The Queue: A rising tide of blood and iron that will wash over this world... and all others!
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi is already getting his 'Maraad and Yirel kick everyone's asses' fan script written.
Tell me you don't hear Grom belting that out (I am absolutely convinced the cinematic is in Grom's voice) and immediately get pumped up. I get pumped up, and my sympathies are entirely with the draenei. Man, this expansion, it's the Robert E. Howard expansion, guys. Remember how apathetic I was about the farm in Mists? Well, I am totally excited about the garrison concept. It's so ancient D&D to me, I can't even tell you.
When Grom says "Our bond is iron, our will unbreakable... who will stand against us?" it's all I can do not to yell We will in a ridiculously over-excited yawp. I am completely marking out for this expansion, and I don't even care. Let's go to Draenor. I'll drive. Yes, the draenei is driving. No, I'm not going to crash anything. Even if I do, shut up. Onward to Karabor.
Guys, I am seriously on the edge of writing draenei fanfic here. You don't know. Let's answer some Queue questions before I start writing a ten part Maraad story.
grayknights asks:
Reforging: is getting rid of it while also getting rid of hit/expertise overkill?
Not having stats with hard caps that need to be reworked everytime you get something new seems like it would allow Reforging to operate closer to its original intent.
To be honest, when I first hear that reforging was gone, I was a trifle upset. I like reforging. I like dumping all that haste into crit for my fury set. My hope is, they take this opportunity to improve how stats work so that every stat is at least somewhat valuable to as many as possible. With dodge, parry, hit and expertise all gone and reforging gone, we're basically going to be playing the stats Jenga game the way we played it back before Cataclysm, and I remember back in Wrath just flat out not using certain gear because it had the stats you didn't want. If they can improve how stats interact, then hopefully we won't need to reforge. I've decided to be optimistic for now.
Drindaar_Lightkeeper asks:
1. So is there definitely no new race and class for WoD? Is it possible they still may announce this later?
2. To go along with the first question.... Do you think we heard all of the major new features of the next xpack. To me it sounds like mostly quality of life updates more than anything. With the exception of Garrisons
3. Are you afraid of this wait time between 5.4 and 6.0? It seems like its going to be a loooong time of no new content. Didn't blizz learn there lesson from Cata?
1 - Since I don't actually work at Blizzard, all I can say is that I find it highly unlikely we'll get a new race or class since it wasn't announced at BlizzCon. Even when we didn't know what the Alliance race for Burning Crusade would be at the first BlizzCon, it was still announced that there would be one. It's possible one could be announced later, but don't expect it.
2 - Honestly, what new feature do we need at this point? Mists of Pandaria added scenarios, pet battles, flex raiding and all of these features are moving forward in Warlords. What we look to be getting in Warlords of Draenor is content and lots of it - lots of story, lots of quests, new raids, new dungeons, an emphasis on more dungeons after launch, new models, better inventory, vastly updated itemization... tacking on a bunch of stuff that's new just for the sake of it being new would be silly and pointless. Frankly, the Garrison feature, new models, and all that content sound like more than enough for an expansion, especially one with ten levels.
3 - Nope. We just got 5.4. I am not going to worry about that unless we hit June of 2014 and there's no sign of a beta on the horizon.
PatFrank asks:
So what happens to the old Outland zones? Will they remain in place for leveling purposes? Thanks.
Nothing happens to them. Outland is the original timeline's version of Draenor. It remains unchanged. Tom Chilton and Greg Street talked about possibly moving the entrance to Burning Crusade Outland to the Caverns of Time, since by now it's basically several years in the past anyway, being tied to a story that takes place before the 1 to 60 Cataclysm revamp. But we know that Outland will remain unchanged, and you'll still be able to go there.
JesseFontyn asks:
the toy box. BoA or per character?
As of right now, the entire Collections feature (including the Toy Box) is account wide.
suntiger745 asks:
How much of the RTS games do you think they will bring in with the Garrisons?
At present it sounds a lot like a hybrid of the RTS game and the minion systems half a dozen other MMO's have in one fashion or another (Star Wars TOR had a similar system for its companions) with a touch of classic D&D's followers/henchmen thrown in. I'm not sure if we're ever going to see any form of Garrison based RTS player vs. player combat, where we pit our minions against other players - I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to how that would work.
JoshuaAult asks:
I find this past/present stuff a little confusing. So, Garrosh goes back in time, talks to his dad and the rest of the chieftains, convinces them to form a new united Horde without demon influence, and then brings them to the present where Draenor never blew to smithereens and we all go there to do some stuff? How does that explain Gul'Dan and the warlocks if the Legion never took root? Also, why are Bladefist and Killrogg and the rest all evil looking and jacked on some kinda juice?
Oh, questions...
On twitter the other day I used the example of the new Star Trek movies - Nero and Spock end up traveling to the past, make widespread alterations, a new timeline is created. The old timeline is still there - it's the place they left. This is exactly the case for the Draenor we're visiting here. Garrosh and his time buddy travel back and stop Gul'dan from getting the orcs to drink the demon blood, and instead use their knowledge of the future (including advanced technology like the stuff the mogu had and goblin tech) to build the Iron Horde and start a campaign of conquest.
They then build their own version of the Dark Portal and hijack ours, so they can invade our Azeroth because Garrosh is still pissed about the whole 'complete and utter defeat' thing, and so after we fend off their first assault we use their portal to go to Draenor and fight the Iron Horde there, so we don't have to fight them here. It's exactly as if the Next Generation crew had followed Spock back, found out that in the new timeline Vulcan was blown up and Kirk ended up a captain a decade earlier, and then went home to their own universe.
Gul'dan and the warlocks still exist because Garrosh altered things before the drinking of the blood, but Gul'dan broke away to lead the Stormreavers and take up Kil'Jaeden on his demonic power deal, because Gul'dan was the most evil orc who ever lived. The orcs look evil and jacked up because orcs are always jacked up looking, and frankly, at their best they were still brutal savages who enjoy killing things, and they've been given the means to expand their conquests manifold. It's like giving the vikings a bunch of tanks. What do you think they're going to do with them? Hint - they're not going to use them to go to IKEA. Unless they go to IKEA and then blow it the heck up.
Adamdm_ asks:
The new draenei character got me thinking: Is Vanessa VanCleef the only female villain we've seen with a story arc?
Magatha Grimtotem got a story arc. Maiev Shadowsong (kinda on the fence here, but her actions in Wolfheart were pretty villainous and she's an antihero at best) got a story arc. So no, Vanessa isn't the only one to get one.
phillip.edens asks:
So I know That Garrosh goes back 2 years before the drink of Mannoroth's blood and that he is assembling the Iron Horde to attack PRESENT DAY Azeroth. My question which I didn't see answered at BlizzCon is this:
How long is Garrosh in Draenor before bringing the Iron Horde to Azeroth via the red portal? They stated that he spends time first recruiting and teaching and building and all of that, but if it takes the actual 35 years or so then my thoughts are that Grom and co. wouldn't be all that intimidating as old orcs.
First off, Saurfang's an old orc, and he's still plenty intimidating. Even if I do think he should be spending his retirement watching Aggra's baby while she goes on adventures, teaching the kid how to cleave.
Anyway, we don't know for sure how long Garrosh takes to build the Iron Horde and unleash it. Probably not more than a few years at the most - there's enough time passed for them to push the draenei out of Shattrath and lay siege to Karabor, but not so much that characters like Durotan or Grom look noticeably ancient. I'd ballpark it at three to five years, but that's just a guess.
Gavin_Lafferty asks:
Who wants to bet that the Iron Horde breaks through? I mean if their goal is to break through the portal then wouldn't it be a little anti-climactic if we stopped them?
Oh I see it now...the Defense of Stormwind raid. Horde to the rescue! Alliance gets story attention, Horde gets to play a heroic role.
It's feasible. For one thing, it could reward those 100 to 110 heirloom Alliance PvP lookalike weapons.
Honestly, I have no idea what's going to happen with this expansion, and that's one of the reasons I'm enjoying it. Do we kill off the clan leaders? Do we pull a divide and conquer strategy and get them fighting each other? Do we end up stepping back through the Dark Portal and end up on the Azeroth that was created when the Horde never invaded and all of WCI, II and III never happened, and that's the next expansion? I have no idea. And that's what makes it exciting for me.
Okay, there's the Queue. Ah, BlizzCon. It's like a pinata full of World of Warcraft just broke open.
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!
