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The Queue: rm -fR "World of Warcraft" && echo "Oops!"
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. Adam Holisky will be your host today. Many thanks to Sacco for covering The Queue last Friday. For some odd reason he decided to start drawing this weekend, and you can see one of his drawings above. For the other image you'll have to check out our Twitter page (it wasn't done when today's edition of The Queue was written).If you're wondering about the title, we're not going to talk about the mistake Adam made over the weekend when he was setting up WoW on his fresh dual-boot linux install. It's just really not worth going over how he managed to delete his WoW directory that has lasted him since pre-BC. Not at all.Remember that The Queue is here to answer your questions, and you can either leave them in a comment in this article or contact us with them. So without further ado...Swampsquach asked... "When you do the repeatable Frenzyheart/Oracle quest in Sholazar Basin, does it have any effect on the current rep you have with either one? For example, if I get revered with the Oracle's and then do that quest but pick Oracle's again, is that just free gold? Or does it set your rep back to honored?"
Breakfast Topic: The ardent Argent
Just in case you hadn't realized already, the news we got last week about patch 3.2 made it clear that the Argent Tournament is going to play a sizable role in our future Wrath of the Lich King activities, so if you, like me, have been lazy about completing all of the various tasks the tournament offers, now might be the time to change that outlook and get to work over there. By the time 3.2 rolls around, there will be even more rewards to be attained by champions of the various cities, so if having a squire of your own hasn't been temptation enough, maybe the promise of future content has helped.And speaking of help, in case you need some, we've got you covered as always, from guides to the various dailies to a review of the rewards available. The question today is: have you been convinced yet? A good number of you have probably been rolling in the AT since 3.1 dropped, and probably have a whole stack of Seals already (if not the Hippogryph mount itself). But for those of you who've been lagging behind, has the promise of new AT-related content in 3.2 lit a fire under your Stabled Quel'dorei Steed? Or are you meh on on the idea of grinding out daily quests just to get more PvE content to grind out?%Gallery-45851%
Anti-Aliased: A few reasons to cage the nerdrage
There's so much anger in the consumer market these days. It seems like when a new product comes up, there has to be this bandwagon of people who roll in and start nerdraging over the product. Oh, APB isn't up your alley? Better nerdrage about that! You don't like Warhammer Online? Rev that nerdrage engine nice and loud so your neighbors can hear it.Everyone's a critic and gaming consumers are far from an exception. Some of the comments around these parts are some of the most spiteful sentences that could be constructed. You have console hate, game hate, genre hate, even particular MMO genre hate. But, honestly, why? It obviously doesn't help anyone except maybe the person doing it. A catharsis, perhaps?So what's this Anti-Aliased about? Honestly, I need rant article that's all about ranting. A hate article on game hate. Do two hates make a happy? I dunno, but I'm interested enough to try it out. So here's a few reasons why you should cage the hate and think twice before you open your trap on the forums you love so much.
Anti-Aliased: A few reasons to cage the nerdrage pt. 2
3. Because almost every game has a silver lining This is a sentence that I abide by in almost everything I do. Even in games I don't like, I can usually find something that really wows me and makes me appreciate the developer's work. I know Darkfall is one of those games that many people just really don't like. I'm the same way -- I don't care for the way the game handles itself. But where it failed in game design, it didn't fail on unique vistas and sharp combat. Sure, the graphics aren't top notch, but there are still areas in the game where you just have to go, "Wow, that's an incredible sight." Plus, it's real time combat in a MMO. That's really, really hard to do and kudos to an independent developer for pulling it off. "You've heard that everyone's a critic, yes? Well everyone's also apparently a game designer." Even when you completely hate a game, I urge you to look back at it and consider your experiences. You wouldn't have played it for a while unless there was something that made you enjoy the experience even a little bit. Then again, maybe you hate it all. But if you do, see the piece of advice above before you begin nerd vomiting all over forum threads.Although... there certainly are gaming exceptions to this rule...2. Because it doesn't help anybodyThis is the part where people seem to totally and completely miss the boat. And when I say miss the boat I mean that the boat as totally pulled away from the dock, is 500 feet away, and people still run off the dock and jump into the sea holding their suitcases.Nobody benefits from aimless criticism that amounts of nothing more than the screaming of biased opinions. You get to look like an inconsiderate idiot, the community gets irritated at your groundless claims, and the developers learn nothing about how to improve their game. Bad criticism isn't bad as long as it's appropriately constructive. It's actually some of the best stuff you can possibly get in regards to your product. Positive feedback means you're going the right way, but constructive feedback shows exactly what's going wrong with your current design and where you can improve. "If you think making any game is easy, then I challenge you to sit down and start making your own pen and paper roleplaying game, or a board game, or a card game." My favorite comment in this regard was made by a Bungie developer during the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. A journalist asked him, "What did you learn from this beta test?" and I recall the developer responding that all he got from the bug reports was that the level sucked. He didn't know why the levels sucked because everyone just wrote that they sucked.1. Because you may not know what it's like to make a gameYou've heard that everyone's a critic, yes? Well everyone's also apparently a game designer. Everyone knows what's best for a game, how to balance the design, and how to make it so "X class doesn't suck."I think that many people think it's super easy to make a game. Slap some abilities in, render a few areas, get a server, and you have an MMO, right? Heck no! You have programming bugs, design bugs, art asset bugs, pathing to worry about, scripts to run, a whole set of connections between servers to worry about, and much, much more. So here's my challenge. If you think making any game is easy, then I challenge you to sit down and start making your own pen and paper roleplaying game, or a board game, or a card game. Share it with your friends and see what they say. But, above all, see how long it takes you to make a "simple" game. Include with that the testing you do with your friends, the fine tuning you may make to the rules. You'll find it's more work than you probably through it was. Believe me, I know, I'm doing it. So next time before you rocket fire your hate mail out onto the intarwebz, think about a couple of these things before you trash someone's game. You might just find yourself holding back, just because you understand a little bit more about gaming and a little bit more about how frivolous it is to hold such pointless grudges. Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who hates aimless hate. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's rambling on his personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow him on Twitter through Massively, or through his personal feed.
Zarkmark tries to help you rate PuG players
There have been a number of sites lately, especially with the recent rise in endgame pickup groups, designed to help you find and examine potential PuGgers quickly. But none of them have made it quite as easy as Zarkmark, a site that allows you to quickly rate anybody you come across ingame by "zarking" (rating them up) or "marking" (rating them down) them. Then, they offer a quick search, which will not only give you a one-click link to the Armory, but an easy-to-read screen of how many people have rated the player you're looking at. Theoretically, ninjas will never find a group again.Of course, theory is theory, and right now, the Zarkmark directory is pretty empty, so odds are that for any given player you look up, you won't really get much feedback. But you never know -- if players jump in and populate the site (and it wouldn't help to have a little help from them -- instead of just an Armory link, it would be nice to see a player's gear and achievements right there on the page), we might eventually get a pretty accurate picture of what someone's reputation looks like.In fact, I'm a little surprised that Blizzard hasn't ever considered a reputation system in-game. Xbox Live carries one off pretty well -- even though I've never actually used it to consider who I do and don't play against, I have rated players and I know it's very easy to see scores if I wanted to. Given the rising numbers of VoA ninjas and PuGing in general, it might be worth it for them to give each player a socially-created rating in the LFG interface.
iPhone OS 3.0 live chat
Update: Well, if what you wanted wasn't in that laundry list, you may just have unrealistic expectations. MMS, copy and paste, downloadable paid content, turn-by-turn, A2DP... the list goes on! We'll have detailed reports momentarily.The bad news is, we don't have anyone on the inside of today's press event; the good news is, we've got all of you. Join us for a live chat right here as we meta-liveblog the updates from all across the web during today's iPhone 3.0 announcements. <a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=174a9d0a52" >Live Chat, iPhone 3.0 Event</a>
The Queue: Six
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today. Ah, Rambo. He has a striking resemblance to certain staff members here at WoW Insider. But in the good way, sort of like the good way where I answer six of your questions today - with perhaps the best question saved for last.Ghaundaur asked..."If you dual spec at 40 and in the process find out that you made a mistake on either one of your specs and need to fix it, is the cost 1000g again or the normal progression in cost to change a spec? Also, say you are leveling a pally and dual spec Ret and Prot and then get to 80 and want to do Prot and Holy. Are we looking at another 1000g?"
Breakfast Topic: Sorry about your nerf
I like Trixter's "silly idea" over on WoW Ladies. She says she came home the other day to a boyfriend bummed out by the Curse of Tongues nerf, and wished she had a greeting card for the occasion. Something, we'd guess, like "Sorry about your nerf. Hope you pwn soon." Funny. Which got us thinking: what other kinds of greeting cards might come in handy for WoW players?"It's a proto-drake! Congrats on your new mount!""Our condolences on your recent ninja attack. Here's wishing you all the best loot in the future.""Thanks for all your help with the raid-leading! You're the best!""Will you BEE our Tank?" (And there's a picture of a bee on it.)Ok, so those aren't that great. But what other ideas might Hallmark be interested in if they were designing a new line of greeting cards for you to give out to fellow players afflicted by what happens in Azeroth?
WoW Insider's Loot-idays: Day five
We're finishing off our holiday week of giveaways with a bang. Today, not only have we got the prize we've given away every day this week (two pet biscuits and four dance grenades, courtesy of WoWTCGLoot.com), but we've got an extra special code to toss in to a seventh lucky winner: a D.I.S.C.O. ball, guaranteed to make Ironforge's bank, or the arena starting area, or your local raid, or wherever else you congregate in game, a palace of dancing mania.To enter, just comment on this post within the next 24 hours, and please use a real email so we can contact all of the winners when we randomly choose them. These codes are valid in the US or EU, so you're eligible to win as long as your characters are on one of those realms (actually, you're eligible to win anyway, but since all you get is the code, it's pretty useless if you don't have a character to use it).In fact, here's hoping you had a happy holiday week. Hopefully the family didn't get to you too much, and hopefully you got what you wanted (or at least the gift receipts for the things you didn't). Good luck to everyone, and thanks for entering these all week.
WoW Insider's Loot-idays: Day four
Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope this holiday is going well for you and yours, and that you got whatever you wanted under the tree wrapped in pretty paper this morning. If not, don't worry, you can always exchange what you got for what you want -- we won't tell anyone.Time to give some more cards away! You know the drill by now -- we've got four dance grenades and two pet biscuits for six lucky commenters on this post, thanks to our good friends at WoWTCGLoot.com (which is the site you should go to if you want to know anything and/or everything about the loot cards). To enter, just leave a comment on this post in the next 24 hours, and we'll choose six lucky winners to recieve card codes by email (so use a real one when you leave your comment). Codes are valid for EU or US realms, so wherever your character is, you can enter to win.Again, hope your Christmas is going well, and good luck in the contest!
WoW Insider Show live this afternoon on Ustream
Yes, our weekly podcast is going live again today, and it should be a great show: BRK is returning to us again (though I promise there won't be nearly as much Hunter talk in the show this week), and our own Amanda Dean will join us on the virtual airwaves. We'll be talking about Winter's Veil, how to take down Loken, good deals gone bad, Blizzard's new ads, and everything else that happened in the World of Warcraft this past week.And as usual we'll be chatting live and answering your emails -- you can send us questions, comments, insights or insanity at theshow@wow.com, and if you send something right now you might even hear it on the show today. It all starts at 3:30pm Eastern over on our Ustream page, or I've embedded the feed right here on this post after the break. And as usual, we'll have a quick aftershow right after we turn off the recording, so if you tune in live, that's about 10% more show to listen to (and that's when we say all the fun stuff).See you this afternoon, and hope you enjoy the show.
Sprucing up your commenter icon on WoW Insider
I have to say, it takes a lot for you commenters to hurt me, but I was a little hurt that no one, as far as I've seen, has noticed that you're all Ogres now. Our own Zach Yonzon created some fun little Ogre art, and all of our default commenter icons (if you haven't yet changed yours by clicking on your name after commenting and logging into Blogsmith) are now grinning cartoon Ogres. I thought people would be shocked when we first put the change in about a month ago (we also considered turning everyone into Murlocs and/or Peons), but it doesn't seem like anyone noticed at all.Hopefully you have noticed now that we've pointed it out, and if you'd rather not be an Ogre, I'll remind you that there are plenty of Warcraft icons out there -- we've posted some from LJ before, and now Sarah has posted another set of holiday-related icons to choose from. Of course there are the official icons, and we've even got our own gallery of commenter icons for you to look over, not to mention that you can always take a screenshot in the game and upload a 64x64 crop of that as your own icon.As I said, if you want to change yours, just click on your name after you make a comment, and then you can login on that page with the password you normally use as a "Returning Member" in our comments (and yes we know the system is lame -- if you have issues, usually the best thing to do is to leave a comment as a "New Reader" again, and use a new email address if you haven't ever gotten the email that gets sent to you). Maybe you all just like being Ogres, but if you want to show a little personality with your icon in our comments section, feel free.
Enter to win one of two giftpacks from SwagDog and WoW Insider
The holidays are upon us, and what better gift to give the Warcraft player in your life than a customized t-shirt from Warcraft.SwagDog.com? You may have seen them right there on our gift guide, but we're making it even easier for you to give one away, by giving two lucky readers a gift certficate of their own (and if you want to use it for yourself, we won't tell anybody).Yes, we're giving away two different prizes from SwagDog -- a hoodie gift pack (retail value $65, includes a customized hoodie and free shipping), and a t-shirt gift pack (retail value $30, includes a t-shirt and free shipping). To enter, just leave a comment on this post between right now and Friday, December 12th at 6:00pm Eastern, and we'll choose two random winners then to get the gift packs. One comment per person, please, and make sure to use a real email so we can contact the winners easily. Must be 18 or older and live in the United States to win (Canadians can enter, but they may have to pay a few bucks extra for shipping, as the codes only pay for free shipping to the US). Click here for complete Official Rules.And if you don't win, don't worry -- SwagDog offers gift certificates of all kinds, and we're told that anything ordered from the site by December 16th should show up before the 25th. Good luck to everyone who enters the contest, and let us be the first to wish you a happy Winter's Veil! That's right, it starts next week!
All Things Azeroth wants your audio
Our good friend Medros over at the All Things Azeroth podcast has posted a contest over on the site asking for some Warcraft-related audio content. He's looking for the best bit of audio drama, podcast promo, or simply audio comments that you can come up with, and he'll choose the best one by December 20th. Not only will he play the winners on the show, but the grand prize gets a Papa Hummel's Old Fashioned Pet Biscuit (handmade by Papa Hummel himself, as I always say), and two second prizes will pick up what is surely a spectacular Wrath poster and bookmark.I love hearing great audio production -- would be awesome to see some really good audio drama come out of this. If you've got an idea, get started on it now: Medros is asking for emailed entries no later than December 20th. Can't wait to hear the results.
Four years of World of Warcraft
Yes, as you know from the little Blizzard Bear in your mailbox, yesterday was the fourth anniversary of our favorite game, World of Warcraft. It's been a huge four years -- we've seen Blizzard develop and change massively multiplayer games as we know them, and gaming as a whole in some ways. We've grown our own characters up all the way from level one to 30 and 60 and 70 and beyond, and we've gone through two expansions, eight endgames, countless patches and class changes, endless guild achievements and breakups and many, many "dings" and "grats."We at WoW Insider would like to congratulate Blizzard on four years of World of Warcraft -- it's been an amazing ride so far, and it's not over yet. After the break, some of our writers have posted their own thoughts and memories on the game's anniversary, and please add your own in the comments below.It could seem silly to celebrate the anniversary of a videogame, especially one that, if you've been playing since day one, you've spent over $800 and countless hours on. But then again, look at what this game has given back: groups and guilds full of friends (and some spouses), weeknights full of gear upgrades and XP gains, Saturday afternoons spent slaying dragons and Sunday evenings spent picking herbs in the Swamp of Sorrows or admiring the sunsets in Hinterlands. We've played this game for four years, and for most of us, it's been worth every quest. Here's to many, many more.
Blizzcore giving away a Spectral Tiger Mount
Blizzcore is a relatively new blog about Blizzard and World of Warcraft, and they emailed to let us know that they're kicking things off in style over there by giving out one of the most prized items in all of Azeroth: a Spectral Tiger Mount from the trading card game. To enter their contest, you just have to run over there and leave a comment on their post. As you probably know from entering our own contests over here, it doesn't get any more simple than that, and we like simple in all of its forms.Definitely enter, but beware: there are about 200 entries now, and the contest is open for a full two weeks, so there'll be lots and lots of entries to come. Still, just a little chance is better than no chance at all -- hopefully one of you readers will end up picking up the mount. Good luck!Editor's Note: Link fixed!
Ask WoW Insider: Nodes and ninjas
This week's question for you, our readers, comes from an anonymous asker. He wants to know what the best option is for a widespread problem in this time of high realm populations and camped quests aplenty:There's been a lot of talk on your blog about people ninjaing spawns but I'm not entirely sure that it's as cut and dried as that. Consider this: I was in the Borean Tundra and had to kill the mob on the island that's up the top of the steps. when I arrived there were around 10 other 'toons all waiting around. I had no idea who was there first, who might be grouped, or anything else about them. The first thing I did was /s 'group?', at which point someone invited me, and I grouped with them. Second time it spawned one of us tagged it, I looted, disbanded the group and left. Did I ninja it? If so, how was I supposed to have acted? With new people coming all the time, no knowledge of who had been there longest and no visible queueing system I'm not sure how else to behave. Thoughts? A little more analysis after the break, and don't forget to post your own answer in the comments below. If you've got a question for our readers, send it to ask@wow.com, and we'll ask it for you.Previously on Ask WoW Insider...
Countdown to Wrath Giveaway Day 0 - Razer Lachesis mouse
The Countdown to Wrath Giveaways continue, and we're putting another Razer product in the mail for one lucky winner. In Greek mythology, Lachesis was the woman who determined just how much time everyone had left to live, and with the Lachesis gaming mouse, you'll be able to do exactly the same -- with a 4000 dpi laser and 32kb onboard memory (that's right, this mouse has its own memory built in), you'll be the one deciding just who lives and dies in the Arenas, raids or BGs. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at 6pm ET. One winner will be chosen randomly and will receive a Lachesis gaming mouse (valued at $80). You must be at least 18 to enter and a legal resident of the United States or non-Quebec resident of Canada. You can only enter once. Click here for complete Official Rules. When we told our own Zach Yonzon that we were giving away this mouse, he pretty much fainted from the excitement. But he's not even eligible to win it -- you are, so leave a comment below, and good luck.
Countdown to Wrath Giveaway: Day 1 - Razer Goliathus mousing surface
The Countdown to Wrath Giveaways continue, and we've got another awesome Razer product for one lucky winner. This time, it's a Goliathus gaming mouse mat -- if you're still using an old-and-busted mousepad, give this baby a look. With a textured, cloth-weave surface, this is the mousing surface that tournament winners use. We can't guarantee you a better Arena rating, but it won't hurt. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 6pm ET. One winner will be chosen randomly and will receive a Goliathus gaming mouse mat (valued at $20). You must be at least 18 to enter and a legal resident of the United States or non-Quebec resident of Canada. You can only enter once. Click here for complete Official Rules. More contests coming today, tomorrow, and we've even got some scheduled for Friday. Stay tuned.
Countdown to Wrath giveaway: Day 2 - Razer DeathAdder mouse
The Countdown to Wrath Giveaways continue, and we're proud to announce that Razer has decided to join the festivities. They've got gear for us to give away in all three days left of the countdown, and they sent us so much awesome stuff that we even had to throw an extra contest in on Friday, so stay tuned for that.This time around, we're giving away one of their crazy sweet DeathAdder gaming mice. To enter, leave a comment on this post before Friday, November 14, 2008 at 6pm ET. One winner will be chosen randomly and will receive a Razer DeathAdder gaming mouse (valued at $60). You must be at least 18 to enter and a legal resident of the United States or non-Quebec resident of Canada. You can only enter once. Click here for complete Official Rules.Stay tuned up until Wrath release (and then some) for more contests from Razer, WoW Insider, and all of our other sponsors.
