The Queue: I will never stop loving Karazhan

I absolutely adore Karazhan. I have run it hundreds, perhaps thousands of times, both in at-level groups and at higher levels. (Memorably, I recall trying to do the raid with a group of three Paladins during Wrath of the Lich King. We started around 2am and I don’t think we’d figured out how to get past the chess event by 5am.)

The art and atmosphere are great. The music is great. The boss encounters are fun, and some have a great sense of humor (like Opera) while others have been given a sense of humor by the players (like Shade of Aran). In part, I just like the place, which feels like nothing else in World of Warcraft, and in part I have lots of great memories of running it with friends during Burning Crusade. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing it return in Legion, but we’ll talk about that more in today’s Q&A, below.

I think I made my stance on Karazhan clear in the intro: I love it, I have yet to grow tired of it, and even seven years later I still run it. (In part because I still haven’t managed to get Attumen’s horse. Curse you RNG!) But while I’m looking forward to revisiting Karazhan, I do have some caveats. They’re caveats I think could be overcome, but they’re caveats nonetheless.

Firstly, I really don’t want the original Karazhan to go away. Like I said, and like I will keep repeating, I love that place. When Cataclysm revamped dungeons, even though it was to improve those dungeons and bring them up to par with WoW‘s more modern gameplay, it left me missing those old dungeons. Looking back, I think I would have preferred getting to see new parts of Scholomance (for example) instead of revamping and rearranging the existing dungeon. For Karazhan, though, there’s certainly a lot we haven’t seen — and adding new Karazhan dungeons could be a way to let us explore them without getting rid of what we already have.

In line with this, I think there’s lots of places to put new dungeon entrances depending on where new Karazhan dungeons might take us. There are the unused crypts under Karazhan and there are points of entry further up the tower (even a back door to the current raid dungeon) that might be used as other entrances. Or perhaps we’ll find a new door, hallway, or tunnel (like magic!) that sends us to a new part of the tower.

As to it getting old… I really think that depends on what Blizzard does with it. Karazhan interests me because it has an engaging story and an atmosphere that’s unique. I think Karazhan has a lot of room for more stories, though, and I hope Blizzard gives us more of Karazhan’s creepy atmosphere while also telling us something new about the place. I think the combination of nostalgia and new, compelling story info would be fantastic. But if we’re just rerunning the same old things but slightly different… I think that’s a lot less interesting.

We have had a lot of new stuff over the past week, but I think a couple of things are conspiring to keep enthusiasm low. Firstly, as mentioned in the comments, everyone’s suffering from late-expansion doldrums right now. It’s just a point in the expansion cycle where it’s hard to get enthusiasm up for anything and, without much new content in WoW recently — even though we have gotten some this week — people are just playing different games.

Secondly, with all of the excitement of Legion news from BlizzCon and the class previews after, it’s hardto get excited about the live game. Since BlizzCon I’ve definitely put a few alts on ice because I don’t feel like getting into playing them just to have to re-learn them in Legion. As we get hyped up about what’s coming, it’s just going to increasingly difficult to get hyped about what’s here now.

In the end, the new stuff is fun… but it’s a bit late to catch people’s attention if it’s already somewhere else, whether that’s another game or just looking ahead to Legion.

NO, YOU’RE WRONG–

Ah. Ahem.

Excuse me.

What I mean to say is that, despite the fact that the Gnome Hunter we’ve seen on the character creation screen is shown next to a robotic chicken, we don’t know what kind of pets they’ll have long-term. This may just be a lone robotic pet for baby Gnome Hunters trying to get their start in the world. I imagine that after that first pet, Gnomes, like all other Hunters, will be able to go out and tame what they’d like, making them rather more run-of-the-mill than that screenshot suggests.

But come on, robot pets are adorable.

For those of you who have somehow missed the news, yes, the new hotness in patch 6.2.3 is a hot cup of Earl Black Tea. This is a highly refined drink that gives you a top hat and a monocle for drinking it.

Getting your own Earl Black Tea, however, will cost you 10 timewarped badges. But, yes, that’s definitely the best use of your timewarped badges. Gear? Toys? Mounts? Whatever. Bring me more tea!

Unless there is some kind of world-ending catastrophe (which I suppose is possible, if not probable), there will be a leveling stream this afternoon. I assume that this, like all leveling streams, will have us encountering quests that tear us apart as a team while we all contemplate appropriate forms of revenge on Mitch for his ninja-looting ways.

So just another day, really.

That’s all for today’s Queue! As ever, please leave your questions in the comments and we’ll be back here at the same time tomorrow to answer them.