The Queue: Alternate Azeroth, beta invites, and dirty casuals wanting to play WoW again

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.

Now before everyone gets up in arms. Who's the dirty casual?

I'm the dirty casual.

Darthwarcraft asked:

Q4tq: Do you think Blizzard will bring back the humans from timeline 2?

For example: if the iron horde threat was too big, Khadgar would summon Aegwynn, Llane, Uther, Lothar, Proudmoore (they would all be alive because there were no orcs) so they help us fight them?

It's possible that they will in a future expansion, it depends on how much of a love fest Blizzard is going to have with time travel*. We won't see it in this expansion, however. Blizzard has already said that they're not going to do the whole alternative Azeroth thing in WoD.

*I blame Doctor Who for all this time travel stuff. If the doctor didn't exist, then this wouldn't happen. Go Daleks.

Prady asked:

what happened to the beta invites that were supposed to be sent to any one who loged in on the cinematic release event?

I've heard this a lot from people lately, and it's one helluva rumor that's been spreading around. It's completely false. Blizzard never said everyone who watches the cinematic live stream gets a beta invite.

Jacob asked:

how's blizzard coming on their time vortex that allows the proper time to play WoW to the level that I think is fun (which, in retrospect, was all about making a bond with people and not the game itself) while still allowing time to enjoy life outside of work?

Again with the time, and another reason to blame The Doctor. I sure do hope that someone does something about him sometime soon. Pew pew.

Anyways, you have a valid point. A bit of background, Jacob and I played WoW together during our heyday in Burning Crusade, back when we were in a Top 100 guild (we're both very much dirty casuals now). We had a lot of fun with the guilds we were in, and enjoyed the challenge the game presented to us, both from a gameplay standpoint and a personal standpoint. Since that time we've both gone on to marry, get bigger and better jobs (in my case, about WoW), and generally don't have the time to dedicate 40-hours a week to raiding.

For Jacob to have fun at the level he wants, and his criteria isn't uncommon at all, he needs to be a perfectionist in-game. Every stat must be maxed, every gear must be perfect, and every strategy must be ideal. He, and I, are not obsessed about finding the perfect players -- so I don't include that criterion in the list about -- but we do want to play with people that are like minded.

For a long time Blizzard didn't give people like him and I a path to success in the game. Now, we do have LFR and scenarios, and we do have more accessible PvP content. However, there is a big difference between playing with someone in LFR and playing with someone in Vent/Mumble in a normal or heroic raid. There's a huge difference. One you're basically face planting, the other you're at least dancing the two-step.

So Jacob's question, asked partially in jest when I told him I was writing this edition of The Queue, is when is this going to change? When is Blizzard going to allow the "professional casual" a home? He's been unsubscribed for a bit, and I've been mainly raiding LFR and bumming around with quests and pet battles.

I feel pretty confident that Blizzard has made the change in Warlords with the introduction of another difficulty tier of raiding. It's going to allow the super hard core folks an outlet, while allowing people like us, who don't like normal modes because they're too easy, but also don't like hard mode raiding because of the mindset of the players (for the most part, I'm generalizing for myself alone), am avenue for fun. The raiders will naturally shift among the tiers over time, and towards the middle of the expansion, the new "hard mode" raiding should be a nice place for people like him and I, while avoiding the dramatics of mythic.

Is this enough to get my friend back playing WoW? I'm not sure. It might be! I also hope to be starting up an online D&D group with him sometime soon, and I have a feeling he might get his geek fix via that, preventing WoW from entering the picture.

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!