The Queue: The final salvo in dogs versus cats

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

Yesterday's Queue was interrupted by the obvious BlizzCon excitement. And who wouldn't be excited at such grand news?

But with today being the last day of the week, I have to provide a final answer to Mr. Rossi. He rightfully pointed out the elite healing skills of his kittens. That's pretty impressive. I found that to be quite a challenge, and couldn't leave it without a riposte.

So last night, I slapped some peanut butter over my action keys, and let Sylvanas pilot my Ret Paladin. While she's absolutely horrible at not standing in fire (and thus probably won't raid much), she was able to score about 5k DPS. I don't think that counts as successful, though. I don't think there's a future in WoW for my puppy. At least she fetches real well.

Prinnygod asked . . .

Will any of you WoW.com people be participating in Earth Hour?

Well, some of us will be, while others won't. I like the general intent of the Earth Hour gesture, but others of us work in an environment where you can't turn the lights off for safety reasons. Your intrepid WoW.com crew is international and across a dozen time zones; with that kind of round-the-world coverage, it's a little more diverse from that.

If it helps, though, I actually keep all the electricty off around my home that I possibly can, at all times. Momma Gray raised me right, that way.

Galestrom asked . . .

So, you guys seem to have an intrinsic ability to see things from all sides. Can you tell us your thoughts as to why we can't kick anyone from a random dungeon group for 15 minutes? I can't see the logic here, as failure doesn't typically take 15 minutes to identify.

Okay, note that this is Mike Gray's Opinion, not the WoW.com Staff's Opinion as a whole.

It's pretty easy nowadays to blow through most of the Heroics in twenty to thirty minutes. So, no, it doesn't take much time to identify someone who's behind the general curve of your group.

But those instances, and the Dungeon Finder, isn't just for people who are in a lot of Frost Emblem gear, or Icecrown Citadel gear. It's also for folks who are just getting started at level 80. And if a group who's already maxed out their ICC kit sees someone in blues and maybe one-or-two epics, it might be real tempting just to boot that person.

Waiting the 15 minutes means you've darn near cleared the place by the time that temptation can become a reality, and at that point: hopefully the person will have proven themselves a little better. Now, if the person loves to stand in fire, that's one thing. But in the meantime, a 15 minute delay means you can't just boot them for a low GearScore.

Stieinberg asked . . .

Do you think WoW will ever get back to a time where people actually enjoy running heroics and actually do the content instead of skipping past mobs and bosses?

Well, people will always goes for the path of least resistance directly toward gear improvements. In a sense, MMORPGs are kind of about watching numbers get bigger and bigger. So, if there's a more direct route towards higher numbers, most people will take that route.

That being said, these things tend to be a little cyclical. We've been running these Heroics since November 13th, 2008. So, after 16 months of these instances, people are a little burned out on running the same thing over and over.

Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW.com 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!