The Queue: The Hugh Hefner of Dragons
by Adam Holisky 
Nov 16th 2009 at 1:00PM
I want to be sure I mention a few things to start off the week with.
First, thank for all the wonderful questions lately! The variety and in depth thought being put into them makes this column much more fun to write. If you do have a question for us, just leave a comment or send us a tip and we'll try to answer it. If we don't answer it, leave it again. We can get upwards of 60 or so questions a day, and we obviously can't answer all of them.
Secondly, I know we've mentioned this before, but I just wanted to reiterate. Ask A Lore Nerd has become part of the Queue, so we'll answer a couple lore questions each week. The take quite a bit longer to research and fact check, so the answers won't be as often as normal gameplay and theory questions, but we'll still get to them!
In fact, let's start off with a lore-ish question now.
Jealouspirate asks...
"What's with all these dragons and their consorts?"
Mythology, the Bible, etc... it's all about sex. Back in the day procreation was a very important thing, it was a motivating factor for humanity (it still is, arguably), and the priests and clerics of all the religions of old pushed this on people. Make babies and be fruitful! Begat and be begotten! Have good morals and have good families! Yay!
The dragons are, in an overly simplistic view, representative of that idea in mythology. The Greek gods slept around a lot. Zeus was the classical era's Hugh Hefner, and everyone wanted to be like Zeus, just like every guy (at least secretly) wants to be like Hugh Hefner. The dragons in WoW can be seen in the same light. They sleep around and get numerous mates and consorts, and thus encourage the lesser races to sleep around and get mates and consorts.
One of the neat things about WoW is that the lore follows the classical mythos pretty well. The basic outline of the stories are not anything really new, we've been hearing about them for thousands of years. But the ability to play out the stories on a personal level, or at least by a fly on the wall as Krasus pines over Alexstrasza, is something new and quite cool. It could be considered one of the fundemental reasons why Warcraft's lore pulls so many people in.
Balthezor asked...
"Is there any whispers of buffing the flight path speeds?"
No. In addition, Blizzard has stated numerous times they want 310% speed mounts to be something special, so I don't see any increase coming in either flight path speed or 280% speed epic flying mounts.
Al in SoCal asked...
"Do you think in Cataclysm - or before that - there will be any attempt to nerf the reputation grind from classic (Zandalar, etc) and / or BC (Sha'tari Skyguard, Ogri'la, etc) factions?"
I doubt it. Blizzard has said a few times that they're really only looking at moving forward in reputation grinds, and that they don't want to mess with the old reps too much. It's not something I agree with entirely, and I think Cataclysm would be the perfect place to make the old world reps go by faster. But we'll have to wait and see if they change their mind on that.
The BC reps, in particular the Skyguard and Ogri'la, I do not see changing at all in the foreseeable future. There are daily quests to complete those, just like there are for WotLK factions.
Nocauze asked...
"Why can't hunters use throwing weapons?"
Hunters can use throwing weapons. Just don't be that hunter using a throwing weapon. Please.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW.com 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!Filed under: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
parker_tom Nov 16th 2009 1:06PM
Lol don't be a hunter with a throwing weapon XD
Elmo Nov 16th 2009 1:28PM
Would be cool to play a troll Axe-thrower though
RedMosquito Nov 16th 2009 1:52PM
This. Troll Axethrowers ftw.
If hunters get Auto-Shot, they should get Auto-Throw too.
Deadly. Off. Topic. Nov 16th 2009 1:58PM
Unless you're Ryoga with the many bandanas, I just wonder how you could continously throw an axe already thrown. ...use the force?
Tamednan Nov 16th 2009 2:34PM
One of the first things I did on my hunter when I hit 80 was to max his throwing skill. Dr. Boom felt my fury.
elstor Nov 16th 2009 8:33PM
Stealing reply, I multi-box and lately WoW will not let me open it up twice at once. It doesn't have an error message or anything, nothing happens at all. I am using Vista. I have tried running as administrator. I don't know why it has started doing this but I don't pay for multiple accounts to only use one at a time. Please help.
Brazzen Nov 16th 2009 9:37PM
@ Elstor
There was (is) a bug with the launcher, i remember reading something about launching wow directly from the folder you have it installed to and this works for me
Jimson Nov 16th 2009 11:22PM
Elstor, that bug has been fixed. I think the second patch they released that week fixed it, but I could be mistaken. Either way, open your WoW folder, and use the WoW.exe file to launch additional instances of WoW. (Straight from a blue poster on the tech help forums)
Worked fine for me after doing that, but I have not had that problem for ~4 days, everything works as intended.
Andrew R. Nov 16th 2009 1:06PM
What are the green portals in the hinterlands, duskwood and a few other zones? I've seen an outside raid boss from time to time. Some of the zones have what I'm guessing are the green dragonflight guarding them and others have nobody.
Were these part of an idea Blizzard had at one point like the portal in SW canals but scrapped for something else?
Bonksy Nov 16th 2009 1:09PM
Yeah, they're scrapped Emerald Dream portals.
Rahkahn Nov 16th 2009 4:13PM
Thoaw
Loadead Nov 16th 2009 1:13PM
The portals are supposed to go the Emerald Dream/Nightmare and the raid bosses are the four dragons of Nightmare.
Djbrill Nov 16th 2009 1:13PM
i believe those are gates to the emerald dream. They sometimes spawn a green dragon raid boss. But since nobody does level 60 raids anymore, not many people know about them.
Paul Nov 16th 2009 1:20PM
Those green portals are portals to the Emerald Dream. There are four of them, located in Duskwood, Feralas, Ashenvale and The Hinterlands. They are portals to the Emerald Dream, but to date, they do not allow players to get there (it's highly anticipated as a future expansion zone).
In patch 1.8, the Dragons of Nightmare were introduced as outdoor raid encounters. That aspect was fully implemented. I can't remember the full details, but I think there can only be one or two dragons active at one time, any of the four dragons can appear at any of the four portals and there's a shared respawn time amongst them ( I might be wrong on a couple of those points).
They are part of the lore to let us know that something is going drastically wrong in the Emerald Dream. Other indications include Malfurion being trapped in the dream and something about Ysera in the Emerald shrine being unable to "wake".
Thundrcrackr Nov 16th 2009 1:32PM
Are there any rep or achievements awarded for kililng these world raid dragons? And do the dragons still exist? i haven't seen or heard of anyone raiding one in ages.
Kiyokko Nov 16th 2009 1:54PM
They still exist. However since they can be killed with 4 or less players now, their lifespan probably isn't very long. A lot of outdoor raid bosses are hard to find now that they can be killed quicker. I haven't seen Doom Lord Kazzak or Doomwalker in ages because they're all killed soon after they respawn.
Telaria Nov 16th 2009 1:59PM
The dragons are still around - I was in a group on KT that raided one in the Duskwood about 3 months ago. Alas, no achievements, just some very old school loot.
Darthregis Nov 16th 2009 2:44PM
@Thundrcrakr
I don't recall reputation, but there's definitely no achievement (at least not as of 3.1). Some guildies and I four-manned one down a few months ago on a whim. I recommend doing this with a few extra folk for the extra dps. Lots of fears get tossed out, etc. And definitely clear out the dragonkin before starting it up. :)
Chamual Nov 16th 2009 5:42PM
Despite being lvl60 raid bosses they are still no walk in the park. I tried to solo one as a paladin (ToC25 gear, can solo most of kara now) and it was going great until the stacking anti-haste debuff that made my global cooldown into something like 20 seconds before he killed me.........
John Nov 16th 2009 1:08PM
Any word on flying restrictions in Cataclysm, like Cold Weather Flying? Or will we be able to fly anywhere from 80?