The Queue: Elephants
by Michael Sacco 
Feb 12th 2010 at 5:00PM
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.
Re: the title -- unlike them, I do forget. To write The Queue.
Wil asked...
"Is Blizzard considering making emblems bind-to-account? For someone who's got multiple alts (and intends to level more), this would be a godsend. What would be the pros and cons of such a change?"
Blizzard has said that they intend for emblems to be an endgame, character-specific reward. Heirlooms, purchasable with said emblems, are a secondary reward to help your alts get to the point of being able to get their own badges.
Will this change for Cataclysm, though? Do we ever really know the answer to that?
Guitarwolf asked...
"Do you think that with the revamping of quest rewards and items around Cataclysm will bring gear with gem slots to pre-level 60 items? I know that JC requires Burning Crusade to train, but Blizz adding minimum level requirements to equippable gems would make use of all the cruddy BC gems, as well as give people a chance to learn how to gem earlier in the game."
Blizzard has said that they made a mistake making leveling gear gemmable at all in BC, and you'll notice that they fixed it for Wrath. You end up with weird item level problems and gear that shouldn't be as good as it is (remember the blue armor that bears wore in BC because it had three red sockets in it). I don't anticipate that this particular design philosophy will change, but nothing's set in stone.
Zalvi24 asked...
"Question: do you think with the simplification of stats and reforging system that is gonna come with cataclysm that we're gonna see the return of the beloved/hated shockadins with a 31/0/45?"
Yes and no. I think we'll be seeing builds that are a lot more "fun", like shockadins, but it's important to remember that talent trees are changing a lot in Cataclysm and the general structure of your trees might or might not be quite different depending on what you play. Ghostcrawler has said that the intention of the talent tree changes is to make talents more fun. I hope he's right.
Grinton asked...
"It seems all the good PvP gear needs either Arena participation or VoA drops. The other alternative is the daily BG quest for arena points but those are so measly. So for someone who loves PvP in BG but despises arenas, are there any other ways to get arena points? I know lower Ilevel stuff only need honour but the weapons need points. Do I have any alternatives other than arena or raiding?"
In Wrath? Unfortunately, not at the moment. In Cataclysm, though, the new rated Battlegrounds will give arena points for victories. Yes, that's right! You'll be able to get the best PVP gear by doing the type of PVP that you like. What a crazy world.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW.com 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!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
ben Feb 12th 2010 5:10PM
Do you think the tension in cataclysm will possibly lead to World of Warcraft: the fourth war? It could be a very PVP centric expac, with raid content involving major battles in war, lots of new battle grounds, yknow, the works.
eliwood98 Feb 12th 2010 5:13PM
He know's to much. Kill him.
Stoneblade Feb 12th 2010 5:17PM
They would have to put in some ridiculously mind-blowing features to get me to throw down money for that....
But, that's me.
Kriegle Feb 12th 2010 5:18PM
Sounds amazing indeed, but I think a lot of people would prefer for the fourth war (if it happens) to take place over the course of a new RTS game. Warcraft 4 .... droooool.
I personally think that World of Warcraft works best as a "post-war/rebuilding" kind of setting in which people are rallying against one big evil instead of two massive sides actively going head to head. But that's just me.
Ebylon Feb 12th 2010 5:33PM
"It could be a very PVP centric expac, with raid content involving major battles in war, lots of new battle grounds, yknow, the works."
So... Warhammer?
Jamie Feb 12th 2010 5:33PM
The only problem with a fourth war or even any hatred ensued by the Alliance/Horde is that as a player on a normal server, it's not really at all that threatening or even possible for the developers to impose on a non-pvp server, which is kinda sad because I'd like to see war between the factions in WoW.
I play on a normal server because I do not wish to be ganked all the time while I level and I do not believe that kind of play constitutes toward the whole Alliance/Horde warfare, but eh war isn't glorious.
(cutaia) Feb 12th 2010 5:44PM
I would strongly approve of this if it were PvP-centric in lore and storyline only. I love to PvP...when I want to. So, making an expansion where PvP gameplay is the main focus would be a mistake. Making one where the battle between the factions is key to the storyline and where some of the raids revolve around fighting faction specific bosses or something? That might be fun.
Ooh...and more phased quests where you have to go to other cities a la Battle for Undercity.
Mike Feb 12th 2010 5:48PM
I could see a Warcraft 4 taking place after the final moments of Cataclysm, and then WoW patch 5.0 pick up after The Fourth War.
Tristan Feb 12th 2010 5:49PM
PvP expansion?
I just threw up a little...
Wulfkin Feb 12th 2010 5:58PM
Cool idea but it'll never happen. Warcraft is a PvE game with PvP content, and to shift it solidly into PvP content in the vein of Warhammer would alienate too many paying customers. Warcarft succeeds by being a little bit of everything and being very good at it. So each expansion that comes out *will* bring new PvP content in the form of new battlegrounds etc, but that will only be a part of the new features.
That said, I am interested how Cataclysm is going to skew things into proper war between the Horde and Alliance. Garrosh and Wrynn and supposed to bring us to the brink of war, at least in lore terms. I hope that this translates into some interesting PvE content, rather than the cold war feel of vanilla WoW.
thebarrenschat.wordpress.com
Sicadastra Feb 12th 2010 6:03PM
@Kriegle: I'm with you, I want to see such a thing as a return to the RTS. Don't get me wrong, I'll Starcraft 2 for the time being, but I need to command massive armies of undead or Orcs once more!
As much as Blizz has been allowing the Warcraft story to be affected outside of WoW, a return to the RTS seems like the perfect way to pull off an incredibly massive game change. Imagine Warcraft 4 where the Forsaken go completely off the deep end and really do turn on the rest of the Horde, coinciding with an expansion which shifts the factions around. Extreme? Sure, but we never thought we'd be flying over Kalimdor, hobnobbing with Goblins, or healing with 2 kinds of Alliance Shamans either...
Just not sure I see Blizzard being organized enough to develop and launch 2 titles on top of each other for such an epic event. Take that as a challenge Blizz....
Beorning Feb 12th 2010 7:16PM
@Sicadastra
I feel like something like that would expect too much of the entire WoW population to move the lore forward and keep this the same game. I would looooove to see something like that in an RTS form; I too miss the days of commanding around undead and orcs. I think this sort of thing would be great to usher in a completely new WoW game, with different factions and whatnot, but that it just wouldn't work to bridge expansions.
-Beorning
Skittles Feb 12th 2010 7:20PM
What would be awsome is as you said, the forsaken splitting off, but perhaps some new races/current races splitting off and all of them making a seperate faction...3 factions would be pretty cool.
BooMsx Feb 13th 2010 4:38AM
How about we could be able to import one of our characters from WoW to W4 as a hero? that would be seriously awesome and you could say i was there at that moment ^_^
Terestria Feb 13th 2010 9:53AM
This would be awesome if it had an opposite faction feel to it but not as PvP...think Gunship, similar raid elements and mechanics but different NPCs based on your faction with an epic lore based story. We can't have one faction win over the other completely in the end, but ICC (both the raid and the new heroics) shows this is viable. One won't truly dominate over the other in the end (the Naaru are building the Army of the Light composed of both factions), but a break-it-down-before-you-build-it-up story wood be cool.
Have fun storming the castle!
Anglefire Feb 14th 2010 1:34AM
I was wondering about mounts in Cataclysm. From what I understand, pretty much the whole known world will be flight friendly (possibly even including places like IronForge and Stormwind.
If that is the case, will all of out land mounts become useless? Will we have wasted tons of time and money on collecting them, only to see them rot now that we can fly everywhere? Is it still worth it doing the Mount related achievement, considering we will not be using those mounts?
ResumeMan Feb 12th 2010 5:16PM
"Blizzard has said that they made a mistake making leveling gear gemmable at all in BC, and you'll notice that they fixed it for Wrath. You end up with weird item level problems and gear that shouldn't be as good as it is"
Interesting, I just leveled a toon through Northrend, and I had this exact same situation. I had gotten a belt when I was about lvl 67 with a gem slot that I slapped a belt buckle on. I ended up keeping that sucker till like lvl 77 or 78 because I couldn't find anything with better SP.
It bummed me out when I started getting my Northrend upgrades that nothing had any gem slots, but it did avoid that item mismatch issue.
Melvyl Feb 13th 2010 11:51AM
One reason I think they should have more... for JewelCrafters. I ended up vendoring a ton of bc-level jewels that no one wanted on the AH. If jewel slots were available at lower levels, there might be at least a small market for those.
But I at least hope they do something about the gear in general. Having just leveled a Resto Druid to 58 as of last night, she didn't see a single upgrade drop after Sunken Temple. Nothing in BRD, DM East, or LBRS. And anything that was close to an upgrade was pretty much always cloth.
scotepi Feb 13th 2010 1:00PM
they could just put iLevel requirements on gems, no more epiq gems in 200 gear....
Lornicide Feb 12th 2010 5:17PM
One Cataclysm question per queue is bad enough....now all of the questions are about Cata? If this is going to continue, at least create a new weekly article centered completely around Cata questions and leave the queue for more relevant/current topics.