The Queue: Picking favorites

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Like Adam, I am most pleased that this is a new week. Things are so boring around the WoWiverse lately. Pilgrims Bounty was fun (really fun, I thought) but it was only around for a little while. I need excitement! Adventure! There is a void that needs to be filled!

I guess answering your various questions will fulfill that need for now.

Jason asked...

"Since the Battle.net change has occurred, is it now possible for me to log on to WoW in Europe (like at an Internet café) with my American account? Or are they still separate like they were before?"

They are still divided into regions. There's a North American Battle.net and a European Battle.net. If you want to log onto EU servers, you'll need an EU account. Sadly.

Alanid asked...

"If I have wings... why am I always walking?"

If the sun rises... why do I feel so dark inside?

Bob Dewane asked...

"Will we be able to earn Ashen Verdict rep from running the 5 mans in ICC or will it only come from running the raids?"

No, you will not get Ashen Verdict reputation from the 5-mans. It's purely for the raid zone.

Charizard asked...

"Why aren't there any shoulder or head armor until about level 20? I'm leveling a paladin (at 15), and I have yet to run across a shoulder or head item yet. Do helmets and spaulders imbalance the game?"

I've always assumed it was part of Blizzard's gated rewards system in WoW. You know, how back in the day you always looked forward to level 40 for your mount? And then level 60 for your epic mount? Before the mount was a few smaller rewards. Your first pair of shoulder armor, your first helm, stuff like that.

I don't know about you, but until I became a jaded husk of a man in Burning Crusade, I was always incredibly excited to get my first piece of shoulder armor. Heck, I used to take my main out to Loch Modan to kill the rare spawn Horde Outrunners all of the time because they dropped shoulder armor. I'd distribute it all to my alts, or put them on the AH for absurd amounts of gold that nobody but twinks would pay.

aelador asked...

"Just wondering, I thought I had read somthing indicating that you could get a full set of the first level of Tier 10 armor just by doing the new heroics, is this true?"

It's true, but it will take you an absurd number of runs. As in, if all you do is heroics to get your badges, I will be very impressed if you manage a full set before Cataclysm.

Mal asked...

"I've been playing for about half a year and my main and very first character, a warlock, is about to hit 80. I have a hunter, druid, mage and paladin alts that I had planned to level until Cataclysm came out. This is because I reeeally wanted to hold off on playing a rogue until I could make a Worgen, same applies for dwarf shamans (I'm an Alliance boy at heart).

Is it really worth it to concentrate on these 4 classes only for now, or should I just give in and make more alts now and race change them later? ( I have already decided to play every class at least once). I say race change because I find the thought of leveling the same class twice appalling."

I say stick to the four you have. Cataclysm is going to change so much about the old world that it's basically going to be a whole new experience, especially if you roll a worgen or a goblin. If you simply wait around until they let you race change everything to Worgen, you're going to miss a lot of the awesome stuff they're doing with the expansion. Just from what I saw at BlizzCon, I can tell you that the worgen/goblin starting experiences alone will beat out most of the things we've done in the solo game these last five years.

You will absolutely want to play that rogue as a worgen from day one. If you don't want to level something twice, don't hose yourself out of what Cataclysm has to offer.

Rochel asked...

"Besides WoW.com, what's your favorite World of Warcraft site?"

That, my friend, is a hard question. It's also one where I need to remind everyone reading that my answer is just that: my answer. If you asked again for tomorrow's edition of The Queue, Adam would probably give you a different answer. And on Friday, Sacco would you give you a different one.

Personally, I read an absurd number of WoW sites every night. If you have a WoW blog, chances are very good that I read it at least casually. However, a couple of sites found their way out of my work-related RSS reader folder and hopped into my leisure reading folder. MMO-Champion, obviously (hi Boubouille). The other is BlizzPlanet.

MMO-Champion is there for all of the obvious reasons, and BlizzPlanet carries a lot of good info that most other sites tend to skip over. Discussion about the WoW comics and novels, release dates, book signings, and general lore-related goodness. I don't always agree with Medievaldragon's thoughts on various pieces of Blizzard mythos or the quality of certain products, but I think that's okay. Disagreeing on the lore of our favorite settings is kind of what geeks do. Really, it should just make us all realize how passionate we are about our hobbies.

Do note that it's BlizzPlanet and not WoWPlanet. He covers a lot of Starcraft and Diablo items too, so don't throw a hissy if you hop over there as someone that only plays WoW and see things you don't care about.

Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW.com 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!