BlizzCon 2014: World of Warcraft Q&A liveblog

Get ready to talk Warcraft! The last World of Warcraft panel of BlizzCon is the Q&A, where BlizzCon attendees can pose any questions they like to the development team. Here's what you can expect:

This free-for-all panel always has some interesting moments, so stay tuned for this year's Q&A, live from the BlizzCon floor. The panel kicks off at 3:30 PM PST (6:30 PM EST), so stay tuned!

4:30PM And it's over! We hope you've enjoyed this year's WoW Q&A session.

4:30PM Q: As a male night elf, I would rather not rock a druid neckbeard and rock a clean shaven place. But where are my eyebrows? Can I have them please?
A: We shaved them off and put them in the neck region. We gave them to Thrall. Most likely that's a bug we'll be fixed in the future.

4:29PM Q: Are there other people in the alternate timelines of Outland or Draenor: are there other people who are killed or die at different times?
A: Yes. You'll have to see who.

4:28PM Q: Will we see dragons play a major role in lore in the future?
A: They're still major characters and we intend to use them in the future.

4:28PM Q: For healers at level 100 there are clearly talents that outshine the others. Are you willing to take another look at talents that have this issue?
A: Yes, especially the newly introduced rows to see how they play out in the wild. It's not necessarily a problem if just in a specific niche of gameplay there's one talent that feels like the right answer if there are other talents that are the right tool in the game as a whole. When you're looking at theorycrafting we often make talents that require micromanagement: if you use it perfectly it might be optimal, but if you don't use it perfectly that won't be the case.

4:26PM Q: Give me a way to have different transmogs for different specs!
A: We do plan to revamp the way transmog doesn't work and create a system of collections to collect armor looks. We'll keep this in mind as we design that.

4:25PM Q: Could the summon favorite mount ability be split into flying and ground.
A: That would be cool. Maybe.

4:24PM Q: What magics do the Kirin Tor still declare prohibited?
A: The Kirin Tor's ability to assert control over the alliance has waned a bit. There are still things the Kirin Tor bring to the tables that others don't. Flying cities.

4:22PM Q: When will the action bar UI get some love? Any plans or thoughts about updating or modernizing the action bar UI?
A: I think we can do better than that. What I would love to see would for us to be able to store addons in the cloud so wherever you log on your stuff's all set up the way it is at home. We'd have to do a lot of engineering to make that possible, but that's the direction I'd prefer to go instead of figuring out which mods you're using and making the base UI more like that... which might not be what everyone else likes.

4:21PM Q: I see a lot of people hanging out in their garrisons, which are phased. People can retreat into these phased area to escape world PvP... is anything going to fix that?
A: You can go to Ashran for world PvP. On boundaries, PvP tends to manifest because there are boundaries. You see it in pretty much any massively multiplayer game where there are boundaries. If you try to solve it for one boundary it will move to another boundaries. If you try to solve it for all boundaries you'll need to make some complicated rules. We solve it by making a better place for world PvP.

4:18PM Q: There's not many dailies in Warlords, but instead we're forced to do the garrison. What about that?
A: Yes, the garrisons are an integral part to the overall leveling process of Warlords. We do have two daily quests that will present themselves every day.

4:16PM Q: What features are you adding in Warlords of Draenor for roleplayers?
A: Where it comes to roleplaying I think a lot of the opportunity just comes from environments and making it opportune. We did consider along the way making settings that would be welcoming. Roleplayers have a way of creating awesome fantasies beyond what we imagine. We mostly look at creating opportunity. I could also see opportunities for our pre-mind group-finder to find people who are like-minded, looking to share your approach to the game.

4:15PM Q: Do you feel that garrisons giving a chance at mythic loot and making garrisons required for raiders is okay?
A: It's about your actions as a player to some extent. In order to get access to mythic rewards from missions is that you have to really develop your garrison. We wanted multiple ways to access the gear. If you want to invest time and dedicate yourself to it there should be some reward. At the end of the day there should be some chance to get a reward from a system you're invested in. How do you define required? We lean towards the side of letting everyone have a little bit more fun and get a couple more pieces of gear.

4:13PM Q: Can you copy the smelting window over to prospecting and milling?
A: I think we can do that. There's not anything technologically holding it back, it's just getting feedback from you guys.
Crowd: applauds!

4:12PM Q: Why were the worgen side-stories end and never go anywhere in Mists and Warlords?
A: We had ideas for Shadowmoon, but we wanted to really focus on the draenei there and worgen felt out of place in the process. We might bring it back at some point.

4:11PM Q: I can't use my flying machine on any characters but my engineer... why is it account-bound?
A: You can use it if they have engineering. It's one of the distinguishing markers of if the character is an engineer. We moved all mounts to this account-bound structure, but there are still limitations on some.

4:10PM Q [Red Shirt Guy]: Farahlon was mentioned but we haven't seen it.
A: There's a mission where you can send your followers to go find it. It's something I would love to see, which is why it was in our original plans. We don't know for sure if we're going to get to it in a content patch. We'll have to see. It's definitely something we'd love to be able to do. We survived Red Shirt Guy! We can retire now!

4:08PM Q: As a player in the US playing in the EU, there are a lot of bugs and problems. I get drops and it turns out to be US-only. Are you planning to make it easier for people who play internationally?
A: Yes? There's not one magical fix, each one has to be attacked on a per-issue basis. Some are licensing content issues.

4:06PM Q: Lorewalker Cho spoke of the Zandalari homeland... will we ever see it?
A: You're asking for more trolls?
Q: Yes! TROLLS RULE!
A: Maybe someday.

4:05PM Q: Will we ever see anything like the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj again?
A: We're interested in content that bring servers together... without ruining the experience for everyone by crashing the server. It's cool. It could be something we'd do again.

4:04PM Q: I was wondering if there were any plans to make old legendaries, like the Hand of Sulfuras, bind on account.
A: No current plans to do that. Those items exist as a snapshot of the game as it existed at that point. That content is easy to solo now if you want it.

4:03PM Q: When can we craft and cook our own bacon?
Crowd: HUGE APPLAUSE!
A: I think it's a damn good idea.
Crowd: BACON!
A: We can make that happen. We have the technology.

4:02PM Q: Are you going to make iconic faction guard armor or iconic enemy armor? Also lots of Wrath and earlier sets don't have a full matching armor sets for transmog.
A: We're definitely open to making cosmetic rewards. We try to fill holes in sets we try to fill those holes. In the garrison, we've upgrade the look of the guard and grunt armor, and you can get them through garrison gameplay to help represent your faction.

4:00PM Q: Is there room for new armor designs, like Thrall's robes, which are opened and let you see leg armor and a tabard under it?
A: We're talking about it. We don't have any concrete plans about when we'll release that. But if you have ideas send them on through.

3:58PM Q: A lot of helmets don't cover your face but when you put them on your beard disappears. Why?
A: Those are magical beard-disappearing helmets. No, it's just a bug. It's not intended. In our item editor we have a whole bunch of different settings for what a piece of gear is supposed to show or hide, and sometimes we miss things. Just let us know when something looks off.

3:57PM Q: With the visual upgrades you can't do portal roulette! Can we get it back?
A: Portal roulette is no fun for not mages, though I appreciate that's an awesome experience for you.

3:57PM Q: Could we see Blizzard's internal simulations?
A: Our internal simulations are World of Warcraft. We're pretty much running bots using real gear on the real client. That said, we may be using different rotations or there may be bugs. We have to compare what we see in our internal testing and data from live servers. Please keep the feedback coming.

3:55PM Q: In arena, high-end items can really change things if you're not a class that can use them. Do you have plans to change that?
A: I think to some extent it's important to let one class to have their moment to shine and go into arena and be very overpowered. Is this class already doing very well in arena or very well in general? Sometimes we've let it go on too long. May consider some kind of arena-only legendary to counterbalance it.

3:53PM Q: Is Azeroth located in a globular cluster? In Storm Peaks at night the star density is very high.
A: Yes. Chris Metzen isn't here, so confirmed. That's canon.

3:52PM Q: Paid character recustomization only offers gender and race change... why can't they just be part of the barber shop?
A: Because we don't want you to change your gender at will. Rolling the facial features into the same category as hair, those were small cosmetic things. Race and gender are a more fundamental thing, the fundamental identity of your character.

3:51PM Q: The one thing we can't change in the game is our 16-slot traveler's backpack.
Crowd: HUGE APPLAUSE!
A: We'll change it to a 10-slot bag. Confirmed.

3:51PM Q: Why is Trall the only orc with eyebrows?
A: Because lore. Thrall was raised by humans so when we were working on his models we found characteristics we thought would make him feel more human. It felt like something that brought him more in line with his upbringing and why he might be different from other orcs.

3:49PM Q: Have battle pets met your expectations and are there any plans for improvements or changes?
A: We're really excited about the reception. We really see it as a content-based system which is why we didn't raise the level cap or add an ability to the pets. We like the way it currently plays out, we want to improve it by adding more content: new pets, new fights, new items to use on your pets.

3:48PM Q: With druid shapeshift, would it be possible to get a real animal roar?
A: We have like 800 caged animals we recorded for those roars, I don't know what you're talking about.
Q: For /roar, you use your racial sounds.
A: Noted.

3:47PM Q: Paladins and warlocks have class-specific mounts, but what about the other classes?
A: Awww.
Crowd: applauds!
A: It's something we look at as part of the class package as a whole and things that feel really right for that class. If we had an idea that fit the fantasy of the class perfectly then we would probably do it. But since we don't have one that feels like it's an integral part we'll leave that to making sure the classes feel different from each other.

3:46PM Q: This isn't a class question, but I'm curious how you see talents impacting gameplay and the optimization of certain talents. Should one talent be perfect in each row?
A: We look at our data of which talents get used and which don't get used. We try to look at the ones that don't get picked and try to improve them and make them get more used. We try to arrive at balance like that instead of beating down talents everyone takes. There can be times when a particular talent is just so out of control that we may do the nerf, but we like to avoid that where we can.

3:44PM Q: Where's the line between fun and class balance?
A: Right there. There's the line.
Q: Positional requirements aren't fun.
A: Is this a class question?
Q: No, it's a class identity question.
A: Good cover. We evaluate and try to decide what it's adding to the game. In some cases we may land on the side of keeping a mechanic and sometimes we might not.
Crowd: Rogues do it from behind!
A: And that.

3:42PM Q: I love Firelands and farming flame kitty seeds, but have you ever thought about adding a secondary glyph for that?
A: We don't want to see all druids walking around as molten flame. It lets druids who really want it have that look. It's inconvenient, but it's inconvenient by design.

3:41PM Q: When you're flying from the top of Kalimdor to Silithus or Uldum, how long is that supposed to take?
A: I don't know if it's something we ever considered. We just wanted to make the world big. We never went into it with a specific goal in mind. We struggled against making the world too small, so we like the idea that it takes a long time to go north to south.

3:40PM Q: Are you going to add better collision detection?
A: I'd love to have better collision detection. It's just us to us to catch it and get feedback when an item has been marked for collision and shouldn't be.

3:39PM Q: Will you be making more guild achievements? We enjoy going out and doing guild achievements and there don't seem to be many new ones.
A: We like guild achievements and want to continue forward with them. It's just a matter of having a good achievement to make. Every time you add new content you could have things that relate to that. Don't want to add achievements just to add achievements.

3:37PM Q: What about letting people into your garrison, which you can do when in a party? What about guild garrisons?
A: We'll continue to think about ways to expand garrisons. We'll have to see exactly what it would mean to be a guild garrison in the future. There are a lot of things we'd have to change to make it a fully-fledged guild feature.

3:36PM Q: Sargeras has always been the big bad, but he's said to be scared of the Old Gods. Is that just hyperbole? A: I wouldn't take that too literally.

3:35PM Q: What about a third spec? A: We're not thinking about it right now. But you never know what will happen in the future. In the past one of the most compelling reasons for a third spec was the pre-Mists talent system... you might want a spec for one role with PvP and PvE, but it's gotten better.

3:33PM Spoilers! Q: Will anyone claim the Doomhammer? A: I think that will be YOU!

3:32PM They're asking for no class-specific questions. Save your "when are you going to fix survival hunters" for another time.

3:30PM The panel is just getting started! Stay tuned.

The liveblog will be starting soon! Check back here for updates.