The Queue: Meow now
by Adam Holisky 
Mar 19th 2009 at 11:00AM
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.
The above picture took me all of five minutes to put together. Super Troopers is a great movie, and I encourage you all to go watch it today. But finish reading WoW Insider first, and in particular finish reading The Queue to understand the reference. How many times can Alex say Mountain Dew? The answer is a lot. Update: Go and read Massively's take on the coming Mountain Dew. It's quite good.037 asked...
"Now that you can queue for battlegrounds from anywhere, are we looking at the new ghetto hearth?"
No. Queuing for a battleground will send you right back to the place where you entered the battleground from.
Lorsty asked...
"I have a question for the queue. Why isn't there a Feat of Strength for going from level 1 to 80 without dying?"
That's a great idea. But unfortunately nothing like that exists, and even if it did I highly doubt it would be possible under any normal circumstances. You'd have to basically always fight mobs you were 100% sure wouldn't kill you. And the psychological damage to a person after they died at level 79 fighting some easy mob would be too much, I think.
Lorsty also asked...
"What are the chances of knowing about the next expansion during this year's BlizzCon?"
I would say pretty good, although it's really just speculation. Anyone claiming to know for sure what the next expansion is doesn't. Blizzard knows, but it's a closely guarded secret and it's a secret a lot of people like to claim that they know. And anyone that does know won't say so publicly, and will swear up and down they don't know. And no, I don't know so don't ask. For reals.
KJS asked...
"Currently, I have two level 80 Horde toons on my server, and three level 70 Alliance toons on this same server. Do you think Blizz will ever allow any/or all of my Alliance toons to become Horde toons or vice versa? It stinks to have to re-level toons from level 1, when I have three level 70's just sitting there doing nothing."
Very unlikely. Blizzard folks have often said that they don't want to disrupt the class balance and faction balance in the game (balance as in number of rogues to the number of warlocks). Blizzard also likes to maintain an overall RP sense in the game, and allowing faction changes would destroy that. And before people ask, sex change is an RP element in the medieval fantasy world that has been around long before WoW, with the earliest I can think of being Elminster from Ed Greenwood's series. Changing from a Human to Orc really isn't. At least not a common one by any means.
Johnnytorrance asked...
"Anyone know if there are going to be Certificates of Ownership for Guilds? Like being be able to change your guild name?"
Blizzard has said they have no plans to allow guild name changes. However I think this might eventually change since some guilds invest significant gold in owning bank slots, etc... But really, the whole guild interface needs an overhaul. Blizzard has mentioned this however as something they'd eventually like to work on. But don't expect it anytime soon.
Osi asked...
"'poopoo on him' What Alex, are you? 5?"
He's actually five and a half. He points that out every night in WoW Insider chat.
Matrim asked...
"So seriously, what's with all the Mt. Dew plugs? Do you guys get paid every time you say it?"
Mountain Dew is in no way sponsoring the numerous Mountain Dew references with Mountain Dew on this non-Mountain Dew affiliated page full of precarious Mountain Dew references. Mountain Dew.
Balius asked...
"So, as the authors of the article, are we killing your content by trying to be helpful, or are you perfectly happy re-answering questions that the commenters have already answered? I like being helpful, but I don't want to step on toes here."
Please continue to be helpful! We'll often choose a question that didn't get answered by folks, so everyone helping is greatly appreciated! And seriously, we love reading positive comments from people helping other people. It's much better than reading trolls and such.
You folks can also have different viewpoints than all of us writers, and we don't have all the answers. So often times you help us out too with insight into answers we might not have thought of. We give you credit in those cases too.
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!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
Frankthetank22 Mar 19th 2009 11:05AM
i counted 6
Human Mar 19th 2009 11:16AM
I'm kind of hoping that the next xpac is the Maelstrom, I think that would be cool. I keep hearing people thinking it could be, but I'm not getting my hopes up, especially since we haven't even gotten to Ulduar, not to mention the Lich King himself.
Aggrajag Mar 19th 2009 11:39AM
I'm just hoping to God it's not underwater like that uber-disaster Trials of Atlantis exp-pack for Dark Age of Camelot.
kabshiel Mar 19th 2009 12:12PM
You're not looking forward to an entire "Deep Ocean, Vast Sea" expansion?
"OMG the murlocs are swimming through the walls!"
Elry Mar 19th 2009 12:21PM
@Aggrajag
Swimming mounts and a turtle mount that I assume works under the water (not just surface otherwise what's the point?)... Either this is just a novelty item that can get you to islands just off the coast a little quicker, or its experimentation to gather data required for larger scale deployment of water based mounts for some nefarious underwater activities that might be planned for the future. Until I know the only reason I currenlty have to desire the turtle is to add one more to get my total closer to 100!
Anyway, I don't know about the next expansion, but I'm hoping, since Wrath is concerning itself a lot with the activities of the Titans, that Uldum becomes an instance/raid in another patch. I'd love more reasons to keep visiting the classic zones and see how those little hints of lore from vanilla wow play out now that we've uncovere some larger plots. I'd say the same for the "hidden" Eranikus quests (since we've been dealing with dragons a lot in Wrath too), but since I binned my Chained Essence of Eranikus trinket before I found them, I'm not so keen on having a questline I can't complete be expanded :-P
Bubsa Mar 19th 2009 1:00PM
I'm not ruling out that land might be 'raised' from the depths of the maelstrom, or we enter a little 'bubble', as it were.
The idea of submersive dungeons, raids, even the majority of quests, just sounds horribly clunky, with or without water mounts.
Horris Mar 19th 2009 1:17PM
I think the water levels are my least favorite in most of the games I've played in my life. An entirely underwater xpac sounds like fail waiting to happen.
Of course, I could be wrong. Blizzard does a really good job overall with everything they do. Maybe they'll pull it off and truly WoW me (u c wut i did thar?) with their sub-aquatic adventures.
Quickshiv Mar 19th 2009 2:02PM
MMOs were not meant to be played in 3 dimensions. Sure traveling on a flying mount is great but you don't have to worry about aggro or fighting.
Underwater fighting killed DAoC. It was probably a litter worse in that game because all melee dps was position based but in any case it is no fun at all.
Just imagine and entire expansion that is like the occulous but the mobs move around and you have to worry about running out of air and you move at half speed. Wheeee fun.
Farthing Mar 19th 2009 7:18PM
I once had a really cool dream where blizzard implemented a Maelstrom expansion that focused mainly on adding islands to the game.
Added cities included Undermine as a neutral city, an ancient troll temple to finally give the Darkspear Tribe a capitol, and Metrognome, a flying city belonging to the Gnomregan Exiles, similar to Dalaran stationed to spy on their rivals in Undermine.
Many islands had high cliffs and cave layouts which increased what initially appeared to be very small surface area, while other islands like Undermine were rather large both in apparent size, and surface area. There was also an instance that involved a ship that gets knocked off course and ends up sailing through the Maelstrom, with different monsters attacking along the way. The actual Maelstrom was a "locked" area to be added in a later patch as a raid.
After this dream, I decided to take a break from WoW for a while.
My point is, there's alot of Azeroth at sea that isn't necessarily under-the-sea. Furthermore, if Blizzard does implement an underwater dungeon/raid, I think they would supply us with the means to move relatively freely through them either through buffs, or vehicles.
As to what the next expansion will be, I'm leaning more towards the Emerald Dream. The portals are already there, and there's some nice plot advancement for it with the Scythe of Elune making another appearance, the Emerald Dragon Shrine, and of course Vordrassil.
Lastly, I'd like to emphasize that this entire post is speculation.
Human Mar 19th 2009 8:44PM
Yeah, I think that the Emerald Dream/Nightmare would be pretty cool, but I hope hope hope that it won't be like the "taste" of it during that long questchain trying to save Bridenbrad... that kind of disappointed me. My ring was worth it I guess =P
I still think Maelstrom would be cool, but I didn't mean completely underwater, maybe we get to go to the island where the Goblins originated, etc. And maybe if they did choose Maelstrom, the dungeons could be kind of like SSC, where its a cavern underwater.
Palatel Mar 19th 2009 11:06AM
Any news on dance studios?
Palatel Mar 19th 2009 11:07AM
:P
bundee Mar 19th 2009 11:09AM
I saw an unofficial timeline somewhere (the source escapes me, so its veracity is unknown) that dance studios wouldn't be in for a while possibly even into 3.3
bundee Mar 19th 2009 11:07AM
It took you 5 minutes? Were you blindfolded?
Bob Dewane Mar 19th 2009 11:07AM
Has ther been any word as to whether or not Blizz will use the "gate" system again in Ulduar to control raid progression? I know it caused a ton of controversy in Sunwell.
Nicoma Mar 24th 2009 10:05PM
What are you talking about meow?
Also the dew plugs are gettin' a bit out of hand meow
Muse Mar 19th 2009 11:11AM
Is there anyway to loot without using the mouse? For situations like when the batteries run out at 30% on a bossfight and you realise your dog or your sister has chewed through the cable on the backup.
Tumleren Mar 19th 2009 11:24AM
There's a better way: Get a mouse with a cord. Or set your wireless to recharge when it's dead - If it happens at 30%, you still have plenty of time, and unless you're a clicker, you don't need the mouse
Tumleren Mar 19th 2009 11:26AM
Oh yea I forgot, there's not a way to loot without the mouse. I tried to do this too when I was leveling my hunter (macro-heaven), but I think I found a thrad on the forums where someone asked and was told that it was not in the game so as to not make it easer for bots etc.
Tirris Mar 19th 2009 11:31AM
lol...?