The Queue: Cross-franchise transmog, Heroes alpha, conceding in Hearthstone, Draenei models, and lunch

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.

Before I dive into questions, I want to talk about what I did yesterday. I sat down around six in the evening and started playing Reaper of Souls. I didn't move until ten, and I found myself halfway through level 65 and a little over half way through the story (I think).

It goes nice and quick, but it's very engaging. Four hours seemed like nothing. I haven't gotten that lost in a game in a very long time.

My friends and I were a little ... apprehensive about this Diablo expansion given what happened to the original game. But I have to say, so far so good, in my opinion!

Eggchan asked:

Do you think Blizzard will give us any transmogs that resemble or has the same appearance as some of the Diablo armor or even StarCraft armor? I've always wanted my pally to have the Tyrael appearance.

I'd love for them to do something like this, however I doubt that it will happen. The closest art styles match up is between StarCraft and Warcraft, I think. All the characters kinda look like they could be transplanted into the other universe without too much of an issue. I say this not a negative either -- all the characters have a rather "cartoon" look to them; this is a very good thing when you're looking for longevity of artwork and character models.

Diablo 3, however, is much more modern in the character look, I think. There's still some of the classic Blizzard designs, like large shoulders, but there are a lot more straight edges and less curves, a lot more definition and less ambiguity. The gear in Diablo wouldn't necessarily translate well to WoW on a large scale, I feel.

And that's the crux of the issue, as well -- would the art assets translate to another game's lore ecosystem, or would it just be for fun? So while I love this idea, I think that Blizzard would likely decline to implement it because the crossover just wouldn't work from a lore perspective.

Now... watch all the comments about the StarCraft and Diablo battle pets. Because those sure don't work out either. But they're on a much less visible scale than gear.

Ralos asked:

Question for the queue: just got a heroes of the storm alpha code, well it's actually not a code it integrates with your battlenet. What should I expect? Any did anybody else get one today?!

There was another batch of Heroes alpha invites sent out yesterday. Remember though that there isn't actually any code -- your account is simply flagged and the game appears in the Battle.net launcher. This is very important for people to know, because there's an absolute ton of spam out there right now trying to play off the Heroes alpha.

As far as what you should expect, you should expect an alpha. Things mostly work, although there is the occasional crash and burn. Some abilities and characters are over- and under-tuned. There's been some large changes in character's abilities already in patches, and expect more. This is a time for Blizzard's designers to see what they need to do to make the game great.

Alpha and beta tests, for me, are the best place to learn how to design video games, and to get a good understanding of why various changes are made. For fun try to think through each of the changes in the patch notes, and why they were made... It's hard, but it'll give you an amazing understanding of the game's mechanics. And that? That's what the alpha test is best for. You'll get to understand the game in a very intimate way.

Rahkarne asked:

What is the community's view in regards to conceding a match [in Hearthstone]?

In general it's ok when you're going to clearly be defeated. It's been that way in Magic forever, and there's no real reason why that opinion wouldn't carry across to Hearthstone. Maybe there's something I don't know though? Is there a gigantic backlash I haven't heard about?

Either way, I wouldn't worry.

Captain Freddy asked:

Who's psyched at the news that the new Draenei models are currently being focused on, with spaceladygoats set for the next ArtCraft blog post?

I was actually pretty surprised at the reaction to the model announcement. People seem to think that these models need the changes the least, and while that's true to some extent, they are very very old. And Blizzard has a small army working on these new models, so it's not like just because one is getting shown now that the others are just sitting on a todo list.

Nonetheless, I'm pretty excited to see them. I'm excited to see all of them, however. I've been waiting and prognosticating over new models for half a decade; so I'm super glad we're finally getting them.

Many asked:

What did Adam have for lunch? Why does this even matter?

Yesterday I had a 300 calorie frozen pasta thing. It was pretty disgusting, but it's what I need to do to keep the weight coming off.

The "Adam is going for lunch now" bit is an inside joke of sorts (or over Twitter, if you follow us all there). Everyone at WoW Insider sits around a virtual campfire (not basic, clearly) and works on stories. Its where Alex and I do the editing and other such business that's required for running the site. In general I take the morning/afternoon shift, and Alex takes the afternoon/evening shift.

So... the joke is that whenever I go away to fix lunch, or Alex goes to prepare dinner, WoW news will drop. It's happened a ton. There's been times when we've both been gone that major news has dropped, and that leads to frantic calls, text, and tweets from staffers. But as Anne mentioned in the Queue yesterday, it really is just a coincidence, Blizzard doesn't know we're going to lunch.

Or do they?

Dum dum dummm...

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!