The Queue: It's been a long time since we faced Jaraxxus

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

Still the best Mr. Voletron song. Link Thorim all you want -- you know I'm right.

MattressWX asked:

Do you think Blizzard will ever get rid of the requirement of being in a raid group in order to enter a raid instance? It would be nice to solo old content without having to ask someone to group with you just to get in the door.

No only do I hope that Blizzard gets rid of the requirement for raid groups, especially for old raids that we can solo, but I hope that Blizzard gets rid of some of the heroic lockouts for doing Burning Crusade and Wrath content more than once a day. Farming for certain transmog weapons and specific pieces is a pain in the butt when you've got one shot at the boss a day.

As for raids that require no raid group, I believe Molten Core is still bugged and will allow you to enter and run rampant. Just talk to Lothos Moltencoreelf whatever-his-name (that's what I always called him), and you'll be transported in, raid group or not. This is just a bug or an oversight, but it totally still works, so there's one.

I understand why we still have the lockouts and the specific chances for items and loot, and even the grouping for raids -- mostly a security thing, I would imagine. However, transmog changed the game, and for the better. For the sake of easier transmog, I wouldn't hate it if old heroics got their restrictions removed.

matthew.d asked:

So how do new Pandaren work into the game? Do they start in Pandaria in a special zone just for levels 1-10/20 and get introduced into Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms, are they in Pandaria but just phased so everything is a lower level, or do they start on some other island that you never return to like we saw in the Goblin starting zone?

All new pandaren begin on the back of a massive half-turtle, half-island creature named Shen-zu Sin, no matter which class you choose. After 10 levels in this new player zone -- which is a wonderful experience, I might add -- your pandaren has the difficult (or, let's be honest, easy, in most of our cases) choice of choosing the Alliance or Horde.

Once you choose your faction, your pandaren leaves the safety of Shen-zu and heads off to the world to experience adventure, enjoyment, and exploration. After arriving at your new capital city, you're given a speech and a trial to complete by your new faction leader, Garrosh or Varian, depending. It's a great 1-to-10 leveling experience that will most likely be the norm from here on out -- give a neutral starting area to the race, and then have them choose which faction to follow. If it's super successful with pandaren, you'll see more neutral races crop up.

Natasha asked:

Do you think Mists will be taking away any old raids? And if so, which ones? WotLK took Naxx and Ony, Cata took ZA and ZG, so will Mists be taking a WoTLK one?

While the ZA and ZG revamps were pretty cool the first few times through, we had those two pieces of content for way too long in terms of the only thing out there. That fact, combined with mixed player reaction and a somewhat skewed rallying cry of "reused old content" might have put a sour taste in Blizzard's mouth about doing this type of thing again.

Wrath borrowed Naxxramas from vanilla WoW because nobody had been there. The number of players who saw Naxxramas was the lowest of any raid in World of Warcraft, apparently. When Blizzard saw an opportunity to make an awesome raid more accessible, it did. That Naxxramas was central to the theme of the expansion helped, as well.

ZA and ZG were brought back because it would be cool to bring them back. Blizzard wants these cool rewards in game because you'll spend time trying to achieve them. That's a good thing! I have a feeling that Mists of Pandaria will not be taking any old content and revamping it like the ZG and ZA stuff in Cataclysm, just because the reaction to it last time was questionable.

In terms of new heroic dungeons, however, those will never be off the table. I'd love to see more 5-man dungeons changed and updated with heroic versions every expansion. Heroic Shadowfang and Deadmines were successes after they were properly tuned and players understood the lay of the land.

scotepi asked:

Do you think that will will ever get rid of silver/copper and go with just gold? Maybe multiply everything by 50 or 100 to balance it out.

Puntable1 responded:

I heard that it costs Blzzard more to print the copper coins on the screen than the coins are actually worth.

I laughed. Actually, the real reason is just the opposite -- the only money in game is copper. There is no gold or silver because the game keeps all monetary values in terms of copper.

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!