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The Queue: Tongues, Warlords questing, 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. For the record, I said nothing about parmesan cheese on Monday. If you were wondering, that is. Because Adam. Also, please forgive me: today's Queue is a bit rapid-fire on the questions. Samurai asked: When fighting the celestials on the Timeless Isle, they sometimes yell something in demonic (or maybe it's just Chi-Ji that does it). What are they saying? How does this fit into the MoP story / lore? Are the Celestials on the Timeless Isle corrupted in some way?
Warlords of Draenor: Garrison mission rewards at a glance
Players who aren't in the beta often have a simple question about garrison followers and their associated missions: what is the point? There are few resources that explain their purpose and what benefit they provide. The list of rewards below is by no means comprehensive and should only be taken as examples of variety. They're some of the items I've personally earned while dispatching follower missions on the beta. Archmage Vargoth's Spare Staff for your toybox from a rare level 90 mission Relic of Rukhmar to increase reputation with Arakkoa Outcasts Shimmering Gauntlets and other Shimmering equipment at level 90 Gleaming Ring and other rare-quality Gleaming equipment at level 90 Munificent Robes and other Munificent equipment at level 100 Apexis Crystals in lots of varying sizes, up to 1,000 from a rare level 100 mission Follower missions also reward XP for your followers, items and equipment to increase the strength of your followers, and gold. Basic level 90 quests often award 50 gold, but it can often be much higher -- a level 100 rare quest, Blingtron's Secret Vault, gave me 500 gold. These missions are far from mandatory, but there's no reason not to do them. Assigning your followers to their respective tasks will only take a few minutes out of your day.
Warlords of Draenor: Tanaan stress test today at 3:00 p.m. Pacific
If you've got the free time and access to the Warlords beta, consider lending a hand to the development team and joining the Tanaan Jungle stress test, today, September 10th, at 3:00 pm Pacific time. The level 100 realms will be turned off for the duration of the test, and the Blues are encouraging us all to create new level 90s in order to test the server load on the Tanaan Jungle introductory quests. This is an important aspect of Warlords of Draenor, particularly because everyone will have to do these quests at the beginning of the expansion. The more accurate data Blizzard has on what their servers can handle, the better they can make the early expansion experience for all of us.
The Queue: To fang or not to fang
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. Fangs for life. Andrew10 asked: I've decided to use my lvl 90 boost on a female Nelf druid. I love the new female Nelf model, with the fangs. My question is, if I do this now, and I like the face I choose, am I still going to be happy when we get the new models? Or will there be differences in the models that don't exist now, so I'll wish I had chosen a different face? Like, will I pick a face, and then come new models, realize mine doesn't show the fangs, but another one has them on display?
The Queue: Time
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 is one part serious, one part silly. Brace yourselves. antiganon asked: Did anyone else have a Queue to log in to the battle.net app on Sunday night?
Breakfast Topic: Old school questing
In the WoD beta, if you choose to put a Barn on the first available medium plot in your Garrison, as I did circa level 92, you immediately receive a quest from the NPCs there to head to Nagrand and trap an animal. So off I went, west out of Shadowmoon Valley, through Taladar and toward Nagrand, seeking my quarry. This was a mistake. All roads in Taladar lead to Shattrath, and Shattrath is under siege by both level 100 Iron Horde soldiers and demons of the Shadow Council. If you try to run south around Shattrath, you'll end up in Auchindoun, also overrun by Shadow Council demons and a load of other nasties who are way above level 92. Once you've finally made it into Nagrand, you'll discover that it's a level 98-100 zone. Oops. After many deaths in Nagrand, I finally managed to successfully trap a clefthoof and returned, bruised, battered, but at least triumphant, to my Garrison, where I vowed never to set foot in Nagrand again for at least another five levels, Barn resources be damned. Upon reciting my tale of woe to sympathetic colleague Liz Harper--who went through the same thing when she too chose to put a Barn in her Garrison--I realized that I felt almost like I was picking up my swim form quest in Moonglade as a level 16 night elf druid, only to find that half of the amulet I needed was off the coast of Westfall. I had the same sense of apprehension about the unknown zones I had to head through, frustration when I found I wasn't quite up to the task, and eventual elation as I managed to finish the quest anyway. I thought, "Would I want this kind of questing experience to be a regular WoW feature again?" Is the fist-pumping moment of triumph worth the reckless blundering through two zones full of red-leveled, hostile mobs? Honestly, I'm not sure. What about you? Would you be eager to rise to the challenge, or frustrated to be handed a task so far beyond your current means? How old-school do you want to go?
The Queue: More fun with timelines
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. Here we go again! rjjagoda asked: I continue to question what good blueprints would be to a society that simply does not have the technology, but that's a personal pet peeve. I mean, if I took iPhone schematics back to 1984, would Motorola be able to reproduce the thing? Or even understand some of the stuff they're looking at?
The Queue: Timeline confusion
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 we attempt to tackle timelines and alternate dimensions. Attempt being the operative word. Breadsammich asked: Something's bothering me about the Warlords cinematic. We see a pitlord, presumably Mannoroth, angered over the orcs' refusal to drink the blood. However, if the legion exists outside time and dimensional boundaries, how could that be Mannoroth? A "new" one wouldn't have been created by the new timeline if he's separate from it to begin with, right? Is this just Blizzard waving it off a little for the sake of the cinematic?
Warlords of Draenor introduces social fish
Fishing has always been a niche activity in World of Warcraft -- the few who fish love it and everyone else finds it loathsome at best. However, over the years, fishing has been given access to some truly unique items and/or adventures: the hunt for Mr. Pinchy, fishing up sea monsters, and totally rad fishing pole models, for example. Now Warlords of Draenor will be introducing social fish -- fish that can be used to buff fellow anglers, and fish that can label a fellow player's general demeanor for all to see. Via Wowhead and El's Anglin, Warlords introduces: "Fragrant" Pheromone Fish Coat a friend with Fish Pheromones, increasing their Fishing by 100 for 5 min. Awesomefish Use on a player to debuff them with "Awesome! Someone thinks you are awesome!" Grieferfish Use on a player to debuff them with "Griefer. Oh dear." Tyfish Use on a player to debuff them with "Thank you! You did a nice thing for someone. :)" According to El's Anglin, Awesomefish and Tyfish are more common than the Grieferfish and the Fragrant Pheromone Fish. All can be caught in Draenor's open waters except for, it seems, Frostfire Ridge. While the Pheromones only last 5 minutes, the debuff applied by the other fish last a full 24 hours. Personally, I doubt I'll make much use of the Pheromone Fish, given it can only be used on other players. I'm not a completely asocial gamer, but when I'm fishing, I like my solitude. If someone butts into my territory, I pick up and go as fast as I can. How am I supposed to watch Netflix while I fish if I don't know which bobber is splashing around in the background? I also wonder as to the actual value of the Grieferfish. I suspect genuine griefers will accept the debuff as a badge of honor while innocent players will feel labeled unfairly if they've been hit with it for laughs. I can get behind the Awesomefish and Tyfish, though.
The Queue: Ashran and avocados
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 Queue gets a little meta. You've been warned. Toro asked: Now that the Ashran hub is in-game, what do you think?
The Queue: O Joanna
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. It's that time again -- time to remind everyone that Joanna Blueheart exists and is awesome. Magnus asked: Am I wrong, or did Joanna Blueheart not make the cut for the Alliance garrison? I think she was the very first character requested when one of the devs asked on Twitter whom we wanted to have in our garrison and she has had something of a cult following of Alliance fans throughout the years. Seems like a missed opportunity by the devs if they had forgotten about her.
The Queue: Opinions
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. Let's get this party started. Banjo asked: What is your honest opinion of WoD?
The Queue: How creepy
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. Those cyclops critters always freak me out a little bit. They look so happy. Therefore, I find being happy creepy, I guess? @AeroCross asked: Do you think there's going to be a WoD version of the Timeless (aka Loot) Isle sometime in the future? How would that work?
Latest Warlords beta build opens new zones, increases level cap
The beta forums are abuzz with discussion of an upcoming beta build -- the servers are down for maintenance this afternoon. Two new zones, Nagrand and Spires of Arak, will be open for testing, and the level cap is increasing to 100. The leveling portion of the beta is moving along at a steady clip now. Though there are still many major bugs with fixes in progress, nearly every leveling zone will now be open for testing. In addition, the new beta build will be renaming beta realms for clarity. They will lose their unique names, and instead be given names that are simple descriptors. Lost Isles (PvE) is being renamed to Beta Leveling Realm 01 Gilneas (PvP) is being renamed to Beta Leveling Realm 02 Mekkatorque (PvP) is being renamed to Level 100 PvP While these clear descriptions are far more useful than their old names, I'll miss having the ability to personify Lost Isles. Cursing its name aloud each time it crashed was cathartic. Screaming Beta Leveling Realm 01 to the heavens doesn't quite have the same effect.
The Queue: Voices, Curse of Naxxramas, 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. If you didn't see our pre-Queue dance party, you missed out. Dubs were stepped. Jalamenos asked: Has there been any word from Blizzard about putting npc voices in a separate volume slider than the effects volume? As it is right now I can't hear most of what the bosses are saying without being deafened by all the sounds of us killing it. Feels like this is something they should have added a while ago especially since more and more of the game is getting voice cast.
The Queue: Betas, Tanaan Jungle, 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. Look at that crystal. That's a nice crystal. DanielHudson asked: Got into the beta last week, and was amused when the in game text popped up "awesome in game cinematic" was less amused when I didn't get to see the cinematic. Is this typical during betas?
Warlords of Draenor: New arakkoa models
Last night's beta build included new models for Draenor's arakkoa. I, for one, was rather surprised by their new look. The arakkoa we know from Outland were broad, hunch-backed creatures incapable of flight. Draenor's arakkoa maintain their form from before an apparent fall from grace -- they're tall, thin, and maintain their wings. While their Outland counterpart looked like creepy little warlocks, the Draenor arakkoa resemble harpies that have slid a few notches further down the bestial spectrum. Interestingly, the new arakkoa models include both male and female versions. The female version can be seen in the video above, and many variants of the male model can be seen on MMO-Champion. Blizzard rarely models both genders for NPC races, unless that race is distinctly humanesque -- the vrykul, for example. While I miss the creepy little arakkoa from Outland, their Draenor forms are pretty cool, too.
Warlords of Draenor: Ashran preview
The zone preview train keeps chugging along. First we had Talador, Gorgrond followed, and now we're given a look at Ashran. Built upon the remnants of an ogre civilization, Ashran looks deceptively like a nice enough island just off the coast of Tanaan Jungle. And it probably would be a lovely place to visit if not for the never-ending tug-of-war between the Horde and Alliance taking place in the central region of the zone. Then again, this might just be just your kind of excursion. In Ashran, the Horde and the Alliance continue their long tradition of ruining everything they touch. Though home to the new faction hubs, Ashran is primarily a PVP zone with "world PVP" in mind -- though it maintains the essential elements of a battleground. Objectives are based around a tug-of-war, though it involves pushing rather than pulling. Each faction pushes down a lane toward the opposing faction's base, capturing points along the way. A powerful Ogre King awaits players at the central hub, aiding whichever faction can prove their might. A faction with dwindling resources will spawn NPC captains to aid them, some of which are named for known PVP personalities in the community. Beyond the battleground elements, Ashran also has several other points of interest that will aid their faction's efforts and provide currently unspecified rewards. The zone preview also explains there are numerous personal goals littered throughout the island, encouraging players to venture out and find them -- luring more players into potential PVP conflict. Head over to Battle.net for the full details.
The Queue: Orc rainbow
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. Monday! My favorite! zubbiefish asked: When, typically, do addons become usable in the beta? It's still very early yet, but I find myself missing some of my favourites. Opie comes to mind.
