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The Queue: Sometimes I just wanna get a song stuck in your head

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 the very best, like no one ever was.

Have an earworm that will hopefully be with you for the rest of the day. Hey, at least it's not Friday, right? Right? Okay, fine, we'll get to the Warcraft questions.

Fizzl asked:

Save me some time please, Queuers! Is there a "cut-off" date for purchasing the Blizzcon digital ticket and still getting the in-game goodies?

You know, I'm not really one-hundred percent on that one. I know you can participate in the online sale until November 9th, but I believe the ticket is available for a little while after that -- you can get the recordings of the show. But don't take my word on it, because after checking out the virtual ticket website, I'm still not seeing an exact cutoff date for purchase.



dashric asked:

Is it too much to hope that Blizzard will send LiLi, Cho, and Taoshi with us in to the next expansion. Those three characters are so awesome.

I don't know about Li Li or Taoshi -- I imagine Taoshi would probably be helping clean up the Vale and getting rid of the remnants of the sha. With Li Li, it depends on whether or not she'd like to wander. Lorewalker Cho ... while I'd love to see Lorewalker Cho appear again, I don't know if he's going to. It would make sense, though, that he'd want to maybe leave Pandaria and see what tales the rest of the world has to tell. We can always hope!

Devin asked:

Q4tQ: What is the purpose of having differently colored gear that represents quality? It always amazes me how up-in-arms people get over an entirely ambiguous color coding system. I've seen people go so far as to suggest making all epic gear that is not current content "blue". Why not just remove the color coding altogether? The only color I've seen any use for is gray, which means "Blizzard wants me to vendor this". Item level determines the stat budget and level requirements determine when you can use an item; whether or not an item is common/rare/epic/legendary doesn't actually mean anything.

It's really just a visual identifier so that players can easily tell when a piece of gear is really, really good gear, versus so-so gear. In vanilla, gray gear was typically for the vendors as you mentioned, white quality was gear that didn't have any kind of stats on it. Green had randomly assigned stats. Blue had better quality stats, and wasn't randomly assigned -- it was honestly pretty rare to get blue gear outside of a dungeon, and most of the time, that gear was either really good quality crafted gear, or a random BoE drop, or part of a dungeon set of some sort. Purple was reserved solely for raids, and extremely rare world drops, representing the best stats you could get. Of course these days, you can get purple gear in so many different places that the colors are meaningless -- but it's still an easy way to tell the quality of gear apart at a glance.

Nocjin asked:

Heroes of the Storm is now confirmed as All Stars. Are you disappointed or relieved? It sounded like a very lame expansion name to me.

I'm delighted, actually. This is the first time in a very, very long time that we have absolutely no inkling as to what the next expansion's title or content is going to be, this close to BlizzCon. I love surprises, and keeping this thing locked down for so long is going to make BlizzCon even more exciting!

@AlternativeChat asked via Twitter:

Where would you log out your character for the last time if you ever left the game?

...gosh, I don't know. Every expansion there's always that one spot that I love more than any other. With Burning Crusade, it was Nagrand, or out in Old Hillsbrad Foothills. With Wrath, it was in the inn in Dalaran, hanging out on the stairwell with the cat. With Cataclysm ... well to be perfectly honest I didn't really have a perfect place in Cataclysm, which was a little odd. In Mists of Pandaria, there are two places that I love, for different reasons -- the Tavern in the Mists, because I have a soft spot for Wrathion, and the Lorewalker's area in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. I think I'd pick the Lorewalker's area, just because I like stories, and I've written many stories about the stories in Warcraft, so it just seems right. But that could all change next expansion if I find a cool spot there.

@FeyMercurial asked:

Does Illidan deserve a redemption story?

That is ... a really good question. The thing about Illidan is that almost everything he's ever done in his life, he's done in an effort to do the "right thing." And in every instance where he invariably screwed up, he was convinced that he was really doing the right thing at the time. The main problem with this was that Illidan wasn't doing the right thing in order to just do the right thing, so much as in order to get all the applause and accolades that go along with doing the right thing in the first place. He's an inherently selfish creature -- not selfish in terms of wanting absolute power or wanting to rule the world, but the kind of selfish where he's really just thinking of himself and how far doing good deeds will get him in the end. He's proud, he's arrogant, and he's convinced that he can do no wrong.

But as he's failed, continuously, over ten thousand years, he's grown more bitter and angry at the world for not seeing just how wonderful he really is. Eventually, that all caved in on him, and I really think that the failure to kill Arthas did a number on Illidan. I think that was the moment he realized that in the end, he wasn't the most amazing person on the planet. That he could fail. Failure is not something that Illidan ever took lightly, and he spent an inordinate amount of time blaming his failures on those around him.

That kind of character ... I don't know if there's really any way to redeem a character like that. The harder Illidan tries to be recognized, the more he gets himself tangled in situations that spin further out of control. The only real redemption for Illidan would be if he realized that it's better to do good for the sake of doing good, not out of some ulterior motive -- and I don't know if he would ever really come to terms with or recognize that. It involves a certain degree of selflessness and self-sacrifice that I don't know if Illidan is really capable of. But it would certainly make for an interesting story, if that story were to be written.


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!