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by Adam Holisky 
Feb 19th 2009 at 9:40PM
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.
Dan Asked...
"Does anyone know who the three characters in all the BlizzCon announcement graphics are (see posting earlier this week)? One looks just like Thrall, but the other two seem pretty vague... a paladin and some sort of demonic rogue looking thing (maybe an Orc)?"
Great question! I love answering questions that move beyond the glitz and glamour and delve deeper into things. The image in question is pictured at the top of this article for those that missed our BlizzCon 2009 announcement earlier in the week. Each of the characters represents one of Blizzard's different major franchises: Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft.
The left hand guy is Thrall, as you mentioned. Thrall is the Warchief of the Horde, Liberator of the Orcs, Lord of the Clans, Son of Durotan and Ruler of Durotar. He's a bad ass dude.
In the center sits Tyreal, from the Diablo series. He is Archangel of Justice, member of the Angiris Council. He's a bad ass dude.
On the right is Zeratul, a member of the Protoss race from StarCraft. He's a Dark Templar that likes to go around and assassinate people. And while Kerrigan played him like a tool, he too is a bad ass dude.
The links above will take you to wiki entries on each of the characters if you want to know more about them.
Robert M asked...
"Do we have any idea if Power Word: Barrier is going to take the place of Divine Spirit? If it was that high, a Barrier/CoH priest could prove to be pretty nasty and send the other healers home crying."
I agree that it might create some imbalance, however until we see what Blizzard has decided to do on the PTR (soon, I'm sure), we can't really start speculating what the effects of it will be. And just to be clear: we don't know where it'll exactly exist.
Robert M also asked...
"WoW Insider reported that 3.1 was finished according to a Kaplan interview.
Don't all the changes and the 'waves' of class changes lead many to believe that Blizzard is full of bat guano? Or that the previous major patch and expansion didn't go as smooth as they had thought it would at the very least, and they had to head back to the drawing board for a few areas?"
This is another great question!
What I took from the Kaplan interview was that Blizzard has the large points for future patches already mapped out. Ie: They know what they want in 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, etc... Activision-Blizzard is one of the largest game studios on the planet, they know how to plan things out better than the rest of them. I can tell you from working behind the scenes at a few programming gigs, as well as with my experience here at WoW Insider and the Joystiq network, that we have a plan for what we'll do with the site for the next year. And while that will change over time, no doubt, I could list off several things I know are in the pipeline to be changed here at WoW Insider. The same applies to Blizzard and their patches. They have a very good idea where they want to be a year from now, and stuff is going to change during the passage of time, but they can list off several big things that are in the pipeline.
This is all part of the development process. I wouldn't take it as a sign that Blizzard has had failures. I would take it as the exact opposite. They have zoned in on things that work and don't work, dynamically adapting to the changing environment. They bring out changes, sometimes testing them live (perhaps a little more than they should, granted), and then bring out more changes to compliment those. This is a part of the "Extreme Programming" model that has been popular for a while now. There is some good academic debate to be had about that model, but I'll leave that out since it's not totally relevant to WoW.
The idea, which I think underlines your question, is that Blizzard should come up with a plan and stick to it. And while that works for some things, it's been proven numerous times that the "stay the course" attitude ends in failure – especially in business.
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: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 5)
AyaJulia Feb 20th 2009 12:46PM
That's always been there, but only up to a certain rep level. It's probably been ages since you were below friendly/honored/whatever on your main, so it's reasonable that you forgot. :)
aBONiE Feb 20th 2009 9:18AM
Imho, barrier won't be taking the place of DS, rather imp DS becomes a 1-point talent and aspiration moves up to the place of DS, thus making a place for barrier near Rupture.
Landry Feb 20th 2009 9:48AM
This may have been discussed in the DK articles (my main is a Mage), but are they looking to fix the DK Ghouls? Their "stay" command seems to be busted and it causes issues when running instances.
Aigarius Feb 20th 2009 9:56AM
From a developers perspective the most time consuming part of new content is drawing all the graphics, coding all the movements and effects, implementing the code for the abilities. That takes months of work. Tweaking the numbers in the PTR takes a few hours at most, that is the easy part.
Syll Feb 20th 2009 1:21PM
After 2 years I've finally snagged my husband into trying out WOW. We rolled 2 taurens on a server that I don't currently play on, so we are starting "from scratch" together. My thought is that we should split the 3 gathering professions between us to generate income while we level together. What 4th profession would you recommend?
Lucid Feb 20th 2009 3:27PM
I'd recommend you do this based on your class.
For example if you're doing a healer/tank combo (which i'd assume is druid-warrior or druid-druid ) consider getting a profession which makes appropriate gear. Then also factor in which has the best personal benefits (benefits only the person with the profession gets and cannot share).
At a glance heres what I can remember off hand :
Blacksmithing :
- makes plate, a handful of weapons.
- can gain 2 free sockets to their own gear
Leatherworking :
- makes leather and mail
- can make leg kits for others, and very good ones for themselves
Jewelcrafting :
- makes gems
- makes lots of good trinkets, neckpieces and rings for themselves, as well as very powerful gems for themselves.
Tailoring :
- makes cloth
- makes leg enchants for all and powerful cloak enchants for themselves.
Inscription :
- makes glyphs
- makes offhand items, and powerful shoulder enchants for themselves.
Jewelcrafting and inscription will have the best long term monetary benefits as everyone always needs glyphs and gems. Every time you change spec, you need new glyphs or someone gets a new piece of gear at endgame, gems will come in handy.
The armor crafting professions however will let you make some helpful gear while leveling up.
Zaicalian Feb 20th 2009 12:16PM
Why does everyone feel it necessary to sit on their huge mounts while at the summoning stone for Naxx and why am I greeted with such disdain when I ask them to kindly dismount? Why doesn't Blizzrd make that area a no-fly zone like Dalaran so after 8 seconds you will automatically dismount? Why can't it be a no-mount zone in general?
Lucid Feb 20th 2009 2:35PM
While I agree it'd be nice to have those guys dismounted, keep in mind, if they made it a no-flying-mount zone, how would you leave Naxx via flying mount?
I'm not positive on this one. but there may be something like this in place. The other day I used my macro that toggles between flying and noflying mounts. Due to a large group of alliance I was rushing hoping I'd mount before someone hit me. So I mounted up and ran off, only to discover that my raptor is very poor flying mount.
CallMeIrd Feb 20th 2009 1:00PM
Think they'll ever make slow mounts useful again by having them scale to riding skill?
email Feb 20th 2009 1:18PM
Ummm... this guy said "first," failed miserably to use proper punctuation, grammar or spelling and cited "I paied my 20 bucks" as a reason for complaining. He's a troll and needs to be bashed. 'Nuff said.
AlexW573 Feb 20th 2009 3:16PM
How many people does it take now for TBC raids (reasonably well geared 80's, not amazing gear but starter raid level)?
GrayElf Feb 21st 2009 1:09AM
WI quote: "Patch 3.1 is already done (says Kaplan)." "Adam Holisky { 4 months ago }"
So...let's drop this concept of a plan that the answer introduced, and get back to the question. If 3.1 was "done" (not planned, not mapped out, not scheduled, but *DONE*) 4 months ago...
I think Robert M had an excellent question that was given a blatant and irrelevant brush-off. While the internal planning process at Blizzard might be of interest, if we had some window into it...I doubt I'd be alone in disbelieving (then, as now) the assertion that 3.1 is/was done.
While it's certainly less laughable now, I suspect that (exempting recently-decided class etc changes) 3.1 STILL isn't "done". Please, either ignore a question you can't answer, or make some relevant comment...this answer really makes you look like a Blizzard sycophant.