The Queue: Cathedral picture
by Michael Sacco 
Oct 17th 2010 at 12:00PM
I'm completely out of witty intros. It's Sunday! Deal with it!
DarkSpade asked:
Was the WoW miniatures game ever officially announced as dead or is it still out there flapping in the breeze? Any chance of it coming back?
The license for the WoW Minis game was originally held by Upper Deck, a company with whom Blizzard no longer does business. Cryptozoic, who picked up the WoW TCG license, did not pick up the Minis license. I think you can probably extrapolate the status of the WoW Minis game from there.
Roht asked:
Is there going to be a Ring of Blood/Amphitheater of Anguish type of thing in Cata?
Yes: the Crucible of Carnage, located in Twilight Highlands. There's also one in Gadgetzan, available at level 46.
Blightmare asked:
I have a question about Wintergrasp's early stages, because I was looking at my Wrath box and when I opened it I was reading all the things you would be able to do in Wrath, one of which jumped out at me. "Engage in aerial dogfights with flying mounts and new gnome engineered planes". Was this in beta but they scrapped it or did it make it to Wrath but they took it out early?
Dogfights were indeed originally in Wintergrasp, but they were removed due to balance and gameplay issues. At least that's what Blizzard said.
Coincidentally, certain testers would just crash the planes into the fortress towers while yelling ... well, I'm sure you can imagine what they would be yelling. No, I'm not making that up. I'm inclined to believe that those guys singlehandedly got flying vehicles removed from the game, no matter what Blizzard says.
Sal asked:
Any chance the War Against the Nightmare will make it into the game in some form?
The major Emerald Nightmare storyline was mostly resolved in the Stormrage novel; however, the book dictates that the remnants of the Nightmare were banished to the portion of the Emerald Dream called the Rift of Aln, which coincidentally is the name of a track on the Cataclysm soundtrack. Intriguing, no?
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!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
Matt P Oct 17th 2010 12:05PM
"Coincidentally, certain testers would just crash the planes into the fortress towers while yelling ... well, I'm sure you can imagine what they would be yelling."
This is why we can't have nice things!
HellfireGamer Oct 17th 2010 12:09PM
Damn Gnoma Bin Laden ¬_¬
Jeremy Oct 17th 2010 12:43PM
Its weird, but the first thing I thought of was WWII kamikaze pilots. I blame it on listening to various Japanese bands while reading this.
Honestly, its probably for the best they took out flying vehicles. P3 of Maly seemed to give enough fits for ppl. I am sure aerial combat woulda looked cool if/when you managed to actually hit someone. This of course is a coming from someone who has terrible aim, and had issues shooting down the blue things in Ulduar.
Blayze Oct 17th 2010 12:45PM
I guess that's one reason why the unrelated buildings in Wintergrasp are so huge--it would have been awesome to form some kind of forward base atop one of those things and use the flying machines to unleash havoc against the enemy.
Cure4Living Oct 17th 2010 1:25PM
@Jeremy
Me too, of course I'm not American, all I remember about 9/11 is that everyone else though it was something worth talking about. I was like 14 at the time so something happening at the other end of the world really didn't interest me all that much.
penguinairsauce Oct 20th 2010 12:54PM
@matt i didnt think of 9/11 till i saw this, like the other comments i was thinking of the japenese "BANZAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!"
arawn.chernobog Oct 17th 2010 2:29PM
Remember when every race was able to speak Common? Remember when the Forsaken were still able to speak Common?
Thanks to the very same a-holes... now there's an impenetrable language barrier and they just direct their nonsensical rubbish talk towards their own faction.
tatsumasa Oct 17th 2010 3:14PM
@people downvoting cure4living
seriously? those kinds of tragedies happen all over the world all the time. it happens in america one time and the whole country acts like it's the worst thing to ever happen anywhere to anyone in the history of the universe. you don't pay attention to the tragedies that happen in other countries yet you get offended when a fourteen year old in another country doesn't pay attention to one that happens here? he didn't say it wasn't a bad thing, he simply stated what he remembers at that age. think about it.
shadcroly Oct 17th 2010 3:39PM
When I first read of aerial combat in Wintergrasp, my thoughts generally shifted to video games like Wing Commander and Ace Combat (while other times shifting to movies about air combat like Top Gun).
Woe be to the people who read of aerial combat in Wintergrasp, and thought about recreating acts of terrorism...
/doublefacepalm+exasperatedsigh
totalgor Oct 17th 2010 3:43PM
@tatsumasa
The USA gives around 25 BILLION (thats million with a B) dollars a year in foreign aid to other countries. In addition, private charities give many hundreds of millions more, and we as a country respond to disasters around the world (Haiti Earthquake, Sri Lanka Tsunami come to mind) with additional aid and assistance. In fact, NASA designed and implemented the rescue capsule that just saved the lives of the 33 Chilean Miners. To say that we don't care about anything that goes on around the world is an unfair statement.
begedinnikola Oct 17th 2010 4:07PM
@totalgor
And that's really great of you. I'm sure allot of other countries do what they can as well. That, however, does not make your or their troubles any greater than those of the rest of the world. 9/11 was a horrible thing and you do get all of our sympathies, but the world is allowed to put other things above and before it. Far worse things have happened before and after 9/11.
For a 14 year old, non-american kid to remember other things in greater detail and not to view 9/11 as top priority is normal and OK. How come no one is talking about the tsunami anymore? Why weren't things removed out of the game for that?
begedinnikola Oct 17th 2010 4:08PM
Also, didn't you read? God saved those miners, not NASA.
Zahira Oct 17th 2010 4:26PM
@Jeremy, that's what I thought of too
@cure4living and tatsumasa
Maybe I'm a bit more sensitive about this issue then some others, maybe it's because 9/11 is my birthday, maybe it's because I spent my birthday that year trying to find my father who drove a car professionally in NYC at the time of the incident. My father made it home safe, thousands of other kids age 14 or younger lost one or both of their parents that day, can you relate now? Imagine for one moment that at that age (14) a plane crashed into your parents office and they were burned alive slowly or were forced to jump out of a window so high above the ground that there was 0% chance of survival, or that part of the building fell on them as they were trying to rescue survivors from the lower floors, or that they suffocated in the street from the enormous clouds of dust that were inescapable. No really imagine it, now imagine that you are watching it happen on the news for some small chance of hope that they might have made it out. Now is it worth talking about? That's not to mention the poor people that died on the planes, most of them going on vacation and instead get crashed into the world trade center while their families watch it happen on national tv.
This is why the world cared, it's the same reason we cared about tsunami's, earthquakes, car bombings, trapped miners, and many many other disasters, because to not care would display a total lack of empathy for anyone and make you a douche bag.
They thought it was something worth talking about for that reason, people are still people no matter where they live, no matter how far away, and a tragic loss of thousands of lives touches anyone with a soul anywhere around the world.
Zahira Oct 17th 2010 4:40PM
@ begedinnikola
you said "That, however, does not make your or their troubles any greater than those of the rest of the world. "
No one here ever said that it did.
"but the world is allowed to put other things above and before it."
again no one is arguing that.
"For a 14 year old, non-american kid to remember other things in greater detail and not to view 9/11 as top priority is normal and OK"
No one said it wasn't ok for him to remember other things in greater detail, but what he said was he couldn't understand why people were talking about this thing that happened on the other side of the world, which implies he didn't care about any other tragedy anywhere unless it was in his home. so before you defend him maybe you should reread his and everyone else's comments.
"How come no one is talking about the tsunami anymore?"
People do still talk about it, in fact we were talking about it yesterday at work, I work in a tattoo shop so not some rescue center or hospital or science lab that studies natural disasters, just an average American establishment, we also talked about the Chilean miners, and I'm just glad they all made it out and can go home to their families.
begedinnikola Oct 17th 2010 4:42PM
@Zahira: Yes, I can relate, yes, it was a horrible thing. It is NOT as horrible as many other things that have happened since, that no one talks about anymore, the lest of all the US media. Someone mentioned Haiti, for instance. FFS, there's less coverage of that than it is of 9/11 these days.
This assumption that just because someone is annoyed with the continuing 9/11 drama the same person isn't empathic about the victims and their family is just wrong. We feel for them, we've just moved on.
Joker Oct 17th 2010 6:04PM
@tatsumasa. That's cause US is the strongest and safest country in the world.
Us getting attacked is a big deal.
That, and we are superior than those third world countries no one cares about.
SINisterWyvern Oct 17th 2010 7:00PM
I'm going to have to go with this:
I'm American, and the first thing I thought of was Kamikaze. That was an actual tactic and more prevalent than what happened on 9/11. Don't get me wrong, every time I see something about 9/11 it infuriates me to the point I regret joining the Navy and not the Army to have the opportunity to take justice upon the scum of the earth that did it. However, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze - I think this shows it was a really big deal. I would even say the idea was stolen for use on 9/11.
on other notes: The capsule constructed for the rescue of Chilean miners was designed and built by a mining rescue team out of Pennsylvania. NASA had absolutely nothing to do with it.
SINisterWyvern Oct 17th 2010 7:10PM
scratch that, drill by Pennsylvania, capsule by chilean navy
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20019617-503543.html
Banic Rhys Oct 17th 2010 7:34PM
@ Cure4Living
Same here, although I was still pretty pissed.
But that was because my morning cartoons were replaced with the news coverage.
jbodar Oct 17th 2010 8:30PM
@SINisterWyvern
"Developed by Chilean navy engineers, with some assistance from NASA engineers, the Fenix 2 performed its task flawlessly"
Forget to read your own link? For the record, NASA did have something to do with it. It was designed by NASA engineer Clinton Cragg (part of a 4-man team sent by NASA after Chile requested help) and refined/built by the Chilean Navy.
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/to-design-miners-escape-pod-nasa-thought-small/19667140