The Queue: The Age of Fire and Gravel
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. I am Matthew Rossi, and I will answer your questions. Lo, they shall be answered though the armies of Delkarnizein bar the way.
Ignatius Donnelly wrote both Atlantis, the Antediluvian World and Ragnarok, the Age of Fire and Gravel. He was a proponent of woman's suffrage and a passionate populist politician, serving in the United States Congress and as lieutenant governor of Minnesota. He wrote books speculating on the future (to him, anyway) and who really wrote Shakespeare's plays. He was a fascinating, inquisitive, and slightly cracked mind. He's one of my favorite people and a personal hero and inspiration. And yes, a lot of what he wrote was wrong at best and completely deranged at worst, but that's why I like him. He also came up with some awesome names for The Queue when you end up writing it.
Why do I bring this up? Because I don't watch TV.
MikeLive asked:
What? Zandalari will be in Pandaria? When did this come about?
Well, Mike, as several of our commenters answered you yesterday, it does appear that there will be some kind of Zandalar presence in Mists. As you can see on the map accompanying this page, there's a place named Zandalari Isle at the top of the Pandaria map from BlizzCon 2011. Whether that is the actual home of the Zandalar tribe or just a territory they're staking out in Pandaria is yet to be seen.
Nicoro asked:
So, with the the new areas a No fly zone. is there a likely event that there will be Better Training for Ground mounts?
At present, no such announcement has been made. I expect there will be something like Cold Weather Flying available at level 90 once we've gone through the various Pandaria zones on foot, much the same as we did the first time we leveled through most of Northrend. I doubt highly Blizzard will make a faster ground mount speed, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility.
Revynn asked:
Should I be worried about the future of raid design now that the Raid Finder has been implemented?
You're always welcome to worry about raid design or anything else you like, but having done Raid Finder, normal 25 and heroic 25 in Dragon Soul now, I think I can safely say that raid design itself is not something Blizzard seems to skimp on now. I do agree that it does seem likely it'll keep the paradigm of two tanks, six healers and 17 DPSers for RF groups, but already in normal/heroic mode, you see pretty sophisticated mechanics on fights and people doing things well beyond the complexity of the RF version.
Now, I saw in the thread that developed from Revynn's original question some discussion of 10-man difficulty. Frankly, I'm biased and find 10-man easier than 25-man, so I don't think I can address your statement properly. Since you're at around where I am in progression (except on 10s, whereas I'm on 25s), I can only say that I find 25s to be suitably difficult. Perhaps the issue is that RF will limit how much 10-man design can really innovate? It's much easier to scale up from RF 25s to normal/heroic 25s, but then trying to also do normal/heroic 10s might be too many variables and 10s will suffer for it. I really couldn't say. It's definitely worth watching for, however.
You95 asked:
If you had to choose one thing that Blizzard could never ever remove from WoW (whether it be a zone, class, concept, etc.) what would it be?
Warriors.
pdusen asked:
What ever happened to WoW Archivist?
Alex Ziebart, the man mostly responsible for the feature, is now our editor-in-chief. As a result, he's ludicrously busy and thus, the column is somewhat on the back burner.
No one at all asked:
Why are you so handsome?
I read a lot of weird books. I also wrote one, if you'd like to buy a copy. (Well, I wrote it whether or not you want to buy a copy, really.) Ask me some time about Charles Fort and the super-Sargasso in the sky.
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!ADAM
