The Queue: Memorial Day

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.

Today is Memorial Day. If you're an American and you know what it is, great. If you're an American and you don't know what it is, look it up. If you're not an American, you may continue to do whatever it is you do, unless you live in the U.K., in which case I demand you mail me Jaffa Cakes.

No, don't actually do that.

mik3st3r asked:

What is the story behind the dragons in the elemental planes? Most specifically, the stone drakes. Did they simply form from rock, or were they part of one of the dragonflights, and somehow got bound eternally to deepholm?

They're just stone elementals in the shape of a dragon. I think at some point, Blizzard realized that its lore structure for dragons is a bit ... adolescent? One of the first things kids do when they get creative is start color-coding things. I think every writer in the world has gone through a phase where they thought color-coding things was the most brilliant idea ever. Having "black dragons" and "red dragons" as specific species of dragon can work fine, but when you break sentient/sapient creatures down into rigid organizations based on color and make that your canon, it is not only rather childish, it is also extremely limiting. Also a little racist, if you want to put way too much thought into it.

I feel that at some point in World of Warcraft's lifespan, Blizzard realized that yes, those color-based barriers are foolish and they want to do a lot more with the idea of dragons than preestablished lore allowed. They said to hell with it and started making whatever drakes they felt like making. Nether drakes, Twilight drakes, proto-drakes, stone drakes ... the more drakes they add to the game, the less effort they put into trying to tie them to the preestablished dragon lore. I think we're better off that way, too. I like having these independent dragon variations. I like that much better than "My skin is green, therefore ..."

TL;DR: At some point, Blizzard realized dragons aren't the Power Rangers and stopped worrying about that dragonflight thing.

Tim West asked:

What time will the BlizzCon meet-up be? The Benefit Dinner is at 7:30pm – 11:30pm and my $500 requires me to be there.

Before I even start to answer this question I want to make a clarification so people don't start jumping to conclusions: We have not yet finalized plans for our BlizzCon meetup. We are not ready to announce a venue, so anything I say about event scheduling here is tentative at best. The only guarantee is that we will be doing something Thursday evening.

With that out of the way ... historically, our meetups have started between 6 and 8 p.m., and they last until whenever people leave or our venue shuts us down. This time around, we may need to implement a definite time for the end of the party, because we started receiving noise complaints as the clock approached midnight last year. While everybody going to BlizzCon is up partying that night, people visiting Disney and other attractions in that area are not.

Last year, I believe the final party attendees were flushed out around 12 a.m., and we did have a number of people who attended the benefit dinner manage to swing by our party for awhile. However, it looks like Blizzard's benefit dinner is running later this year than it did last year -- last year's ended at 10, not 11:30. You might be out of luck for attending the bulk of the WoW Insider party. However, the staff is all over the place that whole weekend -- if you're looking to meet someone in particular and we have them in California, chances are good we can hook you up with a handshake or a sweaty, sweaty hug at some point.

EidlonImp asked:

I'm going to surprise my baby tomorrow night by stuffing some dates with manchego and wrapping them in Bacon, but all we have in the house is turkey Bacon. That should still be good, right?

Does he/she like turkey bacon? The answer to that question will answer yours. Turkey bacon is very different from regular bacon, so if you don't know whether or not your baby likes it, you should probably take the extra trip for real bacon, if your goal is romance -- unless by "baby" you mean a literal baby and not your significant other, in which case you should probably reconsider feeding a baby stuffed dates.

Palamedes asked:

It seems for the past month or two, 6/7 days of the week the Queue is answering questions on the VP to JP conversion rate. Why is this?

...

Noyou asked:

Happy Memorial day! Brat vs Hamburger for your holiday feast? (no substitutions please) Also, favorite side dish for your outdoor grilling pleasure?

As I am a Polack from Wisconsin, I enjoy nothing more than getting my hands on a warm, juicy sausage and cradling it between two halves of a nice, fluffy bun. I'm a brat man, though I'm certainly not going to turn away a good hamburger if offered.

Also due to being from the Midwest, most of my side dish recommendations come in the form of noodle salads with either mayonnaise or Miracle Whip as a primary ingredient. My girlfriend is from the east coast and finds all such dishes vile, so I assume all of you not from the midwest would feel the same. I'll skip the noodle salads and go to my family's non-creamy side dish fallback:

Sour Cucumber Salad

3 cucumbers
1 onion
1 c. sugar
1 c. white vinegar

Peel and slice the cucumbers and the onion as thick or as thin as you'd like. Throw them in a bowl with everything else. Salt and pepper to taste. Marinate for an hour or two, stirring often. Hooray, you're done! If you want, you can add other vegetables to it -- wedged tomatoes, pepperoncinis, or sport peppers, for example.

Dang, sport peppers are a Midwest thing too, aren't they? All of you just need to relocate to the Milwaukee-Chicago region.

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!