The Queue: We're MC Raiders

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) is answering all kinds of questions today.

The announcement of 40-man LFR Molten Core has me both excited and a little terrified. It also gave me flashbacks to Illegal Danish and the song that ran over the end credits. If you haven't seen the gloriousness that is Illegal Danish, you should probably go watch that now. While you're doing that, we'll just get to answering some questions.

cromhar asked:

"our final act in fighting the Warlords will be to defeat the Iron Horde utterly" I might be totally wrong here, but didnt Blizz say that the IH would be the "problem" in WoD only for a certain time before the story shifts to something else, like another villain/enemy? I thought I had read this a while ago, but maybe I am wrong?

I don't recall anyone saying that exactly. I do know that I'm of the opinion that the Iron Horde isn't going to be the only big bad we fight on Draenor, and it might not even be the expansion-ending boss, either. There's too much other stuff on Draenor, and we've barely scratched the surface of it all, but we spend this first ramp up in the expansion systematically going through and getting rid of some of the worst of what the Iron Horde has to offer. I don't think we're going to dedicate all of our time to the Iron Horde. But again, that's my opinion, it hasn't been stated anywhere officially.

alpha5099 asked:

So if the updated version of Molten Core is permanent, do we think that means level 60 MC will be gone? As someone who likes soloing old raids, I'd rather MC not go away.

The updated version of Molten Core is not permanent, it's an anniversary-only thing. It's also a 40-man LFR raid, which means the only way to get to it is going to be to queue for the thing. Because of that, I'm pretty sure it's a separate instance that has nothing to do with the old Molten Core we know and love, and that old Molten Core isn't going anywhere at all.

Vogue asked:

How do you think they'll update the Molten Core fights to be relevant to today's raider, since like shazz or w/e basically did nothing but arcane explosion?

By amping up the damage in a significant fashion, I imagine -- that, and we're also going to be in item-squish territory at that point. I don't think they're going to make Molten Core too much of a technical challenge, since it's an LFR-only raid and it's only out for a limited amount of time. So I'm guessing that many of the elements will remain the same, although the fire resist will likely not be a factor or an issue, and I doubt you're going to need eight warlocks for Garr.

I think what they're going for here is less "challenging raid with new mechanics" and more "let's just let everyone roll around in the nostalgia for a couple weeks." I'm fine with that -- it's going to be downright weird to be in a raid with 39 people again.

calicojane66 asked:

Did Blizz say that alternate Draenor was going to factor into at least the next expansion, if not the next two? Do you think that means that there will be an open ending to WoD? I have a feeling people would flip the frell out if we didn't have storylines tied up all nice and tight like.

They said that what happens in Draenor will definitely have an impact on what we see in the next couple of expansions. I don't think that necessarily means there will be an open ending, but that the story from this expansion will gracefully lead into the next one. So far, our expansion have been "random burst of chaos from somewhere, let's go kill it and get that taken care of, guys!" The only exception to that is Mists of Pandaria -- the impetus for Mists wasn't a Dark Portal suddenly exploding with activity or the sudden arrival of Scourge from the north or the sudden emergence of a giant molten dragon from the depths of the planet. It was just us, Horde and Alliance, fighting each other and then stumbling across something extraordinary.

But what happens at the end of Mists rolls directly into what happens in Warlords. In a way, Mists is directly responsible for Warlords. And while we had kind of that same progressive rollover from Wrath to Cataclysm in terms of Garrosh Hellscream's ongoing story, it's never directly caused an expansion like this before. Now maybe the impact they mentioned is just a minor thing, like the introduction of some new characters that will play heavily in the next couple of expansions, or maybe what we do in Warlords will trigger what the next expansion ends up being, much like the Mists to Warlords connection. We really don't know the answer to that yet, though -- and Blizzard was vague enough in their answer that we've got no real way of making a solid guess.

nunizillion asked:

Q4tQ: do the mok'nathal make an appearance anywhere in the warlords beta? If not do you think they will appear later down the road in the xpac? I find it would be very strange that they took this time to visualize and flesh out a non-destroyed draenor but didn't include the half-ogres.

They do! Or at least one of them does, and he's a name we're already well acquainted with in Warcraft lore. While we don't see the entirety of the mok'nathal at the onset of Warlords, we may very well see more of them later, because it's obvious they're still around in numbers somewhere.

@ThomClancy asked via Twitter:

has there been any word of what's going on with Orgrim Doomhammer in Draenor?

I can't really answer this without giving away massive spoilers, so I'm just going to say yes, and leave it at that.

@AhaninofUther asked via Twitter:

how do you want the cinematic to play out?

I'm not sure how it's going to go, but I'd like to see a callback to the Burning Crusade draenei vs. blood elves trailer, only with orcs vs. draenei this time. Possibly what happened at the meeting mentioned in the comic that was released this week, because I bet that would be a cool moment to see play out in true cinematic fashion, interspersed with shots of the draenei and their struggles, and end it all with that climactic charge of orcs through the Dark Portal. I don't want it to just focus on the orc warlords, I want to see draenei and maybe some of the other unique weird species of Draenor featured as well.

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!