New Death Knights?

All right, quick politics aside: I'll say that I'm extremely disappointed in Blizzard for banning Blitzchung and both disappointed and baffled that they apparently banned the people interviewing him. I'm hoping that this ban is rescinded, though I don't know how likely that is to happen.

The result is that, as a fan of Blizzard's games for over a decade, I'm hurt that this company, which for so long has prided itself on being basically a studio made up of the sort of nerds who want to play their games, is sacrificing its values to avoid offending an authoritarian regime that, like most authoritarians, is too thin-skinned to weather any sort of criticism, and instead lashes out at dissenting speech.

If you think the proper action is to boycott Blizzard games, I understand and respect that position. Clearly a lot of powerful American companies have compromised their ethics in order to do business in China (and other places) and it's very difficult to avoid any of those businesses given the vast complexity of this global economy. Whether that means we just have to sigh and deal with the ethical problems that leaves us with or vigilantly cut off any company that acts unethically is something I think each individual has to decide for themselves.

For now, I'm going to continue covering Blizzard games that mean something to me, hoping that we'll see some change in their position regarding this recent debacle. I think that if they don't want the upcoming Blizzcon to be a PR disaster, they should do whatever they can to appease an angry fanbase before it comes, though I think a great deal of the damage is already done.

In the meantime, let's talk about one of the curious details discovered in 8.3's PTR:

It seems that there are new Death Knight skins for several Allied Races, as well as new encrypted voice lines from Darion Mograine and the Lich King.

While Goblins and Worgen were allowed to become Death Knights in Cataclysm, no new race since then has had that as a class option. And to a large extent, that makes logical sense. The starting experience for Death Knights takes place in a very specific time - after Arthas first stepped off of the Frozen Throne but before he was killed and replaced with Bolvar, which all took place during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. While Worgen and Goblins both existed in the world prior to Wrath (though at least with Worgen they had to come up with a bit of an excuse to have them not be feral) there are some races, like the Void Elves, that did not even exist prior to Arthas' demise. And races like the Nightborne or the Lightforged Draenei would have had no contact with Scourge-controlled parts of Azeroth at that time.

Given that those latter two are specifically found among these textures (which look horrific as all racial textures do, given that they're totally flattened out) one wonders what this could mean for future Death Knights.

Obviously, in Legion the Ebon Blade was both actively recruiting and forged an alliance with the Lich King. In fact, a lot of people have pointed out that that alliance starts to look more and more like reabsorption into the Scourge by the end of the Death Knight class hall campaign, albeit a Scourge that one can deal with at least a little.

Given the many hints at some sort of Shadowlands expansion coming in 9.0 (yes, the siege of Stormwind raid never happened, but given that we're fighting N'zoth now, I think Sylvanas could easily lead us into the realm of shadow next, especially with all the death magic stuff happening in BFA,) it seems highly possible that we could see a more prominent role for Bolvar and all things undead. While I'm still kinda sorta crossing my fingers for a Necromancer class (thinking ranged caster and healer,) we could also see an expansion of options for Death Knights.

We are, of course, still getting news about 8.3, but with Blizzcon coming in only a couple weeks, I'm also really curious to see what we'll be getting next.