The Queue: The last Friday, the last weekend, the last kiss

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Michael Gray will be your host today.

This is it. The last Friday before the last weekend for our last kiss in Wrath of the Lich King. This is when we have our last hurrah, when we run down the bucket list to make sure we've done everything we can to prepare for the Cataclysm.

If you're not sure what to expect next week, check out our guide to the Cataclysm expansion. There's a lot going on right now, so let's get into the heart of it.

Andostre asked:

Concerning the new Eastern Kingdoms loading screen: Is that dwarf Muradin or Magni? How can you tell?

Just like Ametrine answered, it seems to be Magni, judging by the armor he's wearing. While this depiction isn't exactly how Magni exists right now, it's still a pretty awesome picture of the dwarven Han Solo.

Eli asked:

Why aren't people still running Naxxramas as Cataclysm is approaching in the same way people ran Karazhan often in The Burning Crusade's final death throes?

In BC, there was only one tier of emblems. That meant you could buy the contemporary gear with Karazhan emblems. While that's true for the current situation also, Naxxramas is kind of a long instance; you could just grind 5-man groups instead. That option didn't exist in The Burning Crusade. Additionally, as we've discussed a bunch of times, there's just something about Karazhan that make people love it.

Pfooti asked:

Have there been a lot of deathless-to-80 stories since the first one? Or is this still a relatively rare event?

Getting to level 80 without dying is still very, very rare. After all, the entire game of WoW makes death a relatively painless event. The whole system is built to let you die without it meaning the end of the world. That means death is cheap, which means that death comes cheap. There are a billion things that can lead to your death. Getting to 80 without a single character death? That's a big deal.

Langston asked:

I am not part of a guild and I always wonder what a guild does.

The guild is the fundamental social building block of playing WoW. If you play with a handful of friends and associates, you can join together as a guild. This lets you share a group name, a tabard, guild bank, and in Cataclysm, a handful of perks only available to guilds.

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!