Q4TQ: Am I the only one who doesn't hate Vashj'ir?

No! I totally loved the place. I found myself incredibly immersed (no pun intended) in the storyline both in beta and live to the point that I never actually left the zone until I finished it. I could have used my hearthstone and been back in much safer and full-of-nice-things-like-air Orgrimmar, but it literally didn't occur to me to do so. I didn't want to leave my friends behind. They were cool guys, and they needed my help.

Oddly enough, I'm finding that I'm having that same attitude about the Jade Forest in the Mists beta. It's not that I can't hearth out at any time; it's that for some strange reason, I feel compelled not to do it. I'd rather pretend that I, like all the others I'm working with, am completely stranded with no way out than use my hearthstone. I don't know why, really -- maybe I just like immersing myself completely into a zone -- but I like that feeling of being all alone here with no way out. Vashj'ir had it; Jade Forest has it too, to a degree. I love it.

Barleyhop asked:

Q4tQ: I'm thinking about starting a Netherwing grind on an alt that is quickly becoming a main. With all the rumors about account-wide mounts, do you guys think this would be a waste of time?

We still don't know what mounts will be account-wide or even whether mounts will be account-wide upon Mists' release. Do you like the Netherwing? Do you enjoy egg hunting? Do you think the quests are pretty cool? If the answer to all of these things is yes, then I'd say go ahead and go for it. If it's something you're going to enjoy doing and you've got the time to spare, why not?

Keep in mind, I am saying this as someone who spent the last few days before the reputation grind was nerfed frantically grinding Timbermaw reputation specifically because I wanted to get it while it was still an accomplishment to get. So my views on these sorts of things may be a little skewed. But I still say if it's fun for you and you want to do it, go do it -- don't wait for it to get easy. Where's the fun in that?

spectrose asked:

Why all the QQ over not flying? In BC, we couldn't fly until 67. In Wrath, it was 77. It was only later that they allowed us to purchase an heirloom for alts to fly. We still had to level up that one character without flying first. In fact, Cata was the only expansion that allowed immediate flying...

Honestly? I have no idea. Cataclysm was unique in that all of the new zones with the exception of Vashj'ir pretty much required a flying mount. A lot of this was due to the fact that Blizzard gave people what they asked for -- old-world flying. Because the Cataclysm zones were plunked within the old world, it would have been pretty silly to restrict flying in just those few zones. It really would have.

I was actually discussing the old days with one of my coworkers earlier today, and we were both talking about how long it took to even get a ground mount back in vanilla. If you had enough gold to pick up your first mount at level 40, you were extremely lucky. Or a paladin or warlock. Getting that first flying mount at level 70 was an accomplishment, just as hitting level 80 and being able to fly in Northrend was an accomplishment in Wrath.

Enabling flight from the get-go in zones ruins all sense of danger. You can simply hop on your mount and fly out of harm's way. You can zip along from one quest point to another and just skip groups of mobs. There's no challenge. I don't know about you, but I don't really care to run around in some sort of god mode in games -- I play games for the challenge. Flight removes a lot of that challenge. I'm glad Blizzard's not letting us have it until 90 in Pandaria, because I honestly missed exploring the world and having to fight my way through it.

@cthomlan from Twitter asked:

Did Thrall actually replace Deathwing as Earthwarder? Does that mean Thrall has no Earthwarder powers after Dragon Soul ends?

He sort of did ... but not exactly. Thrall's an extremely powerful shaman, and he's very in touch with the elements of the earth. That particular aspect was missing from what the Aspects were trying to do, because the one that filled that spot, Deathwing, had obviously gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. So Thrall sort of stepped in and filled that role. He wasn't an Aspect -- he could never be an Aspect, which has been stated many times over -- but he was able to step in and fill that role temporarily, long enough that the Aspects could do what they needed to do.

@alvraen on Twitter asked:

in theory, what is mana? sustainable life source that you can convert into spells?

That is a super-good question. We don't really have an answer for it. It's just a resource that casters use. There's no real lore about mana.

But I guess if you wanted to look at it from the standpoint of resources, you could look at it this way: Warriors use rage as a resource because warriors get hit a lot. It makes them angry, and it makes them want to hit back harder. Hunters use focus because they have to focus in order to accurately shoot whatever they're aiming at. The energy that rogues use is just pure physical strength that they need in order to pull off their attacks and effectively dodge and twist and be agile enough not to die.

Mana is like these things, but for casters, mana is more like mental agility and focus. You have to have the concentration to not only remember the spells as you're casting them, but cast them in the correct way and in the correct sequence. If you mess up a word of a spell, it could have dire consequences. So when casters replenish mana, they're really giving their brain a break from all the work it has to do to cast those spells.

I don't know if that's accurate, but it's about the most sense I can make out of it.

And now my brain hurts, so I think we can safely call this Queue complete.

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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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