Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsThe Queue: A message from the past
by Alex Ziebart 
Aug 31st 2009 at 3:00PM
I hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday afternoon. I know I am! Well, actually, I don't know that. I'm writing this Sunday night, and I don't have a time machine powerful enough to show me what's happening tomorrow afternoon. Ideally, though? I'm having a wonderful time. Ask me tomorrow (which is today), and maybe I'll have a different answer.
Ryael asked...
"I was watching the BlizzCon feed online and there was a short interview with a man that was advertising how you could purchase a sizeable poster with one of our characters on it. Any idea what site that was from?"
That interview was most likely talking about PrintWarcraft, which isn't fully open to the public yet. They had a booth set up at BlizzCon, but I don't think any of us on on staff realized it was anything beyond regular ol' Warcraft posters. When I first saw it I just sort of went, "Oh, those look like the wallpapers from the official site. That's neat." And then I kept walking.
That was incredibly dumb, because it probably would have been very cool to show people! It looks like it's going to be a cheaper alternative to FigurePrints, if you don't want to shell out over $100 for a statue. Of course, I'm notoriously bad with posters. Anytime I buy one, I'm accidentally ripping it off the wall within a day or two and screwing up all of the corners. I've started making trips to Target for cheap frames anytime I buy a poster so I don't ruin the thing. For me, it will probably just be cheaper to shell out for the FigurePrints.
impurezero asked...
"Was the problem of accidental mislootings really large enough to warrant the new two-hour trade rule?"
I know you supplied some examples of your experiences under the new rule, but I snipped them to prevent that whole "Alex's answer is shorter than the question, wtf!" thing. For anybody interested, here's the direct link to his full comment.
From what I understand, the answer is a colossal yes. I'm not a GM and I've never been a GM, but from the bits and pieces I've heard and put together, a significant number of GM issues come from three sources: Players mislooting items, players buying the wrong items with badges/tokens, and hacked accounts. All three are essentially user error. They're not really bugs that the developers can patch out later, and they're not really things you can tackle in advance. The 2-hour rule handles those first two, and trying to make authenticators as available as possible tries to take care of that last one.
People will make mistakes, and I guess WoW players make a lot of mistakes. The only real 'fix' for that is giving players some power to handle their own mistakes. Sure, some people will abuse it, but it will give players a better experience overall.
Tess asked...
"When do we get a new Warlock columnist? I kept hoping to see a lock perspective on BlizzCon, but no luck. Can you give us an estimated date of arrival?"
We're going through the last stages of looking through the many applications right now, and our choice will be hearing from us pretty soon. Not soon as in today, but soon as in really freaking soon. After that, it depends on how quickly they fill out the necessary paperwork and fax it in.
Moepunk asked...
"Will anyone from WoW.com be at PAX this year?"
Our network will have a small presence, but WoW.com itself will not. That's something we're going to try to push for next year, though. We definitely want to try to go to more conventions. It all depends on what sort of presence Blizzard has at PAX, so we'll be keeping an eye on that this year. You guys can help us with that, too. If you see any awesome WoW stuff at PAX, tell us about it! If this year has a lot of great WoW material, that makes it much more likely that we'll try to go next year. If there's nothing at all, then it's probably something we'll need to leave to Joystiq and/or Massively.
BladedDingo asked...
"Since Trolls and Worgen can be druids, will we be getting brand spanking new Druid forms for them?"
Yes.
spamofchaz asked...
"Is there any hope that Blizzard will move BlizzCon to other cities? I understand their HQ is in SoCal, but I think they'd get a great boost by having it in, say Chicago one year, New York the next, then Dallas, etc. and letting folks who can't get to the left coast."
It would be very cool, but I suspect it would be incredibly difficult for them. A hefty amount of the BlizzCon staff is made up of Blizzard employees. Support staff, QA staff, that whole thing. If they held the convention elsewhere, they would either need to fly all of those people out to that other city (which would be ludicrously expensive) or hire locals to man the convention which would make the thing a whole lot less personal. Less Blizzardy and less friendly to everyone that actually gets to go to the convention. If I had to guess, the only other workable options would be Austin, Texas or holding another Worldwide Invitational in/around Paris.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW.com 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: Warlock, Analysis / Opinion, BlizzCon, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 7)
tonz0phun Aug 31st 2009 10:10PM
Arlington, TX
Why a suburb city of 2 larger cities (Fort Worth and Dallas)? I'll tell you why! The new Dallas Cowboys stadium! It's huge, and can hold a big event like Blizzcon.
JKWood Sep 1st 2009 6:17AM
@Ralod
Those of us in Missouri laugh at your implication that Indianapolis is anywhere near "central to the US".
Bob Sep 1st 2009 2:44PM
As long as we're having fun: How about Orgrimmar?
Poxus Aug 31st 2009 3:08PM
I feel for the new Warlock writer(s) for their first few posts...the people that play the class are very picky about what you claim can be done or how it should be done in any spec.
t0xic Aug 31st 2009 3:22PM
I have to agree. The wow.com staff should find the reader with the most troll posts and give him the job. Everyone's a critic.
Rhabella Aug 31st 2009 3:51PM
Or…Just post a video of the new columnist handing Christian Belt his arse in a dual and then a screenshot of the lock columnist beating Belt on a DPS meter for instant credibility. We are tough enough on the warlock writer as it is; it becomes doubly indigestible when we have to put up with all of that mage Belt’s charm and charisma.
Aelad Aug 31st 2009 3:18PM
Sorry if noob question, but why is Austin, TX a workable option? Because, that would rock (I live in Austin)!
t0xic Aug 31st 2009 3:23PM
They have a customer service center there. They may have other offices. I'm not sure, but they definitely have a presence.
Diello Aug 31st 2009 3:27PM
Blizzard has a large support center in Austin. Since the site is pretty much for customer service it's unlikely that they'd have a Blizzcon here, but they do send people to GDC Austin, which is cool.
Microtonal Aug 31st 2009 3:27PM
Blizzard has a customer service office here.
mtsadowski Aug 31st 2009 4:00PM
I for one applaud Blizzard for having an actual English-speaking customer service. My web host tech support is somewhere in Russia... hard to understand them.
RogueJedi86 Aug 31st 2009 4:26PM
Don't forget that almost every Western MMO company has a spot in Austin Texas. It's pretty much the MMO capital of the world(or at least the US). SOE, BioWare's MMO Studio, others that I don't keep track of, all based in the Austin/Houston area. Blizzard(Southern California) and Turbine(Boston Massachusetts) are the only big ones who aren't based out of that Texas area, and others have already confirmed that even Blizzard has its Customer Service there.
Orionus Aug 31st 2009 3:23PM
Yeah, the lock writer will have their work cut out for them once they start. Can't wait to start reading the column once it gets back track again.
I had one question not related to this and maybe it's been answered before. How come Blizzard has not adjusted the travel forms (Druid travel form & Shaman ghost wolf form) to scale with riding training? Once players hit lvl 40 and get their journeyman riding skill, they have to go buy a mount as their travel form becomes obsolete. If Blizzard would just scale the travel form speed with the riding level(kinda like the DK flight mount), i think we would see more ghost wolves and druid "travelforms" around.
Ian R. (Orkchop) Aug 31st 2009 3:27PM
This was asked in a Q&A at BlizzCon. They responded that Druids don't see their character and gear enough as it is. If they made travel forms as quick as mounts, they'd never see them. They didn't write it off completely though.
Ian R. (Orkchop) Aug 31st 2009 3:27PM
This was asked in a Q&A at BlizzCon. They responded that Druids don't see their character and gear enough as it is. If they made travel forms as quick as mounts, they'd never see them. They didn't write it off completely though.
Charlie Aug 31st 2009 3:32PM
Although its a bane to leveling, there reason is most likely for PvP reasons.
Since 1.5 seconds is an eternity in PvP, travel forms are very useful. Especially GW now that it reduces movement impairment, but even without it people used them all the time in arenas (even when mounts can be used)
PvP nails PvE again. XD
Scunosi Aug 31st 2009 3:45PM
While it's always cool in theory to think about being a 100% Ghost Wolf or the like, what a lot of people seem to forget is these forms are usable in combat and either are or can be instant-cast. For me as a Druid that'd be awesome, but there are quite a few other classes that would cry foul at the Shaman and Druid running across WSG with the flag at mount speed. Plus, it would mean those classes could save money by putting off their initial mount purchases.
Of course, people also suggest that the speed increase would work only out of comabt and that in-combat the speed would be reduced back to its usual speed, which kind of works I guess.
Cyrus Aug 31st 2009 3:50PM
"How come Blizzard has not adjusted the travel forms (Druid travel form & Shaman ghost wolf form) to scale with riding training?"
Why would they? Travel forms (and Aspect of the Pack) were never the same speed as a mount in the first place. They were always your top speed for just a few levels, and after that they were only good as instant- or quickly-cast speed buffs with a little more utility than being mounted. They already did lower the levels required for travel forms, but making the speed match mounted speed would be new, bizarre and unnecessary.
Also, I'm glad to hear Ian's explanation. My druid is mostly in T8, and T8 looks damn cool. Moons, vines... Probably the best or second-best looking druid set there is. But I only get to see it when (a) riding around, and (b) dancing in place while waiting for a raid to get together.
Nazgûl Aug 31st 2009 3:53PM
Travel Form and Ghost Wolf aren't supposed to be mounted speed. They are, at low levels, supposed to serve a travel purpose - but once the mount becomes available, they serve the purpose of escaping. Scaling it to mounted speed makes it an in-combat mount, which is overpowered.
Edge Aug 31st 2009 3:54PM
For one thing Shaman GW form would be OP with talents making it instant cast AND as fast as a mount. They also would get QQ from hunters with cheetah aspect being similar to travel forms.
Also the travel forms are not necessarily useless as they are very useful in PvP in their current form. Talented GW makes a good getaway and if it was faster nobody would be able to catch me ever.
I think also think the change letting Druids fly faster in flight form when they obtain a 310% mount is not very fair. They get instant casts and are able to loot from flight form so they should have to choose between going faster or getting those other benefits. It's not really fair that a Druid can farm nodes all day at the fastest speeds possible with no penalties for it.