The Queue: Northrend, annual pass, class changes, and worms

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) will be your host today.

My question for the Queue today:

What's your favorite type of coffee? Mine is not this $5 Folgers junk I bought at Walgreens because it was on sale. I have no idea what I was thinking -- I normally grind all my coffee (I have a grinder built into my coffee machine, it's pretty amazing, not gonna lie). So I need to get rid of this terrible coffee by drinking a ton of it and then buying new stuff this weekend.

So tell me dear readers, what's your favorite kind of coffee?

ThingWhatWoWs asked:

Sis & I have hit Northrend. (Now 73) where should I make sure we go for the great story bits? It's her 1st time through.

Either Alliance or Horde, I'd hit up Howling Fjord, the Arthas appearances there are pretty great and set the stage for later events. After that I'd play through the entire Dragonblight zone. That's going to get you close to 80 (if I recall, I was 79 when I finished Dragonblight and Howling Fjord last time). Finish off with some quests in Icecrown and call it good.

The Wrath Gate quests, even though they're reduced post-Cataclysm, are still some of the best quest chains in the game, I think. They're a really great demonstration of what story telling, world mechanics, and game play can do to interweave and create a fantastic experience.

Matthew20 asked:

Do you think that when WoD hits beta that Blizzard will bring back, buy an Annual Pass and get into beta again?

I think the annual pass is dead and won't be making another appearance. There's not going to be another big release of games like there was when D3 came out alongside a WoW expansion. It's entirely possible that Blizzard could also not get as much reception with a future annual pass as they did with their last one, and they wouldn't want for that to happen (they need to set themselves up for success, not failure).

What I could see them doing is a sort of "Blizzard subscription" service thing, where each month you get a handful of packs of Hearthstone cards, some points to spend in Heroes of the Storm, and a WoW subscription with the occasional free character service or in-game pet. Other MMO companies do that to varying degrees of success, and Blizzard would be wise to find a way to follow their lead.

Loco asked:

Will Blizzard allow CLASS CHANGE on a character, in addition to the available race/faction changes?

Nope, that isn't something I've ever heard Blizzard has looked at. There is some logic to what you're asking for, given that a character is just a malleable series of 1s and 0s on a computer drive, and the class is just a flag in the data structures. But, and this is a big but, there is so much more built up around the class that the character would essentially be nothing without it. Think of it: gear, glyphs, skills, action bars, play style, etc... Why make a service so everything could change?

What you're doing then is basically creating a new character with the same name. And there's a way you can already do that: delete your toon, and buy an instant 90 with the same name. Done and done.

Geekmeister asked:

So in the upper left corner of the BC loading screen there's a celestial looking serpent/dragon of some sort. What the story there?

As was mentioned in the comments, it's a manawyrm. Those things you have to kill dozens and dozens of out near Area 52 to get the quest item to drop. Oh how I remember them... good times? Sure, good times.

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!