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The Queue: Surfing to Karabor


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.

Questions! Woo! Imagine me jumping out of a plane now without a chute, like Keanu in Point Break.

mightbechris says:
I thing to Sylvanas no, she doesn't do wrong. She an undead being. She has a long history of both combat and watching her people suffer. I can't fault any action she's taken. She isn't a good person by any stretch, but she protects her subjects and kingdom. Given her history I think she's justified in her actions. She's also a Horde faction leader.

Am I the only one that wishes the Horde was ok with being the bad guys? I know when I role play any or my Horde toons I don't feel right if they have a grounded moral compass.

I don't really understand the first part of your question/statement. Sylvanas isn't wrong to invade neighboring countries and murder people with disease because she's undead? That's pretty flexible morality. By that standard, nothing Arthas did was wrong, including murdering Sylvanas and the people of Lordaeron in the first place. I mean, he was a servant of the Lich King, and then because the Lich King himself, so it's okay that he freed his people from suffering by rendering them all walking corpses, right?

Being undead, being a Horde faction leader, even being someone who's seen a lot of suffering and combat, none of this excuses anyone from their actions. Garrosh was a Horde faction leader, and he grew up on the shattered remnants of a world we call Outland, believing himself damned due to the actions of his bloodthirsty father. We still have little difficulty calling what he did wrong.

As for the Horde being the bad guys - I think the Horde has been established as more 'morally grey' than out and out bad guys in its World of Warcraft version. The Old Horde? Total bad guys. The Horde as bad guys is such a useful trope that we keep getting other Hordes to fight, like Garrosh's True Horde and Iron Horde.



DespicableBrad asks:
Q4tQ: I just noticed I can download the Warlords Beta via my Battle.net launcher. Downloading now, in fact. However I was wondering: if I just want to explore the zones (view scenery, etc.) am I free to roam everywhere on my ground mount? Or are only the zones mentioned (Tanaan Jungle, Frostfire Ridge, and Shadowmoon Valley) 'open' at this time? What happens if you try to run to one of the adjacent (not-yet-opened) zones?

You can ride from Shadowmoon into Talador but you will almost immediately have a giant red arrow over your head and if you don't turn back you'll get ported out of the zone. I ended up in Stormwind. There are new zones that will be introduced soon(tm) but no actual ETA on them yet - could be as soon as the next beta build, or maybe not.

tw asks:
Q4tQ: It sounds like from beta that this is a suicide mission to Draenor. Are you seeing any way to get back to Azeroth? I'm guessing portals and hearthstone, but storyline wise, are we stuck there? This begs the question, if the dark portal on this alternate Draneor side is reopened will we return to an alternate Azeroth?

Storyline wise, you get a trickle of support troops every time you expand your garrison, so it's basically that you and your ragtag bunch of heroes (Khadgar, Thrall, Maraad, Lady Liadrin and you to start with, plus some orcs and draenei you free on the way) managed to survive despite all odds, shut down the Dark Portal, and are now using portals very sparingly to recruit folks to help you on Draenor. The initial portal that brings Baros Alexston and/or Gazlowe are made by Khadgar, so one assumes it takes a good deal of magical power to open portals that travel not only to a different world but one in another timeline, hence the limited number of support troops.

You can still hearth out, and supposedly there will be a permanent portal back once the garrison is fully leveled.

Zeijin asks:
Speaking of Sylvannas, we've spent an expansion speculating if she's up to something. Is there any word of activity from her in WoD, or will we spend another expansion wondering what plans she's crafting in the dark?

Man, people just talking all about Sylvanas today.

So far I haven't seen any sign of her in Frostfire or Tanaan. No idea what she's up to back on Azeroth while we're saving the world from the Iron Horde. Maybe she's plotting to kidnap her sister and kill her so that she can have someone to spend her unlife with. Draenor isn't really that important to her, so I doubt we'll see her much.

AlexanderSimmons asks:
qftq- this might have already been asked, but what are your favorite, and least favorite tier sets. As a shaman, my fave is T5 (the awesome lava one), and my least favorite was whatever tier ToC was (the god awful ugly boring purple with orange bits one)

Just randomly choosing death knight tier sets. My favorite DK tier set is DK heroic T10, the red set. I liked it so much I farmed all the various lookalike pieces on my warrior. Other good DK sets include the Siege of Orgrimmar and Ulduar DK tier sets (again I have lookalikes for both).

My least favorite DK tier set is the Naxxramas tier 7 sets, I find it atrocious.

And that's the Queue for today. I really don't like Sylvanas.


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!