The Queue: Isthmus-time is here

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. Michael Sacco will be your host today.

It's officially Winter Veil, and you know what that means! Azerothians donning their yuletide apparel and decking the halls with the blood of their enemies. Is there anything more demoralizing than getting decapitated by someone dressed like a holiday centerfold? And just think, without achievements, this activity would be naught but a holiday novelty. Technology is a wondrous thing.

Daniel asked...

I have noticed that dark ranger hanging around in Dalaran, and decided to look them up, and noticed that they were neutral hero unit in Warcraft 3:The Frozen Throne. I was wondering, could, it be even remotely possible, that in the future we have that class introduced into the game that will be neutral?

Extremely unlikely. There are also some dark rangers wandering around the Undercity post-3.3, and it appears that they're there as a buildup to playable forsaken hunters in Cataclysm. Sylvanas herself is classified as a dark ranger. We'll probably see quests just like the ones introducing night elf mages and tauren priests and paladins for these NPCs.

Darksky asked...

So, I had a random lore question pop into my head the other day about dragon aspects (well, supposedly-important dragons, at least) and their humanoid forms: Is there anything in lore that explains why certain dragons always take a specific humanoid form? For example, Alexstraza & Korialstraz always appear in-game as High Elves in humanoid form, but Chromie always appears as a gnome in humanoid form. Is it as simple as 'personal preference,' or is there an actual lore reason behind it, such as the aspect's humanoid form representing some form of stewardship over the race they appear as?

As an extra credit question, is it only specific important dragons that can take humanoid form, or (Warcraft lore-wise) can any dragon assume a humanoid form? For example, does Deathwing have a known humanoid form, and have we seen it in-game before?
Any dragon can apparently change his or her shape to a humanoid, and most of the time, it's done to make communication with mortal races easier. The humanoid forms they choose to appear in can be chalked up to personal (dragonal?) preference. In Alextrasza's or Korialstrasz's case, for example, the intentions are benevolent, but the Black Dragonflight tends to use their human forms to brainwash and manipulate "lesser" races.

Deathwing does/did indeed have a human form -- Lord Daval Prestor of the nation of Alterac. He's not in-game in WoW, but he was (I believe) in Warcraft II.


Jon asked...

When doing the Quel'delar quest chain, the vfinal step (A Victory for the Silver Covenant for Alliance or A Victory for the Sunreavers for Horde) if a toon can use swords, do they have the option of getting the Mace if they want, or are they stuck with the sword as the only option? If this is the case, do you think Blizz will add the option for both weapon types in the future?
If your class can use the sword version of the weapon, you will not get the option to receive the mace version. There's been no indication that this will change, but we'll keep you posted.


James asked...

How did you guys get the domain wow.com over Blizzard?

Wow.com was an old AOL search portal back in the dialup days, though it's been defunct for quite some time. We've always been owned by AOL, so naturally, the domain name was available to us.


Blondie asked...

What are the wow.com teams theories on race-changing to the new Race/Class combos? Will we have to wait for that for some time into Cataclysm? Will we be able to do it the day Cataclysm hits? Will we even be able to do it in the pre patch 4.0? (I want theories, preferably with motivation.)

Obviously they will not let us racechange into worgen straight off the bat, so that you can get "Realm First! Level 85 Worgen" without having to level 1-80. But the other races are already in the game and it will hardly break anything if you could racechange asap.

My personal opinion? I'm willing to bet that the new race/class combos will be available for race/faction change right away, but not the worgen or goblin versions of any of the classes. It all hinges on how Blizzard is going to handle realm-first achievements in Cataclysm.



Llifebane asked...

Question: Does the Dungeon Finder reward Emblems of Frost for the first random heroic you complete or for completing the first random heroic you start? (would test myself but don't want to lose out on my Frost)
You receive your two Frost emblems for the first random dungeon you complete -- that is, the first random dungeon in which you defeat the final boss.

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!