Michael Sacco
Articles by Michael Sacco
The Queue: Betrayal of the Guardian
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 latest WoW TCG set I was creative developer for, Betrayal of the Guardian, just had its full spoiler released -- you can check out the cards on the WoW TCG Facebook page. Hope you like 'em! Lots of Warcraft II stuff (and crocolisk nursery rhymes) in there. malignantbacon asked: I thought Gorehowl was Grom's axe? I read the Shattering when it came out, so I'm not too clear but I think Garrosh should drop whatever axe he used in the mak'gora against Carine instead. If it WAS Gorehowl, I think it would be a worthy reason to either move it off the Kara loot table or at some kind of adjective of superiority, though the latter would be a little awkward to see. Gorehowl was definitely the axe that killed Cairne. Like I said yesterday, it's likely they'll pull an Ashkandi with it and just give it a qualifier.
WRUP: Patch 5.2 prep
On the the primordial world of "Urth", a primitive race known as "hooman" is busying itself with preparations for an upcoming ritual event. The ritual, which occurs once every few months, is known as "pach'dey", and it brings with it a palpable feeling of excitement for these simple-minded bipeds. This pach'dey looks particularly bountiful for the hoomans, who look forward to seeing exotic new animals, new structures, and even new armaments by the time the ritual is over. We asked the hoomans how they're preparing for pach'dey.
The Queue: Superb Owl
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. It's Superb Owl Sunday! Discuss all the best owls today with friends. koboi_K asked: If the Burning Legion wants to pay a visit to Azeroth, do they always have to be summoned via a portal? Then they need some expert in magics on the receiving end, like in the War of the Ancients. Or do they use space ships or other nether floats giving the freedom to travel wherever they want? Not sure how they came for the Battle of Hyjal. Demons travel through (and often live) in the Twisting Nether, which is sort of an adjacent dimension to ours. To get to Azeroth, they need portals opened, either by current demonic residents of Azeroth or mortal servants.
The Queue: Death Flu 2000
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 been waylaid by the Death Flu for a week now. In lieu of flowers, send NyQuil. MikeAnderson asked: Could you give us a brief introduction to the lore behind Shadowfiends? (Especially as concerns healing priests?) The wikis have no information on the subject, nor does wowhead. And it seems highly odd that, well. As a healer priest, I get to--every three minutes--summon a misshapen, eldritch beast of shuddering flesh from beyond the veil, throw it at my enemies, and use it to suck out their life force. (Then, once it has outlived its utility, I banish it back from whence it came. No care or feeding whatsoever: just go.) *Is* there any shadowfiend lore? No official lore, really. Option 1: the shadowfiend is either a construct or actual living being from a different plane -- specifically, the unknown plane that shadow magic is drawn from -- summoned in temporarily (and at great effort). Option 2: they're just a psychic illusion like many other shadow priest spells.
Take a trip in the Wayback Machine to the WoW website circa 2003
WoW has been out for so long that it's actually a little difficult to remember a time when it wasn't out, but a little trip in the Wayback Machine proves that, yes, WoW was not yet released in 2003. You can check out the original World of Warcraft website, complete with six (not eight) races, six (not nine) classes, and screenshots of areas that no longer exist on this archived version. I remember looking at this version of the site that year, checking out screenshots and forum threads, getting excited when all of the possible hunter pets were revealed and wanting to make one because they could "dual wield" -- which I thought meant they could dual-wield guns, not one-handed weapons. Needless to say I was disappointed later. I've never rolled a hunter. Can you believe that at one point we got excited about knowing what kind of spiders we'd be fighting? It truly was a different time. Now we get excited over what kind of dinosaurs we'll be fighting. (Thanks to r/wow for digging this up.)
The Queue: Guy sitting at a table
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. This is an image of a guy sitting at a table. It's been a rough morning. mtdent23 asked: I play Alliance characters, but I want to see these cool things people are talking about in the Horde, specifically Garrosh and his dealings with Vol'jin and Baine and his involvements in Pandaria. Would my best course of action to seeing this content be to make an Orc or Troll, or would it be to make a DK and get to the 85-90 stuff more quickly, or something else? Thanks in advance! Your best course of action would be to make a DK, due to the leveling advantage, though I'm not sure why you think they need to be an orc or troll. The Dominance Offensive stuff is available to any member of the Horde.
The Queue: Thunder Isle, hooooo
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 getting pretty excited for the new raid, especially after the Ra-den reveal (which I'll discuss later). brendonmiller02 asked: I want to know what you guys think about how Blizzard is still charging for server transfers. Don't take this as a complaint, but I just find it odd still that they charge for transfers when a good amount of MMO's on the market either launched with no transfer fee, or removed it after a few months in. I have 3 characters on another server right now that I'd love to have on my home server -- but to get them all there it would be almost 170 bucks (as they are Alliance, and I am now Horde)...and I definitely don't have the time to level three more characters to max level. Thoughts? I understand why Blizzard charges for the service: it requires support on every side of the service, from the back-end server stuff to front-end customer service, and as I understand it WoW's server tech (and ergo server transfer tech) is a little different than other MMOs. What I do wish is that you could mass-transfer your characters and there was a maximum you could pay -- let's say $50 -- for all of your characters. That's why I'm so tetchy about transferring to a new server nowadays. I'd have to pay hundreds of dollars to bring all my dudes over to a new server, and, well, screw that. If I could send them all at once for a flat fee, it'd be much better.
The Queue: Pan-Asian cuisine!
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. Man, it's been a while since I've made a Teen Girl Squad reference that wasn't "Grood. Great and good." Zangor18 asked: Is Pandaria influenced by all asain cultures or does it lean heavily to one specific culture like chinese or japanese? dont get me wrong i love all of it i just wonder if we could see other unused cultural influences in later expansions Pandaria is "pan-Asian" but it's heavily inspired by Chinese stuff, especially in aesthetics and naming conventions. There's a bit of Tibet and Mongolia in there too. I doubt we'll be seeing a "Japan" or "Korea" expansion, though.
The Queue: Warchatter
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 guys sure spent a bunch of comments yesterday debating who the new Warchief is going to be! ZacharyStone asked: Does anyone else think that the super secret last boss of the new raid (for heroic eyes only) will be the final (seventh) Sha? Reasonable follow-up - does anyone else suspect that the Mogu are, in fact, creations of that same Sha? Not sure what it would be the Sha of (I've opined Pride in the past), but this would at least explain how the Mogu reverse engineered the Curse of the Flesh (an act only a servant of an Old God could accomplish before - Tol'Vir). The heroic-only boss seems to be named "Ra-den," which doesn't seem to use the regular "Sha of _____" naming convention. Bet you it's thunder-related, though!
The Queue: Pandaren picture
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. This is a picture of two pandaren. cdered81 asked: What happens when a pandaren use the Orb of Deception? Last I checked they got decked out in an outfit and tabard that looked like it would belong to the opposite faction.
Patch 5.2 PTR now live; character copies available
When Blizzard said that the PTR for patch 5.2 would be available early January, they really meant early January! The PTR is now available, with character copies and level 90 premades ready to go. Patch 5.2 will bring the Thunder King raid and a number of other additions, including: A new daily quest hub: The Isle of the Thunder King -- the Kirin-Tor Offensive and the Sunreaver Onslaught face off to lay claim to Emperor Lei Shen's island stronghold and the treasures contained therein. Two new world bosses, Nalak the Storm Lord and Oondasta An option to purchase Sunsong Ranch to make it a resting point like an inn. Work orders will come in from various factions, and completing the work orders will grant you reputation with the issuing faction. All world bosses are now Tap to Faction. This new system offers every eligible player of the same faction that engages a boss the chance to earn loot. And more! Check out all of our patch 5.2 coverage right here.
The Queue: Just one more thing
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 been watching all of Columbo on Netflix and it's really, truly wonderful. If you've never seen any Columbo episodes before, you really must. And if you have, well, you can watch them again now. darkpanda asked: Should we give up hope that Blizzard will ever allow flying in Silvermoon? I've seen videos of the exploit that allows you to see the unfinished parts of the city and it's not pretty. Would it take that much work to fix it and open up flying? Yeah, I'd give up hope on it. Silvermoon and Exodar are actually part of the Outland map, not their respective Azerothian continent maps. If you zoom out far enough using camera tricks you can actually see Hellfire Peninsula from Silvermoon. It's vanishingly unlikely that Blizzard will take the time to lift up Silvermoon from where it is and put it into the Eastern Kingdoms just so you can fly in it.
The Queue: Reminiscing
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. What was your first MMO? Mine was Ragnarok Online, way back in the day. Right around the turn of the millennium. Now I'm playing the sequel over ten years later. Feels weird, man. SammieDavion asked: Everyone keeps going on about Theramore being destroyed! But I'm questing there right now and it's fine! What's with this destruction nonsense? Theramore exists intact for you until you do the Battle for Theramore scenario, after which there's only ruins. If you need to go back to old Theramore, you can ask the bronze dragon hanging out at the ruins to "send you back in time" (read: change your phasing).
The Queue: Yes. Yes.
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. Now THIS is my kind of druid set. An egg in every head and a bug in every shoulder. God bless us every one. ArliSunblade1 asked: The proposed rogue changes in 5.2, do I attribute them to me being a good rogue all year and a reward from Great Father Winter or something to do with the Mayan Calendar? It's more likely that it's due to rogues being the least-played class and every rogue in the universe complaining that their class isn't fun to play anymore!
The Queue: Welcome to Harbabureşti
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 sung its praises in the past, but there's even more reason to try out The Secret World now: it's now subscription-free, and it's only 15 bucks on Amazon -- basically the best bang for your buck you can get when it comes to MMOs right now. It's got great writing, great atmosphere, and best of all, Funcom isn't trying to screw people who aren't paying subscription fees. There are no restrictions for free players. Hope to see you there (when you're not playing WoW, of course). mamzelle_kat asked: How exactly does the "You've entered too many instances recently" thing work? Is it account-wide? And what is the time limit on it? I try to farm some instances, but I never know when that barrier is going to lift. It is indeed account-wide, and it expires an hour from the first instance you entered. Pretty easy to wait out for a normal non-robot-farmer human.
The Queue: The un-subtle sub-buttle...
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, I finally finished Persona 4 Golden and got the best ending. Nearly 80 hours with no grinding! Now that's a game! wren4875 asked: Just curious as to why WoW isn't popular in Japan? After going there recently, I was disappointed to find out that it wasn't well known over there. I saw sparse copies of the game in shops, but to my knowledge there's no Japanese servers. Is WoW too tame for Japanese gamers? Western MMOs, like western games in general, don't tend to do well in Japan. It's likely Blizzard gauged interest in a Japanese version long ago and came up dry, as many publishers before them also have.
The Queue: Noam Pomsky
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. Part pom. Part husky. All cute. Neuromante asked: I just had a chat with an old friend of mine and old WoW player. He claims that he's played more than a year on his account (throughout all his alts). Is there a way to verify that? I know you can log on all your alts and add the /played time on each one, but that is pretty difficult if you are like me and have many alts spread through many realms. It doesn't include the alts you delete, either. You can't do it in the default UI, but addons like Altoholic will total everything together for you. Beware: you might not like what you discover!
The 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. I came home from work and my partner had set this as my desktop. MilkTaoist asked: Do the Grand Commendations apply on different servers? How about cross-faction? And if so,what about Operation: Shieldwall and the Dominance Offensive - If I get the commendation for Shieldwall, will I get double rep on my horde alt for Dominance? Grand Commendations work cross-faction and cross-server, but I haven't gotten far enough with either rep to know if a Shieldwall commendation would work for Dominance rep. Any commenters have one yet?
The Queue: Meat Dimension
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. Guys, Persona 4 Golden is out for the Vita and you really need to get it. ASAP. sturob asked: Anyone else noticed his/her tabard randomly changing to a purple one that says "WoW" on it? I saw it and snagged a few screenshots today while questing. Something to do with the Anniversary? That's the WoW 8th Anniversary effect. You get a rep gain bonus for it.
The Queue: Fireworks over Blizzneyland
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. Happy 8th anniversary, everyone! ericw3101 asked: Is anyone else upset that all we got for 8th anniverary was the same xtra xp/rep buff? I mean I'm only getting one extra point of rep for Black Prince kills, instead of 11 per mogu, it's now 12. Does anyone else miss anniverary pets? Or is there a good reason they gave us this instead of a tabard, or vanity item, or cool companion pet. I feel really let down by Blizz. Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer! Even the text in the letter was copy-pasted from a previous year (whoops). I'm sure they had their reasons, but it still stinks.