The Queue: PTR day is a fun 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. Mat McCurley will be your host today.

Since my job is working for WoW Insider, today is what we call a busy work day. Why? Well, friends, the PTR is up and patch 4.3 is live thereon. I'll be running dungeons, filming movies, and taking questions all day about the new content. This is what we call fun.

I'm working my hardest and fastest to get videos of the new instances up and ready for your viewing pleasure. Damn you, upload speeds.

Badmedecine asked:

When do you think the other T13's will be revealed?

Very soon. Datamining of the new patch files on the PTR has revealed most of the new sets, so Blizzard will want to get its own official previews up in the near future. Expect them soon.

jtrack3d asked:

Blizzard obviously has some kind of plan for getting people to content because content is much what you hear whined about in the forums. And people forget gear IS included in that content... this game is about gear, duh.

I'd be curious to see just how many actual people (not toons), but bodies complete tier content vs. the number of players that try the content... not all players because some never try.

That is, how many people even completed Tier 11 before it was nerfed. Tier 12? It might be enlightening just to see how elitist the elitist really are or it might tell us what Blizz's design philosophy is regarding how hard they make content.

Here's the dirty little secret: A majority of people do not raid. Raiding requires a time investment and logistical elements that many people just don't have the patience, time, or energy for when they sit down to play their video game. It's not WoW's fault, our fault, or anyone's fault. It is just the nature of endgame raiding as it stands right now. Raiding is expected in MMOs because that's how it's been done since time immemorial (1999). So, Blizzard has raiding content.

The trouble comes when you have to justify the cost and expenditures of creating content for a small portion of your user base that is, ultimately, much more expensive to put out than they would like. You want as many people in the category of player who get to see this content because, from a cost analysis point of view, you want people to see the content and have it available to them. When Mike Morhaime said that people used up all of their available content in Cataclysm too quickly, he meant that casual players who do quests and level to 85 were done in a few weeks and had nothing else accessible to them because that's not the type of players they are.

With the Raid Finder and more accessible raids and heroic dungeons, these players have a better chance at crossing the bridge to this new type of content. I appreciate that. New players getting into the raid game will appreciate that.

Kaahn Stewart asked:

Most (a large portion, in fact) of the Art Gallery updates for World of Warcraft have been Burning Crusade related. Are they just going in order, or are they hinting at what the next expansion may be about?

I honestly believe they just sort of found a bunch of high-res Burning Crusade images and were more than happy to start adding them to the galleries. These are just constant gallery updates that get the bonus effect of being a fun news item to put on the community blog. Isn't the art from The Burning Crusade amazing?

Shinae said:

I haven't seen any mention about the Keg-Shaped Treasure Chests starting to contain ~15 Brewfest Prize Tokens as of yesterday, so I'm just throwing it out there.

I am really excited about this, not because I care much about tokens, but the There is no loot message is demoralizing and dumb. There should always be something in your loot box. Maybe it's not what you wanted, but at least it was something physical and not just points.

mikesaunch asked:

So all these new dungeons and the Deathwing fight as well all seem to be in Dragonblight. Do you think Blizzard knew they were going to do this and set it up as such when they were making WotLK?

I would guess that Blizzard had an idea, especially because the books had to be written and the storylines had to be sorted out. Christie Golden's Twilight of the Aspects, for a long arc in the book, takes place at the Wyrmrest Temple and Dragonblight, so it's probably all planned out, for the most part.

After having just run End Time for the first time, it works. Being set in the Dragonblight really, really works.

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!