The Queue: Welcome Bear

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

An old friend visits in today's Queue.

GnomeMaleModel asked:

Ignoring all current race/class restrictions, what would be your dream insta-90 character? Tauren Rogue? Gnome Hunter? Panda DK? Murloc Priest?

Undead druid, just so I could see their ostensibly-awesome forms. A playable version of the classic Welcome Bear from Western Plaguelands! A big ol' dead tree form! I'm sure the artists would have a grand old time with it, and so would I.

reid asked:

so semi crazy conspiracy time...

with some of the semi-finished bits of WoD coming out

but really very little of practical value since blizzcon

Do you think there is any realistic chance of there not being a beta for WoD

and there will a sudden and swift announcement of the expansion release date?

At this point would Blizzard trust their own internal development and testing teams, or is there simply too much value in a public test realm?

If anything, I can see the value in having a flawed but completely "new" expansion that NOBODY knows about before they play it.

Last we heard from Blizzard, betas are very, very important. I'd be shocked if there wasn't one. There's no real testing substitute for getting thousands of players into the game and ready to break it. As much as I'd like to go into the expansion unspoiled, I'd rather have it working first.

bsktcsx asked:

Not sure if this has been asked before since blizzcon 13

Since announcing the new character/npc models, has there been any mention of a reworking of the models of the children for the various races? I know with Children's Week coming up, it might be a cool way to reinvent the holiday.

We haven't heard anything about it. It's probably pretty unlikely, given the amount of time and effort going into the new character models and art assets for WoD. But we'll see!

JoshMcGee asked:

Do you think we'll see (my favorite species) the Ethereal in WoD? I would assume not, as they came to the planet BECAUSE it was shattered and had all those energies.... but man, I miss them so much! Do you think they will ever return? And when?

Good question. It's my understanding that the incident that changed the ethereals into their current form happened some time ago, but we don't know exactly how long. On top of that, Draenor as it stands in WoD is far less anomalous than Outland, a floating continent sinking into the Twisting Nether. Who knows whether Draenor would even catch the attention of the Nexus-Princes just yet?

Willdurandblack asked:

I'm assuming that you guys know some stuff about WoD, and maybe other blizzard games? That you can't share because of NDA agreements. When your whole job is focused around talking about WoW news and you're constantly being asked questions about upcoming wow stuff, how do you keep track of stuff you can talk about and stuff you can't talk about? Have you ever answered a question on the queue only to have to take it out when one of the other writers said "sorry man, we learned that at that press event last week. Can't talk about it, remember?"

You may be shocked to know that we don't actually know much about WoD that hasn't been formally announced by Blizzard! We've found out about stuff before (not usually from Blizzard) and decided to keep quiet about it, but that doesn't come up very often. When it does, we play dumb or don't bring it up. For WoD we don't need to make that call, because we don't really know anything.

OliverDawrant asked:

what happens to valour points earned after the 3000 cap. my warrior is sitting on 2.9k roughly but i only farm dailys for cash on him at the mo

You simply stop earning valor points once you hit the cap.

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!