The Queue: The "my computer blew up and the warranty ain't helping" blues

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 Rossiwill be your host today.

It has been a rough week for me. My computer's power supply blew up on me, and so far the company I bought it from has made going through the warranty process an absolute nightmare. I'm writing this on a borrowed computer right now. So, let us watch Steve Vai defeat Steve Vai in a guitar duel, shall we? (Steve Vai played the evil guitarist, and he played Ralph Maccio's part as well.) Yeah, I like Crossroads. I grew up in the 80's, I was in a band, it was required.

Fizzl asks:

Excluding addons, how often do you think Blizzard "takes" ideas that players pose on sites like WoW Insider, MMO-Champion, etc? Whether it be how a class should be changed, zones people are interested, or whatever else players might suggest.

I ask because a while back (patch 4.3ish) I definitely suggested on WoW Insider that Blizz do an "always nighttime" zone with glowing plants and stuff and here we are, getting one in Warlords. I can't be sure, but I have it on good authority - my gut and hubris - that the new Shadowmoon was taken directly from this one single comment I made.

(Okay, not really, but that's sort of the idea I'm getting at with my original question...)

That depends entirely on what you mean by takes. Do I think they stole your idea? No. Do I think they read all sorts of sites to keep abreast of what the player base is saying? Absolutely they do. I promise you, there are people at Blizzard keeping their fingers on the pulse of the forums, reading the fan sites, on the Scrolls of Lore forums - if there is a place people who play World of Warcraft are discussing the game, Blizzard has someone checking out what's being said. But they also play the game a lot themselves - if an idea has occurred to us, often, it's already occurred to them.

In the case of Shadowmoon Valley, it's not likely they snagged your idea, as cool as that would be for you. Shadowmoon Valley was described way back in Warcraft II.

dustingooden asks:

Speaking of gold sinks, has there been any update about what the reforge mount is going to change to?
I'm so glad I never bought that thing.

I bought it, and I'm glad I did - it's been very useful over the course of this expansion. But it does mean that I am very interested in the answer to this question. Sadly, I can't give you one as there has been no announcement yet on what, if anything, they'll replace the reforger with. Personally, I hope it's a transmog guy. That would be sixteen kinds of awesome. No, I don't literally have sixteen kinds of awesome to list off at the moment. Here, have a video of Christoper Walken dancing over at the Huffington Post. That should cover four or five kinds.

preaplanes asks:

QFTQ: If you preorder Warlords of Draenor, do you still get a (second) L90 boost when it releases, does it just give you your boost early, or did they change it so you have to preorder to get the free boost?

You get one free level 90 boost when you buy Warlords of Draenor. Pre-ordering the game counts as buying it for the purpose of that one free level 90 boost. You will not get a second boost when the game releases if you pre-order, nor do you have to pre-order to get your free boost. One purchase, one free boost.

jdpatrick.gamer asks:

Real Q for the Q: What are the chances that we will have flying allowed on the Timeless Isle before WoD - or when the expansion launches?

Slim to none. I would say no chance at all. They designed L'isle sans Tim to be without flying, it's how they want you to experience it, you're not going to see flight implemented on it. Frankly, I suspect they wish they'd never allowed flying in Azeroth at all - I generally see the way players use flight to completely bypass much of the game world as a big problem for WoW. There's a good reason we're not getting flight until later in Warlords.

A Lot Of You asked:

What features are we getting with Warlords?

Besides Garrisons, new raids, new dungeons (we have no ideas how many dungeons we're getting - there has been no announcement that's said 'these are the new dungeons we're getting, and that's all the new dungeons we're getting'), a new PvP world zone, new scenarios, 10 levels of questing/leveling content, redesigned questing with random epic loot, world events that reward exploration, and new character models, you mean? I don't know yet.

See, here's the thing - it hasn't come out yet. Most of what we've been told about it is stuff like the item squish and the healing/health redesign - remember back a while ago when we got the 'managing expectations' post from Bashiok?

And yet, we actually know there's a ton of gameplay coming. I just listed a boatload of it (Garrisons by themselves have a minion management minigame, professions, the player housing angle we've wanted for years, means to display pets and other achievements) and we're dismissing it because while it is all new content, it's not a new kind of content. And I find that short sighted and weird, frankly. All The Burning Crusade offered for new kinds of content was two new races and the ability for each faction to get the other faction's formerly unique class, and arenas. Wrath didn't even offer that - just a new class, everything else it offered was more of the kinds of content we already had. Heck, Wrath reused Naxxramas, it wasn't even a new raid.

I say this out of love, guys - we all need to chill out on this drumbeat of 'this expansion isn't offering anything new' because it's missing the boat. I don't need them to invent some new mode of PvP (coming in Warlords of Draenor - Transmog Battles! Now your outfits can fight each other! Level up your ensemble to make sure it's ready for the Catwalk Arena!) so much as I'd like them to make good PvP. I don't need a new kind of PvE content, or a whole new color of gear, or the ability for me and four other players to form Voltron (although that would be cool), I just want them to make good content. That's enough.

Raynstormm asks:

QftQ: How excited are you that a new dinosaur was discovered, and they named it after the Raven God, Anzu?

Someone remembered I was up to bat today, I see. I'm always excited for new dinosaurs, of course, but this dinosaur (Anzu wylie) is actually named for Imdugud, or Anzû, the Mesopotamian deity. Our own Raven Lord also owes his moniker to said god.

And that's the Queue for Friday. I'm going to go back to staring forlornly at my broken computer and wishing I'd never gotten that stupid warranty in the first place. Next PC, I'm just sticking it together myself - less hassle in the long run, it seems.

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!