The Queue: Why Gorgrond?

Why Gorgrond? Perhaps it’s better to ask why not Gorgrond. After all, who wouldn’t want to zoom from Pandaria straight to… uh… beautiful… scenic… full of podlings… Gorgrond? It’s soon to be Draenor’s hottest tourist destination, we’re sure.

Now, on to more questions and answers (mostly not about Gorgrond) in today’s Queue.

As commenter PFuzzyBunny mentioned, there is in fact a way to skip over these intro quests. Though it’s a little convoluted for a newbie — it drops you randomly off the coast of Gorgrond —someone who’s been through Draenor a few times shouldn’t have any problem making it work and getting a new alt to where they need to be. Check these instructions for a walkthrough.

Admittedly, I gave up on racing for world or server firsts a long time ago — for the most part because it simply took more time and dedication than I could continue to give. When that was my game, though, it meant that every minute logged in to WoW was dedicated to improving our guild’s raid game. Beyond raiding itself, there was perfecting rotations and strategies with advice from our class leads, grinding for the best consumables and enchantments (as well as helping others do the same), helping to gear up new guildmembers, and generally giving everything that could be given to the team effort. Spending much time on alts was frowned on unless they had some use to that same team effort.

Skills and tactics can be learned, but I found it was the level of single-minded dedication that was hardest to maintain over time. And, like you mentioned, I suspect certain personality types are able to manage that kind of focus better than others. Though I enjoyed the challenge at the time, doing that on top of a full-time job was exhausting and I burned out on it within a year.

In the case of today’s Mythic raids, I think you only have to look what it took Method to down Archimonde: 472 wipes. That’s the kind of time and dedication you need to put into being a world first raider right now.

Practice, practice, practice! But it’s not only practice in typing (though that’s certainly a handy skill to have, and playing fast-paced video games has certainly improved my own typing skills) — it’s knowing the dungeons and encounters. Knowing where you need to be, when you can take a breather, and when you have a minute to type helps a lot.

I also think you’ll see more typing happening on less intense encounters. Just look at our leveling stream as an example: when we’re fighting for our (digital) lives, we don’t even have time to talk, much less type. But for most of our dungeon runs? I usually have WoW open in one window and Blizzard Watch’s chat room open in another. At level dungeons don’t provide a big challenge for DPS or healing, and there’s more time than you might expect to do other things in the background. (Well, so long as I can still see what everyone’s health bars look like.)

Honestly, it’s questing where I have to pay more attention because we’re running all over the map.

Uhm… maybe don’t let the rest of them know I said that.

At this point, I’m going to say no. Sure, it’s outdated, but they’ve gone this long without changing it so it seems unlikely to change. Just consider it a bit of special flavor for the Ahn’Qiraj raids.

We’re actively working on making more merchandise — these tees are just the first because we wanted to have something for BlizzCon. Stay tuned for more!

That’s all for today’s Queue. As ever, leave your questions in the comments and we’ll see you back here tomorrow with more answers!