The Queue: Writer's Block

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.

Sometimes I just can't come up with a good intro to the Queue. I don't have any music I really want to play, I can't really do a huge post full of spoilers about Man of Steel, so it's basically just me, sitting here, trying and failing to come up with anything clever.

In lieu of clever, let's just answer some questions.

Pmarsico9 said
I bet Malkorak is actually a dreadlord.......that's my guess. You heard it here first. Remember how Balnazzar manipulated the entire Scarlet Crusade?

Well I hope this the beginning of the re-emergence of the Legion.

I have no evidence that he's not a dreadlord, aside from him seeming fairly orcish in his appearances in Tides of War and the expansion to date. I kind of hope he's not, because frankly we've done that bit twice now with Balnazzar and Mal'Ganis. Sometimes people do evil things for their own reasons, they don't have to be manipulated into it by demons.
lucho_pinto asks
Well, obligatory question of the day: New Garrosh model - Template for new Orc model? Thoughts?

Mine? OH YES.

Well, we have some fairly detailed orc models to look at, between Thrall's Cataclysm revamp and Garrosh's current model (which is itself a refinement of Garrosh's Cata look) and I expect that if/when we get new orc models, they'll look something like these. But since both Thrall and Garrosh are fairly distinctive looking orcs, I expect the player orc model (when it is updated) will look simpler.

HerrKlokbok asks
Any rough estimate on when patch 5.4 will drop on the live realms? I'm planning to buy a new computer until 5.4 but it would be really great if I had some sort of deadline.

So what are we looking at - july? August? September?

Or even october?

Okay, keeping in mind I'm completely guessing because Blizzard hasn't said boo about it, September seems like a safe bet. That will mean the 5.4 PTR would have been up for four months, which is about what we got for the 5.2 and 5.3 PTRs. 5.2 hit the PTR in January and went live in March, so three to four months seems a really safe bet.

SallyBowls asks
Q4Q: if we are going to have virtual realms, why do we still have 3 AHs? Wouldn't a combined AH just be simpler? Why make people sell to friend/alt to move it? It used to be the special snowflakes didn't want competition in the AH. Several new realms blows that out of the water.

SWTOR converted to the single AH and I liked the change.

I think it's extremely unlikely that we'll have cross-faction AH's for the same reason we're not allowed to have cross-faction grouping. Yes, the neutral AH exists, but it's deliberately in an out of the way place that's annoying to get to. Now, you can never say never with Blizzard, but I just don't see them making it even easier for Horde and Alliance players to sell things to each other.

SergioSirsay asks
Did I miss it somewhere, or have they let on whether there will be a list of which realms get connected to which under the virtual realms, or is it still too early for that? (I'm thinking of the situation where someone may not have to pay for a realm transfer if they get lucky with that list and can share heirlooms, etc.)

It's still way too early for that. We have no information on how they're planning on fusing realms into virtual realms - we don't even know if they'll keep PvE, PvP and RP realms separate although my assumption is that they will. Keeping in mind that it may be only a couple of months before the change, I'd hold off on a realm transfer unless you have a pressing reason to go now.

Jackesteve asks
How do the changes to the Vale and its waters affect the waters that spill forth via the Thousand Years falls in the Valley? No more huge veggies?

No idea yet, but it doesn't look good for the Valley of the Four Winds. Not good at all. Perhaps the waters of the Terrace of Eternal Spring, now that it's been cleansed, can help restore the Vale of Eternal Blossoms since it would make sense for the Terrace to be the original source of the Vale's water. Remember, it was in the Terrace that Shaohao first called the mists down, so it's possible that the Sha of Pride was seeking to keep the Terrace isolated.

Then again, perhaps we went to Pandaria, brought our war to its shores, and ultimately destroyed the continent by digging up its most sacred and profound place and freeing an ultimate evil, then left the place a wasteland and completely failed to live up to the faith the August Celestials showed in us. We'll find out.
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! Tags: featured, guide, qa, question-and-answer, wow-answers, wow-daily-answers, wow-daily-questions, wow-guide, wow-player-questions, wow-q-and-a, wow-questions

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