’ve noticed that everywhere you go, it seems like there are Horde agents looking for help with all sorts of odds and ends. Sometimes they need enemies slain. Sometimes there’s an animal population that needs to be thinned out. Sometimes there are supplies or resources to be gathered up. Sometimes there’s a delivery that needs to be made. And so on. And so there’s always a demand for helpful citizens to step up and get the job done.

But…these odds jobs really don’t make a whole lot of sense. Because you’re right, the baddies you’re getting called upon to fight really aren’t anything that couldn’t be handled easily enough by anyone who’s ever set foot in Northrend. Or hey, let’s forget about the fighting, even. That delivery you were just asked to make? The package from Desolace that needed to be dropped off in Feralas? Well…you know they DO have MAIL DELIVERY in Feralas, right? Hold on, let me double check.

Yep. Look at that. They have mail delivery. Oh wait, let’s be totally sure, do they have mailboxes in Desolace?

Well I’ll be damned, they do. Which begs the question, WHY CAN’T THEY DROP THEIR DAMN PACKAGE IN THE FUCKING MAILBOX THAT’S TEN FUCKING FEET AWAY FROM THEM?

Erm, okay, I shouldn’t let that get me yelling since I already know the answer.

Here’s the thing. If you go to a lot of Horde territories, you’ll find the place practically swarming with bunches of wannabe adventurers looking for ways to help. And don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the thought, but like…they’re not very good. Half the time they don’t know where they’re going even when they have a fucking map right in their pocket, and they don’t even know how to use the abilities they were just trained in an hour ago, and holy shit they die easy. Like for instance, I know from Dark Cleric Cecille that a lot of aspiring Forsaken adventurers grew up in total dread of this one Son of Arugal who used to wander around in Silverpine Forest. He’d lay waste to them. People would yell out warnings like “OMG SON OF ARUGAL RUN!!” and need to round up two or three friends to even try to take him out. A Son of fucking Arugal. Do you know how easy it is to kill a Son of Arugal? Every time I sneeze, I kill three of them, and I’m not even on the same fucking continent. And these nubs are dying to one by the bushel.

And yet, these scrubs are hell-bent on helping the cause. And they’re like ants. There’s hundreds of them, everywhere, and no matter what you do, you can’t get rid of them. And yet they’re running around trying to help, and biting off more than they can chew, and then we have to send people to go rescue them or at least collect their remains, or even if they don’t go get themselves in trouble they’re just hanging around distracting our more experienced soldiers from more important matters.

So way before I even showed up here, the higher-ups in the Horde worked out a way to deal with this. They assigned people to all the Horde zones whose job was…basically…to come up with ways to keep these noobs busy. Anything to keep them occupied. Go kill some boars. Deliver this package to the next town over. See those shiny rocks just outside of town? Go gather up about fifty for me. See this guy standing right next to me? Talk to him. Tell him I said hi. Let him know I sent you. He’ll never see it coming.

Just play it up and make it sound important, they’ll feel like they’re contributing, they’ll stay out of trouble, and we’ll be fine. And meanwhile we can maybe get a few odd jobs taken care of while we’re at it. And maybe, every once in a while, we’ll uncover a diamond in the rough who’s actually up to the task for some missions we really need done.

That’s it for now. As always, send your letters and questions to garrosh1337@gmail.com. See you guys soon, I’m gonna crash.