The Queue: In which Adam will surely get some QQ for his answer
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. Adam Holisky will be your host today.
One of the things about writing is that when someone asks "Do you think ...?", I get to give my opinion, and sometimes that opinion gets me in "trouble," for lack of a better word. Not in trouble with the site, mind you, but in trouble with people who disagree with me. As long as writers' opinions are well thought-out, we don't mind publishing them.
People who love twinking to just roll over characters in lesser gear? Yeah... read on. /duck
Kae asked...
"Do you think that Blizzard will ever remove 'locked experience' battlegrounds for twinks?"
Honestly? No.
Think of it this way: What is twinking? It's a way for players to super-gear up a low-level character and then completely demolish characters of the same level, even when the weaker-geared character has the same or grater level of skill. What the locked experience battlegrounds do is force those players who want to twink their character like that and sit at one level the entire time to face off against other players who have the same intention, rather than just killing other players in two shots, ruining their battleground experience. After all, a twink is there to play their character to maximum possible skill and not just to roll over other players who don't care about maxing out gear every nine levels, right? (And if your answer is no, then you're probably out of luck, because Blizzard doesn't think a game where players are able to instantly destroy other players is very fun. I tend to agree with them.)
Fundamentally, this comes down to the question of which is more important: gear or skill? In the first three and a half years of WoW's life, the answer was gear. This led to crazy things like people spending thousands of hours grinding to high PvP ranks without ever having any real skill (other than being able to sit on one's ass in front of a computer). And while your butt cheeks might have reached the epic level/size of 42, in actuality, you didn't really accomplish much. (Side note: I know people who had skill to go along with the gear, too, but I'm speaking in general terms.)
In Wrath, however, the focus has shifted more towards a skill-based game. While some may argue that the skill level is substantially decreased from what it was during BC (and they might be correct), no one can argue that gear matters anymore. Anyone can grind and get a 5,000 GearScore, fully geared in 232 gear, just by running heroics. You're not going to get in and stay in a raiding guild on gear alone; you'll need to show some skill along the way.
To me, this is a very big shift in the direction of the game -- a shift that's led to the game's life being extended significantly. If something just sits and doesn't change, people become uninterested and move on. But a game that's moved from gear-based to skill-based and then constantly changes what skills matter? That's a very smart way to keep a large number of players engaged for the next five years.
So will Blizzard ever again allow ultra-geared twink characters to roll over lesser-geared but potentially higher-skilled characters of the same level? I'd bet a trip to BlizzCon the answer is no.
Paul asked...
"How come Dalaran Lags so much? I mean, really its quite a ghost town. I never see anyone else there at all. In fact, when Im mounted, I sometimes dont even see myself ..."
It's normal after turning on the blue EPEEN meter. If you don't start seeing people again after four hours, consult a physician -- you may have a serious medical problem.
Oshaka asked...
"Can I buy cold weather flying and than send it to a friend to use?"
No, the book can only be transferred to alts on your account on the same server.
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.
