The Queue: Service with a smile
by Adam Holisky 
Apr 20th 2009 at 11:00AM
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.
Welcome back to the Queue. We offer you service with a smile.Kenmoe asked...
"Is the construction of the Argent Tournament colosseum at all dependent on realm participation like Quel'Danas was? I was wondering if the goblin dailies 'A Chip Off the Ulduar Block' and 'Jack Me Some Lumber' helped construct the building faster. If so, is there any way to see progression like there was with Quel'Danas?"
No. The coliseum will come in patch 3.2, no matter what each server does beforehand. At least, that's what we know right now. It could all change however.
Xioyn asked...
"I am in exams right now and not downloading the patch. How much fun am I missing out on?"
The only think that you're missing out on is the first few days (or weeks) of the Argent Tournament dailies. It'll just take you a bit longer to get up to earning the mounts and other rewards.
Joe Smith asked...
"How much Haste should a balance druid have? I've been told that it's important to have, but tend to sink points into spellpower whenever i can. Is that wrong?"
As Nothilt noted in his reply to you, Haste is secondary to spell power. When I've evaluated Moonkin applicants to my guild, my team and I always look at Spellpower, Haste, and Crit. In that order. However much you have is however much your gear allows you to have.
Brady asked...
"Speaking of the novels, does Blizzard consider the novels to be canon, and does Blizzard have to approve the plots of them? Also, does Blizzard incorporate the story lines of the books into the lore of WoW?"
I'm answering this to the best of my knowledge from experience and past events and articles I've read. Blizzard considers them cannon until they're overridden in the game. There have been some things, such as Hakkar (one is the boss in Zul'Gurub and one is the Houndmaster) that have been a little odd.
Regarding your second question, Blizzard does hold pretty close intellectual control over the publishing of the novels. It's pretty standard practice for novels to have to be extensively reviewed and signed off before they're published – so I'd say yes.
As for your third question, just take a look at the whole Rhonin thing.
Tom99k asked...
"Why am I so cold?"
Has the Ice Stone melted?
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 1 of 5)
Superasil Apr 20th 2009 11:10AM
the ice stone has melted!
i thought it was dependent on us doing the dailies for the tourney, now i know i don't have to do them :)
Littlepins Apr 20th 2009 12:31PM
Try the site ' hastheicestonemelted.com ' you can see the result!
Jillemixie Apr 20th 2009 11:13AM
you completly forgot about ulduar =O
Tirin80 Apr 20th 2009 11:33AM
Ulduar will still be there when the guy does start playing though, it's possible to catch up. You can't make up for missing a week of Tournament dailies by doing twice as many the next week.
Angry Joe Apr 20th 2009 11:56AM
Yes, but he will miss the march of the ghosts from Ulduar.
jared.daniels Apr 20th 2009 11:16AM
The patch notes for 3.1 states "The mini-map has been optimized for better performance. Displays for vehicles, class colors, and off-map pings have been added as well." What, exactly, are "off-map pings"?
ninjasuperspy Apr 20th 2009 11:23AM
When you click on the minimap and it does the little rings-of-light thing.
Munchies Apr 20th 2009 12:16PM
I'm assuming off map pings are when a player in your group pings an area on his/her mini-map that is not in view on your mini map so the ping lies on the edge of the map in the direction that the other player had pinged.
kabshiel Apr 20th 2009 2:16PM
Funny, my minimap has been anything but optimized since the patch. 99% of the time it gets all stretchy and distorted.
Evi Apr 20th 2009 3:17PM
Anyone else hate the new class colors on the mini map? The lack of a distinctive ring makes them harder to see than the old one! ...At least for me.
Marveen Apr 20th 2009 11:17AM
About Balance and Haste - Foofy's Cupcake Factory had classes on raiding as a moonkin, and she recommends half Haste and half Crit:
http://foofyscupcake.blogspot.com/
Not sure if that's the optimum min/maxingwise, but for offspecers it's a nice and easy rule of thumb to remember.
Justin Apr 20th 2009 2:17PM
My general rule of thumb is Spell Power wherever you can take it, Haste till you're going OOM to early in a fight and Crit after that.
Hoof Apr 20th 2009 11:24AM
For the Argent Tournament, I hit Champion with my home faction (Thunderbluff) this morning and had a few questions:
Does going back to valiant with another faction mean that I can't do the Champion Dailies? Or once I earn them, they're always there?
Also, are there still titles associated with the tourny? I remember bearing about " . . .of ___" titles (Me of Thunderbluff) and I thought you got that when you hit champion but I don't see it.
Last question: there is a daily quest to give 10g to a squire that doesn't seem to have any reward. What's up with that if we don't influence the building of the stadium?
Thanks
rosencratz Apr 20th 2009 11:32AM
The achievements for the tournament are under the world events tab on the achievement panel. The title achievements are still there.
For the "... of thunderbluff" titles i believe you also need to be exalted with the relevant faction.
Sang Apr 20th 2009 11:42AM
That's for you to get more rep with the argent crusade like the donation to the shattered sun daily.
Balius Apr 20th 2009 12:08PM
The "Exalted Champion of ______" Achievements are followups to the regular "Champion of ______" achievements, kind of like how collecting 1000 fish doesn't appear until you've caught 500 first. If you're already Exalted, you just get both (and the title that comes from the Exalted Champion Achievement) at the same time.
Hark! Apr 20th 2009 11:26AM
If you've read the War of the Ancients trilogy, in the first book, you'll notice that Brox' weapon is mentioned to be a hammer. But after being hurled through time and awakening, Richard Knaak (the writer) all of a sudden changes this and says that it's an axe. Has this been talked about already? I was wondering if it was just an error on Knaak's part and that it's really one or the other, or if it was some intentional timewarp voodoo hoodoo
skreeran Apr 20th 2009 12:08PM
That's entire series with Rhonin and Brox was a work of fan-fiction and totally didn't happen.
At least that's what me and many other fans desperately want to believe.
So don't get hooked up on hammers becoming axes; that whole trilogy was teh sux0rs for lore in my humble opinion.
Matt P Apr 20th 2009 1:01PM
A little good came out of it; Brox is proof Saufang's entire family is epic. A bet grandma can even cleave better than any raid boss. ;)
Outside of that, yes, the damage Knaak did with that one is downright terrible.
schm0 Apr 20th 2009 11:41AM
Things can be ret-conned or confused alot in the WoW lore. Hakkar is one of many examples (some found within the comments of this very post.) They're two people.
I think Adam's response is (unfortunately) correct. Books are canon until Blizzard says it ain't. Until then, you have to deal with the mixup or confusion as you see fit.
"According to an interview with Richard A. Knaak [1], who wrote the War of the Ancients Trilogy, Hakkar the Houndmaster and Hakkar the Soulflayer are two different entities:
Hakkar first existed in The Well of Eternity, as Hakkar the Houndmaster, my creation. Blizzard must have liked the name, because they accidentally took the name afterward for the troll god. Chris Metzen apologized for the mix-up at the L.A. Festival of Books."
Source: http://www.wowwiki.com/Hakkar_the_Houndmaster