Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Cho'gall is back in black
by Alex Ziebart 
Nov 17th 2009 at 2:00PM
On the last edition of The Queue written by yours truly, I included a mind-blowing video on how to properly eat chicken wings. Today, I bring you something equally as mind blowing. How to properly peel a banana. And now, on with the show.
Boombaclot asks...
"Do you believe that WoW has truly gotten easier or just maybe that the WoW community as a whole have become better players? Yes you have your scrubs but I know my WoW game has improved vastly since I started playing in Vanilla WoW."
Oh man, flamebait! My favorite! My opinion is that it's a little from column A, a little from column B. While there's still content in WoW that requires a significant amount of skill and dedication, most of the content is much easier than it was in The Burning Crusade (which I think was more difficult than vanilla WoW). On top of that, I do think that average skill level is higher now than it was in vanilla WoW. Players are better at multitasking with their abilities, they understand base mechanics better due to there being more reliable game resources out there, all of that sort of thing. So yes, the game is easier, but we're also better at it.
However, that doesn't mean there's no hard content in WoW. Absolutely not, because there is. The problem is that the hard content is incredibly gated and tucked away, and is made less intimidating by the fact you can do most of the hard stuff in 'easy mode' first. Anub'arak in Trial of the Grand Crusader is hard. Super hard. But if you can almost nap through the fight in the normal mode of the dungeon, the bite is taken away. Fights that are truly difficult in hard mode don't form a reputation for being hard, because they're ridiculously easy on normal mode. Everybody says, "Anub'arak is so easy!" when they really mean Anub'arak's normal mode is easy. Kind of silly. I'd like to see more of the hard content be like Algalon: Legitimately hard, no matter how you approach it.
Blizzard could certainly make the content as hard as they want, so player skill isn't going to make or break the difficulty of the game. But I think that the average skill level is higher now than it was two or three years ago, and it's something they take into consideration when designing encounters.
John asked...
"Any word on flying restrictions in Cataclysm, like Cold Weather Flying? Or will we be able to fly anywhere from 80?"
No word yet. At least, none that I can remember. This is a question you should write down and ask us again once the Cataclysm beta starts.
jtrain asked...
"Will there be a Shattrath/Dalaran equivalent in Cataclysm? I don't remember if they mentioned one or not. I have a long list of reasons why I'd love to go back to just using the home cities again, including lag, lag, lag, lore, lag, lag..."
We're going to be using our original, faction-specific capitals in Cataclysm. Orgrimmar/Undercity and Ironforge/Stormwind will be the big sexy hubs again. There will be neutral quest hubs, like Deepholme and all of that sort of thing, but the capital cities will be faction-specific again.
Nayr asked...
"So, now that the Queue is "Ask a Beta Tester", "Ask a Lore Nerd", and "Ask silly questions", is there anything else we need to know about? Will you be coming home late at night with lipstick on your collar?
Does Mrs. Queue need to be scared?
Please, Queue, think of the children!"
Never fear, Nayr! Ask a Beta Tester will be its own spiel when the Cataclysm beta kicks off... probably. Maybe. It depends on if they both have sustainable popularity or not, hopefully they do. Ask a Lore Nerd and The Queue have been folded in together because both columns were basically the same format, and suffered equally from community burnout on current content. It's really hard for us to answer pie-in-the-sky questions like, "Do you think Tirion Fordring will become the new Lich King and implement player housing in 2013?" We don't mind throwing a "Maybe!" at a question now and then, but it was getting a little crazy. So by combining the two, hopefully we'll have a better product in the end.
Ask a Beta Tester will probably (key word is probably) come back on its own for the Cataclsym beta, and go away again when it ends.
Slaytanic asked...
"It appears that the dominant bad-guy faction in Cataclysm will be the Twilight Hammer. I've seen a couple of these tribes in remote places, like northern Silithus or BFD, but never anything really extensive behind their origins. Is there any current quest lines I can do in-game to get caught up on this faction's lore?"
The Twilight's Hammer clan was originally a clan of orcs (and ogres) from Draenor, which had Cho'gall (the first ogre magi) as its chieftain. After the various "holy crap orcs are storming through the dark portal halp" wars, the Cho'gall dropped off the map and the clan evolved into something a bit... different. The Twilight's Hammer clan twisted into something of a cult, where people of all walks of life following Cho'gall's teachings and worshiped the Old Gods. This is why you'll find them wherever you find an Old God's taint, like Silithus, Blackfathom, Ulduar, and now all over the place in Cataclysm.
In the comic, Cho'gall is back in action and resurrecting C'Thun while mutating into some freak... thing. When Deathwing comes back, he's sort of going to be a herald of the Old Gods, so the Twilight's Hammer are going to be his pets, more or less.
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, Lore, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 5)
tom99k Nov 17th 2009 5:08PM
Basic Campfire, despite being favoured by the population for position of Warchief rumour has it the election is rigged, I just hope position of The Lich King works out for him.
Wolftech Nov 17th 2009 6:01PM
I think it will be Jania Proudmoore... which may be why Thrall steps down.
Corvana Nov 17th 2009 6:33PM
Leeroy Jenkins.
Banic Rhys Nov 18th 2009 2:58AM
It's ManKRIK not Mankirk.
L2Meme
mrandum Nov 17th 2009 2:29PM
HAHAHAHA!!
Alex said "Old God's taint"
John Nov 17th 2009 2:30PM
I think I probably know the answer to this myself, but I figure I'll ask anyway.
Has Blizzard stated any other fixes for Vanish? I know the fix they attempted on the 3.3 PTR didn't work out, have they stated that they're going to keep attempting to fix it before 3.3 drops on live servers?
Kaael Nov 17th 2009 2:34PM
Taint :P
Squeek Nov 17th 2009 2:33PM
With regards to "easy" content:
I do agree that Naxx is easy. Naxx is an entry-level raid. It was designed to be easy. I disagree that Ulduar is easy. Sure, the first 4-6 bosses are puggable, but good luck getting past that. The coordination required for a 25-man pug on Thorim, Freya, Mimiron, and Yogg will more than likely hinder your progress entirely.
But of course, I'm not just talking pugs. It's hard for guilds too. Even with full Naxx25 gear, Ulduar 10 was difficult. There was a mirth of misinformation out there, to begin with, and most of the fights received steady nerfs over time, and for good reason. It's still an intimidating place.
My guildies and I have been discussing this ever since we finished both Glory of the Ulduar Raider and Trial of the Grand Crusader. In our minds, we all agree that Ulduar was not a gear-check dungeon--it was solely a skill-check dungeon. Everything in there that gave us trouble on Normal gave us a ton of trouble on Hard mode, especially Mimiron. If you can do Firefighter in one try, I salute you.
As for Algalon, pointing to that and saying 'that's what it should be like!' is rather foolish. Algalon is an immensely cool fight, I agree, but it was designed to be a massive brick wall for hardcore raiders, and it still is. Since it still falls under the old rules of tank fights and not the icecrown rules, two unavoided hits in a row and you're pretty much a dead tank, even with healers doing nothing but spamming heals the entire time. That, coupled with the extremely strict enrage timer that makes no sense and the fact that you can only attempt him for an hour a week, make it a dumb fight. The actual mechanics of the fight are easier than firefighter or one-light. Set DPS on the stars, say when they collapse, set the raid healer on kiting constellations, don't stand in the void zones, taunt after x stacks, etc. It's all variations of things we've already done. No, the only hard part about Algalon is the enrage timer and keeping the tanks alive.
The same goes for Anub'arak, really. Val'kyr twins are legitimately difficult in hard mode, and it's a super fun fight. Anub is just designed to be a brick wall, again. Without a near-perfect raid composition (something unlike our old comp including three hunters in 10 man because we have far too many hunters), you don't stand a chance. Not to mention it's a huge gearcheck. That, coupled with the bad mechanics of a limited number of tries, makes it a fairly terrible dungeon.
But, I will agree that ToC is way too easy. We run a 10-man, an alt 10-man, and another alt 10-man every week, and then a friendpug 25 and an alt friendpug 25 on another day. I doubt that the same group of people in the 25s could go into Ulduar and clear it, though.
Wowinsider Nov 17th 2009 3:13PM
Someone give this man a medal. It's the first accurate, unbiased evaluation of Wrath raids I've ever read.
Serotonin Nov 17th 2009 9:35PM
Well said. I doubt that people complaining about WoW being too easy now have ever beat ToGC or received a tribute chest. They're also not pugs, because pugs fail on regular ToC 25 all the time - something inconceivable to a hardcore guild, who clears it up in 20-30 minutes.
The people who complain about WoW being too easy are just people who are either super super hardcore and want another Kil'Jaeden - a fight so hard that only a handful of guilds could have ever beaten it - or players whose guilds have never even attempted anything challenging. These guilds will run ToC, calling it a faceroll, but never attempt ToGC. The first group makes up like .1% of wow's population, and the second should be ignored.
Rhabella Nov 18th 2009 12:00PM
@Serotonin,
To be completely fair, I don't think I have heard or read, though I could be wrong, of any of the top guilds in the world complaining about the content being too hard. Many of them have even applauded Blizz for offering up levels of content in one tier.
The vast majority of the people who I think are complaining are the raiders who are on the cusp of hard modes and get smacked in the face with a major content patch who then have their "hard" work nullified with easy modes of a raid that offers better loot but requires less skill. Keep in mind, I'm not one of those people, but part of me does sympathize with them.
Great guilds with great raiders weren't left behind, and casuals weren't left behind. I think the group who has been left behind are the average-good TBC raiders who were actually working through content and weren't being sandwiched between incoming patches and their perceived audacity of casuals wearing their gear. Sadly, all that sympathy I had before is shattered by their incessant whining when they decide to QQ.
Coik Nov 17th 2009 3:07PM
Honestly, unless they completely block off access to Dalaran and Shattrah, I still see a lot of people setting their hearths there. Particularly with how spread out the initial raid content seems to be, people would stick to the neutral cities just for the portals unless Bliz added them to the racial capitals as well.
Gemini Nov 17th 2009 3:52PM
Deepholme will be the new hub. There won't be cities, per se, but there will be flying ships like in Icecrown, one for Horde and one for Alliance, that will have all the portals and stuff.
RogueJedi86 Nov 17th 2009 8:22PM
Considering that the Deathwing Scar will be literally just north of Stormwind, and have ports to the other relevant zones, I'm pretty sure the Alliance will stick to Stormwind. Hell, with epic flying Ironforge is really close to that spot west of Burning Steppes too. But SW will be almost touching it. Why stay in Dalaran to portal to SW and then fly to Deathwing Scar when you can just stay in SW and fly straight to Deathwing Scar?
Contegare Nov 17th 2009 3:13PM
I'm putting together a set of heirlooms for my now inevitable Goblin. I'm trying to be frugal with my badges, stone keepers shards, and Champion's Seals. I've gotten to the point where I need to choose a ranged weapon (just in case I decide to go hunter), and I need to know what weapon skills Goblins start with so I can choose between the heirloom gun from WG and the heirloom badge bow. I'd like for the little bugger to be able to hit the ground running without having to make a mad dash to a capital city like TB for weapon training. Can you help me out?
Maxilimus Nov 17th 2009 10:01PM
Considering their goblins, I would say go with gun for that reason.
BUT THE BOW LOOKS SO MUCH COOLER THAN THE GUN. The bow has a unique look, the gun looks like a random grey item
Tanglebones Nov 17th 2009 3:27PM
I have a question for the Q:
I've read that in 3.3 Blizz is making it possible to track uncompleted quests (for Loremaster) via addons. So my question is, are there any addons in the works that do this? Can you highlight it/them sometime before 3.3 goes live?
I really don't wanna scour the entirety of two continents for like 12 elusive quests.
paragorillabear Nov 17th 2009 3:19PM
I find it hard to imagine that Blizz would go to all the trouble to make flying possible in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms (They said it couldnt' be done!!!), use it as a selling point for Cataclysm, and then limit it to characters who are 84 or 85 or whatever.
I believe flying in Azeroth will be possible from 60 on.
I think there will be restrictions on some of the new zones, perhaps because the zone is mostly underground or underwater in some cases. Maybe certain zones will be so cracklin' full of elemental energies that flying won't be possible in them until 84 or 85 or whatever.
But to say that only the highest level characters can soar across the new Barrens and otherwise experience our changed lands? Nah, I doubt it. That would suck way too much.
Lute Nov 17th 2009 3:22PM
To actually answer the last question, there is a small questline for alliance in Darkshore:
http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=947
And most of the quests for BFD are good, although this Horde one seems to call it out the most:
http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=6564
Olicon Nov 17th 2009 3:24PM
I have an Illidan question.
So when you kill an actual demon, they sorta get sent back to the Twisting Nether, right? I guess you can kill 'em dead-dead, but it seems that this requires some special rituals. So if old Illidan is a demon.. is he just floating around out there?