The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Most of Cataclysm seems solid from a story standpoint, but a few plot holes continue to pop up here and there that cause people to wonder exactly how certain elements and creatures fit into lore. One question that seems to come up more often than anything else is the origin of goblin and worgen death knights. After all, these guys didn't even exist during Wrath of the Lich King -- the Greymane Wall isn't coming down until Cataclysm hits, and the Bilgewater Cartel goblins are still on Kezan, right?

Well, not quite. In order to understand where these guys come from -- and they do fit in lore, Blizzard managed to integrate them quite nicely -- we have to take a look at one of the continual banes of my existence: timelines. The timeline for World of Warcraft was pretty straightforward during vanilla and The Burning Crusade. However, with the introduction of the death knight class in Wrath, players were introduced to a much heavier use of phased content, including a phased version of the death knight starting zone that introduced the reason why these servants of Arthas suddenly turned on him and formed their own independent alliances with either the Alliance or the Horde.

WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. If you wish to remain spoiler-free, do not continue.

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Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Ayasumonk provided today's header image, a reflection on the cruelty of Russian circuses. Not really.

A_V asked:

Are the guild-earned new heirlooms in Cata going to be the only accessible heirlooms available to level from 80 to 85? Because my partner and I have a private guild on one server for the two of us that consists of just our few 80s and little alts. If the heirlooms are deep into the guild levels, will we still be able to access them with just the two of us running around?
Yes, only the helm and cape heirlooms are currently known to work past level 80, and it might take a bit of time for a two-person guild to unlock them. Bear in mind that you'll likely also have guild perks to boost your experience gain at that point.

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Filed under: The Queue

Submitter Aldrea of <Thats No Good> on Argent Dawn (US-A) writes, "While trying to earn the last achievement for heroic Gundrak, Share The Love, we somehow glitched Gul'darah down to the center platform in the pool area, where he respawned while continuing his cast to the giant idol at the back of the boss room. With his cast both longer and larger, it made for one funky, disco-style tunnel that several of our guild decided to start tripping inside."

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Filed under: Around Azeroth

Comic news: Slash AFK posted the following on last week's list:

Slash AFK will be updating (starting this Monday, Nov. 1) seven days per week for two weeks with a BlizzCon comic series I'm doing based off our trip.

So that's ... /does hard math ... 14 days straight of one comic per day, plus a HUGE special comic on the 14th?

What have I gotten myself into? o_o

We look forward to seeing what you come up with!

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Comics, Sunday Morning Funnies

Daylight Saving Time is over! Set your clocks back one hour.

It's that time again! Daylight saving time is going away on us again. Here's a big reminder to all you folks who deal with daylight saving to set your clocks back one hour. Yay! Free hour!

So the question remains -- what time do you raid? Personally, I'm a weekday raider, around 7:30 p.m. my time over on the east coast. We usually raid for a solid two to three hours, depending on the flow of the night, successes and failures, and progression attempts. All in all, it seems to be a good block of time.

Are you a weekday raider or a weekend warrior? Early or late? Are you a raider who runs with a team from another time zone or country and has to accommodate some pretty crazy hours? Let's hear about it!

Filed under: Breakfast Topics

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we take a hard look at the new fire tree in Cataclysm and beyond. Well, not really beyond; I'm not sure how we'd even do that.

The next three weeks will find Arcane Brilliance looking in depth at each of the mage talent trees, with all of the associated bits and bobs. Because it's very likely the most popular of the three specs right now, we'll begin with the fire tree. Or will we? Yes ... yes, we will. I'm sorry, I just got done watching Inception for the first time (I know, I'm slow), and I'm pretty sure none of this is real and all of it is a dream. A dream where I get to write a weekly column about mages and set fire to warlocks over and over without repercussion. And you guys are all in my dream with me! Frankly, I never want to wake up.

The fire tree, in my opinion, is a model of good design. From top to bottom, the talents play off of each other, working together in creative ways that just make the tree fun both in theory and in practice. It's not without its problems, but the issues are comparatively minor. We'll mention some of them, but only in the interest of full disclosure. For the most part, the fire tree seems to be an example of Blizzard's getting it right.

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Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance, Cataclysm

This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

Editor's Note: This post contains spoilers for the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. Read at your own risk!

Looks like the Wetlands just got a little wetter. (What the -- who took my sunglasses?!) The swamplands of Khaz Modan have gotten some updates -- some for the better, some for the worse, and some for the downright awesome.

Dun Algaz The familiar twisting tunnels leading from Loch Modan to the Wetlands have remained intact, including the halfway-point town of Dun Algaz, still overrun by the Dragonmaw. Like many areas that haven't changed a whole lot, the questing here has been changed up slightly but mostly made shorter. In this case, your objective is retrieving some precious cargo -- and if you didn't guess alcohol was involved, you've forgotten that you're in dwarf country.

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Filed under: Cataclysm, Guest Posts

Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW.com staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as WRUP! Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too.

This week, Matt Rossi came up with our WRUP bonus question. He asked us, "Do you prefer the old Ashkandi or the new Ashkandi?" I bet Mr. Rossi had some grand vision for the WRUP that would accompany this question, possibly one that told an epic tale or just delighted in old memories. Little did he know that a clothie would be compiling the WRUP this week!

You see, I have no idea what an Ashkandi is. An educated guess would say it holds some importance to melee classes. I didn't start raiding or playing melee classes until The Burning Crusade (and even then, it was a rogue, kitty druid, and a level 29 troll warrior), so I suspect I'm missing out on some valuable nugget of information that would make this all make sense. Oh well!

Which do you prefer -- and as always, what are you playing this weekend?

Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey): Working on various projects here and there, working on HM LK-25, hanging out with the family too. As for Ashkandi -- the old version. It's a really pretty, distinct model.
Basil Berntsen (@outdps): I am going to be playing WoW -- I need to get my enchanting/inscription mule to 75 in preparation for Cataclysm's new minimum level for maxed-out professions. I can't tell the difference between those swords, so I'm gonna go ahead and say, "Whatever -- it's not a gun."

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Filed under: WoW.com Business

Civilization Fanatics forum-goer Maze has designed a map pack for the recently released Civilization 5 that looks very familiar, and for good reason: the map mimics that of classic World of Warcraft, with the two main continents and the Maelstrom in the center.

The map is actually very accurate, with precisely placed bodies of water and coastlines and small details like purple creep in Silithus. There are also details like Thoradin's Wall and the Deeprun Tram pointed out.

Maze has created two versions of the map, with differing sizes for faster- or slower-paced games. Even if you aren't a fan of the game and don't plan on playing it, the graphics and attention to detail are pretty awesome. Check out some shots of the map in our gallery below.

Filed under: Arts and Crafts

Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

Rainyia sent us this picture on Twitter. "It's what I imagine worgen riding mounts to look like," she says. I suppose she's not far off, though admittedly this worgen looks a little, uh, young.

jq71586 asked:

Do the immediate goblin and worgen starter zones have mailboxes? Or to retrieve heirlooms, for example, is it still needed to run toward a larger nearby city to access a mailbox?

New goblins and worgen do indeed have mailboxes available right away. You'll be able to get your heirlooms and proceed to outlevel the starting zone right away, even though you can't leave until you complete it anyway.

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Filed under: The Queue