The Queue: Mwah!

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) desperately wants a teeny tiny goat.

This goat is so cute. I can't. I seriously can't. You know what would be cuter? Nothing.

alexskylark pointed out:

"However Taurens can be Paladins, and they do NOT worship the Light."

But blizzard cooked up a half-arsed excuse at to let them be paladins... completely messing up Blood Elf lore along the way (BE lore states that the sun is related to ARCANE energies, not the Light)

Um, no, actually. The Sunwell was created with a vial from the Well of Eternity, at the conjunction of a whole mess of ley energy. It had absolutely nothing to do with the sun what so ever, and to my knowledge, there is nothing in blood elf lore that states that the sun provides arcane power -- it can all be traced back to the Well of Eternity.

So why, you may ask, did they call it the Sunwell? Likely it had something to do with the fact that night elves worshiped Elune and the moon. The blood elves were originally night elves, but they were banished for practicing arcane magic -- so they may have called it the Sunwell just to emphasize the fact that they had nothing to do with the kaldorei anymore. Or they may have named it after Dath'remar Sunstrider, who led them to the Eastern Kingdoms after they were banished.

An'she, on the other hand, has been a long-standing figure in tauren lore. He'd just never been fully defined before. They took the opportunity to fill out that particular hole in lore with Cataclysm, and while tauren paladins are nothing like the paladins of the Eastern Kingdoms, they're still fully supported by the lore.

Ricky_Gabriel_Bird asked:

Question for the queue. Do you think account-wide instance limit (5 per hour) should be lifted on normal dungeons? Considering how quickly we can go through the old ones at 90. Not sure what the benefits are for having it anymore.

I don't think it's a matter of clearing the instances quickly so much as it's a matter of not clogging up the instance servers. If people could go back and do repeated instance runs back to back, you can bet there would be plenty of people in there farming mounts, and even more bots in there farming for whatever it is bots happen to farm for. That puts an unnecessary load on the instance servers and might potentially create problems with people that simply want to run a heroic for some valor, you know?

So yes, it's frustrating for those that just want to knock out a bunch of old instances, but unfortunately I don't think there's much that can be done about that.

Alexey asked:

It's officially spring today. What do you think about that?

I think there is far too much snow on the ground, and more of it due later in the week.

Matthew20 asked:

Why are there no perfect cuts for rare gems? Are they waiting for epic gems to come out before that option becomes available? Why not just make the perfect cuts have stats somewhere between the regular and next tier up?

Likely because they don't want to give us access to super powerful gems just yet. It's a balancing thing, I suspect. I don't think we'll see epic gems until the last tier of this expansion, so it's going to be a while before anything like perfect blue gems become a possibility -- and honestly, I think they'd rather give us the epics as a standalone than suddenly implement perfect blue cuts.

Joodoo asked:

What 5-part book series?

That would be Dawn of the Aspects -- it's being released in five parts over the next several months. We've even written up a review for part one, if you're interested in seeing what it's all about.

c187 pointed out:

"Essentially, all paladins worship and utilize the Light, but every race (with the exception of humans and dwarves) have a different thing that "powers" their priesthood. Night elf priests, for example, believe that Elune is their source of power; and trolls, the loa. Neither of these races can be paladins because none believe in the Light."

So that means Forsaken paladins soon™...

Nope. Forsaken are really odd. The Light actually hurts them when they use it -- it's been compared to cauterizing a wound. Forsaken priests are some of the toughest priests on Azeroth, because despite the fact that it's absolute torture, they still continue to heal. Absolution, maybe. But paladins have a far deeper connection to the Light, so deep that I think a Forsaken that tried anything like that would spontaneously combust. Imagine a Forsaken trying to throw down a consecrate and bursting into flame, and you've got a pretty good mental image of why Forsaken paladins would be a terrible idea, lore-wise.

MauricioVillegas asked:

I was helping a friend quest through Badlands, including a taxi service with my Sandstone Drake, and while we were chatting I got distracted and flew north into the next area, and my friend got dismounted, why is that?

There is currently an issue with cross-realm zones that dismounts players on multi-passenger mounts when you cross a zone border. However, there was some good news about that on Twitter today. Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak had this to say about it:

So cross your fingers, it should be resolved with the patch!

lili.gigis asked:

Ok I feel silly for asking this, but am I the only one that doesn't see a difference between the older races and the newer? The only real difference I see is in the faces, but movement wise and graphics I don't see a difference. And I can only really tell the difference in faces at the character creation screen.... Tell me I am not the only one who doesn't notice the things that make it so 'obvious' there needs to be an update on them.

You're not silly at all! It's been a gradual change over the years, and you really have to look at the models to see what's going on with them. The best illustration of this is probably the comparison between the old frog pet models, and the new ones being introduced with patch 5.2.

The frog on the left is the old model that dates all the way back to vanilla WoW, and the one on the right is the new. See how boxy the original looks? Now try looking at the face of a human, orc, or night elf, while they're standing next to one of the new pandaren models. Do a /laugh with both races. You'll immediately see the difference -- the pandaren faces are about as animated all by themselves as the entire body, head to feet, on any of the old races.

There are other differences, too -- the pandaren have far more body movement when doing emotes, and their hair is animated along with the body. The hair on a human female doesn't move when she's running, even if it's long hair -- while the ponytail on a pandaren flips around with every move she makes.

It might be subtle at first, but you'll definitely notice it if you look closely enough.

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!