The Queue: Too soon
by Alex Ziebart 
Sep 9th 2009 at 4:00PM
I'm going to kick this edition of The Queue off with a little request: Before you ask a Cataclysm question, ask yourself if it's something WoW.com will actually know about. We don't have the game in front of us (yet) so we probably can't tell you what gear has which stats or what quests have been removed or updated. We can certainly guess if you want us to, but right now we can't do much better than that.
Fedwick asked...
"Is there any word as far as who will be doing the Character Intro narration with the passing of Tony Jay?"
Tony Jay's replacement is Earl Boen, who has an eerily similar voice. He's already done voice work for The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King in his place. You old school gamers might also know him as LeChuck.
jorSbalZla asked...
"Is there a mobile compliant wow.com that I can't find a link to?"
You'll want to use i.wow.com for that sort of thing.
Maxpowr asked...
"With the Sunken City of Vashj'ir in the expansion and the potential for underwater instances, do you think Blizzard will make seal form (for Druids) the new "tank" form with new skins also?"
Probably not on the new tank form thing. Maybe for the new skin. They mentioned at BlizzCon that they're going to change the whole swimming function of Cataclysm, and underwater combat. You'll be able to 'touch down' on the ocean floor, and fight there just like you would on land. And then when you leave the ground, you can swim off. So a Druid will be able to swim to the ocean floor, shift to Bear Form, and do their thing as they normally would.
Squelchy asked...
"With Cataclysm, will such stats as attack power, armor penetration, etc. be removed from *existing* gear, like my tier 9 and presumed tier 10? Or will it just not appear on the new gear?"
Our understanding is that it'll be gone from all gear. Past, present and future. It's too early to say for sure, but that's our interpretation. We won't know until we see it.
LostOne asked...
"Is there a place to get full patch downloads to archive for an accelerated reinstall of WoW? For example: Install vanilla, do a single patch to get it ready for BC, install BC, do a single patch to get it ready for Wrath, install Wrath, do a single patch to 3.2 and then the small incrementals after?
The best I've seen is vanilla to 1.12 to 2.x to BC to 2.4 to 3.x to Wrath or something like that. But I'm pretty sure my BC disk says it requires 2.x so I have to patch up before installing that, and I'm assuming Wrath is the same way but I haven't had to reinstall that."
Unless I'm horribly mistaken, the Wrath of the Lich King install disc has the installer that can take you from no WoW to launch-state Wrath. Then you would just need to patch up for patch 3.1 and patch 3.2 from there. I believe the installer you can nab on the official site or off of Battle.net can do that for you, too. In just one click it will get you a current client.
Dalrint asked...
"Here's a question. Is it true that the violet proto-drake is no longer a 310% speed mount?"
As far as I know, no.
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: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
sliksix Sep 9th 2009 4:05PM
Regarding the underwater thing, blizzard has said they 'Dont want it to be annoying' to operate underwater. It will be interesting to see how they do this, whether its by giving us items with swim speed increases, or the ability to breathe underwater in certain areas, possibly delivered through 'airated water' or gills :P
It will be interesting to see, because currently for most classes, fighting underwater is annoying :)
Time Sep 9th 2009 4:22PM
I would like it if they increased the swim speed... that would be nice
B Sep 9th 2009 4:34PM
3 questions for the queue:
1. Doesn't it seem like the Horde is getting a lot more love, zone-wise, in Cataclysm? From what we we know so far, Orgrimmar is being razed and rebuilt, Undercity is being rebuilt to accommodate flying mounts. The Horde is taking over Southshore as well as Ashenvale. Barrens, a traditionally Horde zone, is being split in two, and Azshara is being re-purposed for low level Hordies. And what does the Alliance get? Worgen? I know they're pretty cool, but still.
2. Back in the Burning Crusade era, one of your columnists (I forget who) mentioned that he and his wife had a surefire money making scheme on the AH, using vendor-bought and easily obtainable materials, to make an obscene amount of gold, but he refused to reveal his secret. Now that the BC era is over, care to clue us in?
3. I love the mobile app, and use it every day. However, when an article is separated into multiple pages, every page after the first page leaves the mobile site and goes to the regular wow.com site, which comes with lots of loading and formatting issues. Is there any way that this can be addressed?
Hubuly Sep 9th 2009 4:46PM
alliance is getting things too theyre just not mentioning it like the alliance is burning down camp T in the barrens and building a tower
but then again its kind of expected for the horde to do more attacking if its true garrosh is taking over
Rastakitty Sep 9th 2009 4:47PM
We do know that at least Stormwind will be overhauled, but most capitals will need it since they have to support flying mounts.
I also took the new zones differently, I think they are replacement since the Horde will be losing half of the barrens. The barrens is huge and currently functions as the leveling zone for 3 of the Horde factions, they needed to re-purpose other zones for lost land. I am fairly confident the high level section of Barrens will be available to both faction so the status quo should be fairly equal.
tim Sep 9th 2009 5:18PM
@B,
I can address your 1. Back in beta, players complained that Blizzard spent comparatively less time developing Horde "starting areas" (including Orgrimmar). It was suggested that this be made-up at some point.
Seriously, compare the initial experience of an orc or a tauren to the starting experience of a human or even a dwarf (say, levels 1-29) and in terms of smoothness and seamlessness it just doesn't compare. There's a reason why so many Horde players rush their characters to the blood elf starting zone.
Valt Sep 9th 2009 5:29PM
"what does alliance get?"
Oh shush. Like dog park.. err.. worgen district isnt enough. You got loads and loads of stuff in Wotlk already. I know, I play both sides.
Oneiroi Sep 9th 2009 5:32PM
@tim
To be fair to the starting zones, all the new starting zones are so much better than the old ones (blood elf, draeni, and death knights)
jealouspirate Sep 9th 2009 4:10PM
I can confirm that the Wrath install disc includes everything but patch 3.1 and 3.2. I recently bought a new computer, put in my Wrath disc in and Vanilla and BC content were all there.
Jason P Sep 9th 2009 5:41PM
I too, recently bought a new computer, but downloaded the program from the World of Warcraft Website. Just clicked on the Wrath Download link.
Everything installed in like 1 hout to 1 1/2 hours.
Easy Peasy.
jason Sep 10th 2009 3:51AM
I lso got a new computer a few days ago and i had to get a new copy of the original WoW because i lost my other one, it seems recent copies of WoW include everything like you said with Wrath, because i didn't need to put in TBC or WotLK discs and only had to download 3.2 patch.
Sir Broose Sep 10th 2009 4:53PM
This is true. I found this out when Wrath first came out. I installed the update from the disc, and there was an immediate patch to load (remember that?). Problem was, my Mac kept locking up right at the end of the patch install. I fought with it for 3 days. I didn't have any other discs, because when I first joined during BC, I downloaded the game from Blizzard's site. So, I spent hours that first week of Wrath re-downloading the original files, trying to update them and repatch them. It was a bit frustrating (to say the least). Meanwhile, talking to my guildies on vent about how cool Northrend was - not that I could see it, grrrrr.
Once I finally got Blizzard on the phone (not an easy thing during the first 72 hours of a major expansion) the rep said, "you don't have to download the old files. Just erase everything and do a fresh install from the Wrath disc."
I said, "But is says right on the box that the 'vanilla' and BC are required to use this disc."
He explained, "You need to pay for those licenses, but the entire game, patched up until the release of 3.0 is on the DVD."
He was right. After a fresh install from the disc, the patch loaded just fine.
Goob Sep 9th 2009 4:06PM
Question for the Queue:
When will you get a warrior columnist who isn't just feeling his way around when it comes to protection and arms?
Sengir Sep 9th 2009 4:09PM
Probably around the same time that they find a warlock columnist that actually knows each warlock spec and posts more than once every two months.
Srslyyeswai Sep 9th 2009 4:14PM
I was just thinking the other day that with BRK gone, there is a big hole in the hunter community. The columnist that posts here... Scattered Shots... yah she doesn't post very often either. :(
Sadistic4 Sep 9th 2009 4:17PM
When the poster for "the light and how to swing it" posts something irrelevant to the up-coming patch.
yokumgang Sep 9th 2009 4:33PM
I'm a mage, and we have the best columnist ever.
Rastakitty Sep 9th 2009 4:41PM
Maybe when Allison Robert....
Oh wait never mind I love our Druid writer!
agnoster Sep 9th 2009 4:45PM
Whatchoo talkin' about? Rossi's been slamming faces in with shields since before most of us even knew protection wasn't just something your girlfriend keeps bugging you about...
Rhabella Sep 9th 2009 4:46PM
Goob, you're a noob!
You really don't like Rossi? I don't even play a warrior and I look forward to his Care and Feeding every week.