The Queue: Nice Crown! edition

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

Queue, queue, queue. Everyone must be really excited for the eventual 3.3 patch, because we've got a ton of questions about Arthas and Icecrown today. What the heck, guys! BUT YEA, I SHALL ANSWER THINE PLEAS.


m_rydelis asked:
I have a question here, so as I remember from Warcraft TFT, Lich King was left to freeze on Frozen Throne, and in WotLK cinematic we see him on it, so did it just melt down, or something happend, because there is no such thing as Warcraft as Frozen throne now.

Icecrown Citadel was built over the Frozen Throne, and Arthas has apparently done a lot of construction on Icecrown Glacier since TFT and especially since the opening cinematic. The Frozen Throne likely still remains inside of the fully-constructed Icecrown Citadel, but we'll definitely see when 3.3 launches.

Cyrus asked:
Do we even know if there's going to be a 3.4? Has Blizzard announced it, or are people assuming it just based on the number of content patches in BC? Maybe progression will just go OS, Naxx, EoE, Ulduar, Argent Coliseum and Icecrown.

The plan is for there not to be a 3.4. Blizzard has stated time and time again that the plan is for Arthas to be the final boss of the Wrath cycle and for Icecrown Citadel to be the final content patch of the Wrath cycle. The next expansion should be approaching much sooner than the wait between vanilla and BC (and BC and Wrath) as well, so this timeline could work out fine provided that the 4.0 train keeps rolling as it should. Blizzcon should clue us in as to how things are progressing in that regard, so keep your eyes open.

Ayiano asked:
I just spent all day writing a reply on the US suggestion forum regarding Racial Weapons (under the toon of Ayiana, if you want to check it out). In other words, weapons limited to a single race. Obviously, the most common request is Tauren totems (not the Shaman totems, but the held, giant, telephone-pole-sized totems seen in War3 and the cinematic). I was just wondering if you guys had any cool, yet serious and feasible ideas for other racial items (not necessarily weapons)? And if so, do you think Blizzard would implement them?

It's extremely unlikely. Blizzard's already shown that producing even faction-specific weapons and armor is too hard for content patches -- I was excited when I heard that the Tier 9 sets were faction-specific, and crushed when I saw that they were shared between armor classes -- so I honestly don't think that race-specific items are even a remote possibility.

Beyond creating the art assets, it's also a matter of what the items would do. Are they cosmetic? Do they help in combat? Do they give some kind of perk? How will those perks be balanced not only between races, but classes?

It's a little too much work for flavor (flavor that would, admittedly, be pretty cool. I want huge totems). But a guy can dream, right?

Avrador asked:
Question: Why as a Gnome are all my mounts so huge. I understand why they're sized up for Tauren, but I just bought my lvl30 ram as a gnome, and not only is it much larger than the version Dwarves get, but it's larger even than the human horse, and almost as tall as a talbuk. And the gnome version of the Wrath bears are larger than the Draenei version of the same. Is Blizzard helping us Gnomes compensate for something?

I can't speak for Blizzard's artists, but I'm pretty sure that the idea is for you to look ridiculous. Even more ridiculous than just being a gnome in the first place, which is a feat!


Thereluctantwarlock asked:
Question: with the recent announcement of faction changes, wouldn't it then be possible to see, in the future an incredibly long and difficult quest chain with albiet serious consequences, that would allow you simply "defect" to the other faction? This seems like it would be a better solution than racial recustomization. Plus, it would be super cool.

I don't like to give absolutes when it comes to possible features, but I'm pretty comfortable saying "that will never happen" to this particular one. Like many game designers for team-based or multiplayer games, Blizzard believes (correctly) that silhouette is an important factor in telling friend from foe. At a glance, we should be able to determine if a person is dangerous, and that would be incredibly difficult when the only difference is an internal flag saying "Alliance" or "Horde".

It's also a matter of identity, where it's pretty unlikely that the opposite faction would (in lore) even let a member of the other faction defect to them. The races that belong to either faction are there for good reasons.


Burninate asked:
What will happen to the Emblem of Heroism rewards? Will they be purchasable with Emblems of Conquest instead? And, if so, what will happen with the tier pieces sold for Heroism/Valor?

Each reward maintains its current token type and cost on the PTR. The vendors will still exist and downgrading your tokens is still very possible. The prices haven't changed and no rewards have been removed.


Lokasenna asked:
Do we know of any reason why the "Additional instances cannot be launched" message would popping up with much more frequency lately?

Yes. Blizzard is currently throttling the total number of possible instances per realm, and a lot of people are playing nowadays. It's an attempt to prevent instance server stress from impacting gameplay for others. It's been successful at that, but the side effect is that less people total get to run instances at any given time.

There are big changes coming that should alleviate or completely remove both instance server stress and "additional instances" errors. Keep your eyes peeled.

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