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.
For the time being, it looks like Books of Glyph Mastery continue to work as intended. They're still available (but are increasingly expensive) on the auction house, and they still drop out of Northrend mobs. There will always be players out there discovering them, even if not in the same quantity as we were used to in Wrath.
On my server (Proudmoore), Books of Glyph Mastery start at 200 gold and go up quickly from there. On other servers, the prices start much higher. It's an expensive item to buy, but it's not unusual these days to see certain rare glyphs selling for well over 100 gold. If you're an obsessed completionist like I am, I'd suggest buying the books now and making the money back by making and selling the glyphs you learn. The prices seem unlikely to drop in the near future.
Ultimately, if supplies of these books fall to an unreasonable level, and if the people who already know the glyphs disappear from the game, I'd anticipate we'll see Blizzard institute a fix. The drop rate of Books of Glyph Mastery have been already buffed once; there's no reason why it couldn't be altered again if needed. Certainly, though, nothing is planned for the books in 4.0.6.
raposo02790 asked:
The Beatles or The Who?
Neither. Stevie Nicks now, Stevie Nicks forever.
Tim {the other Tim} asked:
I don't feel right saying, "looking for a 'pro' DPS." What are some non-douchey ways to ask trade if they would like to fill an open spot in your guild raid? Saying "looking for a competent player" doesn't sound right.
Finding a warm body to fill a raid vacancy is simple. Finding a good player to fill a vacancy ... well, that's a bit harder, especially at this point in time in the expansion. The best, most experienced players are already in raid groups.
There's really no way to craft your request to guarantee that only good players will reply, but that doesn't mean you have to settle for an unknown quantity. Just be honest in your trade message. I'd include the fact that it's a "guild run" -- better players prefer running with an established team to being thrown into a group of nine PUG strangers of unknown skill. You should be somewhat specific about your ideal candidate. A good ad might look something like this: "Looking for experienced shadow priest for guild run of BWD; must know fights. PST."
Once someone replies to your ad, do a little bit of legwork. Ask your prospective PUG raider what fights they've beaten/experienced and how long they're willing to stay. And be sure to run a quick armory search! A good PUG raider candidate should at least have spec-appropriate glyphs, spec-appropriate enchants, and spec-appropriate gems. That doesn't guarantee a good player, but it'll help weed out lazy candidates and those who don't know their class.
The kind of player you want to raid with won't mind waiting a few moments for you to run an armory search and won't mind you asking a few questions. Just be courteous and fair with the people who message you, and you'll be fine.
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!
