The Queue: I love London
by Alex Ziebart 
Mar 27th 2009 at 3:00PM
One of our questions today comes from a reader who's moving to London for a couple of months, and I just wanted to take a moment to say that I've always wanted to go there. Consider yourself very, very lucky! London has all kinds of great things I've always wanted to see, like Big Ben, Stonehenge, the Eiffel Tower, the Parthenon, and Papah?naumoku?kea. One day, hopefully, I'll get to go myself!
Let's get started, hm?
SithVicious asked a pair of questions...
"Will Blizzard ever allow cross server chat?"
We haven't heard anything about this recently. I suspect it's something we won't ever see. If we did, I bet it'd be restricted to battlegroups and it wouldn't be super duper useful. That's what I think they would do, anyway. I don't know anything about the technical limitations involved. Basically, my answer here is, "I have no idea, but I don't think they would."
"I have a dual monitor setup, are there any recommendations on how to make use of that second monitor such as add-ons which give in game information or a way to spread the WoW screen over to the second monitor without getting any distortion?"
You can extend WoW over two monitors, but there's a few issues with it. One, your character is right in the middle of the two monitors, so it you don't have thin frames it's going to look really, really weird having your character and all cut in half. Two, if the monitors aren't the same size, it's probably going to murder your eyes and your sanity. If you have two equal-sized monitors with frame thin enough to now boggle your eyes, go for it and use them both for WoW. If not, avoid it. Seriously, it is so ugly, augh.
What I do, and what I recommend, is to just leave WoW running on whichever is the better, bigger monitor. Don't put anything on there but WoW and your WoW addons. Put all of your other resources on the other monitor. IM programs, Ventrilo, web browsers, all of that goes over there. It makes for a very convenient play experience.
Bua asked...
"So wait... wha? I'm leaving for London in 2 months. I can't use my copies of WoW/Wrath (and my TBC bought online through worldofwarcraft.com) when I get there? I have to purchase everything all over again?"
If you want to continue playing your US characters on US realms, you can still play with your current US account from London. The only real issue there is latency due to the servers being farther away from you geographically, and you'll be playing at very unusual hours for US realms due to timezones. But you can still play there and you don't need to pay anything extra.
If you want to play on European realms, you'll need a European WoW account which means paying for everything again. Yes, everyone who is waiting to pounce on me in the comments, I know you can just change the realmlist.wtf to use the same install for both regions. You still need to pay for a registration key in the EU, which means buying everything again.
If you're only going to be in London for two months, don't even worry about it. Just play on US servers. Just note you'll be a wee bit laggier than you're used to for those two months, then when you're back in the US you'll be groovy.
lolwut asked...
"What happened to mobile WoW insider? This page is a huge strain to load on my handheld."
I'm sure someone will make a stink about the fact that I've answered this question before, but since it's not openly advertised anywhere on the site, I'll answer it again. At this point, m.wow.com is pretty deprecated and we don't really use it anymore. i.wow.com is much better, and while it's optimized for iPhones, it works better than the mobile version did for mobile phones so that's what we go with now. Try the iPhone version (even if you do not use an iPhone) and let us know how that works for you.
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, Humor, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Yarlz Mar 27th 2009 3:05PM
Ehm, sorry to burst your bubble but stonehenge isn't in London :)
It's actually in Wiltshire, west of Amesbury.
Rihlsul Mar 27th 2009 3:07PM
Was praying was a joke, as neither is, you know, The Eiffel Tower.
Elmo Mar 27th 2009 3:34PM
Everyone knows London has everything you ever wanted, I went there for some Deep Sea Diving.
elvendude Mar 27th 2009 3:40PM
Stonehenge isn't, but the Parthenon surely is!
Learn2humor?
Rodrigo Mar 27th 2009 4:12PM
Papahānaumokuākea us totally even Europe!
You rock Alex!
Glad I'll be in London for Ayers Rock next week!
Guapa Mar 30th 2009 6:11AM
WHAT? The Eiffeltower is not in London? Then what did I pay this guy 20 bucks admission fee last year? Blast, allowing alcohol in public does seem to have some downsides...
Anyway, you should travel to London and Europe as a whole. It's a great place to be where buidlings are made of stone and are not considered national treasures just for being 100 years or older.
While you're there you should visit Luigi's Icecream Empire in Rome, on the island just opposite to London.
soccerdude7 Mar 27th 2009 3:08PM
As an ex-pat who lives in Poland, I would say stick to the American servers. Yes you'll be on at odd times, however, you can stick to the people you know. Also, if you switch, you have to deal with bad support and a lot of phone calls.
Marc Sadowski Mar 27th 2009 3:23PM
I've been meaning to go back to Poland. I haven't been there since the communist days (I was really young when I visited). What part of Poland are you in? And is it nice?
thanks
Bartosz Mar 29th 2009 5:10PM
Yeah!!!
Poland represent!!!!
Finally some recognition on WoWinsider
I'm from Wroclaw.
Hope you enjoy living in the PL!
Koczarski Mar 27th 2009 3:51PM
Woot!
soccerdude7 Mar 27th 2009 4:49PM
I live in Warszawa, I'd say a lot is changing over the years, but Poland is becoming more like America. New developments, many American stores, the malls are huge meeting places, however the culture is still in place. The recent economy has changed things, Poland's big boom has turned into Poland's big half-built houses. However, there are many beautiful parts of Poland around. It is a nice place.
Rihlsul Mar 27th 2009 3:07PM
Holy cow... I *Way* prefer the iphone version for normal reading!
/bookmarks it
Way way easier to cope with than this INSANE fixed-width overly-graphicy POS theme.
emptywalls Mar 27th 2009 3:08PM
I use a dual monitor setup. Run wow in windowed mode, maximized. I keep things like thottbot, wowhead, wowwiki, and porn up on the other monitor. Its a great setup for raids where you end up waiting a lot, never bored.
This setup is great for when I'm tanking and I need a refresh about whats going on with this fight. You can seamlessly go from scrolling through webpages back over to controlling wow. I have a terrible habit of reading news during pulls tho....
My fiance sits next to me with a giant widescreen monitor, which I'm jealous of, but shes also jealous of my dual 19in setup. They are both awesome in different ways.
Randy Mar 27th 2009 3:14PM
You think she is jealous of your setup...she's really just dreamily staring at the porn wanting the women and wishing she was with those guys instead of you.....
/remove flamethrower
:)
Gnosh Mar 27th 2009 3:14PM
Pull out all the stops and dual-screen with giant, widescreen monitors.
elvendude Mar 27th 2009 3:44PM
@gnosh
That's what I do. =) I love it.
Also, I know there are mods our there that let you adjust the rendering window within the WoW window. You can then stretch your WoW over both desktops, set the rendering Window to whichever you prefer, and set mods that don't need to be in the main window (timers, minimap, non-combat action bars, etc) over there.
onetrueping Mar 27th 2009 8:38PM
That's what I did, actually, was use a viewport mod to squish the viewable area to one monitor. The second monitor has a constantly open full map, list of quests, and my chat dialogues, plus a few other goodies. You get the full view of WoW in one window without clutter, while having a screen full of useful info you can glance at whenever.
There is a slight adjustment period, though, where you have to train yourself to not stare at the second monitor whenever something changes, but that applies to any changed interface. Also, introducing a second monitor will increase your render time (though with most modern cards it isn't an issue), and with some you'll get weird glitches (such as barely readable text that is only fixed by /reloadui followed by turning ON the full screen glow effect).
Jack Spicer Mar 27th 2009 3:10PM
What's the best/easiest way to get started gear for PvP at 80?
Jack Spicer Mar 27th 2009 3:11PM
"starter"
Phil Mar 27th 2009 3:17PM
All the crafting professions can make some decent PVP starter gear, for example my DK is also a max level blacksmith and I made myself so good PVP starter gear and after all was said and done I think had some where in the neighborhood of 350 resilience and some decent stats. If you can't make the stuff yourself you can probably get it fairly cheap off your local AH.