The Queue: Holding Down The Fort

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 Rossiwill be your host today.

Just sing the title of this Queue to the tune of the song, it'll all make sense.

Loremaster asks:
I come to you with a decent sized WoW Lore Question. "What major storylines/events happen between Warcraft 3 and Vanilla?" I am having a hard time tracking events. . . any help would be helpful! I have played since BC and for the Light I cannot recall any events of interest between the RTS and MMO.

Obviously rebuilt Stormwind (Rise of Difias), Sylvannas enters the Horde. . . but what else?

Assuming we don't count the WCIII expansion as between WCIII and Vanilla WoW...

For starters, the entirety of Cycle of Hatred takes place in that time period. It's set roughly one year before World of Warcraft. In addition, the scenes in the War of the Ancients trilogy that are set in the 'present day' (the stuff with Rhonin and Korialstraz and Broxigar before they travel back in time) are also set after the conclusion of the Third War, but prior to the MMO.

Besides those, we know that at some point the night elves decided they liked the cut of the human's gib and joined the Alliance, probably because the orcs just wouldn't stop cutting down their trees without asking (because the answer would be no), the gnomes ended up in Ironforge during this time period (no gnomes to speak of in WCIII, after all) and joined up with the Alliance.

Stormwind was actually rebuilt significantly before Warcraft III. It was mostly intact by the time Warcraft II's expansion Beyond the Dark Portal came out. It just didn't have much of a role in WCIII, because the plague and the Burning Legion never made their way south from Lordaeron. The plague was contained to the north of the Eastern Kingdoms, and the Burning Legion was more focused on getting to Kalimdor and blowing up Nordrassil. From the perspective of Stormwind, what happened was their biggest and most powerful sister kingdom went belly up before they could even react. In a way, it must have seemed like Warcraft I and II all over again, but in reverse - instead of refugees from Stormwind pouring into Lordaeron, refugees from Lordaeron came pouring into Stormwind. That migration and resettlement of Lordaeron refugees into Stormwind (the ones who didn't go with Jaina to Kalimdor and settle in Theramore, which is to say, the majority of them) took some of that four years between the end of the Third War and the start of classic WoW.

There's more, of course - the silithid started getting out of AQ during this time period, Onyxia arranged for Varian Wrynn's kidnapping, Nefarian started his awful experiments in Blackwing Lair, Ragnaros was pushing the Dark Irons to get out there and do evil stuff, and Arthas was taking a heck of a nap - more than we could really cover right now. If you go to our lore guide and search for Interbellum you'll find a series of six or seven posts I did covering the period just after the Third War. I linked to the first one to get you started.

jpec07 asks:
What are your favorite dungeons?

For me, the list contains End Time, Well of Eternity, Forge of Souls, Halls of Origination, Halls of Thunder, and any of the Maraudon dungeons (I especially like the ogre wing)

I'll admit to a fondness for Well of Eternity. I like seeing the night elf architecture all painted up. But for the most part, I'm a vanilla dungeons kind of guy - especially Dire Maul, Stratholme, Scholomance, LBRS and UBRS. I'm talking about the way these dungeons were, mind you - the only one of these dungeons that's still the way it was at all anymore is Lower Blackrock Spire. For me, breaking off UBRS into the level 100 dungeon means losing that hugely sprawling, interconnected feeling, and I miss the UBRS bosses. It's not that new UBRS is bad - it's just not the place I remember.

darury asks:
Since we're short on questions.. what are my odds of getting my panther mount from ZG prior to WoD? I've got about 8-10 lower priority 90s sitting outside ZG for a quick run through to the panther boss, but so far no love. I got the Armored Raptor fairly early on, but I want the panther!

Wowhead lists it as a 0.96% drop, so you have less than a 1% chance to get it on each character that runs through it. Good luck.

ScottLeyes asks:
If a Queue question gets asked in the middle of the forest, does anyone answer it?

I have no way of knowing where any of you are when you ask these questions, thanks to the power of the internet. You could all be in the middle of the forest for all I know.

Bhuta asks:
As far as your no-where-near-top-of-the-line-PC goes (Rossi and readers). Exactly what are you pushing wow on these days? How is it playing for you?

I resent your accurate assessment of my computer. I have a Radeon video card, HD 7800 series, and an i7 series Quad-Core processor at 3.6Ghz, so I'm not running a toaster, but it's not top of the line either. I keep my settings between fair and high and it seems to run pretty well.

BrandonWybenga asks:
Q4tQ: I'm re-reading Warcraft lore in prep for WoD, so I know this question is years too late but... Did we ever find out how the red dragonflight's fire altered Bolvar (aka lavaman)? I feel like there's enough crazies in Azeroth that would have tried to replicate this to see if it bestowed any powers.

We're told that the flames 'warped' and 'altered' him, but it's not like there's a specific this is exactly how red dragon fire works board up anywhere - we know that he was basically either dead or about to die and that the red flames charred him up even as they burned the plague out of him, and we know that the red dragon's flames also caused wild, uncontrolled plant growth on the area they were unleashed (that whole 'life' thing Alexstrasza was the aspect of) but we don't specifically know exactly how they changed, and frankly, there may not be enough red dragons left at this point for anyone to start experimenting. After all, they can't make any more - the reward all dragons got for tens of thousands of years of loyal service to the Titans and their design was enforced sterility and the extinction of their entire race.

What I'm saying is, if the Titans ever offer you a job, say no.

Edit - because people keep asking, yes, all dragons are now unable to reproduce.

inkliizii1 says:
I've figured out what I like most about Mists of Pandaria. They took a concept (the sha), and, instead of just throwing it in there, they actually tried to think of how something like that would affect the world and the people living in it.

They didn't think like most game designers, i.e. "Oh, this seems cool. Add it in."

They thought like anthropologists, thinking of how monsters that spawned if you felt too emotional would influence the personality and even the political structure of the inhabitants.

I love that about this expansion, and I hope they keep it up with WoD.

Well, they definitely think about the setting and how the people would be affected - if you play through Frostfire Ridge or Shadowmoon Valley you get a sense of how the environment shaped the people, and vice versa. One really great moment is between a draenei rangari and a technician using ancient draenei devices from Argus. He turns them on, they irritate the local wildlife, and a heated debate starts about the way some draenei want to just sit back and pretend they're still on Argus instead of learning to adapt to Draenor. There's lots of moments like this, where the world is showcased in how it changes the people. Gorgrond in particular showcases how a hostile (even outright adversarial) environment would change the beings that lived in it.

HerrKlokbok asks:
Dear Queue:

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT PHANTOM BLADE GOES ON THE BACK!!?

I have been running around with my DW frost DKs swords on her hip for two years and only today, on a DW warrior no less, did I find out about the Phantom Blade. I'm dual wielding 1H swords atm, can't be bothered to suffer the agony of LFR or any other raid for that matter for the off-chance of a 2H weapon to drop, twice.

On a positive side: It cost me absolutely nothing to make one, since the mats was in a forgotten corner of my bank. I made two of them. One went for 3.6 K on the AH, so it's been a good day so far :)

The very first comment on that Wowhead link is someone telling you that it sheaths on the back. I mean, at what point can we say do some reading? Because I think we're at that point. As a service to you, I present you with this link to a Wowhead page all about weapons that sheath on the back.

And that's the Queue for today. I'm doing tomorrow's Queue as well. It'll be about BlizzCon. I may sneak a dinosaur in there somewhere.

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!