The Queue: Adorable baby giraffe, take 2

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley (@gomatgo) will be your host for today.

OK, I think I got it this time. Look at this adorable baby giraffe.

Questions, yes?

Arkonn asked:

Something that's been bugging me for a while: Why does PvP gear ilvl - specifically crafted gear - count towards ilvl required for entering dungeons and the LFR? I can understand giving the gear itself a level so you can quickly differentiate between what is potentially an upgrade and what isn't, however what I can't understand is why it counts towards your normal ilvl.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not an elitist so-and-so by any stretch of the imagination. It just bugs me that some people spend hours and hours running heroics getting gear and points to improve themselves and others spend 10 minutes at the auction house buying gear that essentially is a "free" pass to the next stage.

The ilevel itself is a pretty simple Band-Aid fix that was added into the game to prevent a lot of Dungeon Finder abuse and create a metric by which people could enter random dungeons and group with random people. The system was put into place so that the Dungeon Finder matching systems had some sort of metric to go on because there is literally nothing else, other than achievements, that could determine whether a player has enough ability to tackle certain content. Since items already had associated ilevels -- you just couldn't see until an addon came out that showed it, and Blizzard eventually allowed you to toggle it -- the data was already there to create the necessary ilevel system.

Is there a better way of determining which players should access which dungeons? Maybe. In the end, ilevel is one of those things that players found and made a requirement through addons like GearScore, and Blizzard co-opted into the system to run its own show rather than let players set the rules (which in GearScore terms was a pretty good thing). If Blizzard tells you that you can't do a dungeon, it's a lot better than other people telling you that you can't and just being jerks about it.

It just so happens that PvP gear also has ilevels associated to it and the system does not discriminate, mostly because it might not be able to.

EverythingRuned asked:

If in-game gambling isn't allowed, what's the deal with Mysterious Fortune Cards?

In-game gambling is in a weird place right now. Some personal things are OK vis à vis the rules and the Terms of Service, like a guild SuperBowl pool or something, but you can never, ever advertise for gambling in the general, trade, or /say chats. Why is it OK that there are Mysterious Fortune Cards that players can make and sell and are definitely a form of gambling when Blizzard says you aren't allowed to advertise gambling but can sell these cards? Because Blizzard made them, and they aren't bound to Blizzard's own rules. The rules are for the players, not Blizzard.

Lampp asked:

I just picked up a new CPU and am wondering what is the best way to go about switching over data. Should I dump it all on an external hard drive and then transfer to the new machine? Can I just transfer my whole WOW folder over and be ready to go?

Sorry for the newb-tastic question but I haven't upgraded in years (can you say 17 FPS) and I want to make this as smooth as possible....

I'm assuming that by "new CPU" you mean a whole new computer with a blank hard drive and everything -- and you're in luck when it comes to World of Warcraft. Blizzard is very smart in that WoW doesn't really install itself anyway. There are no registry hooks that you have to know about or care about to install WoW. Your best bet before switching over to the new computer is to do exactly what you said: Get an external hard drive, then transfer your WoW folder over and then back over to the new computer. You do not need to install or anything. Just put the folder where you want it and run the WoW launcher, and it will take care of what needs to be done. It's awesome.

General computer tips: Update your video drivers and always restart you computer afterwards, put WoW and an interface/WTF folder backup somewhere safe, and name your hard drives types of bears.

Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider 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!