Michael Sacco
Articles by Michael Sacco
The Queue: Rodeo
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I got Titanfall last night. I don't even really like shooter games, but here I am, hooting and hollering, riding giant robots and shooting their innards out while double-jumping and wall-running. I am having a blast. Go figure. JackJesson asked: My current preoccupation is, is it Hearthstone as in 'earth', or Hearthstone as in 'Arthas'? This isn't actually one of my questions, what I would like to know is, does it even matter at all? (Seems it does to me right?) is there a specific way to pronounce these things anyway? Or, as I'm starting to think, is it possible that me, trying to render a proper noun with my British accent as a West Coast American working for blizz would say it, just going to ruin the structure of the words and the poetry of the environment? in the same way that no one would expect me to pronounce Moscow asin a 'grazing, milk making, Mulgore resident. It rhymes with Darth Stone. There is usually a specific way to pronounce the names of fictional places/people/items; the creator undoubtedly has it in mind when crafting them. As to whether or not you use their pronunciation, well, that's up to you. The creator of the GIF recently explained that it's pronounced with a soft G, but you have people really adamantly against it who still pronounce it with a hard G. Death of the author and all that.
The Queue: THE QVEVE
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. My jam of late. CatrionaShadowleaf asked: What's your favourite starting area and why? I dislike the back-and-forth of Azure/Bloodmyst so I hightailed my new paladin out of there post haste, and now I'm doing the dwarf/gnome area just to try to level mining (not working btw, it's picked clean). Years ago I probably would've said the draenei starting zone, but having done it again recently, hell no. So much running around, back and forth. Ugh. I'm all about Gilneas now. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, it's also fairly brisk.
The Queue: Untouched
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Yesterday was "load up music you listened to in 2007 on Spotify" day. Here's a relic from my not-so-distant past. BlackSeal asked: I've always felt the biggest disappointment of Cata (which I think many would agree was not Blizzards biggest expansion success) was the large reuse of already existing assets in the game when it came to locations and bosses/skins/models. (especially boss models). It really came across to me as if they didn't have the time or money to put into creating new assets for the game. Pandaria I've largely enjoyed being that it's a whole new world and culture to see and discover along with many unique creatures and models and architecture. Do you worry they are in danger of repeating this with WoD? Especially considering we are going to what is basically Outland once again, with an obviously completely similar map and set of locations along with the fact that I have even read of them redoing UBRS/Possibly LBRS? Do you believe we about to be delivered "Cata 2" in these regards? Its got me a little worried! Good question. I wouldn't worry, though. A lot of the creatures we saw in TBC straight-up didn't exist on Draenor prior to the calamity. There were no naga, no demons, no lost ones, no broken, the arakkoa looked different, etc. We'll be seeing a lot of orcs and draenei, for sure, but also lots of new or remodeled faces.
The Queue: PDA
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I remembered this song last night in bed and it's been stuck in my head ever since. Twowolves asked: How long after Garrosh's arrival are we arriving on Draenor-2? Apparently enough time has elapsed since he halted the drinking of the blood to forge the Orc clans into the Iron Horde and begin their march of conquest. Do you think it's a few months or a year later? We don't know exactly how long yet, but at BlizzCon the devs said it would be "a few years". Definitely enough time to get that crucible of war heated up.
The Queue: Twitch Beats Pokemon
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Where were you when thousands of people beat Pokemon Red by jamming random buttons for 16 days? dafino asked: Going forward, will the WoW Insider podcast still be offered as a download? I know it takes time to edit and I hope recent events won't interfere with it's availability. The WoW Insider Show must go on. We still plan to record and make the show available every week. That much hasn't changed.
The Queue: Light it up
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I've had this song stuck in my head for like an entire week, so now I deliver it unto you. SichasStudios asked: In today's Breakfast Topic, the header image says "No Veteran Bonus" on the form to boost to 90. What's that bonus, and how do you get it? The veteran bonus is a reward for using the 90 boost on a level 60+ character. It boosts the character's primary professions and first aid to 600.
The Queue: Everything is awesome
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Well folks, I held out as long as I could, but there was a BOGO sale on Lego sets at Toys-R-Us. I am now nine years old again. morvackthemountmimic asked: I have a two part question. When you make your character, it shows them in a certain set of gear. Are these gear sets obtainable? If so, where? Those sets are usually riffs on existing sets (the warlock one is a retooled Nemesis, for example), but they're not available in the game, much to my chagrin. You'll notice the texture resolution on them is quite high, and the shoulder models are brand new in most cases. Sad we don't get to wear them! They'd make great heirlooms!
The Queue: Up up up down A select A B A A A up down
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. 45,000 people are currently trying to play Pokemon Red simultaneously using a chat parser. The results are about what you'd expect. pedroboteon asked: WIth the news that the PvP Season is ending could that be a sign that: 1) Patch 5.4.7 is about to drop. 2) WoD will be available for pre-purchase very very soon™? I think 1) and 2) are both true, actually!
The Queue: Hit it hard and hit it fast
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. The candy aisle, that is! Valentine's candy is half off or more! JohnO asked: If the friends and family testing version is the Alpha and select people get to test the Beta, then is the version of the game that we buy just the Gamma test version when we all get to first log in? Usually, once a game is ready for the general public, it "goes gold" and stops being given testing phase designations like alpha, beta, etc. However, some might refer to the "release candidate" stage as delta or gamma. You can read a little more about the software release cycle here.
The Queue: Welcome Bear
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. An old friend visits in today's Queue. GnomeMaleModel asked: Ignoring all current race/class restrictions, what would be your dream insta-90 character? Tauren Rogue? Gnome Hunter? Panda DK? Murloc Priest? Undead druid, just so I could see their ostensibly-awesome forms. A playable version of the classic Welcome Bear from Western Plaguelands! A big ol' dead tree form! I'm sure the artists would have a grand old time with it, and so would I.
The Queue: RIP Flappy Bird
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. You were too good for this world. Rest now, old soldier. BlazeNor asked: What ever happen to the World of Warcraft Official Magazine? And did they ever replace it with something else? The magazine was canceled after five issues, leaving some people with a subscription a magazine that didn't exist. They offered refunds or vanity pet vouchers for those affected. I can't say for sure why it was canceled, but I do know that it was constantly late, the information was often old news before the magazine even hit the newsstands, and it arrived to many subscribers' homes in terrible condition. I think Blizzard and/or Future (the publisher) probably noticed these things and opted not to continue the print media war of attrition. It was a good-looking magazine, though.
The Queue: Take Your Dog to Work Day
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Well, technically you can bring your dog to work every day at my office. But yesterday I brought Miga. She was so productive I ended up getting replaced by her, as you can see above. curleyjoe666 asked: How likely do you guys think it is that Blizzard will ever allow us more frredom with our character names? For example, I really want to be able to use apostrophes in my characters names, especially Orc and Troll characters and it does make me feel less connected to those characters because their neames aren't right. This is something I've always wanted. In beta, the first character I ever rolled I named Ciel Larkin, but the naming thing truncated it to Ciellarkin. I was sad. It always seemed like a flavor miss to me, not being able to give yourself a real orc or human or troll name. Unfortunately, this seems like one of those things where if we haven't gotten it yet, we probably never will. Maybe in WoW2.
The Queue: Got to give in
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. The new Warpaint album is out and it's really good. JohnO asked: If Blizzard were to do a redemption of any one orc leader in Draenor, who do you think it should be and why? Specifically, I am talking about those that drank the Kool-Aid in pre-BC Draenor, but became a better person because he/she didn't drink the Kool-Aid in the new version of Draenor. Ner'zhul, for sure. He's the only one who doesn't seem like a complete maniac. Gul'dan, now there's a dude who's just pure evil. Ner'zhul was a dope who just got in over his head and paid the price. Without the demon blood, maybe he has a chance. Given what little we know, I think I might be on to something?
The Queue: I'm Onett!
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Is that how you pronounce Onett? Or is it "oh-net"? RyanKomisarz asked: Do you think there will be a representation of Taunka or Hozen into Orgrimmar or another major Horde city ever? We gone through quests to induct both into the Horde, or were they only brought in simply for the sake of a military force to get a helping hand on the continent they were found? Good question. I'd say it's pretty unlikely that we'll see any sign of them past their respective expansions, even though at least the taunka are technically real members of the Horde. Until they become playable, don't expect to see them in Orgrimmar.
The Queue: Horse-themed Queue
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Rode_And_Babe asked: It's the year of the horse. Why no horse theme queue yet? Okay.
The Queue: Tony Stark's wardrobe
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Jeez, think Iron Man has enough alternate costumes in Marvel Heroes? The Starboost armor on the left side is pretty cool, though. (Brief note: I have been playing said game lately and it is way, way better than it was at launch. Consider trying it out. Big thumbs up from me, your old pal Mike.) Selethor asked: Do we know how much the Blood Elves have recovered since Arthas came through and destroyed everything, and will we ever see the sunwell's effects on the elves? The blood elf population is still small, but it is recovering since the end of Burning Crusade. I don't think we have any solid figures on exactly how much it's recovered, but generally once a population is less worried about surviving the day, they get to more mundane stuff like baby-makin'. As for the Sunwell's effects, one can assume it's already begun to work its, well, magic. The nature of the fel green eye glow the blood elves currently have is kind of ambiguous; like the green skin of the orcs, it may never go away.
The Queue: Deer fart
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Deer fart. Nekthara asked: Question for the Queue: Is there any particular order that the Warcraft novels should be read? I got a few from Goodwill the other day but I don't want to start and feel like I'm missing part of the story. Don't feel particularly compelled to read them in chronological order as listed here, but if you really want to adhere to an arbitrary guideline you could probably read them in order of release. That way at least you'll meet the characters from the War of the Ancients trilogy before their next appearances, etc.
The Queue: Tear a foreman
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I'm designing a board game about terraforming. What are you guys up to? Paggit asked: Do we know if garrisons are going to faction specific or are they going to depend on your race. Right now there's a human-looking one for Alliance and an orc-looking one for Horde. The devs said they'd like to do racial-specific ones but it's going to come down to time.
The Queue: Lazy Sunday
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Comments for Saturday's Queue were surprisingly few for so many comments. But that just means that people were having lively discussion there instead of asking questions, which is also fine. MandaPanda asked: Where do you think we'll encounter the warlords in Warlords of Draenor? Will we meet them in questing areas, trying to woo them to our side and not Garrosh's (and how will Alliance interact with them)? Will they be raid bosses, as we take out the orc army? All of the above! Fighting off the various warlords is the main goal in several zones, and you can be darn sure you're gonna be killing some of them for purples. We don't know a lot about the who and where yet, but we know that at least on Horde side you'll be trying to get Durotan to join you.
The Queue: Gaining my religion
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I think Losing My Religion is somehow even sadder when it's in a major key. john.aga1 asked: Rhonin, leader of the Kirin Tor died at Theramore just prior to the start of the MoP expansion. However, he is still shown alive as leader of the Kirin Tor in Dalaran. When will he die in game? Maybe never? After all, you still have Garrosh as a mopey nerd in Outland. There are lots of weird time bubbles in WoW. Schrhoniner's Mage being alive and dead is hardly the biggest oddity.