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The Queue: Merely a setback
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) has invaded the Queue today. Just when I thought I'd finally gotten rid of him, Millhouse Manastorm has shown his face again, this time casually dining upstairs in my garrison's inn on the beta. Apparently being eaten by a giant mutant crystal worm was merely a setback. ... at least he isn't trying to summon Kil'jaeden or anything, I guess? JordanPhillips asked: q4tq: if UBRS is being revamped to be max level, what happens to LBRS? If I recall correctly, both UBRS/LBRS utilize the same starting entrance area. They are actually two separate instances, now! The main entryway when you zone in right now is un-instanced on the beta, and the once-locked door to UBRS is now an instance portal. There's a portal to LBRS under the bridge. I sort of wish I still had my UBRS key now, because as of 6.0.2, it's a completely useless relic of a bygone era.
The Queue: Fandral Ewing
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. After reading all the comments on yesterday's Queue, only a scant few of you guys seemed to recognize the Dallas reference. So I figured Bobby Ewing would make yet another return from the dead in today's Queue. You're welcome. As an aside, I vaguely, vaguely recall when this episode of Dallas aired, mostly because my mother was so incredibly ticked off that she almost chucked the remote control across the room. It was also the last episode of Dallas she ever watched. lib.feathers asked: And just where would Fandral Staghelm be taking said shower? You can't leave out important details like that! The bathroom. ... where else?
The Queue: Gold, mountains of it
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. I still think it's weird that David Ogden Stiers essentially sings a duet with himself here. But besides the weirdness of one man playing both villain and sidekick, this video is pretty relevant today. Let's jump into the questions, shall we? Darkwraith asked: Q4tQ: with the deploy of 6.0, does anyone know if our Valor will simply be scrapped away or it will be converted to Lesser Charms of Good Fortune? Gold. Mountains of it. (What did I tell you? Relevant.) Well, maybe not mountains. But you're still getting gold. robertjamesftw asked: Q4tQ: I know Rossi tweeted this question to Dave Kosak, but I didn't see an answer: Who is the voice actor for Maraad in the Lords of War series? That would be Crispin Freeman. He's also done the voice work for Thalen Songweaver and Commander Lindon.
The Queue: Spinosaurus was aquatic
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today. That's right, more dinosaurs. Why? Because I love dinosaurs, and also because we have news about Spinosaurus, one of the most famous predatory dinosaurs and also one of the largest predators. Specifically, a new skeletal reconstruction based on fossils found in Morocco in 2008. This is a big deal because before that, we didn't have much at all for Spinosaurus, since the original fossils were destroyed during World War II by Allied bombing. The idea that the Spinosaurus was aquatic isn't a new one - the shape of its teeth and molecular analysis of the fossils suggested a marine diet - but the skeletal reconstruction gives new, physical evidence to support the idea. At up to twenty tons, Spinosaurus is definitely one of if not the largest predatory dinosaur ever, and it's suggested that it survived by hunting and eating sharks. With teeth like the ones it had (conical, for catching fish) it definitely specialized in fish eating. Fifteen meters long, twenty tons, this was a massive animal all told. Jpec07 asks: How likely is it that the in-game face re-customization feature will make it to live from beta? I only ask because some forum posts have been met with skepticism. Pretty likely, all told. Pretty darn likely. It's coded, it's in the beta, at this point taking it out is reversing a solid amount of work that served to include it. It's possible, but not very likely, that they would do that. Also, we have the following from Rygarius. @ChoriSC2 Yes, we're working on writing up the details to explain it in more detail. - Rygarius CoffeeBird (@Rygarius) September 10, 2014 So I'd say that's pretty much a done deal. I'm 95% sure.
The Queue: Honor, Molten Core iLevel, valor achievements, bugs, and shoulders
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. Thrall. I think this game needs more Thrall. Don't you agree? They should make an entire expansion about Thrall. Zuhani asked: Will it still be possible to get honor points without PvPing, as it is now? I don't mean getting like 16 points when killing something in VoA, more like being able to "buy" honor like you currently do with JP? I would use this honor to buy old PvP gear for transmogging. Or will old PvP gear be available for gold in the future?
The Queue: iGold, iTickets, iBrawlers, iClass
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. I'm going to be honest here. I have a few hundred dollars waiting to buy an iWatch. Hype. Arthur asked: With the three auction houses merging into one with 6.0, is there still a good reason to restrict players from trading items and gold between factions on the same server?
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.
The Queue: What a Drag
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. Do you guys remember when the Drag in Orgrimmar used to be dark? I mean, there was a distinct delineation between the rest of bright and sun-baked Orgrimmar and the Drag. It was dark in there, and it didn't matter what time of day it happened to be. I miss that a lot -- it broke up what was otherwise a fairly monotonous red and orange color palette. I kind of wish it would come back again. ElPrede asked: Q4tQ: what is the one villain you would have rather seen as an ally? Either faction or neutral, doesn't matter Fandral Staghelm. I think he still ranks highest on my list of "characters with fascinating back stories that could have been developed into so much more but I guess they needed to fill a raid boss quota." The guy had a ton of potential, particularly as a foil/counter-view for Tyrande, something that she just doesn't get with Malfurion at all.
The Queue: Dreadnoughtus fears nothing
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today. Haven't done a dinosaur queue in a while. And well, they named it Dreadnoughtus schrani. I mean, come on. It's a dinosaur that weighed 65 tons, it's one of the most complete Titanosaur skeletons ever found, and it has a name that immediately made me think of one of the cooler of all warrior sets. So yeah, the video above explains how amazing this find was, how it's changing what we know about these truly massive dinosaurs, and most importantly it weighed more than a 737. Just think about that for a second. A full grown Dreadnoughtus could squash an elephant under one foot and barely notice it. The heaviest estimate for Giganotosaurus is 13.8 tons, which means it would be like a moose getting attacked by a house cat. Anyway, let's get on with the questions. SintraEdrien asks: Why do people think that they deserve (or you owe them) your Battle-tag just because you've been polite and friendly in guild or chat or where-ever? I try to be that all the time, but I'm not comfortable giving out my Blizzard identity (what Battle-tags essentially are) to others whom I don't really know. With the rise of addons like oQueue, people have gotten used to just handing their Battletags out. It's an essential part of cross-server random group forming in order to PuG content like Siege of Orgrimmar or the August Celestials/Ordos. As a result, for many people, the Battletag has become essentially just the same as being friended in game, and they don't really consider how it extends to other Blizzard games - such as Starcraft 2 or Diablo III or Hearthstone. There are all sorts of privacy concerns that not every player is comfortable with when dealing with the Battletag system. I only accept Battletag exchange requests from people I know I like playing with enough to be grouped with them multiple times, so I relate to your discomfort. Not all players understand how personal this can feel to us, however. For people who've grown comfortable with random cross-realm grouping, it may not even seem like an issue.
The Queue: The Phantom Queue
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. You guys seemed to appreciate the music in yesterday's Queue, so have an amazingly well done, remastered version. I promise I will not suplex this Queue when I am done answering questions.* Tschekt asked: Q4tQ: With the Dark Portal being redirected to Draenor, what happens to all the Alliance and Horde forces left in Outland? Are they forever stranded with no way of returning home? Or is there some way to rewire the Dark Portal to reconnect it with Outland and rescue them? Both the portal in Stormwind's mage tower and the portal in the Cleft of Shadow originally teleported players to just outside the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands. In beta, they now teleport players directly to Hellfire Peninsula. In Hellfire, there are portals that go directly back to Stormwind and Orgrimmar. So there really isn't a problem there at all -- nobody is stranded in Outland, it's business as usual.
The Queue: The Rogue Queue
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. I got so many rogue question yesterday, thank you guys! I'm calling today the rogue Queue, because there are quite a few rogue questions to be answered -- but I've also mixed it up a little for those of you that have no love for the sneaky sneak stabbing class. I had so many questions there was no way to address them all -- if your question wasn't answered today, check back tomorrow. I may answer more from yesterday's Queue at that point, depending on how many questions come in today. Speaking of questions ... let's get right to them. C.H. asked: Do you think the WOD train level will be more like the train level in Goldeneye or Shadows of the Empire? I'm hoping for the Phantom Train sequence from FF6. It was the best. And I'm not just saying this on the off chance that we'll be able to suplex the train.*
The Queue: Suicide Mission
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today. I have to admit, I think about the suicide mission from Mass Effect 2 a lot when I go through the Dark Portal for Khadgar. I kind of wish there was a way to have an iconic in-game rendered cinematic, like the one for the Wrathgate, when you step through except instead of featuring some NPC (even an awesome pair like Bolvar and Saurfang Jr.) it featured your character giving a rousing Shepard speech, gathering up all of Azeroth's defenders (under your banner, no less) and charging through with that awesome Jack Wall music playing in the background. Sadly, since I don't think that's possible, you'll have to settle for listening to the music above and daydreaming about it. In my version, I go paragon, just in case that matters. alkalineheat asks: Q4tQ: blizzard has expressed they have no plans to make 2hand maces viable agian for enhancement shamans in Wod. Exactly who are they still viable for? It seems like I havent seen many equipped or even droped in ages. Arms and fury warriors, all DK's, retribution paladins and to a lesser extent feral and guardian druids. I used Gar'tok, Strength of the Faithful for a while even though it wasn't optimal for warriors.
The Queue: Big Blizzard, Warcraft RTS, and Alts
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. Let's dive into the deep end of the pool today and start tackling some of these questions and views. Hyde asked: Before the release of Wrath of the Lich King, a Blizzard developer talked about how they had some extra content planned in case the release of Wrath did not go they way they wanted. Now, we've had a very large dry spell of content without a peep about Blizzard having a back up this time around. Why did the company not have some extras? If Chilton is to be believed, they admitted to being "slowed down." Would it not be prudent to have something to fall back on?
The Queue: Tragedy
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today. When you lose control and you got no soul It's tragedy When the morning cries and you don't know why It's hard to bear Anyway, let's answer some questions in this there Queue. What's that? There are no questions, just people talking about their favorite fantasy novels or movies or games? Tragedy. Bhuta asks: QfQ: With the hybrid "gear tax" disappearing in WoD... what incentive is there to roll a pure dps class? I mean, I've mained a lock since BC... but considering I can do roughly the same work in WoD and be able to not only DPS, but also heal (with a priest)... it's hard for me to justify sticking with it. I mean, sure there's nostalgia... but beyond that... the optional utility is hard to pass up. What are you thoughts? Do you want to heal? Every single time I've been in a guild, I've always ended up tanking, even when I joined as pure DPS, because warriors can tank and DPS. Druids and monks can tank, DPS and heal - guess which roles are the most represented for them? (Hint - it's not their DPS specs.) If you want to tank or heal, then by all means, play a hybrid capable of filling those roles. If you want to be sure that, when you join a guild, you won't ever be asked to tank and/or heal, roll a pure DPS. What you call optional I call eventually mandatory. The longer you play a class that can do a role other than DPS, the higher the likelihood that you will be asked to do it. If that's what you're looking for, by all means, play a hybrid. If you want to be a shadow priest and nothing but a shadow priest, you are in for a lot of cajoling. And if you're just a solo player or a five man player of a PvPer, then I think warlock is a very attractive option.
The Queue: A little out of place
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. Keeshan looks like he has absolutely no idea how he's gotten where he's at. Since he's in my Horde garrison, I feel a little bad about it -- if there's one place he probably doesn't want to be, it's in a tavern with a bunch of orcs. But since he's offering a relatively fashionable -- if kind of gruesome -- Bloody Bandana as a quest reward, I'm not going to complain about it. BlazeNor asked: Q4tQ: Think we will ever get birthdays for our characters (date of creation) by Blizzard? I had actually never considered that as a possibility for anything until you mentioned it just now. But that's actually a really neat idea, and now I'm kind of hoping we'll see something like that some day. Maybe have Lorewalker Cho send your character a little something, some nice dream brew or something like that on their "birthday", since he's already tracking everyone's stories and history anyway? Heck, I'd love to see that. Doesn't have to be anything complicated reward-wise, just a nice letter with a little acknowledgement of the day -- it'd be a cool little touch!
The Queue: Night elf dudes
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. Night elf males look surprisingly not disturbing or lumpy or weird at all, now. I'm just as impressed with them as I was with the human male models -- both were vast, vast improvements. Fizzl asked: So, The Legion can access Outland because it's exposed to the Twisting Nether, right? As opposed to Azeroth which is just... in space or something? So then how would Mannoroth, Kil'jaeden, etc. get to Draenor if it hasn't been exposed to the Twisting Nether yet? And more importantly, if they can just come and go between Outland as they please, why wouldn't Kil'jaeden have just appeared on Outland and taken the Dark Portal to Azeroth? Does he need more power to come to Azeroth no matter what sort of portal he's taking? Or is it just an oversight? How the Legion accesses worlds has nothing to do with being exposed to the Twisting Nether, really. In Rise of the Horde, Mannoroth arrived on Draenor via what Gul'dan described as swirling clouds and the sky breaking open -- implying a portal of some sort. He wasn't summoned by any rituals, it's just sort of assumed that the Legion sent him there via portal, possibly because the world was already fairly contaminated and corrupted with fel magic at that point. In the War of the Ancients, the demons were allowed entrance through a portal powered by the Well of Eternity.
The Queue: Mannoroth's dead. Dead like Zed.
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today. Questions. We answer questions. MichaelEKirby asks: Q4TQ (or maybe more a PSA?): Saw this on MMOChamp: "Kil'jaeden and Archimonde are back, but not as bosses." So that pretty much kills the "all world, all dimensions are open" / only one Burning Legion across multiple planes of reality idea? Considering we see Grommash kill Mannoroth in the cinematic for Warlords of Draenor which is set 35 years in the past, if there was only one Burning Legion across all planes of reality, that would mean that our Grom couldn't kill Mannorth ten years ago, since he would already be dead. But no, since it's 35 years ago, both Kil'jaeden and Archimonde could make appearances, since Kil'jaeden isn't dead (he gets banished during his fight at the Sunwell) and Archimonde only died ten years ago. It's the double-death of Mannoroth that proves there's more than one Legion.
The Queue: In Name Only
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today. Questions will be answered! Misconceptions shall be splintered! A Queue day, a red day, ere the sun rises! JodySchaeffer asks: Since this is a different timeline with no impact on our own history, I'm wondering why our characters should even care, story-wise, about these people who are historical characters in name only. That isn't Grom, that isn't Gul'dan, it isn't even really Draenor. The only redeeming thing I can think of is a Legion invasion at the end of WoD that destroys the fragmented timeline and sets up the next expansion. Have it so we can visit our Garrisons through the Timewalkers so they weren't for nothing. But yeah. Since they're so big on stressing these AREN'T famous characters from lore, why does it matter who they are at all? Well, there's several reasons. The first is pragmatic. The Iron Horde is coming through into our world, blowing up our settlements, and making war on us. So we should care about these people because these people are literally trying to murder us. I don't know about you, but I tend to be concerned when people want to kill me. From another perspective, it's like this - yes, that Grom isn't the Grom who died fighting Mannoroth to lift the blood curse. But he is Grom. He shares many life experiences in common with the Grom we know - he has as much right to be called Grom Hellscream as the other one did. Saying that's not really Gul'dan is foolishness. It is Gul'dan. It's not the Gul'dan whose skull ended up in Felwood, allowing Illidan to consume its power and become a demon. But it is Gul'dan. And the reason we shouldn't just ignore that fact is simple - even though his life has taken a different path than our Gul'dan did, he's still the same evil power hungry maniac, just as the Grom we'll meet in Draenor is still the bloodthirst orc whose howl drove fear into the hearts of others. They're not identical to the people we know, but they are similar, and that's a source of knowledge about them. We'd be fools to not use that knowledge to our own advantage. Up to you if your character is a fool, of course.
The Queue: Gnomelords of Draenor
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. You guys can blame ScottLeyes for this one. It's all his fault. Bruin asked: Does Garrosh's Jaw look a little like Deathwing's jaw in the Cinematic? I assume that's the remnants of Y'shaarj? Nope! The tattoos are a Warsong thing -- his father had them as well. Garrosh had his done in the novel The Shattering, after Thrall appointed him Warchief and left Orgrimmar, just before Cairne confronted him and challenged him to the mak'gora that ended his life. Fun fact: When Cairne threw down and demanded the duel, he punctuated it with a full-out backhand across Garrosh's freshly-tattooed face. Ouch.
The Queue: Garrison stables are no joke
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. Sometimes I think about how weird it must be to have hooves and ride around on an animal that also has hooves. Imagine if horses had feet like us, only four of them. Wouldn't that weird you out just a little? Welcome to Saturday. Let's get to the questions. Jalamenos asked: If you could choose one minor character currently in WoW to be used in a future patch or expansion and be fully voice cast, who would it be and who would you like to voice him/her? Lorna Crowley. Bring in Billie Piper and make her a sass monster.
