The Queue: In which I think it's okay to break the rules

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

We'll just begin today.

LifeLover wrote in:

My friend is dying. He has pancreatic cancer and it's terminal as hell. We have been playing WoW together since vanilla and now I have inherited his account. I don't want his long loved characters to die with him, but I also cannot afford to pay for two accounts.

He has merged lots of other WoW accounts into his bnet account so I cannot merge it with mine. And since we're not the same creator of our accounts, I cannot transfer his characters to mine. Is there a way to keep his characters alive? Can Blizzard support remove the other old WoW accounts from his account or is there another way to merge his mage, paladin and priest onto my account?

Thank you,
B and J

My deepest condolences for what everyone is going through.

I'm not sure that there is much Blizzard is going to be able to do, unfortunately. I'd post this in the CS forums and see what they say. Those forums are usually off the beaten path of the trolls from the realm forums, so you might have better luck there. You can also try calling them directly, if you get the right person on the phone, you might have some success.

But you know what? Don't worry about transferring his characters into your account. Just keep your friends log in info and keep the account active through game time cards when you can afford them. And don't worry either about letting it lapse, I'm sure your friend entirely understands. This is one of the few instances where I think breaking the rules is okay. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who disagrees (and isn't just being a dirty troll).

I've put this infront of some eyes that might be able to help. Also, a lot of Blizz folks read us, so something might come of that as well.

A guildmate of mine passed away a couple years ago, right before Cataclysm was released. He was a great guy, quality officers, and a good little squishy gnome mage. /salute Keria.

Arion asked:

I've been taking dailies pretty slowly, as I don't want to burn out, and have only gotten to mid-honored with most factions. If I don't finish getting exalted with the factions, will there be a point where new content will be added and I'll fall behind in terms of getting all of them done?

You'll always be able to go back and complete any faction (unless something majorly changes). That said, I doubt Blizzard would tie future content too much on prexisting faction relationships. One of the big points of a patch, in any game, is to say "okay, so you didn't exactly like what we did before ... now try this." Mists is getting almost universally good reviews (except for people who are mad because it's not Age of Conan of Guild Wars 2), and I don't suspect Blizzard's formula for patch 5.1 is going to change much.

In fact... I'd lay odds we'll see more reputations come about. Not a bad thing, I think. Perhaps some that are less grindy, but have the same reward and quest structure as The Tillers. Because damn, is that fun to do when every few days you get a new quest and can continue on with the story (I'm being serious here too, no internet sarcasm).

HerrKlokbok asked:

Is there a link between the Mantid and the Silithid? Since the Jinyou (the fish people) evolved from murlocs, I mean - could there be a similar link?

The Mike Sacco chimed in with an answer: The mantid, qiraji, and nerubian are all related, according to one of the Klaxxi guys.

Jrowda asked:

Can planting crops at your Tiller garden "crit". Twice I've had it happen where I plant eda crop and it instantly becomes havestable, no wait time. Is this intended, a bug or did I just get lucky with some magic beans?

My understanding (and a couple of those in the comments) is that it's a normal thing where a crop becomes a "bursting" crop and you can harvest it immediately. It's rare, and while I don't have any numbers, I'd assume in the 1% to 3% range, just like most other super rare things.

Andrew asked:

I remember reading recently that Blizzard is planning on making it possible to solo old raids for X-mog without the need to be in a raid. Has there been any further mention of this? Possibly with 5.1?

Negatory. We know that they want to do this, but we don't know when it's all going to come up. I wouldn't be surprised to see it in patch 5.1, however. Fingers crossed.

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!