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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: The Age of Fire and Gravel
by Matthew Rossi 
Mar 1st 2012 at 11:00AM
Ignatius Donnelly wrote both Atlantis, the Antediluvian World and Ragnarok, the Age of Fire and Gravel. He was a proponent of woman's suffrage and a passionate populist politician, serving in the United States Congress and as lieutenant governor of Minnesota. He wrote books speculating on the future (to him, anyway) and who really wrote Shakespeare's plays. He was a fascinating, inquisitive, and slightly cracked mind. He's one of my favorite people and a personal hero and inspiration. And yes, a lot of what he wrote was wrong at best and completely deranged at worst, but that's why I like him. He also came up with some awesome names for The Queue when you end up writing it.
Why do I bring this up? Because I don't watch TV.
MikeLive asked:
What? Zandalari will be in Pandaria? When did this come about?
Well, Mike, as several of our commenters answered you yesterday, it does appear that there will be some kind of Zandalar presence in Mists. As you can see on the map accompanying this page, there's a place named Zandalari Isle at the top of the Pandaria map from BlizzCon 2011. Whether that is the actual home of the Zandalar tribe or just a territory they're staking out in Pandaria is yet to be seen.
Nicoro asked:
So, with the the new areas a No fly zone. is there a likely event that there will be Better Training for Ground mounts?
At present, no such announcement has been made. I expect there will be something like Cold Weather Flying available at level 90 once we've gone through the various Pandaria zones on foot, much the same as we did the first time we leveled through most of Northrend. I doubt highly Blizzard will make a faster ground mount speed, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility.
Revynn asked:
Should I be worried about the future of raid design now that the Raid Finder has been implemented?
You're always welcome to worry about raid design or anything else you like, but having done Raid Finder, normal 25 and heroic 25 in Dragon Soul now, I think I can safely say that raid design itself is not something Blizzard seems to skimp on now. I do agree that it does seem likely it'll keep the paradigm of two tanks, six healers and 17 DPSers for RF groups, but already in normal/heroic mode, you see pretty sophisticated mechanics on fights and people doing things well beyond the complexity of the RF version.
Now, I saw in the thread that developed from Revynn's original question some discussion of 10-man difficulty. Frankly, I'm biased and find 10-man easier than 25-man, so I don't think I can address your statement properly. Since you're at around where I am in progression (except on 10s, whereas I'm on 25s), I can only say that I find 25s to be suitably difficult. Perhaps the issue is that RF will limit how much 10-man design can really innovate? It's much easier to scale up from RF 25s to normal/heroic 25s, but then trying to also do normal/heroic 10s might be too many variables and 10s will suffer for it. I really couldn't say. It's definitely worth watching for, however.
You95 asked:
If you had to choose one thing that Blizzard could never ever remove from WoW (whether it be a zone, class, concept, etc.) what would it be?
Warriors.
pdusen asked:
What ever happened to WoW Archivist?
Alex Ziebart, the man mostly responsible for the feature, is now our editor-in-chief. As a result, he's ludicrously busy and thus, the column is somewhat on the back burner.
No one at all asked:
Why are you so handsome?
I read a lot of weird books. I also wrote one, if you'd like to buy a copy. (Well, I wrote it whether or not you want to buy a copy, really.) Ask me some time about Charles Fort and the super-Sargasso in the sky.
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!ADAM
Filed under: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 10 of 10)
Mark Mar 1st 2012 2:38PM
Hahaha I usually never read the author of the article because I can usually tell and most of the time for the queue it's wither Mat, Alex, or Fox so I didn't look. But when i saw what would you want blizzard never to remove question and it said warrior i was like WTH that is something that Rossi would say! whose copying him! I scroll up and see that my main man actually wrote the queue for today!!
jasonfelliott Mar 1st 2012 3:18PM
Mr. Rossi, your book sounds very enjoyable and right up my alley.
WTB Kindle edition, please.
Arrohon Mar 1st 2012 3:25PM
More Rossi Queues please.
bilbomoody Mar 1st 2012 5:04PM
Nice... shameless plug. I followed the link anyway, and was fairly amused with the review that ends: "I've never enjoyed a book more. I've never been more confused by one. It's not a simple book, but it is a good one. If you enjoy odd writing, this is one of the best I've come across."
Now you just have to convince your publisher to produce a digital version so I can get it for my Kindle!
puffcake Mar 1st 2012 9:53PM
"I have four 85s. I see nothing in your proposal that offsets the fact that for three of them, plus the other three non-max toons already mentioned, the first 55 levels will have been a huge waste of my time. That's 330 levels. That's an awful lot of my time to see suddenly rendered irrelevant. "
How? This game changes all the time, with new features added to keep it fresh and compelling to new and old players. Basically your argument is that every time they change something or make something easier, it makes all the work you did in prior versions of the game irrelevant. Rare mounts/titles/feats of strength/achieves exist for that very reason, to validate the work of the olden days while allowing change to occur. By that argument, all the old world changes in Cataclysm make all the leveling we did prior irrelevant. I just don't buy that, unfortunately.
"The other thing to consider is: how does it benefit Blizzard? I just don't see any compelling reason they should want to make a change like this."
Well, most content is added at the end of the level cap, not the beginning. It benefits Blizzard to keep their players from getting bored, and one way to do that is to allow them to roll new race/class combos and get them to experience the new content (that they've paid $39.99 for) as quickly as possible. To many, the idea of rolling a monk or a pandaren is exciting and fun, but the idea of running that new character back through all of the same content at the cost of a very large time investment is daunting, and somewhat of a turnoff. The further the level cap gets from level 1, the harder it's going to be for people to justify a new toon in future expansions unless something is done to make leveling easier for veteran players. Blizzard may not care about how many toons we have, but as you say, they do care if we're no longer buying expansions and memberships.
Nick Mar 1st 2012 10:35PM
M. Sacco posted stat changes from "Ghostwalker" Street on Thurs. night. Among many things, one that caught my eye was the deletion of Spell Resistance, thus no need for Spell Penetration. I've recently switched to Jewelcrafting, and so I ask: Will gems like Stormy Ocean Sapphire (+50 Spell Pen) be simply obsolete, or will/could they change the stat to something else more relative once MoP comes out?
Micah Mar 1st 2012 10:53PM
Okay, here's something I've been wondering for a little while. With MoP coming and many achievements going account wide, as well as mounts and pets, what's going to happen with the "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been" mount? Currently, the mount itself grants Master Riding upon first mounting it... will my alts now also get Master riding by default since my main has it? Or will I still have to buy the training for them at some point?
bilbomoody Mar 2nd 2012 10:20AM
OMG, anyone know what happened to ahspy.com?!