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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Panda ... nope, not going to do it
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 6th 2011 at 11:00AM
Every time the pandaren get mentioned in The Queue, we end up with a week straight of pandaren headers, themes and puns. I'm going to break that trend and completely avoid the topic of the pandaman in this edition of The Queue and hopefully end the horrible cycle of pain.
riley asked:
Do you think Warcraft ever seen an ending to its story or will Blizzard keep adding content and lore until they subscriber numbers drop below profitability? Will we ever get to fight Sargeras or will the servers just shut down in the middle of the 6th expansion?
Blizzard won't end World of Warcraft until it becomes financially irresponsible to keep the game running. It certainly isn't going to write a definite ending in. Blizzard will keep churning content out as long as the game sustains itself. If we end up fighting Sargeras in WoW's lifetime, it will most likely just be revealed that something even worse is around the corner.
Scooba asked:
What's up with poison gas storage sitting in the back of the ruins above undercity? Is it supposed to imply sylvannas is up to something?
Imply? We are way beyond implications, brother. Sylvanas is riding the crazy train as fast as it'll go. Just look around the Eastern Kingdoms in Cataclysm. Sylvanas is actively wielding plagues in battle, obliterating Gilneas, Hillsbrad, et cetera, and raising the dead as her servants. She's dag nasty evil. Remember the plague that Putress used at the Wrathgate? It only existed because Sylvanas told him to create it. Now that Putress and Varimathras are out of the way, she's happily using it wherever and whenever she wants, all according to plan.
I would not be surprised for one single moment if we learn that Sylvanas is current holder of the shards of Frostmourne.
Goblinsgoboom asked:
On the topic of new playable races: what do you think would be the next races for Horde and Alliance? I know we just got new races, I'm just wondering. Arroka would be nice for Horde. I love those little bird men. :)
Frankly, I think there are plenty of races -- Blizzard isn't even utilizing the potential of the ones it has. There needs to be some focus on the less-loved races of the Horde and the Alliance before Blizzard thinks about adding more. Because of that, I haven't put a lot of thought into which races it could add.
That being said, I suspect the arrakoa would more likely be an Alliance race! If you pay attention in The Burning Crusade, many of the arrakoa who are friendly to players are arrakoa that turned to the Light and thus abandoned the factions of their race who worship less pleasant deities. The overall arc of the draenei is to build an army of the Light, so if there were a friendly faction of arrakoa, they would probably be Light-worshipping birdies who sign on with the Alliance. The Horde can have ... I don't know, ogres, I guess. Definitely not ethereals; those guys are way too cool as a neutral faction.
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!
Filed under: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 14)
Scooter Jun 6th 2011 11:17AM
I'm still pissed over the gnomeregan event. Damn thing was doable in 30 fricken minutes and couldn't be replayed once complete. Personally I'm holding out for a full blown raid at some point.
MattKrotzer Jun 6th 2011 11:23AM
Absolutely. The "event" accomplished nothing. A very nicely written quest chain that ends precisely where it began. Gnomeregan's irradiated and Thermaplugg's still inside.
Mr. Crow Jun 6th 2011 11:35AM
The Gnomeregan event did at least establish that the gnomes have a starting area and a faction-oriented goal. You have to consider that actually purging Gnomeregan would mean removing content (the Gnomeregan 5-man), and I understand why Blizzard would be loath to do that, even for an instance they've admitted had too much trash and was in sore need of a second look.
Consider Blizzard's goal: create an event that helps to catalyze the creation of unique starting areas for Trolls and Gnomes. That mission got accomplished, and while the catalyzing event itself (Gnomes want to retake Gnomer from Thermadork) was NOT accomplished, Blizzard's goal (Create a Gnome starting area) did.
Do I think Gnomer is near the top of the list for dungeons to get a Heroic Mode in order to bring that story to a close, as they did for Deadmines? Sure. But aside from fulfilling the promise of Heroic Deadmines/SFK from the Cataclysm announcement trailer, I don't think they're in a rush to re-design ALL of the Classic 5-mans.
Time will tell.
coville Jun 6th 2011 11:41AM
I would like to see Blizzard entertain cross faction races. Taurens fighting with the Alliance or Humans with the Horde would be cool.
Noyou Jun 6th 2011 12:03PM
Operation Gnomeregan while maybe not successful was fun as hell. Plus you got the token to transform yourself into a gnome for 30 min every 4 hours. Not my fault you guys didn't have 6-7 toons to do it on like I did ;)
loop_not_defined Jun 6th 2011 12:06PM
I think Gnomeregan could have received a revamp closer to what the trolls got, without replacing Gnomeregan the instance. There's already a rather large non-instanced area leading to the dungeon - just throw that whole section away, put in a brand new pretty version that feels semi-town-like, and make sure there's still spots that connect to the "Irradiated Gnomeregan" instance.
Then again...didn't the Gnomeregan Invasion quest only take you into the non-instanced portion? My memory isn't really helpful today.
Noyou Jun 6th 2011 12:11PM
I miss the old deadmines. I hope they don't change gnomer any more than they have. I am one of the few who likes it. The Gnomes need a new city, something befitting of their engineering prowess. Something unique. We already have floating cities, skyships and barges.
Buran Jun 6th 2011 12:23PM
It was way too short. I'm die-hard Horde (but do have a few draenei that I play from time to time) and so none of my Alliance chars were high enough to do it. However, my fiance plays both sides, so I watched over his shoulder as he did it.
Aside from some funny dialogue at the end of the final fight, it was disappointing. Now, the Retake the Echo Isles event (which my troll hunter main did on the first day when everyone was doing it, which made it more epic) was awesome and gave a totally revamped starting area that doesn't feel like it was shoehorned in. We don't, however, have our own dungeon the way the gnomes do (it's in Orgrimmar, the Orc stronghold).
MattKrotzer Jun 6th 2011 12:31PM
Yeah, there's definitely no troll-lore centric dungeons... ZF, ZG, ZA, ZD, Gundrak... nope, none at all.
Noyou Jun 6th 2011 1:09PM
@Buran
What level were they? I seem to remember running almost all my toons thru there including a lvl 12-14 alt I recently made at the time. The only thing they couldn't do was the last couple quests where you got the token to change yourself into a Gnome. You had to be lvl 75 to do that. Otherwise you could do 90-95% of the content. And as far as the horde one being more epic because "everyone was doing it" the first couple days on Alliance (at least my server) not only everyone was doing it but I ran into friends who were running thru it a 2nd 3rd time on their alts as well. Pretty much everyone was doing it on both sides for i'm guessing the first 4-5 days. And from what I can remember it was a pain because the Gnomer finale was bugged so that one person could cause a restart of the last phase.
loop_not_defined Jun 6th 2011 2:01PM
Matt, I think the new ZG is different enough that it technically counts as two troll dungeons. :)
Buran Jun 6th 2011 4:29PM
I probably could have done it, true, as they range (now) from 10 to 45, roughly, but I'm still content with having gotten to see it. And a friend from Alliance (this was before realID) whispered me once from a lowbie troll he'd rolled to try the Troll event.
Ah well. I don't regret it much as I did get to see it. I do think it's a real shame that everything reverted back to the status quo (still irradiated, still not entirely "there" yet) but the new starting area is definitely an improvement.
Wolftech Jun 6th 2011 5:26PM
Whatever races they add in the expansion after next (the next is the caster heroic class) you can be rest assured that the Alliance will be screwed again.
Chetti Jun 6th 2011 9:35PM
So very true. I was so excited to play a Worgen, but as soon as you leave (make that, run away from) Gilneas, you never go back there.. you land in darnassus and pretty much level like a night elf. Don't get me wrong, I love the night elf starting area, darnassus is my main's stomping grounds. But the worgen story kind of ends there.
However, leveling an undead and getting to see the other side - totally awesome! They actually have quests and flights and such in Gilneas. I thought the Worgen should have something going on there too, it would have been nice.
I leveled my Goblin to 20, picked up my trike in Org.. and haven't played it in a while. I will go back to it.. not sure how fully integrated the Bilgewater story goes. Though I do remember doing quests in Twilight Highlands for some of the Bilgewater goblins, so thats nice to see.
diaskeaus Jun 7th 2011 12:33AM
THIS.
Unfortunately, according to Blizzard's new system it is doubtful whether they will do this, as they are trying to spread the functionality of the entire system to all races. This is why they eliminated class quests; this is why new quests all contain equipment that is pretty much equalized to all races/factions, minus a few points here and there. This is why so many random events happen so infrequently now (when bosses could actually be dragged to capital cities) and even the economy is controlled with an iron fist.
Obviously this has all been done to cure the disease of players stripping the game of any fun factor by taking advantage of these kinds of events or quests, and with Blizzard's increasing focus on PvP balance (with class-specific skills) as they move toward a more casual gamer environment (PvP), it's doubtful they will do anything but small implementations to assuage dutiful subscribers. Even turning leveling into a weekend chore (from 80-85 in three weeks for many people) it is quite apparent where the focus is going.
If they ever decided to add material to the current races, only the sky is the limit. Being able to return to Kazan (and fighting in the infested (one would assume by elementals) Kajamite power plant dungeon), putting a quest chain for both factions that leads up to the Battle of Gilneas which has you tromping across the whole continent, putting in heroic versions of older dungeons (heroic Maraudon, woot) and instead of offering just weapons and armor, offering mounts, collectible items, and reputation rewards, putting level 85 quests in lower level areas to encourage going back to older areas not only with alts, and so on.
Honestly speaking, there is so much they could do for end-game players and sprucing up older areas, there isn't any need to continue adding new areas the way they have been. Just giving more options to level 85ers that doesn't require stress but entertains, the way most games should be, is definitely something to strive for.
I currently have a level 85, but really the only places for him to go are either doing lower level quests for the second or third time, grinding rep, or sloughing through heroics which most of the time don't actually reward him with much (unless he does it for a long time). Raids are impossible as no player is willing to have a casual player take part in a high-level raid who has never done it before.
Rylka Jun 6th 2011 11:10AM
I REALLY want to play a naga.
The times when we got to play one in Vasjir only made the desire stronger.
Perhaps the Alliance could have arrakoa and the horde could have nagga.
Rylka Jun 6th 2011 11:13AM
*Vashj'ir
*arakkoa
*naga
I guess I really DID get to excited. :)
MattKrotzer Jun 6th 2011 11:14AM
Naga are one of the few truly "evil" races on Azeroth. This would very much solidify the Horde as the bad guys... something most Horde players seem to deny.
CloakedDrifter Jun 6th 2011 11:19AM
I've often heard that one obstacle of implementing naga as a playable race is figuring out gear models. However, if you check out the naga in Cataclysm, especially in Vashj'ir during the attunement quests, you'll see naga sporting many different gear types, often resembling some of our BoA gear models. Naturally, boots and legplate would have to be completely redesigned for naga, or just don't visibly show those models at all, as they do with several races boots already.
So maybe Blizzard is testing the waters in that direction?
loop_not_defined Jun 6th 2011 11:26AM
The Horde don't want another Night Elf off-shoot. :P
Kidding aside, I would dread Nagas being added to Horde ONLY because the amount of racist Trade Chat jokes it would generate. Well, you know...more than the usual.