The Queue: This is Bashiok's fault

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) is recovering from the plague. No, not the Plague of Undeath, although that might be kind of cool in retrospect.

The above video is what I get when I ask CM's for video suggestions on Twitter. Thank you Bashiok. I ... think.

yoojine asked:

I hate, hate, hate leveling and questing. As a result, I've got a bunch of alts sitting at 85 and only my main at 90. What is the absolute fastest way to level my poor, neglected alts in Pandaland? Are there any xp buffs I should be aware of? Do heirlooms work at this level?

Well the XP required to level from 85-90 will be dropped a bit on Tuesday, so there's that to look forward to. Heirlooms, unfortunately, don't work. The Darkmoon Faire offers an XP buff if you go ride the carousel, but that's once a month. I'd suggest just taking your time, making sure you've got rested XP when you're leveling, and when you run out of rested, park that alt in an inn for a bit, and switch to another. Questing is one of the easiest ways to level, but if that's not your thing, you can always just queue up for mass dungeon runs, or even do some pet battling, if that sounds like fun. Good luck!

drorraz asked:

Q4tQ: What happens to Sahn Tidehunter in 5.3? (his lake is gone because of the horde digging)

That's an excellent question! He's been relocated to the lake to the right of his former home. Don't worry, you'll still be able to happily murder him.

Nocjin asked:

What's the lore behind mages summoning water elementals? Are they 'real' elementals or constructs? If they're real, aren't shamans angry about them doing that? I very much doubt they're helping the mage willingly.

I believe that the water elementals are actually real elementals -- the shackles on their arms suggest they've just been summoned from the elemental plane. One water elemental isn't too terrible -- but when Jaina tried to summon an entire fleet of water elementals in the novel Tides of War, Thrall found out about it because they all simultaneously started screeching in protest.

Sillystring asked:

As someone who first rolled during WoTLK, I've often wondered about the purpose of the common-quality ("white") gear sold by vendors. I eventually convinced myself that the common gear was put in game for RP'ers. But if that's the case, why wasn't including this gear in transmogrification a higher priority?

At one point in time, the white gear was actually pretty good gear for leveling. You didn't really get a lot of green quest rewards at low level in vanilla. I remember purchasing the white gear both because it matched, and because it was better than the pathetic gray gear I'd manage to scrounge up! Nowadays, you get such nice gear from questing that there's hardly any reason to grab the white gear anymore.

SteveJ asked:

Whenever you call a company, they often say "this call will be recorded for training/better quality/to be helpful, etc. Is that true?

In every customer service job I ever worked, it certainly was. The QA department (quality assurance) was there to listen to random calls being made and make sure we were doing our job correctly -- or rather, reading our scripted responses correctly.

cambrowarrior asked:

I haven't tried this, but I'm wondering: on the Isle of Thunder, if I select PVE or PVP and change my mind, can I switch to the other set that day? Or am I stuck with it until the next day?

To my knowledge, once you pick, you're stuck. So choose wisely.

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!