The Queue: Close the floodgates again, please
by Alex Ziebart 
Mar 25th 2009 at 11:00AM
Hi again, everyone! I may be covering The Queue for the rest of the week while Adam Holisky flees from a righteous flood. We usually trade off days, but he's kind of a wuss and can't take a little water, so I'll spare him the tragedy of needing to toddle through a puddle or whatever.
pants asked...
"I know that they are taking away the proto-drakes for the raid achievements in 3.1, but will the title "Champion of the Frozen Wastes" be gone as well for it's respective achievement?"
I just hopped onto the PTR to see if the title was still listed for the achievement, and it appears to still be there. It doesn't look like it will be going away in patch 3.1, so you'll still have a chance to earn Champion of the Frozen Wastes.
Deargchief asked...
"How come a lot of the cloth gear in Ulduar looks the same as the Mage set? Why can't they use the Warlock set also!"
Because the Mage set rules.
restodrood asked...
"Will the fragments for the legendary mace work like emblems? For example, in your loot box one or two emblems show up, but everyone gets one or two. Or will we have to roll on them, only getting a total maximum of one fragment off of each boss?"
It's one fragment per boss, period. Only one person gets to loot it. It's not like Emblems. They're most certainly not going to give a Legendary Mace to absolutely every single member of the raid all at once. You're going to need to focus on getting one person at a time, get them all of their fragments, then work on someone else.
Drow asked...
"Hard mode, is that just doing achievements, or is there an actual button that is pressed in game before an encounter? I know it sounds stupid, but I've heard this rumor a couple times and would like to snuff it out."
Well, there are achievements for the hard modes, but that's not all they are. By intentionally doing a fight differently, you make it more difficult and thus you get better rewards. Most of the Ulduar bosses have these. Sartharion also has this, times three.
For example, for the basic Sartharion kill, you kill all of the sub-bosses first before ever pulling him, then the fight is easy epics. If you don't kill the sub-bosses first, they enter the fray while you're fighting Sartharion and the encounter becomes much more difficult. Depending on how many sub-bosses you left standing before pulling Sartharion, you get better loot. That's the Hard Mode. It exists in both 10 and 25 man versions of the encounter.
Brouck asked...
"What is the most successful strategy for Heroic Oculus, other than don't PUG it?"
Umm... don't PUG it? Okay, sorry. My groups use one Red Drake, one Green Drakes, and three Bronze Drakes if we're not going for the achievements. Red tanks everything, green heals the red, the Bronze rotate through their timestops. Easy sailing on the final boss. All the bosses before him? Learn what explodes. Avoid those explosions. That sums up the entirety of those encounters. In each of them something explodes, and there is somewhere to stand that will not explode. It is recommended that you go to the place that isn't exploding.
The Oculus isn't that bad as long as people stick together and actually look at the abilities their drakes have. People start dying when they zoom off by themselves on the drake and get owned, then fall to their death and everyone gets anxious while waiting for that guy to corpse run. People get annoyed, people get sloppy, people die endlessly. It's silly.
molimo asked...
"Here's a question, why is Gamon killable at all? I just don't understand it."
He's part of a Rogue quest called The Shattered Hand. They must pick pocket him for a key, and since in order to pick pocket something it needs to be able to be attacked, Gamon has the unfortunate fate of being an attackable target in the middle of Orgrimmar.
Rahl asked...
"So where's all the news, info and guides to the Argent Tournament?"
Well, there hasn't been much news about the tournament beyond what we've covered. It's there, it's pretty cool, there are new mounts, et cetera. It gets some polish and bug fixes each patch, but that's about it!
As for guides and information like that? We're working on it. By the time patch 3.1 hits, we'll have a set of guides to the Argent Tournament quests and daily quests and all of that. It's a bit silly to release full blown guides to things that aren't finalized yet, but the Tournament seems to be nearing completion, so it wouldn't hurt for us to kick up production on those. And we have. You'll see them soon.
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: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Andrew R. Mar 25th 2009 11:08AM
Why do the females in WoW always wear such scantily clad gear? I don't see how plate armor that exposes half your upper body will do you any good when someone wants to stab you. Isn't it kind of degrading to real women who play the game?
Maelikit Mar 25th 2009 11:15AM
Nope.
Alaw Mar 25th 2009 11:16AM
No.
Sakinah Mar 25th 2009 11:15AM
It actually depends on the armor. For my female belf hunter, the tier gier covers everything....but on my night elf druid who picked up the caster kilt from ZF (and had the gnomer pants before that..) The sides that would have been closed on a guy are big empty panels that show off a lot of leg.
Just depends on the level of the gear, I suppose.
Yeng Mar 25th 2009 11:17AM
Typical 'fantasy' setting. Women wear chainmail bras and such even if its nowhere near practical.
Leon Mar 25th 2009 11:17AM
Its seems to have gone away in Wrath from what ive seen so far
Karilyn Mar 25th 2009 11:18AM
It is is stupid. And it is degrading, but it can be worked around.
As a female tauren warrior, I was pretty pissed off at T7, which for the first time in warrior tier set history, was not the same as the male tier set. Instead, the chest piece was a tube top.
But after a week of being pissed off, I shrugged it off, equipped a scryers tabard (Which is surprisingly, the exact same colors as T7), and then just forgot about it for the most part.
Shizzle Mar 25th 2009 11:43AM
"It is is stupid. And it is degrading, but it can be worked around.
As a female tauren warrior..."
Ahh, there's the problem. Thou shalt loseth some weight. :) j/k
Seriously, though... do girls actually play this game?
AyaJulia Mar 25th 2009 11:43AM
I say this as a true-blue straight female here: the female form is simply more pleasing to the eye in my opinion. I started a new pally yesterday. I play Horde, so it HAD to be a blood elf, and I don't really do cross-gender play, so it's a female blood elf. As I was running around Eversong collecting items like http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22953, I marveled at the silliness of it all but also found myself paying a little more attention to my character.
Go figure. :)
Jason Mar 25th 2009 11:44AM
Unrealistic - yes. Degrading to women - more than likely for some. In a game played by teenage boys - most definitely.
In summary - know your market.
flawedsymmetry Mar 25th 2009 11:44AM
Clearly you've never played an RPG in your life.
Trilynne Mar 25th 2009 11:46AM
I hear you. As another poster mentioned, you can wear a tabard or a shirt to fix a lot of the, ahem, 'gaps' in armor coverage... but it is a bit sad to realize that the artists designing the armor are so immature as to still beZOMG BOOBIE obsessed. :/
Mane Mar 25th 2009 12:01PM
It's simple. All females just need to suck it up or quit. They cry about equal rights with everything in RL, now they have to bring it to Azeroth.
Blizzard is tailoring to what..97% 98% male gender? I hardly think they'll miss the miniscule 2% of women that are offended.
Radiophonic Mar 25th 2009 12:05PM
It's protection via distraction, no?
Iwanttobeasleep Mar 25th 2009 12:09PM
"Isn't it kind of degrading to real women who play the game?"
Yes. But WoW is one of the more feminist games (depressing as that sounds), so we deal.
Plus, we're all addicts along with you penis owners. Tabards, ftw.
Sakinah Mar 25th 2009 12:14PM
Yes, we girls do play the game. I don't find it degrading because, well, it's a game.
there are plenty of shirts and tabards...It's the way fantasy rolls.
Balius Mar 25th 2009 12:19PM
There are actually two factors at work here.
One: females in a fantasy or sci-fi setting are completely invulnerable except for a select few areas.
Two: There is always a severe lack of all cloth and/or other clothing materials. This is generally due to fantasy males being extremely large and muscular, and also because there are giant moths.
Because of these two factors, female characters in fantasy choose to leave themselves largely uncovered to help out the world at large. Those sections of exposed flesh are not only not sexist, but they are signs of the ultimate selflessness, charity, and humility of females everywhere.
Jiggle animations, on the other hand...
Seriously? Mar 25th 2009 12:25PM
it's only degrating to ugly women...
seriously though, lighten up, it's a game. It's not even close to a Russ Meyer flick or G.L.O.W.
if you really find this degrating, then stay indoors, because IRL girls where a lot less on there own
Isabella Mar 25th 2009 12:26PM
Actually, I revel in dressing up my characters like streetwalkers. My human priest still has Pants of the Naaru (similar graphic to black mageweave) and Watcher's Tunic, which is very low-cut and backless (both from TBC group quests). Together somehow they create the illusion of a tramp stamp. It cracks me up every time.
Personally, I'm far less irritated by scantily-clad and more irritated by stereotyped airheaded women, a la 'whoops go save the idiot princess.... again.' Warcraft is one of the few RPGs where I enjoy and can even slightly identify with the characterization of females. When they're dumb, they're dumb in a way which is generally easy to understand (ie, Abbendis). The parallelism with the Jaina/Tyrande stories ("You both love me despite only knowing me superficially? And now you're fighting over it (and I don't really like either of you to begin with, in Jaina's case)? Super.") is a theme which struck close to home with me, and pretty much every under-40 female gamer I've spoken with.
TLDR: I'd rather play a naked chick who kicks ass rather than a clothed vapid moron waiting for a plumber to save me.
Amelia Mar 25th 2009 12:30PM
Yes, girls do in fact play this game. SHOCKER. You'd be surprised at how many do. I think I heard that at least 1 in 4 players now on WOW are girls. Get used to it.
And I think the armor is fun. I can't go around (well...shouldn't go around even though I'm sure the guys would love it) wearing chainmail bras with plate leggings everyday in RL. Might as well enjoy it in pixel form.