The Queue: Tylosaurus

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

Tylosaurus was a mosasaur, a prehistoric reptile distantly related to modern varanids. The mosasaurs were fully adapted to an aquatic lifestyle, and they ranged in size from the roughly three and a half meter Carinodens to the massive Tylosaurs at 15 or more meters. (There's some debate about which was bigger, Tylosaurus or its relative Hainosaurus. Either way, we're talking a massive, nearly fifty to sixty foot long reptile if the largest estimates are used.) The mososaurs dominated the shallow seas of late Cretaceous America, and the land that became modern states like Colorado (Denver is a city, Matt) and even Kansas was then under water. Under water that was swarming with these guys.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I like prehistoric animals, and Tylosaurus was a spectacular predatory reptile. It gave live birth and, once it achieved its full growth, ate anything it wanted, whether it be an Archelon or a Hybodus shark. And as a pure reptile (its closest living relatives are varanids like the monitor lizard, which itself also swims quite well) I find mosasaurs fascinating. Someday we might get another 'lost world' zone like Sholazar and Un'Goro, and if we do, I'd love it if it had a Lindenbrock Sea-inspired lake with some mosasaurs in it, eating sharks and Xiphactinus. And potentially us, if we're not careful.

Anyways, on to your questions. There will be some mild spoilers for patch 5.4 in today's Queue.

C Robinson asks:
With the Timewalkers becoming official, do you think we might get more use out of Kara? Give us something not CoT or dragons!

I'm going to admit, I don't see how these two things are necessarily related, although we do know that Karazhan is notoriously screwed up in space and time, with people seeing visions of the past and future inside the place. I've always wanted to see the infamous underbelly of Karazhan, rumored to be an inverted version of the tower descending into the underworld. Considering the stuff that's down there, who knows? I'd certainly be okay with seeing some of that. Whether or not that's where the Timewalkers are going to end up taking us, I really couldn't say.

Chanamel Ungar asks:
Will the "Siege" of Orgrimmar have no actual manifestation in the game world?

Horde players will still be able to use Orgrimmar. But it's fairly clear that the city is in a state of waiting for the other boot to drop - bosses from the raid are now present in the city itself (like those two in the screenshot above), Kor'kron outriders on their wolves patrol the streets, and if you talk to certain NPC's they even come right out and say they know you're not loyal to Garrosh and the Kor'kron will be ready when you make your move. There's definitely signs of the coming raid. In addition, of course, the Vale of Eternal Blossoms is much changed.

bskrug asks:
I'm wondering why just about everything in MoP rewards Lesser Charms of Good Fortune when you can only turn in 50 per week. I'm not really complaining, just curious.
I'm a somewhat casual player and these things are building up in my inventory much faster than I can turn them in, yet I see others forming groups to farm them.

Here's a story that will help me explain - I personally only do the weekly Barrens quest (I enjoy murdering orcs) for my Lesser Charms. I don't do dailies that award them or any of the Isle of Thunder special mobs. I simply grind away on the orcs in the Barrens. This is because in patch 5.3, Lesser Charms were added to the loot tables of most level appropriate mobs. Before that, I had to do dailies in one shape or another to get them. Most of the quests that reward lesser charms predate patch 5.3, and as a result, were aimed at people who not only couldn't get them any other way, but they also needed more of them. Remember when Mists launched, it was 90 Lesser Charms for 3 Greater. They lowered the amount you needed for turn in to 50 around patch 5.2 if I recall correctly.

Essentially, the reason there are now so many different ways to get Lesser Charms is so you can get them without having to do a particular kind of content. If you'd rather farm for them, you can.

the_DECk asks:
QftQ: Speaking of Jaina Proudmoore, it was stated that Dalaran was on the move, where is it? has there been nothing in the PTR yet? I still think there's a strong possibility that it'll replace Theramore eventually, which makes sense, the Alliance/Jaina will want to rebuild Theramore, & Dalaran would be quick fix. (Kinda gives a good possibility of more patches before 6.0).

We don't know where it's going. If you did the Horde or Alliance quests that took you to Dalaran as part of Operation: Shieldwall/ Dominance Offensive reputation, you saw that Dalaran was moving - you could even look around during the escape from Dalaran on a Horde character and see you were over the ocean. Is it going to Theramore crater? It would make a certain amount of sense, but for all I know Jaina's going to park it over Org and drop heavy stuff on the city.

thebl4ckd0g states:
I've had the Pretzel Burger from Wendy's 4 times now, and honestly...I'm not eating it again. The bun is really tough and not that great to eat with a burger. The sauce is mustardy and I'd rather have a cheesy sauce. The lettuce is salad greens and not lettuce.
I'd rather see them bring back the grilled chicken flatbread sandwhiches.

I am picturing a mosasaur eating you right now. He's dissatisfied with how crunchy you are, but he'll eat at least three more people to make sure he really doesn't like them.

It's not fair of me to pick on you, of course. There's like 20 comments about pretzel buns in yesterday's Queue. Yours was just the first I came across, as I read the comments from oldest to newest. At any rate, at least you get eaten by a freaking mosasaur. That's pretty awesome.

4fingers4ever asks:
Is connected realms the next step toward actual account-bound heirlooms?

It might make it easier to send heirlooms between servers (if you have an alt on one of the other servers in a connected realm) but it's fairly clear that the purpose of this feature isn't necessarily to make heirlooms easier to send between realms.

And that's the Queue for this week. I now wish I'd never heard of a pretzel bun.

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!