The Queue: Horsewhipping
by Alex Ziebart 
Mar 31st 2009 at 1:00PM
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Afternoon, ladies and gents. I have a follow up from yesterday's question regarding casinos, with further information straight from Ancilorn, a Community Representative over in the EU. Hopefully he doesn't end up getting horsewhipped for a fortnight over it like the last few Blue posters that decided to write to us!
Ancilorn says that, essentially, casinos that take an up front entry fee (whether it be gold or items) are against the Terms of Use and will result in action being taken on the casino owner. Casinos and competitions that do not require an upfront fee are legal and legit. Collecting an entry free is the violation here.
Now we know! Thank you very much, Ancilorn. You are my hero.
enthusedii asked...
"When the new Arena season arrives, will the arena points I have currently be reset?"
Yes, when Season 6 begins, your points from Season 5 will be reset. When Season 5 ends, there will be a week before Season 6 begins in which you'll be able to finish spending your points. Then? Bam, pow, gone!
Rodrigo asked...
"When will all the imprisoned goblins/children/arakkoa/(other imprisoned creature in WoW) go to the innkeeper and get a free hearthstone, like the login tips tell us to?"
Well, it's a little too late for that now, isn't it? They're already imprisoned! That's what they get for not listening to the login screen. That thing isn't there for fun, you know. It's important! Life or death! Everyone should listen to it and get a hearthstone. If you don't, you'll be the Hyldnir's next prisoner.
...you know, that might not be so bad.
Hal asked...
"Why were consumable weapon enhancements (oils and stones) removed from use for higher level equipment? Are there any plans to add in some sort of substitute in the future?"
They wanted to cut down on how many consumables high end raiders had to farm up on a weekly basis to take to raids. It's the same reason they took away the Leatherworking drums. As fun as those things were, they had to be taken into account when balancing raid encounters. Taking them into account means designing the bosses with them in mind, which essentially makes those consumables mandatory. If they pretended you didn't have them, the encounter would be far too easy for those that did have them.
Their existence essentially forced you to use them unless you were overgeared for the encounters. For people who had time to farm those things up every single week, they weren't a problem at all. In fact, they were probably fun for some people. I know I felt sort of special being the person that mass produced Wizard Oils for my raid group, it gave me a role besides 'Shadow Priest.'
It did make it much, much harder for people with less time to play break into raiding. I hesitate to use the term 'casual' for those people because I have a few members of my raid that didn't have time in their week to do it that I would still categorize as pretty hardcore, raiding with us multiple nights per week and riding their Amani War Bears.
They just eliminated this element from the equation, and while the game has lost some of its flavor, it's made things a little more convenient. While I fully understand their reasoning for removing them, I'd still love to see them come back, personally. Like I said, I felt kind of special mass producing them for my raid. I was helping!
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, Blizzard, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Zhiva Mar 31st 2009 12:03PM
Exceptional Wizard Oil
Requires Level 72
Use: While applied to target weapon it increases spell power by 56. Lasts for 1 hour.
Requires Level 72
...
What?
Braundo Mar 31st 2009 12:42PM
From a quick look at Wowhead, it appears that wizard oils and sharpening stones will not work on any weapons with an item level above 162.
Zhiva Mar 31st 2009 12:44PM
He linked an item which never existed on live realms.
_Requires Level 72_
Kyol Mar 31st 2009 1:13PM
Which is something I wish Wowhead would get more proactive about - they're starting to get polluted like thott was, with all the test server artifacts cluttering up the database. Sure, gather information on PTRs, but flag it so you can check to see if it's still there after it goes live, or drop it when you stop getting that data on the live realms, _something_. Reading further into the comments on the exceptional wizard oils, I don't know if it's live or not. (There are other similar things, I forget what off the top of my head, but other one shot enhancements that were sold by vendors on the PTR that somehow made it into the live DB.)
kworry Mar 31st 2009 6:43PM
What I don't understand is why they didn't make them BoP.
Tweak as necessary so enchanters don't get OP while using them, but keep them. They gave locks stones they can apply to their weapons, why not give enchanters the same consideration with their oils?
Cleverly disguised as normal Mar 31st 2009 7:48PM
@ kworry
As a shammy enchanter making oils BoP would just increase their uselessness to me as they don't stack with my class weapon enchants. At least as BoE or BoU or whatever they are I can mass produce them for levelling points and sell them.
xenothaulus Mar 31st 2009 12:57PM
"Ancilorn says that, essentially, casinos that take an up front entry fee (whether it be gold or items) are against the Terms of Use and will result in action being taken on the casino owner. Casinos and competitions that do not require an upfront fee are legal and legit. Collecting an entry free is the violation here."
So would that cover raffles and other forms of sweepstakes-type things? What about tournaments and treasure-hunts and the like with a fee to enter? If not, why are casinos singled out?
Alex Ziebart Mar 31st 2009 1:02PM
I think the rule would apply to all of those things but I couldn't answer that for-sure.
rosencratz Mar 31st 2009 1:06PM
"...Collecting an entry free is the violation here."
The answer is in your question mate.
Elmo Mar 31st 2009 1:10PM
Is this more of an US related problem?
I've never seen any casino related spam.
Catiya of Feathermoon Mar 31st 2009 1:14PM
@Elmo
I'm on a US realm and I'm with you there-- I've never seen casion spam of any kind,
nbcaffeine Mar 31st 2009 1:25PM
I bet, after this, you will. I've seen it tons on my medium pop, no name realm.
Kyol Mar 31st 2009 1:25PM
@Elmo, same here - I sort of vaguely remember casino spam in FFXI, but I don't think I've ever seen it in WoW, on Whisperwind.
mcclary Mar 31st 2009 1:35PM
@ people who havent seen this yet
It only takes one person to start it and you'll see it allllll the time. Just like the people that link legendaries and start singing Journey in all caps.
Shade Mar 31st 2009 2:27PM
@Elmo
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago - back in the first year or so WoW was out, I had an alliance character that would go to IF for the auction house, because that was the only place WITH an auction house at the time. The other major cities simply did not have them.
It was a fairly common occurrence to see a low level alt of somebody or other perched on the bridge between the bank and the AH, because everyone HAD to travel that bridge to get from one spot to the other, running a 'casino'. This usually was run by spamming trade chat or just spamming in /say with what it took to play - 1g to play, 100 roll takes all, etc. And then people would pay gold to play, and they would /roll to see if they won or not.
So a trip that took you anywhere near the bridge would automatically end up with your chat window being filled with
Player rolls 24
Player rolls 42
Player rolls 86
Player rolls 18
Player rolls 1
etc, etc, etc - and it never -stopped-.
There was no way to get rid of the spam, trade chat turned into a flood of nothing but casino spam, making it hard to try and actually SELL anything, you couldn't turn off or ignore emotes, and it made it impossible to have a conversation in say, or party, or guildchat, or anything, because the moment you typed something it would scroll off the screen.
And people -hated- it. So Blizzard took a look at this, decided that people paying ingame gold for gambling purposes was not allowed, and the casinos stopped. And the bridge was silent, and people cheered, the low level alts were left with nothing to do...
...and that's where naked mailbox dancing alts came from. >.>
xenothaulus Mar 31st 2009 2:55PM
@Shade,
I remember those days... and I guess the spam is probably why Blizzard gets pissy about the casinos but turn a blind eye to in-game lotteries and raffles and such. I hope that's all it is anyway.
hold up Mar 31st 2009 5:49PM
@casino spam
I have one main on a very low pop server. I have never seen casino spam there ever.
I have a low level alt on Ner'Zhul, a fairly high pop server, and I see casino spam all the time. Sometimes in chat and a lot of /yells. The funny thing is actually that there are more people in trade chat complaining about the casino spam than there are advertising it.
I guess if you want to make some money quickly start opening your own casino on these low pop servers that don't have them yet. Just make sure you have the bankroll to pay your patrons if they happen to get lucky.
Throck Mar 31st 2009 10:26PM
So, what's the difference between an up-front entry fee and a bet? You can't play without paying, and you can start and stop playing at anytime, so all bets are entry fees.
Also, isn't an in-game, player-run casino akin to a pyramid scheme or other con? Gain trust by making small payouts for a while to generate testimonies from satisfied players and then suddenly close down when you've amassed what you wanted to, right?
JPN Mar 31st 2009 1:03PM
Has there been any talk of raising the 25 daily quest limit? I run out every day.
rosencratz Mar 31st 2009 1:09PM
It's very unlikely.
There is a limit for a reason, several reasons.