I decided to do something a little different with the image above for today's Ask a Beta Tester. Instead of beating you over the head with another of my awesome Dalaran screenshots, I've plugged in some music you can listen to while you read, if you'd like. Just hit play, and get in a Wrath kind of mood.

Milkgas asked quite a few question, but many of them involve story spoilers that I don't think readers would appreciate seeing in this particular column. What I don't answer, you can truck over to Ask a Lore Nerd and I'll squeeze them in on the bottom behind my usual "spoilers be here, yarrrr" line. We can definitely hit a few of them though.

Has there been any hints in the quest text of either the Uldum or the Karazhan Basement as a raid or dungeon in this expansion or the next?

Nothing that I've seen! We'll have Ulduar as a raid zone in Northrend, so to me that seems like a definite no on Uldum. I don't think they would put two Titan raids in one expansion, unless Uldum turned out to be a 5 man dungeon. We've seen nothing about the rest of Karazhan.

Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Alex Ziebart brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Have suggestions for future KYL topics? E-mail us! Or, if you have a question for our sister column Ask a Lore Nerd, e-mail us those, too!

Most of us probably know the Barrens as the far, far too big and empty zone that we all spent too long running through. I know I do. You whippersnappers these days and your three flight paths. In my day, we had one and we ran to Ratchet on foot every single time. You kids nowadays have it easy. All of that aside, though, did you know it was originally a lush forest, some of which was part of the ancient Kaldorei territory?

It used to be a much more peaceful (and tolerable) place than it is now. Of course, we're talking ten thousand years ago. That place totally sucks now. Don't get all sentimental on me and pretend it's deep and meaningful and spiritual to quest there or something. It's horrible. Let's learn about it anyway, because learning is fun! ...Right?

Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!

Aydinn of Cenarion Circle wrote in to ask...

My question is (which may seem obvious to some), who is the goblin statue at Booty Bay? Why does he deserve a statue?

Answer: Thanks for writing in! Good to hear from people from my home server. That statue on Janeiro Isle might be of Baron Revilgaz, the overseer and top dog of Booty Bay. He deserves a statue because... he wanted a statue, and he's freaking Baron Revilgaz. He runs the show. Really, though, it's kind of a generic Goblinoid figure so it could be nobody at all.

At one time, it was a statue of a Human Priest. It's a nod to a really cool landmark here in the real world. It's based on Christ the Redeemer, a statue found in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. You may recognize it from an episode of Lupin III. Eh? No? ...oh. Oh well. It's a pretty awesome sight to see in real life regardless of whether you put faith in what it represents or not. The in-game model was likely changed from a Human to a Goblin to back away from the religious overtones while keeping the reference, and Goblins fit the area better anyway.

Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!

Terrant asks...

I have questions about Kalimdor. How aware were the Alliance races of the continent before the events of Warcraft III? Was it completely unknown, known but unexplored, or frequented by the adventurous? The only Alliance settlement seems to be the recent Theramore, but at the same time, the goblins' trading network and cities seem to be well-established, so you'd think word of the continent must have gotten around. And there are pirate organizations that include humans and dwarves on the continent, too.

Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Elizabeth Wachowski and Alex Ziebart bring you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Oh yeah, and it's late this week. Blame it on the severe dehydration. Or Alex, you can blame him too, if you want.

Continuing the Wrath preparation train, this week's Know Your Lore will take a look at one of the three Bronzebeard brothers. Not the King one or the dead one, but the eccentric, probably-should-be-dead one. The one and only Brann Bronzebeard, explorer extraordinaire.

Brann Bronzebeard is the very definition of a Jack of all Trades. He's an explorer, a linguist, a warrior, an archaeologist, et cetera, et cetera. He is the premier member of the Explorer's League, and while the guild was founded under an edict by Magni, Brann was one of its founding members.

In today's Know Your Lore, we're going to take a look at something that has been requested by a few readers(and a blogger). It's not a very well known topic, it comes from a quest line tucked away in the far corners of Ashenvale that sends you running all over the world as if you had absolutely nothing better to do with your time, much like any other quest line in Kalimdor. Regardless of the annoyance of the quest line, it is probably one of the more intriguing side stories in the Warcraft universe.

It begins shortly after the destruction of the World Tree. Archimonde was gone, but a great number of demons remained. Like the Scourge, the Legion doesn't simply stop when you tear the head from the beast. Priestess and Sentinel Velinde Starsong was the Night Elf in charge of leading the forces of the Kaldorei in these regions, assaulting the Legion and pushing them back as far as they could. This held up well for quite some time, pushing the demonic hordes as far back as the borders of Felwood. Unfortunately, the Night Elves were only level 20-something at that point, and the mobs in Felwood are like level 50, so things stopped going so well.

In all seriousness, the Kaldoreian advance was slowing more and more as they pressed into Felwood, their numbers being utterly decimated. Velinde grew desperate as so many of the Night Elves fell to the Legion, and called out to her final hope: The goddess Elune. She begged the goddess for strength and power, the ability to avenge her fallen comrades.

Kalimdor, the ancestral home of the Night Elves and the current home of the New Horde, is at once both the oldest and newest part of Azeroth. Ten thousand years ago, the remnants of Night Elven society swam there from their sundered city to build a new world for themselves. And only five years past, Thrall and Jaina Proudmoore heeded the summon of the prophet Medivh to come to Kalimdor. Today, Kalimdor stretches from the forbidding slopes of Mt. Hyjal to the creepy bug caves of Silithus. And, as always, the land tells many stories ...

The other day I was helping a guildie with their mage as they reached 20. Thus began the long journey to collect teleportation training from around Azeroth. Something he said along the way stuck with me though. He mentioned that he hardly sees people asking for portals to Darnassus now. I thought about it, and would have to agree. I seem to sell as many ports to Darnassus as I sell to the Exodar. The cities are so closely linked, it's fairly easy to hop on a boat and be anywhere on Kalimdor that you need to be.

Why then the great level difference in the training? The portal to Darnassus still remains a spell you can train in at level 50, while the portal to the Exodar is a level 40 spell. This goes for the teleport spells as well, since the level for Darnassus is 30, while all the others are available at level 20. So in essence, all that bouncing around the continent starts ten levels sooner. I imagine that initially the portal to Darnassus was level 50 because it represents a greater magical achievement. You are now transporting a group across the ocean. Does the Exodar require less skill to use? You are still transporting people across the Great Sea. Wouldn't it in fact require more skill, seeing as how we have had a longer history with the Night Elves than we have with the Draenei? I am thinking that the developers might want to take a look at the level requirements for the portals. The initial level requirements seemed to support the lore. The training, as it stands currently, does not.

A possible explanation is that Night Elves shun arcane magic. However, they do accept the portal trainer within their city, so this argument doesn't seem to work for me. If they let that first mage in there to create the portals in the first place, why would it be more difficult for other mages to do so? Is there some sort of other explanation that I'm missing as to why there is such a level discrepancy with both the teleport and the portal spells to Darnassus?

I love the interesting and unknown places you can locate when exploring Azeroth, and reader Bodah of Hallowed Arcana on Kirin Tor sends in two great shots of a tiny abandoned farm at the Southwestern tip of Kalimdor (the overhead shot seen above and this player's eye view of the place) With a fifteen minute swim (in aquatic form) from the nearest accessible beach, it's no surprise the place was abandoned. Bodah further informs us that there's a large network of caves in the area. So what did Blizzard have planned for this place when they put it together, and what might become of it in the future? Your guess is as good as mine!

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part.

Tseric informs us that the realms Aegwynn, Akama, Chromaggus, Draka, Drak'thul, Garithos, Hakkar, Khaz Modan, Jubei'Thos, Kul Tiras, Korgath, Malorne, Mug'thol, Runetotem, and Thorium Brotherhood have been taken down for urgent, but unspecified, maintenance.  Further the continent of Kalimdor seems to be having serious technical difficulties - reports in the general forums suggest that the continent may be crashing (or causing player disconnects) as frequently as every thirty seconds.  Ouch.  Thank goodness there's a lot of cool stuff in the Eastern Kingdoms - just hope you didn't log out in the wrong place...