The Queue: I demand a recount

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. Michael Sacco will be your host today.
I'll be taking over The Queue periodically for Alex and Adam, and thus I've been given this soapbox. Well, guess what! I'm usin' it.
I demand a recount on the alleged outcome of the Rossi vs. Sacco arm-wrestling match. I don't know where the results came from, but I bet if we looked in Adam's basement, we'd find a Diebold machine that "fell off the back of a truck." Rossi may have the burly chest and body hair that give him the makings of a champion, but I've got really good hair and I can guarantee that one look at me and Rossi would give up the ghost right there. Unless we're playing by standard rules, in which case he would literally murder me.
And now, reader questions.
Sean asked...
"A question about the new Random Dungeon feature. Let's say you sign up for the first random dungeon of the morning, and you get a place that you just can't stand. (Think OK or Occ) If you bail on the dungeon, then wait out the Deserter debuff, have you messed up your shot at the Frost Emblems for the day?"
We've had a lot of questions about the new Dungeon System lately, which is good, because it shows that people are (at least) interested in it and (at most) excited about it. To answer your question, you don't miss your opportunity to get your Emblems of Frost if your first random dungeon of the day goes down the toilet. You get your Emblems upon successful completion of your first random dungeon of the day.
Tyler asked...
"O read that the wyrmrest accord will have some involvement in the new zone, twilight highlands....i would think the wyrmrest accord would be all over the place in the next expansion. they are somewhat prominent in WoTlk and malygos isn't the main villian. the main villain of cataclysm will be D-Wing himself. i would think they'd be everywhere. your thoughts?"
I haven't heard anything from Blizzard intimating that the Wyrmrest Accord faction itself will be making a return, and following patterns from previous expansions, there's almost no chance that an obselete faction will be reintroduced. What you can probably expect is a new dragon faction similar in name or function to the Wyrmrest Accord, a la Cenarion Expedition or Argent Crusade.
Lidstrom asked...
"Any chance Blizz will get rid of the rest bar? it seems to be an outdated idea, and since many of their recent changes have been to speed the leveling process, it'd be nice to be leveling an alt and not have the rest bar go from blue to purple and slow down the process."
The rest bar is simply your reward for taking a break for a while. It's not meant to be something that's there all the time, unlike the baked-in 30% cut for experience necessary in Outland, for instance. While there certainly have been lots of ways that Blizzard has handed out to help you level alts or help you decrease the time you spend in old content, those are all separate entities built to function differently than the rest bar. I don't see it going away, and for one big reason -- if a player logs in and sees that their alt has a full rest bar, there's a pretty good chance that they'll say to themselves "Oh, neat, maybe I'll level for a while. I'll get double experience, after all."
It's a pretty neat psychological mechanism, and it works.
Mort asked...
"When Cataclysm hits, will Blackwing lair and Molten Core stay raidable as level 60 instances? I've been planning to roll a Tauren Paladin , and I'm really hoping I can get a hold of a Judgement set for him for the sake of RP and pure awesome. Have we heard anything about the fate of the Vanilla raids once Cataclysm hits? Are they going to remain standing, or are they only going to be a nostalgic memory once 4.0 hits?"
Blackwing Lair was actually shown in some shots at BlizzCon, but only the bit that you could feasibly fly up to if you were able to fly in Azeroth proper. It's the entrance to one of the raid instances, actually. But since they said specifically that the non-instanced portion would be the place with the raid portal, I'm led to believe that the 60 raid isn't going away.
That said, Nefarian is honest-to-God back and alive somehow for Cataclysm, unlike his sister, so it's possible they'll change Blackwing Lair in some way. But we won't know until Blizzard tells us.
As for Molten Core, I mean, I understand you want some old gear, but man. Why would you willingly go into that place, almost five years later? It's awful.
Shade asked...
"Is there a map out there, somewhere, of what Azeroth looked like BEFORE the Sundering? I searched high and low for an official one, but I came up completely empty on that front and I ended up just cobbling one together for use in my blog."
Nope, unfortunately, the oldest map of Azeroth that exists is the world map for the venerable original Warcraft game. If we ever get some crazy Caverns of Time expansion that takes us to pre-Sundering Kalimdor, though, I'm sure they'll give us a fleshed-out map for it.
Filed under: The Queue






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
John Nov 6th 2009 11:07AM
"...it'd be nice to be leveling an alt and not have the rest bar go from blue to purple and slow down the process."
The logical failure here isn't that the bar is slowing down - the bar was sped up and is now returning to "normal".
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I HOPE THEY NEVER GET RID OF RESTED XP! Why would you complain about faster leveling? It's so awesome to log back into an alt and have that little boost. Or, to rotate playing alts so they get their max 7 days rest.
lidstrom Nov 6th 2009 11:26AM
good lord, i wasn't complaining about the 200% boost in the rest bar. i was asking why don't they KEEP it at that all the time instead of having it drop to 100% after a time.
read the entire question where i mentioned how bliz has done plenty to speed up leveling. considering they implemented so many ways of increasing the leveling experience, it seems logical to merely keep the bar at the 200% level instead of dropping it to 100%.
i've always understood the logic behind having the rest bar boost as a reward for "resting", but if bliz is so eager to enable players to level their characters faster, they might as well keep the exp gains at the high level all-time.
Nizari Nov 6th 2009 11:29AM
I think what Sean was implying is that they should get rid of rested XP and make normal XP give the same gains that rested did.
Nizari Nov 6th 2009 11:30AM
blargh, lidstrom, not Sean. (WTB edit button)
Phaed Nov 6th 2009 11:36AM
Its actually a max of ten days worth of rest while in an inn.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Rest
See 3rd PP.
lazymangaka Nov 6th 2009 12:10PM
@listrom
If they got rid of rested XP and just made the normal XP at 200% gains, wouldn't that make 200% the new 100%? It'd be faster, sure, but you'd still have a depressingly purple XP bar.
tatsumasa Nov 6th 2009 12:24PM
thank you lazymangaka. people are given a reward and then when that reward isn't there they feel punished. hullo? it was a reward, meaning above and beyond the normal. that doesn't make normal punishment. i think lidstrom still does not realize this. and @lidstrom, how would you implement the 200% compared to 100%? if everyone got 200% all the time, it wouldn't be 200% would it?
cendrekai Nov 6th 2009 1:31PM
Also, the rested bar can encourage players to stop playing for a while to build up the rested experience. Stop playing and you know....go outside.
pwherman Nov 6th 2009 2:03PM
What is this ... "Outside" that you speak of? Is it near Outlands? How do I go to there?
Evelinda Nov 6th 2009 9:56PM
its the side of outland... just go to the edge of any of the zones and jump off, you'll get there eventually
VrakeBrae Nov 7th 2009 10:11PM
A little correction, the rested experiance is at 150%, not 200%.
1038+519 ≠ 200% of 1038
The tooltip lies!
Valt Nov 6th 2009 11:10AM
BWL will be the naxx/kara of the cataclysm mark my words.
I guess thats good too, its amazing raid.. but they said the same from naxx. Then again I cant say how naxx was at 60 but Ive been doing BWL for quite while now and I must say its awesome. They better keep respect for it, afterall it was last dungeons desinged by old dungeon team..
Eternauta Nov 6th 2009 12:02PM
I read somewhere that Nefarian was coming back for Cataclysm, therefore I think we will see lvl 85 Blackwing Lair in Cataclysm.
I'm not sure though.
Rhabella Nov 6th 2009 12:28PM
I actually wouldn’t be opposed to such an idea, but given the information they gave about launch raids for Cataclysm, I doubt this is true. It would be nice if it was done in conjunction with all the launch raids they talked about at Blizzcon, but then doesn’t a certain tier of gear become saturated?
So here is my question…
Will the launch raids be tiered like in TBC or will they equate to all being a similar gear level with a perk like the end of Naxx or Maly? I don’t know that Blizzard said anything at Blizzcon about this, but I could have just missed it. Even with their admission of mistakes hard mode gear, the nerd rages that Wrath should have been launched with something other than Naxx, and the clues they weren’t exactly happy with the way ToC worked out Blizzard has a lot of positive avenues available to them with launching Cataclysm, I am just curious which ones they take.
CDave Nov 6th 2009 11:14AM
Personally I think BWL is one of the better raids in all of WoW. It has some of the best encounter designs as well. I loved that place.
Xaverius Nov 6th 2009 11:14AM
Am I having deja vu or were the questions about random LFG + emblem concerns and wyrmrest accord in cataclysm questions answered in the queue already?
Rob Nov 6th 2009 11:16AM
I honestly wish they would add more levels to the rested XP. 3 levels would be good. I sit on alts for a while, and especially at low levels they just burn through rested XP so quickly. I think they will need to further shrink the 1-60 grind, and the 70-80 grind. When they nerfed outlands it feels about right to me now, we're going through about 3 zones to get through it. It is unfortunate that they are totally excluding the 70 zones (netherstorm/SMV) by giving about half the XP as the early NR zones. It would be nice if they actually went back and bumped the XP of quests from 68-70 (but I won't hold my breath). I think the point is to allow more flexibility and ease of leveling. They do a good job so far, but most of us have several 80s and did pretty much all incarnations of the current zones.
Lilithsblood Nov 6th 2009 12:18PM
They are shrinking the experience you gain again in Cataclysm. They said at blizzcon that no matter what the highest level is they have, they want the level 1 to level cap to be the same as the original 1-60. So in Cataclysm, not only will 70-80 Northrend get an exp boost but so will 1-70 as well.
Which besides the obvious need to keep leveling a character fro 1-85 not take FOREVER.. it also great from a development standpoint because when they remake the entire world in Cataclysm, they will make loads of new quests but probably only the same amount, and not a ton extra like in Northrend, of course you won't know the difference because you'll be leveling faster. (if that was confusing read below)
Example:
Azeroth average quest amount per area: 10
Outland average quest amount per area: 13
Northrend average quest amount per area: 15
After Cataclysm Azeroth average quest amount per area: 10
Basically, I think that since its a new expansion Blizzard would greatly increase the number of quests per area, BUT because of the leveling curve they won't have to so much, so that the amount of quests will generally be the same. If it makes sense. I could be completely wrong. And those numbers are just an example btw.
We need an abbreviation for Cataclysm for the love of God! CC? Cata? clysm. ism?
Fornozo Nov 6th 2009 12:19PM
I got 1 and I've been playing since aug 05, am I "most of us"?
tom99k Nov 6th 2009 11:20AM
A pre-sundering CoT instance... yes please!