The Queue: Soul man
by Adam Holisky 
Jun 5th 2009 at 2:30PM
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.
Yesterday Alex featured Cab Calloway blasting out Minnie the Moocher, a song that while was around for a long time was truly made epic by his performance with the Blues Brothers. And this lets me tie in perfectly to wish my brother Logan a happy graduation from high school next week. Logan and many of his friends were in their jazz band, and he often dressed up as the Blues Brothers when appropriate. And in lieu of that, today's reading music is the Blues Brothers' "Soul Man" performance from the 1978 SNL season. The good old days. 5 years before I was born.Hokiebuddy asked...
"With the revamp of the bear and cat forms for Druids will there be any more Druid revamps in design such as the travel, swimming, or flying forms? Also will this spill over into other races and classes i.e. Warlock and Paladin mounts, Warlock minions, Shadow Priest shadow form, etc..."
There will be revamps to tree and oomkin forms. We already know that. Will travel and swimming be included in the form artwork updates? They haven't said anything specific about those, but part of me says no, since as Eros pointed out , they're just utility forms. Nothing terribly special.
Kyo asked...
"Is there a more PvP-focused version of wow.com?"
Check out http://wow.joystiq.com/category/pvp. You can find all our PvP news categorized there.
Joozu asked...
"In 25 man OS last night my Recount (most recent version on curse) was telling me I was doing overall about 4000 dps, give or take 50-100 at most. However, some of the other raid members using other damage counters had me at about 3200 dps overall. Which would be considered a good accurate damage counter, so I can know if I have to improve more or not?"
Be sure your copy of Recount and your friend's copy of Recount are configured the same. I've used Recount for a long time now, and while it has some glitches occasionally, it's by far the best out there. I would check the following things specifically:
- Which boss fight you're viewing
- Combined pets
- Version of the Add-On
Osirus asked...
"How many people use Linux for playing WoW? What software do they use? Wine, Codeweavers or Cedega?"
I'm not sure how many people play WoW on Linux. I know that I have it installed on there. While I don't play for long hours on my WoW Linux, I do log in and mess around for short periods of time while I'm working in my Linux environment for whatever reason.
Wine is your friend. Although I know that other solutions work too. Still, Wine is just your friend.
Kabshiel asked...
"When a raid leader asks for your unbuffed stats, should you give them your stats completely unbuffed or are self-only buffs (Moonkin Form, Fel Armor, Flametongue Weapon, etc) fair game to include in the total?"
I've never minded when someone included both. However, I do mind when they automatically and only give me the self buffed numbers. That's not what I'm after. Giving me both also lets me know they're thinking about such things. And if you're a Draenei, say something smart like "I'm hit capped with my racial." You don't want to count on me to remember you're a Draenei, and I might just get cranky and spend the day thinking of ways tell you to "l2hitcapnoob."
A few people commented...
"The Cautious person you wrote about last night and said never died on her way to 80 actually died once! It says so in the armory!"
From the article:
"It should also be noted that the armory reflects one death, that occurred sometime within the last 24 hours since we got this tip. That death happened after reaching level 80. Cautious posted in the forums that this happened via use of Nitro Boost."
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)
Jabbaprime Jun 5th 2009 2:40PM
In regards to the recount issue, there is a command /recount sync (on by default) its used on boss fights like satharion and its drakes where you phase out into different areas.
Sync should be on to calculate the damage correctly.
Cheers
Karilyn Jun 5th 2009 7:17PM
In general, I always seem to notice variations between different raider's recounts.
I generally side with the belief that a player's own recount is always accurate for their own character, even if it is inaccurately portraying other raider's DPS.
evolsoulx Jun 5th 2009 2:41PM
So, with the recent 1-80 with no deaths, I was wondering. Has anyone ever gone 1-80 with only 80 Achievement Points? That would be an extreme feat on its own. Would make an awesome Feat of Strength.
SINisterWyvern Jun 5th 2009 2:44PM
so basically do no quests grinding out mobs and never loot?
oddworld Jun 5th 2009 2:50PM
yeah, seriously, this is nearly impossible and would be a horrible feat of masochism. it means no mounts, and completing fewer than 50 quests total. probably no looting either.
SINisterWyvern Jun 5th 2009 2:42PM
When will supposedly literate people actually learn to read?
Robert M Jun 5th 2009 3:24PM
When seemingly literate people learn to write...
Oomkin? Is that a boomkin that is always out of mana?
tatsumasa Jun 5th 2009 3:33PM
it's an old term from when moonkin's only mana regen came from melee hits. good ole' days when i'd go oom on murmur, walk up, and start hitting him with my staff.
/moonkin sound
Succulent Jun 5th 2009 10:45PM
It's actually older than the melee mana regen days, back in vanilla when you didn't have anything :P
During the TBC change is when people started calling them boomkins or death chickens.
And yeah, melee mana regen was fun. Entirely useless, but fun. Woo I've hit that mob and regained 90 mana, great.
Wisakedjak Jun 5th 2009 2:47PM
Seconding the wine suggestion for Wow on Linux. Appdb.winehq.org gives some good tips on how to get it all set up; the only real point of note is that you have to run it in OpenGL mode (wine wow.exe -opengl) to get it to run. Your mileage may vary, but my framerate in Ubuntu (Intrepid) is actually double what it was in Vista, even with Compiz running, and I have no problems with it at all. It's actually significantly more of a headache to get Ventrilo working than WoW, though that seems to have gotten better of late as well. Feel free to ping me if you have any questions.
Clbull Jun 5th 2009 3:15PM
True. From my experience with Ubuntu, you could run it in DirectX mode, but the framerate would be a lot lower than if you tried it in OpenGL mode (if it would run in DirectX mode at all)
AlexW573 Jun 5th 2009 4:23PM
Runs pretty nicely on my Ubuntu 9.04 amd64 laptop, NVIDIA GeForce 9600m
I just copied the whole World of Warcraft file directory from Windows to Linux and added this to the end of config.wtf:
SET gxApi "opengl"
Now all I have to do is run wine Wow.exe, or click the icon I made for the Ubuntu toolbar. The WoW icon scales automatically, so I'm using that for the icon.
Paintpunk Jun 5th 2009 2:49PM
I run WoW on Linux using Wine and it works like a charm i have allot less lag when im playing on Linux also
Clbull Jun 5th 2009 3:17PM
For me, my framerate was much higher in indoor areas than it was outdoors, although I have experienced that when using OpenGL on Linux and Windows.
baheenabug Jun 5th 2009 2:50PM
"...he often dressed up as the Blues Brothers when appropriate. And in LIEU of that..."
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Lieu = "instead of."
Try "in honor of that." It makes more sense given the context.
Porky Jun 5th 2009 3:07PM
Inconceivable!
Hakker Jun 5th 2009 2:53PM
""Is there a more PvP-focused version of wow.com?"
Check out Wowriot, its virtually all pvp based and (the good articles) are written by some of the highest rated players in the world.
Ahoni Jun 5th 2009 2:53PM
On the issue of someone asking for my unbuffed stats ... I ALWAYS give self buffed stats. I define self buffed as buffs I ALWAYS have on and will ALWAYS have on (ie don't get overwritten by raid buffs).
Example: Demonic Knowledge increases your spellpower by a % of your active demon's Stam + Int. When I was playing a Felguard lock, I include this. Why? Without this buff, it does not accurately reflect the strength of the build.
epsilon343 Jun 5th 2009 3:01PM
Same, as a Shaman I include my weapon enchant (flametongue or earthliving) in the stats. I'll also look at the stats my totems give me and include them as well. If you do it to yourself then you should always include it because you're not assuming someone else will be there.
Now...if you give the stats you had last night when fully raid buffed for a 5 man then you're an idiot and an asshole. I hate inviting people in who are like "well, that was with Well Fed, Flask, and Kings."
Liam C. Jun 6th 2009 9:22AM
I agree wholeheartedly: your stats are your self-buffed stats. Unbuffed = not buffed by others, the base that you will always have.