The Queue: Guessing the Warlords of Draenor release date

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

Let's get right into it today, shall we?

Many of you asked:

What do you expect the release date for Warlords of Draenor is?

I suspect Blizzard will be aiming for a spring release. That doesn't mean they'll achieve that, but they're going to try. Not only have they been trying to push towards a faster development schedule, but they have a couple big pieces of competition coming in that timeframe, such as Elder Scrolls Online and Wildstar. We can debate all we want whether or not Blizzard plans their release schedules around the release of other MMOs, but historically speaking, they've always put out something big to take the wind out of their competitors' sails.

I'm expecting that we'll see some glimmer of beta within a month or two.

That being said, I could be overestimating how much progress they've made on Warlords. Maybe we'll see a completely different sort of announcement timed with the release of Elder Scrolls Online.

MichaelBarrs asked:

Has there been any explanation of Garrosh's... altered... appearance since the beginning of Cata? I've read of orcs in other IP's growing considerably larger as they grow older/tougher but even orcs like Nazgrim don't look like 'roid junkies. Or was it just artistic license to make a really beefy-looking faction leader?

It's that latter option. Blizzard's artists always go out of their way to make bosses and faction leaders distinct. Sometimes that involves nothing more than scaling up their body to be more easily seen among a mass of raiders. Other times it involves adding in details that aren't represented on player models to make the faction leader appear more impressive. Garrosh received both of these things -- made to look unique and scaled up in size to stand out while being pummeled by raiders.

@Lvl90HumanDev asked:

Do you think Shockadins will be viable/competitive in WoD?

Highly unlikely!

John22 asked:

Weren't we able to name our WoW accounts something unique? It seems now days that you get WoW1, WoW2 etc... Did I miss something on the Battle.net page?

That was an option before Blizzard unified all of your games under one Battle.net account. Previously, every WoW account stood alone, and you created an account for each of them as you pleased. Now, every WoW account you open under the same Battle.net account just gets a number. Your old accounts will still have their old name. Any new accounts will be numbered.

@Beshara14 asked:

is there a chance a reg Gilnean could have become Forsaken, and could Liam become one, or does something prevent his turning?

Unless I'm mistaken, the worgen curse prevents Gilneans from becoming Forsaken. There's a sequence in Silverpine, a Horde questline, where a group of refugees from Gilneas and Hillsbrad willingly become worgen to escape Sylvanas and her val'kyr. Any Gilneans that do not have the curse of the worgen can totally be raised as undead. It has never been stated explicitly that Liam Greymane had been afflicted by the curse before his death, but he could have been. We just don't know.

@KirbbyRetroPala asked:

How to convince your spouse that WoW isn't something to fight about?

It's impossible to answer this question without knowing more about the situation. Does your spouse not want you to play? Do you both play and this is about a domestic loot dispute? Does your spouse not mind you playing, but thinks you play too much? Maybe your spouse is being unfair. Maybe you are the one being unfair. World of Warcraft is a perfectly viable topic to fight about if someone involved is behaving in a way they shouldn't.

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!