The Queue: New Year's Eve edition
by Alex Ziebart 
Dec 31st 2008 at 5:00PM
New Year's Eve! Hooray! Are you doing anything special tonight? I totally am. I'm going to play an alt. Gasp! Shock! No seriously, I have no idea what I'll be doing. Right now though, I'm answering questions!
JLocke asked...
I know the next big patch to hit will have Uldar raid in it, but are there any other cool things attached to it that we know of?
That we know about? Very, very little. Ideally, dual specs will be in that patch, and a couple of devs at BlizzCon said it definitely would come in patch 3.1, but it's possible it'll hit a couple of delays. Beyond a little chit-chat with developers, it hasn't really been promised or confirmed. In a perfect world, it will be in the next content patch.
We can make some guesses as to what'll be in it, but that's the best we can do. I think we'll see Crystalsong Forest have some life injected into it via the Sunreavers and Silver Covenant, but nothing has been mentioned about it. Pure guesswork.
dpoyesac asked...
Suppose you are almost exalted with the Oracles, and you then group up with someone to kill Artruis so they can get honored with the Frenzyheart: do I have to worry about losing rep with MY faction if we kill the little Oracle dude? Or should we just play it safe and kill the lich with me out of party?
As long as you don't do the daily quest that's offered by the guy that's still alive at the end, you don't need to worry at all. Just killing the Oracle kid there won't ruin your rep, you specifically would need to talk to the Frenzyheart afterwards. So when you see a little fellow with a blue ! over his head, do not click it.
Abbadon asked...
How can I tell the number of steps to ultimately completing an achievement ingame?
In the past, I made the mistake of thinking that I was going to finish Hail to the Chef once I learned my 30th cooking recipe for The Northrend Gourmet only to be slapped with another step added when I reached that goal.
Easiest way? Wowhead. If you look up the name of the achievement, you'll see how many steps there are. For example, searching for Dalaran Cooking Award brings up 5 achievements. There are steps for 1, 10, 25, 50, and 100 cooking awards. 100 is the last stage.
conker87 asked...
Why do Dwarf Guards tell me to keep my feet on the ground?
It's just a figure of speech, like the "Daylight's burning!" question that was asked some time ago. Like, "Stay grounded" or "Keep your head out of the clouds." Keep a clear mind, be conscious of what you do. It doesn't actually mean, "Whatever you do, do not get on this gryphon! Seriously! Don't! Just walk!"
It might be a weird thing for the flightmaster to say, but he's not actually warning you against flying. He's telling you to keep a clear head.
Fireye said...
Do you think there is a possibility for another warcraft related mmo in the future? Like WoW 2.0 or something like that. Or do you think expansions are the best we can hope for? I was thinking of an mmo set in an earlier time period, like during warcraft 2 or 3 where a war is actually taking place. Something about wow just feels so far removed from the source material.
If we ever have a World of Warcraft II, I don't think it will be for many years, and we'll have another Warcraft RTS between them to set up the world and plot again. I definitely do not think we'll have one that goes back in time.
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!Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Factions, Wrath of the Lich King, Achievements, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Impatience Dec 31st 2008 5:06PM
I'm always amused whenever the Ironforge Flightmaster tells me to "Keep your feet on the ground" just before I take a flight.
silverdragon Dec 31st 2008 5:12PM
What year is it on WoW? Do they even have a year set?
Charlie Dec 31st 2008 5:37PM
Not really, as far as i can tell the time spent in wow is kept by the last great war.
So at the vanilla WoW launch, it had been 4 years since the third war.
So the time now is 8 years since the third war, or something.
Gnarlynarz Dec 31st 2008 6:06PM
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
Cyrus Dec 31st 2008 6:10PM
I've wondered about that myself. They state that the game happens something like five years after the end of Warcraft III. But that's presumably WoW classic, 1.0 (or whatever the number of the first, pre-content patch game was, I don't know), and a lot has happened since then. Even if you assume Maraudon, Dire Maul, Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman were there all along before they were playable, there's been a massive war effort against the Silithid in Ahn'Qiraj; the scourge invasion spearheaded by Naxxramas; the reopening of the Dark Portal, crash of the Exodar and alliance between the Blood Elves and the Horde; Kael'Thas' abduction of Muru... all of that would have taken at least as long in real time as the in-game events lasted, and probably longer. So as of the attack on Northrend, how much time has passed?
PalominoMule Dec 31st 2008 7:13PM
I'd recommend checking this out:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Timeline
The timeline(s) for Warcraft is/are super muddy. They give conflicting accounts, time frames that cannot possibly work, and forget to give dates for important events altogether. God bless Blizzard but I think they were just making a bunch of RTS games and then somehow they wound up with a setting and suddenly everything goes to heck.
JBurg Dec 31st 2008 7:20PM
No year is set, but it has been 6 years since Warcraft 3 RTS. 4 years pass between the end of W3 and the beginning of WoW. Each MMO box is supposed to be 1 year of time, so add 2 more years to reach WotLK.
Or you could watch the loading screens while installing WotLK. One of them states the Lich King sat motionless on his throne for 5 years. Add 1 year for the time to prep for war with the Alliance and Horde to reach 6 years.
At least that is my math for what it is worth.
Jason Jan 1st 2009 5:02AM
Something that bothers me is in the Draenei starting video it says "One" or "A few months ago" (don't remember which) - and they haven't changed it. It makes it seem like the Draenei are continuously "just" arriving, even though the Outland threat has ideally been neutralized at this point.
Kymali Jan 1st 2009 12:20PM
If you go to the timeline page on the WoW site
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/story/timeline.html
We're in Year 27 with Year 1 being the release of Warcraft.
Interesting thing is that even with approximately two years between expansions only one year passes on Azeroth between them.
Though I think different races might be using different calendars. Night Elves counting Post sundering, for example which would make it more like 10,027 in their Calendar
Azizrael Dec 31st 2008 5:18PM
Crystalsong Forest is a weird place. There's basically nothing to do there, right? I did the attunement to Dalaran at 74 and expected there to be something useful on the ground when I beamed back down but nothing. I've hit 80 and still not seen any content on the floor down there.
AyaJulia Dec 31st 2008 5:21PM
There are two quests in Icecrown that send you there to collect drops and items laying on the ground, but that's all I've found so far.
Charlie Dec 31st 2008 5:43PM
While its only placeholder at the moment, the lore surrounding the area is really cool.
Essentially, the black dragonflight came to northrend to chase down the blue dragonflight i believe. They had a big battle in what is now crystalsong. During the battle the blue dragonflight released magic into the air just as a consequence, then either one of their leaders died, or sacrificed himself, or casted some spell, or something. either way the magic in the air amplified the spell and caused the entire region to turn into crystal.
Pretty awsome IMO.
Wulfkin Jan 2nd 2009 1:24AM
The main purpose of Crystalsong Forest is to farm the (magic?) juicy carrots there. Aaaaand thats about it.
Amaxe Dec 31st 2008 5:19PM
"Why do Dwarf Guards tell me to keep my feet on the ground?"
It's especially funny when the Dwarf flightmaster says that to you right when you take off for your destination
Flightmaster: Keep your feet on the ground
Amaxe: All right, where the @#$% is the parachute?
Alexran Dec 31st 2008 5:25PM
Why exactly did Blizzard skip out on the Pandaren as a playable race? I remember hearing something about racism or that the Chinese government would invade Blizzard's HQ. Whats the deal?
Amaxe Dec 31st 2008 5:27PM
FWIW:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Pandaren#A_history_of_rumors
Iwanttobeasleep Dec 31st 2008 5:32PM
Not to mention the complete lack of lore around them . . .although the same thing could be said about the draenei, whose lore was changed pretty significantly for WoW.
Andrew Dec 31st 2008 6:07PM
If there was one thing turning me off of Warcraft, it was Blizzard slowly legitimizing a Panda-people joke race. Very glad they finally backed off, but the future is uncertain...
Alexran Dec 31st 2008 6:37PM
Amaxe, Ive read that but, as most wikis are on the subjects of rumors, it was very nebulous and ambigious. Thats why I posted my question here, so the experts at WoWInsider could try and do some sleuthing (what with Belfaire on the team...)
josh Dec 31st 2008 7:37PM
hell i'd be happy just to see them as a faction you can get rep with and give them a presence at brewfest and the new year's events as giving out quests and free booze. but definitelyas a rep faction at the very least