The Queue: Orc pattern baldness

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 answering all kinds of questions today.

Apparently Thrall has also been under an undue amount of stress lately. Either that or he just forgot to put in his extensions before heading to Draenor.

jabrone77 asked:

QfortheQ: Are the Lords of War series about our respective orcs or alt Draenor? The comments in yesterdays post about Grom seem to overwhelming point to that being OUR Groms story, but I thought the series was about alt Draenors orcs. Which is it, and if it was ours, why no baby Garrosh?

It has been stated that the histories shown in Lords of War are applicable to the alternate timeline versions of the orc warlords -- the orcs we'll be seeing in Warlords of Draenor. Theoretically. This makes my brain hurt, but I think in this case, we should probably just let it slide and focus more on the history being shown, less on Maraad's knowledge of the subject and where he obtained that knowledge. Because timeline-hiccup-induced migraines are horrible.

fallanger asked:

i know that flying is not permitted at the beginning of wod, but what about item that let you jump like http://www.wowhead.com/item=94154 can you use them?

I actually logged into the beta to check out that item on my rogue, and it's currently not functioning at all. It's classified as a Toy, so it goes in your Toy Box -- which means that you don't get the buff so you can collect coins and use them. If you try and use it anyway, it tells you to go pickpocket humanoids for coins, which ... well, you can't do. So I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you, but hey, we found a new bug to report! Together!

ge3k5t3r commented:

IMO the battlegrounds portion of the quest is just as every bit of RNG as the Sigils, Secrets and Runestones. You have a shot at getting a good group or not. I lucked out and got a winning team on my first attempt back to back so I only spent time equal to LFG and the time in the battleground. I hadn't done any PvP since classic and I still don't -- I simply don't like it. However, it wasn't too bad overall. I am glad that there is no PvP requirement in the next legendary quest though.

Sure, it's RNG. But it's a different kind of RNG. Typically, most people that run through the legendary quest chain are primarily PvE players, which means they're used to dungeons, bosses, raids, and wipes. They're used to their rotations, what they need to not stand in, what the general routine is when you're in a raid, when to attack, who they need to heal, etc. They aren't used to battlegrounds, where you aren't attacking a boss, you're trying to successfully murder 20 other players while they're trying to murder you and at the same time comple some sort of mysterious objective that you probably aren't all that familiar with because, let's face it, you never really PvP and you don't really make it a habit to study the portions of the game you don't play.

That's where the extra frustration comes in.

robertjamesftw pointed out:

"Q4TQ: With Upper Blackrock Spire being released in a level 90 dungeon mode, pre WoD release, what will the ilvl be for gear drops from UBRS level 90?"

That's not a Yes/No question...

You're absolutely right, it isn't. It wasn't exactly worded in the most comprehensible fashion for someone that puts this column together well after midnight, either. To re-address the question: We don't know what the item level of the gear will be.

ScottLeyes commented:

Sorry, Anne, but this myth has gone on far too long... Rogues are NOT easy to play!

I have four buttons I press when I'm doing my rotation, and a couple cooldowns. I have even less buttons to consider pressing once I reach 100 in Warlords. I can stealth and skip everything but the quest mobs I need to complete quests. If stuff gets too messy, I can vanish and book it out of trouble. I don't think it really gets much easier than that.

Yarmet asked:

I have a lore/rp backstory question: Did the time period that the Night Elves had immortality start after the night elf/high elf split? And if so, what is the normal life span for High/Blood Elves? Could a blood elf alive today visit ruins in Ashenvale, say, and comment on remembering when those statues were built back when he was a Highborne Night Elf under Queen Azshara?

The night elves gained their immortality shortly after the end of the War of the Ancients, when Nordrassil was created and subsequently blessed by Nozdormu. We don't have an actual established life span for high elves, but we do know that it's much shorter than a night elf life span, in theory -- the high elves lost their immortality when they were banished from Kalimdor and arrived in the Eastern Kingdoms. It is highly unlikely you're going to find a blood elf that remembers Queen Azshara.

@craigcheek2 asked via Twitter:

do you know if druid flight form will work at a ground mount in WoD?

I actually copied one of my druids over to the beta just so I could test this out for you! Here's what I found.

You no longer have separate travel forms. You have one button that automatically picks your form based on what you can do. So if you're grounded, it defaults to stag. If you're in water, you're automatically a seal. If you're in an area like Pandaria where you can fly, you become a bird or a bat. And I have to say I find this tremendously irritating, because I don't always want to be a bat when I'm running around Pandaria. Sometimes I just want to be a stag because let's face it, being a stag is pretty cool. And there don't appear to be any separate buttons for the other forms anymore -- it's all tied to that one travel form button.

Now this may just be something they are experimenting with, because obviously we're in the beta and nothing has been finalized yet. But I hope it doesn't go to live, because I don't really want to be a bat every time I want to go somewhere fast without mounting up when I'm in Kalimdor or the Eastern Kingdoms or Northrend or Pandaria or Outland. Part of the fun of playing a druid is getting to pick what form I want to be -- not hitting a button that chooses that form for me.

@Erxfiend asked via Twitter:

With items that cost VP/JP soon costing gold, does that mean all the old tier sets and whatnot will now cost gold as well?

Theoretically, yes -- or some other equivalent currency that you'll be able to obtain in Warlords. Right now, it's looking like gold is the way it's all going to go.

@JoomzDaBoomz asked via Twitter:

is it me or does Groms face in the cinematic seem different from his original design? Hes missing some elongation in his face.

It's a stylistic choice, but yeah, his face does look quite a bit different depending on what artist happens to be portraying him at the time. Traditional older art has his face a little longer than what's shown in the cinematic. And then you have the incredibly stylized (and incredibly beautiful) orcs from Lords of War, which look almost as if someone formed the nose from clay and then just scraped down an almost cliff-like upper lip and punched in a square block for the jaw. He still has all the important features -- hair, jaw tattoos, armor, Gorehowl. He's just built a little differently due to stylistic interpretation.

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!