Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

This extremely late edition of The Queue is brought to you by Road Runner High Speed Online, because my connection went down for many an hour while I was attempting to write this yesterday.

Phoenix asked:

What's a welk!? They're all over Vashj'ir. Is it just a snail with a fancy name?

Basically ... yes. A welk (or whelk) is a sea snail. In some regions of the world, the term is a little more broad and includes other types of mollusk, and in other regions of the world, the term is a lot more narrow and only covers specific types of sea snail. The most basic answer, however, is that whelks are sea snails.

Many asked:

Okay, so whether you go to Hyjal or Vashj'ir is just personal preference, but which one takes longer to complete?

Vashj'ir. No doubt about it. I personally like Vashj'ir much better than Hyjal, but it's not a zone you'll be leaving quickly. The achievement, even if it is bugged to display too many required quests, would still ask more of you than Hyjal. Vashj'ir is wonderful, but you're going to be there for a while if you want to complete it before moving on.

An interesting note: Vashj'ir used to be even longer, during the closed beta. Those of you who have finished the zone and did the little quest chain with Budd Nedreck, where you smash his treasure, will remember -- that used to be Harrison Jones. The quest chain was much, much longer. You parleyed with the gilblin nobility instead of killing them outright, and it felt more like an adventure than comedic relief. A lot of the zone was streamlined like that. It was unfortunate but necessary. Vashj'ir was huge.

Mike asked:

Please?

No.

Penguinairsauce asked:

Do you need to buy Cataclysm if you want to train archaeology?

Yes.

Johnnytorrance asked:

Anyone know how bad it would be to fly over one of the enemy faction's main cities?

I wouldn't recommend it. You'll get blown out of the sky and die a very unfortunate death. If you don't like repair bills, stay out of enemy air space.

Matthew asked:

When is the next expansion coming out?

It will be announced at BlizzCon 2011. Everybody will expect it to launch in early 2012, but it won't launch until the end of 2012. Probably.

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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!

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