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The Queue: Garrisons, editorial, remorse, gear
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. So much interest in patch 6.0.2 lately... It's almost like there's another 600,000 people playing WoW or something. Huh. Yaminokaze asked: Looking at most of the complaints about garrisons, many of them boil down less to any problems with the system as-is, and more to the garrison not being what the person wanted or expected. Less "I don't like this" and more "I wish it had been this". Do you think Blizzard did a poor job managing expectations for the garrison? They were so vague at BlizzCon that everyone likely filled in the gaps in their imagination (often erroneously), but I'm not sure if they had much more of an idea than what they gave us then. The feature probably changed quite a bit during development.
The Queue: Removals, tree form, and Baine Bloodhoof
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Sarah Pine (@ilaniel) will be your host today. I'm not in the alpha, so I'm going to sulk, drink my coffee, and look longingly at this beautiful shot of Shadowmoon Valley. Oh, and answer some questions, too! CaptainCakewalk asked: Q4tQ: So far, what is the one single thing you are glad to see removed in WoD and the one thing you are not so happy about being removed?
The Queue: Money money money
Well, yesterday was exciting wasn't it? Adam's "insane" guess on the cost of a level 90 boost appears at least to have been below the price we saw. Lots of conflicting opinions abounded in the comments, both on that post and yesterday's queue, with some saying "too much" and some saying "just right". I don't think we saw anyone saying "too little" though. However, the first question was one that I saw a lot: Devin asked Q4TQ: With the 90 boost ostensibly being priced at $60 do you think Blizzard would introduce an option to buy levels individually for a dollar or so, or even a scaling price for higher levels? Allowing players to level by conventional means but avoiding areas of the game they dislike. The short answer is no, I don't think we'd see that. Reason being that it could net Blizzard far less revenue than the "give us $60" option. It would also have the issue of how people would use it, and the impact of that use. For example, I find leveling from 1-15 really tiresome. Start zones, for some races, are fine, but if I never have to do the Pandaren one again it'll be too soon. Same applies for the Worgen and the Goblin zones, the ones that trap you until you reach a certain point. Right now, I give Blizzard $25 for a race change, but instead I'd just give them $15 to get off that darn turtle.
The Queue: Happy Cow-loween
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Sarah Pine (@ilaniel) will be your belated host for today. It's been years since I watched Revolutionary Girl Utena, and I've been dusting off my old DVDs to give it another go. The show is delightfully (and sometimes disturbingly) weird, and there is no character who is more representative of its bizarre humor than Nanami. In this scene, she turns into a cow. As you do. Erik4 asked: Q4TQ: So what's up with WoW Mega Bloks? Are they discontinued? I loved collecting those. Bought almost every one. I was really looking forward to Draenai and Garrosh and a dragon mount.
The Queue: All hail the banana slug
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Sarah Pine will be your host today. The majestic banana slug, a giant yellow slug native to the redwood forests of northern California, also the celebrated mascot of UC Santa Cruz! I'm an alum of UC Berkeley myself, and often encountered banana slugs while trekking through woodland while on some project or other for my numerous environmental science classes. I never got tired of seeing them. They're pretty great. Man. Now I'm all nostalgic for banana slugs. RegulusX asked: I stopped playing the game just before the end of Cataclysm, but have come back for 5.4. My question: how much time do people think we have before the next expansion? Wondering how much time I have to spend on alts and random things versus getting my main through all the MoP content.
The Queue: In case of emergency break glass, release kraken
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. All the usual suspects are sick, so backup emergency Queue writer Matthew Rossi has breached his vault and, bypassing all the eldritch seals, brings forth a Queue that writhes with tentacles vast beyond imagining. Ia! Ia! Yes, that's right - everyone's sick, and so I'm writing this Queue. I was just reading about the original mythology about the kraken, the idea that it was so big that people used to think it was an island and it would eat entire boats and kill people by submerging. Isn't that wild? For once, World of Warcraft has completely downplayed the thing. As you can see from this wikipedia article, Jacob Wallenberg argued that the kraken wasn't very large since it was only roughly sixteen kilometers. I'm fairly sure Jacob Wallenberg was a hard dude to impress. On to your questions! hstein31 asks: In the Operation: Shieldwall quests, Varian says that he was courting the Blood Elves to join the Alliance. That seems rather important to only be casually mentioned while scolding Jaina; does that show up in any other source, like a novel or short-story? Nope. It takes place entirely within the game. Aren't we constantly saying that's what we want?
The Queue: Music is distracting
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Sarah Pine (@ilaniel) will be your host today. Thanks to tumblr for introducing me to the Armenian pop singer Sirusho. I can't get this song out of my head, despite not understanding a word of it. This video in particular has been praised for featuring some wonderful Armenian design, and it's easy to see why! Ron2 asked: What's your favorite class and/or race for a gathering alt? Horde or Alliance, Mining, Herbing, and/or Skinning, I leave that up to you.
The Queue: Patch 5.2's release date and heaps of dirty laundry
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today's edition of The Queue is mostly WoW Insider questions and not so much WoW questions, but we'll get the biggest WoW question of them all out of the way up front: frankie asked: Patch 5.2: Live before February ends?
The Queue: Let's see some hustle out there, patch 5.2
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I've officially reached the point where I'm tired of messing around with patch 5.2 on the PTR and just want it to launch. That doesn't mean everybody has reached that point, but I certainly have. sergel92 asked: Are the Zandalari good trolls, bad trolls, or just your normal trolly trolls? They seem to show different levels of morality, but I'm wondering what direction they are heading in now with Mists. Also, do ou think we'll ever see their leader Rastakhan one day, or even know where he is?
The Queue: Serpent racing, soloing Black Temple, and more
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I'm stuck in downtown San Francisco until Friday. I apologize to everyone who lives in or around San Francisco, but this place kind of sucks. darkpanda asked: Did Cloud Serpent Racing never take off? (No pun intended). I've heard barely any mention of it since MoP launched. Whenever people talk about non Raiding activities, it's completely ignored. Did it get lost in the shuffle or was there never any longevity to it to begin with?
The Queue: Random cat pictures because I am sick
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 "Oh God I think I'm dying" Rossi will be answering your questions today. So yeah, I am crazy sick as I write this. We're in the grip of that seasonal hopping illness - you know, the one that someone brings into the house as a cough, and then it migrates to someone else as explosive sneezes and chills, and then it leaps back to the first person. I have no idea if we've even had one good illness free day the past two weeks. I realize this isn't in any way funny. I'm sorry about that. Here's a picture of my cat Sasquatch that some of you totally helped keep from dying. He's very cute. mazokuranma asks Could anyone possible help me with a LFR loot question? I'm having trouble finding a definitive answer through Google. I know you can only get loot once from a boss per reset cycle, but if you don't get loot from a boss, are you locked out from loot for the cycle (Essentially limiting you to running it once for any chance at loot)? Second, if you've already run it for loot and received some, can you spend another coin if you go again and still get a chance at bonus loot? If anyone can answer these questions (Or help me find an officail post related to them) I would appreciate it! From personal experience I can tell you that yes, even if you didn't get any loot, once you kill a boss in LFR you're locked out of looting him again. You'll see an icon saying You were not eligible to loot this boss. However, yes, you can spend a coin on a boss you've already looted and get an item. I know because I have done so.
The Queue: Benjamin Franklin created the internet to resurrect himself
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 is writing this sucker today. I'm kidding. Sort of. Ben is one of my personal heroes, though. In today's Queue, I answer a bunch of tanking questions. I know -- I was as shocked as you are. Matthew2 asked: I finally got around to making a DK and leveling it. (I'm a tank - my first tank!!!) Having said that: Is DPS in Blood Spec viable for 5 mans? I'm not a raider, I just want to learn my Blood spec and tank with it and dps with it in instances that I am learning about. Is it ok to use death and decay if I'm in Frost Presence when I'm DPS'ing? And I don't yet have unholy presence, so I'll pre-ask: "what spec should I be using as DPS in PvE [assuming i'm a blood dk if that matters]? Clearly, I don't know this class yet - any good sources to learn about being a DK?
The Queue: The one with a bird on 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. Your host for today is the newly pierced Fox Van Allen. For those of you who don't know, I live in Somerville, Massachusetts. It's an urban hipster oasis immediately west of Boston. We have stores that specialize in selling cheese. We have a coffee shop where you get served inside an abandoned bank vault. We've converted every inch of abandoned factory space into million-dollar lofts. And yes, we have lots and lots of craft stores where you can buy ridiculous crap with birds on it. Why birds? Well, according to the above clip from IFC's Portlandia, everything's better (and carries more hipster cred) when you put a bird on it. We'll test out that theory in today's The Queue. Tee asked: Is Blizzard planning on doing anything for leveling scribes to address the current situation with Books of Glyph Mastery? Since most people have moved on from Northrend content, the books are in short supply ... there are only a few on the auction house at any given time and they're ridiculously expensive. Is Blizzard really going to make me spend tens of thousands of gold to buy 54 books to get access to those glyphs? I thought I remembered someone saying during a BlizzCon panel that they were going to make those glyphs available in a different way for Cataclysm, but I may have been dreaming that.
The Queue: The bird is most certainly not the word
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. Normally I'm all right with birds, but this one kept murdering me in cold blood last night on my priest, even though I was several levels higher than him. I mean, there are elite magnataur out there in the same zone with one-fourth the HP of this damn bird. What do you want from me, Alystros? I pay my taxes, I vote, I volunteer at the local museum. The least you could do is cut your HP and damage by about 75% so I can convert your corpse into gold and experience. And what does that have to do with The Queue? Nothing, dear readers. Absolutely nothing. Brysterside asked via Twitter: What is the best way to start a WoW blog? Simply put? Start writing! If you want to blog, you have to write. Find something you're passionate about in the game and write write write, because two things will keep readers coming: good content, and regular content. Make sure that you can provide both. It's not easy getting the discipline to be a regular blogger -- just ask me -- but the payoff can be big in many ways. WoW.com has a series of articles on starting your own WoW blog, which you can start here. Hope that helps!
The Queue: Normal view
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 be your host today. Happy fifth anniversary, everyone! In honor of such a prestigious age for our young upstart MMO, this edition of the Queue ... has ... well, basically nothing to do with the anniversary at all. I mean, it's not as if you guys asked any anniversary-related questions. So, we're just setting today's Queue to "normal view" and takin' care of business. Shall we? Pemberton asked... How come we can't fly from Darkshore to the Exodar?
The Queue: I demand a recount
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. Michael Sacco will be your host today. I'll be taking over The Queue periodically for Alex and Adam, and thus I've been given this soapbox. Well, guess what! I'm usin' it. I demand a recount on the alleged outcome of the Rossi vs. Sacco arm-wrestling match. I don't know where the results came from, but I bet if we looked in Adam's basement, we'd find a Diebold machine that "fell off the back of a truck." Rossi may have the burly chest and body hair that give him the makings of a champion, but I've got really good hair and I can guarantee that one look at me and Rossi would give up the ghost right there. Unless we're playing by standard rules, in which case he would literally murder me. And now, reader questions. Sean asked... "A question about the new Random Dungeon feature. Let's say you sign up for the first random dungeon of the morning, and you get a place that you just can't stand. (Think OK or Occ) If you bail on the dungeon, then wait out the Deserter debuff, have you messed up your shot at the Frost Emblems for the day?" We've had a lot of questions about the new Dungeon System lately, which is good, because it shows that people are (at least) interested in it and (at most) excited about it. To answer your question, you don't miss your opportunity to get your Emblems of Frost if your first random dungeon of the day goes down the toilet. You get your Emblems upon successful completion of your first random dungeon of the day.
EpicAdvice.com lets you ask and answer Warcraft questions
Reader Jesta sent us a note about his new website. He's a big fan of Stack Overflow, which is a big Q&A/advice site for programmers -- you show up, ask your question, and then other folks who might or might not be working on the same problem post their answers, in moderated and organized threads for everyone to read. Jesta decided this same type of thing could work for our little game, so he put together EpicAdvice.com -- the idea is that you go there, leave a question about anything in the game, and then wait for your answer from other people browsing the site.Stack Overflow actually has a little "badge" system where answerers can earn reputation points for answering questions correctly, and Jesta says that they're working on doing something similar for Epic Advice (though they'll probably have Achievements, as that's more Warcraft-y). But as of this writing, the site definitely needs more questions and answers, so if there's something bugging you about WoW (that our own Queue hasn't answered yet), or you consider yourself an expert and want to clear some things up, head over and give the site a look.
The Queue: Prelude to drunken frivolity edition
Welcome to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Allison Robert is your hostess today.I think the title is fairly self-explanatory, n'est-ce pas?Radioted asks...With the recent implementation of faction change thinning the walls between Horde and Alliance all the more, has there been any talking bubbling up of implementing cross-faction mail, even if only fore stuff like heirlooms?Battle.net 2.0 will allow cross-faction chat, but we haven't heard anything concrete concerning cross-faction mail. Wryxian has mentioned that it's something they'd like to do, however. Heirloom items do transfer with your character if you switch them from Horde to Alliance and vice versa, and right now that's the only way to get an heirloom to your cross-faction toons.
The Queue: Trinket-Palooza 2009
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. Allison Robert is your hostess today again (our condolences).I'm in an autumnal sort of mood, hence today's picture. Yes, I know that Barrens trees always look like that. We got a really interesting question about trinkets the last time around that really caught my attention, so a lot of today's Queue is going to be comprised of an Enjoyable Stroll Down Memory Lane and Into Holy ^$*# Look At That Trinket From AQ40 How Has That Not Been Nerfed Yet.Starlin asks...So, what's up with Brewfest this year? Anything new or updated?Fortunately or us, Kisirani posted on this same question yesterday. To summarize, there are no major changes to the holiday, but Coren Direbrew has been updated to level 80, the mount drop rates haven't changed (nor are they now required for the Brewfest meta-achievement), and no new pets or mounts have been added. You can reasonably expect a beefed-up holiday boss with a new loot table (most likely of ilevel 200 items, possibly 219 if they want to match the gear from heroic Trial of the Champion), but otherwise the same experience as last year. I'll have an OverAchiever for the good folks seeking Brewfest achievements up on the site soon.
The Queue: Questions, comments, complaints...
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. Allison Robert is your hostess today.I have absolutely no idea what the hell the above video is about, but have been required to place it there on threat of firing by Alex Ziebart. Questions, comments, complaints? Send them to him!Pyril asks...(On the faction champions fight in Trial of the Crusader): Why would Blizzard force PvE players to basically learn PvP skill sets now, when they've been so good about keeping them seperate to this point? Any chance the encounter will be reworked? GC has said he doesn't want to force raids to bring certain classes, but if you don't to this encounter it's a 3 hour wipe fest.Is the encounter likely to be changed? No, at least not its basic mechanics. Blizzard fielded similar complaints concerning the Priestess Delrissa fight in Magisters' Terrace, which could be an incredibly ugly experience on heroic if you didn't have CC or weren't well-geared. But are aspects of the encounter likely to be nerfed, or at least tweaked? Maybe, maybe not. It'll depend on how much trouble Blizzard sees people having with the fight. What's certain is that the Faction Champs encounter is a very common target for complaints right now. Some of this is the result of players still gearing up, but others are voiced by people who intensely dislike the arenaesque feel of it all, or who run a raid setup that's less-than-ideal for whatever champion comp they get that week. I think you're entirely correct in saying that the fight becomes significantly more difficult (or at least more gear-dependent) if you're running a raid with limited options for purging/dispelling the mobs' buffs or keeping their healers locked down, and it's probably that aspect of it that Blizzard's keeping an eye on.
