Ah, another Sunday afternoon! Well, technically this was posted precisely at noon, which isn't the afternoon. But you're probably not reading it at the exact second It was posted, so you are reading it in the afternoon. Right? Right. Now, with that settled...

Vinicius O. E. asked...

What happened to the dance studios?

This is something that got hit with the delaybat, because they never worked out a system they were satisfied with. It's still something we'll supposedly see someday, but it's one of those things they want to perfect before they release it. I imagine it'll be a long time before we see it, but hopefully it'll actually show up one day.

h8rain asked...

Any suggestions for a bear tank that has given up for right now, and wants to go moonkin? I have a holy priest healer, so not sure if I want another healer. I have always passed on caster gear, so I would literally be starting from scratch. I have the worst dice in the game, so buying stuff is probably better. I do have quite a few badges as well (60ish).

Allison Robert (who is becoming a familiar name in this column) recently finished up her Moonkin gearing guide this week. That should pretty much cover you, and has a lot of the good BOE/Badge items listed. Alternatively, just hit Wowhead and scroll through the high end BOE blues and epics that Tailoring can make in Wrath. You're probably going to end up wearing a lot of Cloth, and those items are good candidates if you want to start pumping up your +Hit. Beyond that, yeah, just check out Allison's guide. You won't regret it.

suhas asked...

Is there any lore reason why even the Alliance opposes the Scarlet Crusade?

The Scarlet Crusade is pretty friggin' crazy, and their goals aren't necessarily in line with the Alliance's own. Even before it was widely known the Crusade was being controlled by demons, the Crusade happily stabbed Alliance folk to death right alongside the Forsaken and the Horde. They are nuts. They might not have actually started that way (because there are a couple of friendly Scarlet Crusaders around), but they definitely fell into that hole. The Alliance isn't down with that. Even beyond the Demonic Taint, they've worked themselves up into such a zealous frenzy that nobody wants much to do with them.

Just read up on the Crusade on Wowwiki: They're pretty nuts. If you're not in, you're dead to them.

Ice asked...

What is the new weird portal looking beam in Un'Goro that has same model as in Sholazar Basin start? I heard its a new "get to dungeon in Ungoro" and it's about Titans or something but... any other info on that?

It's just the other half of the waygate in Sholazar. That's where it leads. You use the waygate in a quest from the Avatar of Freya, she sends you to Un'goro to pick something (avoiding spoilers on what it is for you) up to help fight off the Scourge sticking their noses into the Basin. There are no dungeons up there, just a temple and such. You only spend about five or ten minutes up there, tops. After you finish the quest, you can still use it for a quick way to southern Kalimdor, but I've no idea why you would go out of your way to use that when you can just use the portal to the Caverns of Time from Dalaran.

Ham Salad asked...

I'm a fairly new player... how much research should I put into realm activity/alliance-to-horde ratio/population when choosing a realm? What should I be looking for?

If you're looking to play on a PvP realm, it'll play a bigger factor than if you were to play on a PvE realm. A quick glance at WarcraftRealms.com's Census information wouldn't be a bad idea. The information there isn't 100% accurate, but it will give a pretty decent snapshot of what the server looks like. If you're an Alliance player in the EU, you probably wouldn't want to play on EU-Magtheridon, for example. EU-Ragnaros isn't perfectly balanced, but it's far better than EU-Magtheridon, so it'll work out fine.

Generally, you don't need to worry about it at all. PvP players might want to check realm balance a little as noted above, PvE players probably don't need to worry about it at all. Both players suffer from very extreme population imbalances, but those sorts of imbalances are very rare. 2:1, 5:1, or even 10:1 ratios are workable, if a bit inconvenient for things like Wintergrasp. When you're looking at 20:1 or 30:1 you probably don't want to roll there.

Tags: allison-robert, avatar-of-freya, balnazzar, boomkin, caverns-of-time, census, dalaran, equipment, expansions, freya, gear, hootcannon, moonkin, oomkin, population, population-balance, population-imbalance, q-and-a, realm-balance, scarlet-crusade, scarlet-onslaught, sholazar, sholazar-basin, tailoring, warcraftrealms, wowhead, wowwiki

Filed under: Alliance, Druid, Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, Expansions, The Queue