The Queue: WoD being late, undead, fun with portals, ignore

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Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) will be your host today.

You know one of the things that bug me about WoW? Is how low resolution the grass, flowers, and trees are. I don't know why it bugs me so much, but it does.

Smartz asked:

Will Blizzard ever come out and say why WoD came out so late? I definitely don't think they'd talk about it before WoD launches, but I could see them talking about it afterwards.

It's hard to say that WoD will be launching late at time point -- Blizzard still could pull off a launch when the community expects it.

The perception that it is late is an interesting one. A lot of it comes from "rumblings" that people have heard about the release date and the expected appearance of the alpha/beta. Many, including us, were under the impression for various good reasons that we were going to see the alpha in January/February -- not April. Does that make the entire expansion late? No, but it also doesn't bode well for it being on time.

Now Blizzard's response to this is that something can't be late if they've never announced a release date, etc. etc... And they're right, technically. But as with most things in life, the perception is what counts; and the perception here is that WoD is behind schedule and we're going to go a year with current patch content. Blizzard needs to do something to counter this perception, lest they start to see real negative consequences.

Will they do things to calm the tide of negativity surrounding WoD? My guess is that there'll be more information released in big dumps and more things about the beta soon, but other than that, I have a feeling this perception being looked at as just the community being grumpy and hungry for more details. In this author's humble opinion, the best thing for Blizzard to do would be to come out and just say "Yep, it's late, and here's why: we didn't want it to suck."

That would change the perception and community reaction immediately, and go a very long way.

Zanzibuster asked:

Since I am an avid fan of the Forsaken, I get to wondering will the Forsaken Undead ever feature prominently? We have a leader who is technically an elf, guards who are abominations/orcs, and hardly any other prominent heroes that don't end up getting killed off (at least not to my memory). Are we ever going to get decent representation, or hopefully control over our own city?

I think the Forsaken have been featured quite a bit in previous expansions. Wrath of the Lich King has them center stage, and their starting area has the best story out of any race, I think. The Forsaken also control the Undercity, although there's some occupancy of other races there due to your leader's insolence towards the Horde.

Now is the Forsaken story dead (no pun intended)? No, Blizzard has said as much. But it's just taken a back seat for a bit. I fully expect Sylie to come out swinging again sometime soonish.

P/S: Pun intended.

Hexabolt asked:

It seems that the entrance to past Draenor will not be in the Cavern of Time. Since all time disturbances that I know are located there, would it not make sense to put the portal there too? I realize it might not be practical, but the BC portal was not ideally located either.

It doesn't make sense if the Dark Portal becomes corrupted and points back towards the altered past where Garrosh is making his jump to. That portal should exist where it does in the Eastern Kingdoms. I'm looking forward to another mess of people camping out by the portal right before WoD releases.

Zapwidget asked:

Why don't scenarios have portals? They all take place in a place somewhere in the world, so why don't they place a door on arch or a gate in the area so that players who are so inclined can do them either solo or in a duet without using the queue system?

Some scenarios you can queue up for with NPCs. Otherwise the scenarios mostly take place locations on the world map, so it's like you're just in a phased environment at a moment in time. That doesn't make a lot of sense to have a portal like you do with traditional "dungeons". Truth be told I think the portal concept is old and needs to go away. The transition to an instanced zone can be done without removing people from the environment and having a big swirling Doctor-Who-Skull-Portal there transport you out of the game setting.

Brad asked:

Is there a way to ignore other people in the comments on LifeFyre? Some of the "I'm always right and Blizz is always wrong" folks are just grating on my nerves lately and really dragging me down, especially when they're badmouthing WoD without having played it yet. Several have even admitted to getting a refund for their pre-order yet blather on and on about what they hate about WoD, ad nauseum, despite the fact that they have no intention of playing it. Is there any way to filter out the negativity?

There isn't that I'm aware of. Maybe someone else knows?

I also wouldn't put too much stock into what the vocal minority is saying right now about Blizzard. People are very passionate about this game on one side or another, and each appears to be going after each other with renewed vigor right now.

Let's all just go play with portals and have some fun. Maybe kill a few internet dragons too.

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!