Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley (@gomatgo) will be your host for today.

Studies show that 98% of internet viewers cats cats cats cats cats cats.

Look, I answered some of your questions this morning. If the cats would stop being adorable, I could get some more work done.

thedoctor2031 asked:

It seems Blizzard is exclusively making heroic modes based off of a toggle switch. Do you guys think there is any chance that we will be seeing anything like Ulduar hard modes? I think my favorite were Sartharion, Flame Leviathan and Freya, because even though the hard modes weren't very complex to activate they had varying tiers of difficulty and allowed for multiple levels of progression. I wish Blizzard would go back to this idea, maybe even having various hard modes that influence the type of loot that drops. Maybe if you kill a boss a certain way, he drops trinkets, or healer gear. I don't know, I just think it would be interesting. Any thoughts?

I, too, miss the days of interesting hard-mode activation mechanics like in Ulduar, but I realized a while back why exactly Blizzard made the switch a hard toggle, and I get it. The problem with raiding difficulty is that you always want to strive for the better gear and the more difficult encounters, or so we thought. People are OK living in their version of the raid encounter, as has been even further proven by the Raid Finder. Players are OK with their instance one way. The mechanics for triggering hard modes were too easy to accidentally trigger later in the game's life, like killing XT's heart too quickly or blazing through Thorim's gauntlet room.

Hard mode toggles are also easier for Blizzard to deal with, since the encounters can have stuff added to them without something gimmicky thrown in just to do what a toggle switch could do easier and without explanation. But yeah, I miss the days of encounters that you had control over. More Sarth+3 please!

Spiff asked:

Question: if the End Times dungeon is supposed to be the future if Deathwing wins, then who pinned Deathwing to the top of the Temple? I thought we just agreed that he won. Or is that just him sleeping up there or something?

Deathwing most likely went more crazy after the world was destroyed and threw himself upon it under Old God influence. There was no Azeroth left for The Destroyer to destroy, so his purpose was complete. There is also the common train of thought that the Twilight Dragonflight also became incredibly powerful and caused him to swan dive over Wyrmrest. Whatever the case, we stopped that future right in its tracks.

Thatacus asked:

With the Greench being the second holiday world boss (the first being Omen, if anyone didn't know), what does everyone think about this format? Do you think Blizzard will try to move away from dungeon queues and try to bring the holiday bosses out as world raid bosses?

To be honest, anything that makes getting the holidays done quicker and easier is good in my book. I have no idea why the Greench is even as difficult as he is now, to be quite honest. I'd much have preferred a creature that had a lot of health and did some attacks you had to move from, and let any and everyone be able to get him at non-peak times. Group content is great but when no one is on, group content is kind of hard to get through.

This is the better style for holiday-type bosses outside of instances because it takes away a lot of dumb luck factors with tagging, completing the quest, and gets you out of the cities and into the world itself. Blizzard has stated that one of its goals is to get people out of the cities with Mists of Pandaria, but it's never too early to start, right? I'm all right with it, and I hope we see more fun encounters with the holidays in the future. I'm really looking forward to Love is in the Air this year.

Vizano asked:

Why does one always face north after coming out of a raid/dungeon/bg etc.? Example: I am looking at the road leading to Razor Hill just outside of Org.. south basically, when a bg queue pops. I finish the bg and find myself looking at the gates to Org, i.e. north.

Every WoW character has a giant magnet inside of them that forces them to point magnetic north. When the third great Cataclysm happens, the poles will shift and your character will be flung off Azeroth with such force that you'll enter the timespace alleys.

I have no idea. That's most likely how characters are defaulted to face after being plopped back into the world from entering an instance.

Alex asked:

How long have i got to wait till MoP?

I have a very good feeling that after the new year and everyone at Blizzard gets back to work after recuperating from the holidays, we will get some more Mists of Pandaria information. I can feel it in my bones. Look for more information in January. Oh, I hope I'm right on this one ...

As for a release date, I still am saying (and hoping for) a mid-year release around June, July or at the latest, August. A summer release would be wonderful for Blizzard this time.

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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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