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 it seems to be an outdated idea, and since many of their recent changes have been to speed the leveling process, it'd be nice to be leveling an alt and not have the rest bar go from blue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
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Reader Comments (Page 5 of 6)
lolwut Nov 6th 2009 1:25PM
I remember reading in an article that matchmaking will be based on the total gear that you have, presumably ilvl, so my question is how will blizzard prevent gear collecting to hang out with the elites of random dungeon system?
Lissanna Nov 6th 2009 3:20PM
I'm pretty sure a bigger problem will be people like me with level 60 gear "trophies" in my guild bank that I'd never actually equip pulling down my gear score...
Nat Nov 10th 2009 2:51PM
As a casual rep addict with little time for raids, I'd rather see MC stay in some form. Squeezing 20 full runs in before Cataclysm launch might be tricky :P
lad Nov 6th 2009 4:37PM
i wish they made a pre-sundering instance. wow is all about what happened after the 2nd war, i would really like to see illidan, malfurion and tyrande as lvl 1 noobs running around kalimdor. also there might be some light as to where the hell do trolls come from.
i mean, we have been killing trolls everywhere but outland(and even in bc we had ZA to deal with) but beside the empires and all that stuff we have no idea where they started.
there are proto drakes, proto humans, proto u name it.
am i suposed to understand that trolls where the "original" race from where all the others not counting gnomes and dwrafs come from?
Nordok Nov 6th 2009 2:50PM
If STV if getting a "major overhaul" what will happen to ZG? MORE IMPORTANTLY what will happen to me if I cannot farm the Zulian Tiger mount in time for cataclysm? Answer: I'll cry.
Seriously though, will the mount still be farmable?
Lissanna Nov 6th 2009 3:21PM
I don't think they ever talked about getting rid of old-world dungeons. I expect old-world dungeons to remain, even if the world around them is in trouble...
Jake Nov 6th 2009 2:54PM
A while ago it was mentioned about Blizzard temporary banning accounts if they found malicious software on your computer. The ban was reported to last for 24 hours, giving you a chance to fix it. My question is, do they give you a credit to your account if this happens?
lightningjynx Nov 6th 2009 3:07PM
Not to be a jerk, but I have two questions for you:
1. Why would they give you a credit, since it is basically your fault for having malicious software on your computer to begin with. Firewalls, anti-spyware and anti-virus software is available, some even for free now, so you should be protecting your computer.
2. If it's only for 24 hrs, doesn't that work out to like 50 cents? And that's if you pay monthly, if you subscribe for the cheaper fee per month that goes down. Of course I'm not figuring in how many hours you play monthly, but if you play for an average of more than 1 hour per day, than that amount would go down even more
Sylvantar Nov 6th 2009 2:59PM
There's a dwarf girl called Yarlyn Amberstill at Amberstill Ranch but I can't remember ever seeing a gnome child.
James Nov 6th 2009 3:08PM
Hey, how do you cap a mine in AV? Last time I ran through one, I didn't see any flags, but then again I had about 30 trolls whacking away at my Disc Priest.
Thanks!
Taladan Nov 6th 2009 4:29PM
Deep down in the mine, there is a "manager". You'll notice that it have a name, instead of the common "gnoll" or whatever.
Once you kill it, your forces flood the place, kill the remaining gnoll (or whatever) and the mine is captured.
Now, if you ask me how to summon the big elemental that whacks everyone in the other side... no idea. I saw some people trying to summon the horde elemental once, but I don't know how they did it.
jbodar Nov 7th 2009 6:23AM
Come on, does no one check WowWiki first? ;-p
http://www.wowwiki.com/Alterac_Valley#Ultimate_Unit
GTPowers Nov 6th 2009 3:11PM
I have a crafting/professions question.
I started my MMORPG ventures with Final Fantasy XI. It was a great game and one of the things I love the most was its emphasis on crafting and professions- some of the best gear could be had by your own (character's) hands. There was the ever possible "+1" chance when crafting that would grant higher stats for your crafted item-it was a rare and epic chance. My question- Has Blizzard's WoW team ever considered (or even open refused) implementing something like this into the crafting system? With the recent patterns available through Ulduar and ToC, players seem to finally have some worthwhile crafted gear for today's raiding. But wouldn't it kick butt to have an already epic item made even more epic? You know it would. Any thoughts?
Zidell Nov 6th 2009 3:28PM
You know what would be a fun quest, have to go to CoT and help Deathwing make the Demon Soul or something like that. I know it would seem evil on our parts, but imagine if we had to how much of an epic instance that would be. If not that, of course you'd go back to help the red dragonflight defeat Deathwing at Grim Batol. Mind you the latter one would probably seem the most obvious. Now here's a question I've always wanted to know about Deathwing since he's basically magma now if he were to spend a little too much time in the water would his body just turn into molten rock or is he suffering from a curse or some sort?
Taladan Nov 6th 2009 4:31PM
Consider for a moment that you kinda helped Mal'ganis mess with Arthas brain and gave him a running chance to go to Norhtrend in CoS...
Valt Nov 6th 2009 4:27PM
I heard they were gonna remove block value from cataclysm. Any specific info on it? Will block become avoidance stat or will the block value be out of gear and very strictly in control of the blizzard like any other stat they seem to want to be "in control"?
Taladan Nov 6th 2009 4:32PM
Defense rating is going away. I don't think they said anything about the block value.
Not to mention that Str increases your damage AND block value...
Valt Nov 6th 2009 5:22PM
Nvm.. I found blue post that
"Block: Block Value is being removed. Blocking will now always mitigate a percentage of damage."
So I guess they are making it "in our strict control" stat just like all stats they will remove from gear but keep in stat screens.. *shrug* oh well I guess something like 25% is better than 2k block from 40k hit.
Angus Nov 6th 2009 5:39PM
I'm glad you realize Rossi would break you in half.
My wife comment about Wolverine and made purring noises.
ugh.
Matthew Rossi Nov 7th 2009 12:05PM
Please convey my intense, Logan-esque blushing to your wife. MY wife is still laughing at me.