The Queue: Hodgepodge
by Adam Holisky 
May 13th 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. Adam Holisky will be your host today.
Lots of good questions this week, and like yesterday's Queue, we have a full set of them today as well.Boreddruid asked...
"Is there any particular time that my guild should start 10-man Ulduar hard modes?"
Once you're geared and know the fights start the hard modes. Some might be easier than others. Either way though, you'll want to have the basic fights down very solidly before you begin working on hard modes. Don't try to run before you can walk. You'll just fall flat on your face and become grumpy.
Medros asked...
"I was wondering if there was any new recipes learned via research in alchemy or inscription added in 3.1? I had stopped doing the researches before hand, and forget if there was new stuff added to make the uses worthwhile."
Not for alchemy. For inscription, you'll want to try to get your hands on the Book of Glyph Mastery to learn a new recipe from patch 3.1. There's several new recipes, so you'll need to get multiple books.
Emagen asked...
"Is there any way to make a macro that will not use a glyph that you have?"
No, once you have a glyph in the only way to cancel its effect is to remove it.
Alerexis asked....
"I know honor caps at 75,000, and marks from battlegrounds cap at 100, but is there a cap for Stone Keeper's Shards?"
Either the cap has never been found, or it's so high you'll never reach it. Very likely the cap rests on the same grounds as the gold cap – the upper limit of whatever sized integer the Stone Keeper's Shards variable is. My guess is it's 2,147,483,647. That number is the upper limit of a signed 32-bit integer as represented by a standard C compiler. If that is all Greek to you, I'll put it another way: it's big. (Before people decide to nerd rage all over me because of a computer fact, remember that the gold variable is a signed integer as well, and we've seen other signed integers in WoW besides that. There is no indication that the variable would be unsigned, and every indication it would be signed - even if a signed 32 bit integer doesn't make sense logically. Live long and prosper, geeks.)
Richard asked...
"Imagine you're reading the story of World of Warcraft. What race & class would be the protagonist? It seems like it would naturally be human or orc since those leaders are quite clearly the main players in the storyline. Human Paladin? Orc Warrior?"
I've been re-reading all the Warcraft stories lately. It's pretty clear to me that there are two main actors, someway somehow connected to everything: Jaina Proudmoore and Thrall. In this regard I'll say that those two are the closest things we have to universal protagonists. And to answer your question specifically, Jaina would be a Human Mage, and Thrall would be an Orc Shaman / Warrior (argue away lore nerds... argue away.) A case could also be made for Rhonin the Ro-ho-ho-nin, but to that I just say "nahhhhhh."
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 6)
Abraxxis May 13th 2009 1:12PM
There are 50 new Inscription recipes, available only by reading Book of Glyph Mastery items. These are random drops off Northrend mobs and not-so-random drops off the AH.
Except for the first week of 3.1, these glyphs sell for about the same price on the AH as any other glyph you might have discovered.
Burix May 13th 2009 10:36PM
50 new recipes x current AH pricing (250g on Detheroc) = 12500g.
That's only if you want to have every single new glyph. Also, this isn't counting the books you find, obviously.
That's a bigger investment than BC jewelcrafting ever was.
vexis58 May 13th 2009 4:09PM
Saying "There's several new recipes, so you'll need to get multiple books." is a serious understatement.
Tridus May 13th 2009 1:19PM
If you wanted to have someone for the story of World of Warcraft, who better then Medivh? He was at the heart of the events that caused the world to get to this state, has a cool tower for himself, and already has done some of the job (Warcraft 3).
Mognet T May 13th 2009 6:51PM
I would hesitate to call him a protagonist. He is about as much of a protagonist as Arthas (okay, maybe Medvih's not that bad. At least he has been trying to redeem himself. Arthas hasn't tried to redeem himself at all...yet).
Leigh May 13th 2009 6:56PM
MY toons are the protagonists!
Evelinda May 14th 2009 1:01AM
medivh is certainly a significant figure in the warcraft stories, but he's by no means the protagonist... if you look back over the warcraft games, none of them has been ABOUT him... sure, he's been involved, but mostly he's doing his thing behind the scenes, or in the past, or just getting people to do things for him... i mean, in wc3 he's basically just a glorified questgiver.
sure, we wouldnt have warcraft at all if he hadnt opened the dark portal, but saying that makes him the protagonist of warcraft is kind of like saying sauron is the protagonist of lord of the rings; he made the ring, after all, and he pretty much shaped the world into what it is, but he doesnt actually DO anything throughout lotr, except by proxy.
if you really insist on ignoring the fact that in the warcraft games medivh doesnt really do anything, and insist that because of all he's done he should be the protagonist, you really need to got he extra step and make it sargeras. after all, everything bad in the modern warcraft universe can essentially be traced back to him, and given the way bad events have shaped the world of warcraft, that means pretty much every event can be traced back to him.
medivh being naughty and opening the dark portal? sargeras.
orcs drinking demon blood and going all crazy? the legion, and therefore their bossman, sargeras.
the scourge? the legion, and therefore sargeras.
the war of the ancients and the sundering? sargeras.
if you take a look at pretty much every significant event in azeroth, you can find its roots in sargeras. but he's just not the focus of the story, and neither is medivh.
besides, we're talking about the protagonist of world of warcraft here, not just warcraft in general, and in that sense i'd say that adam is right on the money. if you dont take leigh's idea (which is a pretty good one, really), then yeah, thrall and jaina are the two most likely candidates. They've certainly been involved in more of the ongoing storyline than anyone else...
Wulfkin May 14th 2009 5:32AM
In World of Warcraft YOU are the main protagonist!
Now, go forth young , the world depends on you!
Bubsa May 13th 2009 1:20PM
I think it's obvious that the main protagonist, antagonist and love interest in the World of Warcraft novel would be Male Nathrezim, in honour of the forever, annoyingly, eternal Mal'Ganis.
Endario May 13th 2009 1:23PM
"I've been waiting for you, young prince."
*cue porn music*
Moondorne May 13th 2009 1:23PM
Mal'Ganis would be an Antagonist. And we know that the universal antagonist in WoW is Sargeras...or is it?
Goobenix May 13th 2009 1:28PM
Honor caps at 75,000? Aww crap. I noticed last week mine was at 75,000 exactly and thought that it was just strange that I had hit that number right on. So I guess all the honor I should have received since is lost? Oh well, maybe it's time to go shopping.
artifex May 13th 2009 4:52PM
It's *always* time to go shopping.
Get your honor gear, and go spend some shards, too. My gnome got the 300 stone shard mammoth, which is cool (but now makes him the proverbial side of the barn for the other side to hit).
Scott May 13th 2009 1:25PM
In what situation would one not want a glyph to proc? Wouldn't that defeat the reason of using said glyph in the first place?
Terrant May 13th 2009 1:31PM
The example the asker included with that question was Glyph of Polymorph. Basically, the asker wanted the option of rotating between sheep and penguin.
Kaeona May 13th 2009 1:33PM
Easy example: There's a Thunderstorm glyph for shaman with a proc that gets rid of the knockback effect so that tanks don't have to scramble after mobs and then stab you in the face for making them work harder. In PVE it's a must.
In PVP, there is NOTHING more fun than running onto the Eye of the Storm bridge and Thunderstorming a dozen Hordies with the knockback into the Twisting Nether — so you would want that knockback there.
Yalina May 13th 2009 2:09PM
The glyph for Sunder Armor automatically applies the sunder debuff to a second target. In the Twin Emperors fight in AQ40, this automatically puts a sunder up on one of the neutral bugs, which aggros all the bugs something fierce. Without the glyph, you'd only be generating aggro on the boss and wouldn't be suffering damage from all the other bugs.
Mike May 14th 2009 4:33AM
Add one more: the Prot Pallie's glyph of Avenger's shield turns the three man ranged pulling tool into a single target (beefed up) pulling tool. If you had the option to switch on the fly, this would become a very much better glyph (tho whether it would then make the grade remains to be seen, too many mandatory majors for prot pallies).
This is precisely why Blizz won't allow it, tho they maybe should in respect of minor "cosmetic" glyphs like polymorph penguin.
Sinthar May 14th 2009 10:56AM
There are a multitude of reasons (as you can see from the replys). My addition to this list is another mage one, Glyph of frostbolt. For PVE (raiding) you use it to boost Frostbolt by 5% but it removed the slowing effect. For grinding/PVP you want that effect. Mind you i dont know ANYONE that still raids as Frost. Its all Arcane or Fire (or FFB) as frosts dps is SO low its a joke.
Tayla May 13th 2009 1:34PM
Oh but *IS* Jaina a mage? Mages can heal now?
She's like some kind of uber healytypearchmage thing.
THE NEXT HERO CLASS?
*DUNDUNDUNNNN*
xD i just woke up.
>_