The Queue: The grand melee
by Michael Sacco 
Dec 18th 2009 at 8:00PM
For no discernable reason, the WoW.com Twitter account is asking who would win in a three-way grand melee between the Queue writers -- Alex Ziebart, Adam Holisky, and me, the inimitable Mike Sacco. Whoever wins has to face Matthew Rossi in single combat, which, of course, means that they lose. So whoever wins, Rossi wins.
Before we all fall to the cruel burly forearms of Rossi, though, we can probably answer some reader questions. Or at least I can, given that it's my day to do it.
Edge asked...
When a cross realm group wipes and has to get back to the instance from outside, which version of the "outside" are we in? What I mean is, outside the instance, are we all together on one of the servers, or does each person go back out to their own servers "outside" area, and then come back into the same instance? Or is this a whole new area just for these 5 particular people?
When you zone out of a cross-realm instance, the "outside" is your particular realm.
Mr Shinra asked...
This probably is a bit presumptuous to ask at this point in time, but the 5-level question has me wondering: Since Deathwing's been built up to be all big bad and with a very high power level (+9k), what are the estimated chances that the (eventual) fight against him, will be a return to the old-style 40-person raids that the game hasn't seen since the days of Ahn'Qiraj?
Considering that the mere act of him ENTERING THE WORLD caused half the world to explode, I don't think 25 people will be enough; and that's assuming he would fight a bunch of tiny mortal insects (from his point of view) alone.
Blizzard recently stated that there would likely never be a return to the 40-man style of raiding, and I for one sincerely appreciate that. 40-man raids were just like 25-man raids except 15 people weren't pulling their weight.
At least in my opinion, and in Blizzard's, it doesn't matter how many people are participating in the encounter so long as the "epic" feel is still there.
Metatron asked...
Are there any plans of expanding the WoW enterprise to other consoles such as Playstation, X-Box. I've heard that Warcraft 2 was made avaiable for PS, but I don't think any other Warcraft game had it. If there aren't any plans like this is there any particular reason Blizzard doesn't want to move into this lucrative market?
Blizzard's console division, which was working on StarCraft: Ghost, closed down back when I first started working there -- 2006 -- and every interview since then has stated that their particular development model doesn't lend itself well to console games. Thus, they're unlikely to ever produce for consoles.
Can you imagine the headaches involved with trying to get an emergency maintenance patch for WoW over XBox Live? It took something like two months for a patch to get deployed that fixed a crippling bug with Castle Crashers.
Sead asked...
Does the "Raid Browser" Tool work in the same way the new Dungeon Finder Tool work? i.e. can you port into the raid directly?
Nope, the Raid Browser is just a browser. It's a retooled version of the old LFG pane. It doesn't assemble groups or allow porting.
Daniel asked...
Since Cataclysm was announced, one new feature has stood out to me, the Path of the Titan, basically a glyph system on top of the existing one from what I can tell. What I was wondering is, will it focus more on class skills like increased crit damage on a warrior's MS, or more passive bonus like increased overall damage by 2%?
It'll give broad, class-unspecific bonuses. Examples are -5% bleed damage taken, +10% bandage healing, +1% haste, etc. You won't see any damage increases for Fireball or anything like that.
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!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
atlanna1 Dec 18th 2009 8:06PM
Wow! Page 1....
Do you think Blizz will ever introduce last names to characters so as to open up more potential naming combinations?
Jarek Dec 18th 2009 8:16PM
that would be pretty cool, back when Everquest was the in thing and they allwoed surnames, that wqas pretty cool, maybe it could be like in place of a title.
PvtDeth Dec 18th 2009 8:31PM
They've stated more than once that's something they're interested in doing. I expect they will, no idea when though. It will probably come at us out of the blue one day.
Aldarion Dec 18th 2009 9:01PM
Everyone can be Jenkins. What more do you need?
Qot Dec 19th 2009 1:39AM
@Aldarion
Manastorm. There needs to be a Manastorm last name available for all gnome mages.
I actually have a toon named "Thrillhouse" sitting ready to go if they ever introduce that last name as an achievement.
atlanna1 Dec 19th 2009 6:36AM
well if they were to follow my line of thinking then you would get one surname per realm and all of your toons would share that surname. Say you chose Bloggs as your realm surname.. your mage would be called Magic Bloggs, your Pally would be called Holy Bloggs, your Rogue would be caled Stabby Bloggs etc. od for things like the Jenkins title, it would simply be hyphenated. your mage would be called Magic Jenkins-Bloggs as an example (damn my made up names REALLY suck...)
Merinna Dec 19th 2009 6:56AM
I have always wanted to put the surname "McWinklestein" onto a dwarf char. Then I would have Drinky McWinklestein :D
Eddy Dec 19th 2009 12:45PM
@Atlanna1- Then, for us roleplayers, all our toons have to be family members? Even our characters of other races? I hate that idea even more than the lack of last names. (Then again, most people I know that really need last names use a mod like MyRoleplay.)
atlanna1 Dec 20th 2009 6:35AM
no only for the one faction... you'd get a different name for the oppposing one. it just seemed like a simpler solution from Blizz's POV. of course individual character last names would work too.
Eastland23 Dec 22nd 2009 1:03PM
@atlanna1: I liked the idea until I came up with "Magic Champion of the Frozen Wastes-Bloggs" lol. There seems to be two types of titles currently, one that acts more of a nickname/surname, and one that is an actual title (i.e. Jenkins & Hand of A'dal, respectively). There are also the titles that fall before a name, such as Elder or any of the PvP rankings.
I'm totally in favor of last names. Maybe titles would need a little work so they would play nicely together.
:D
Zilar Dec 18th 2009 8:10PM
Then why, when I zone out of a cross-realm instance, can I see rest of my cross-realm party members flying back to the istance entrance if it is the "outside" of my particular realm?
Banthis Dec 18th 2009 8:26PM
I think you misunderstood the response. You're still in the instance server, where all of you are, which is why you can see everyone else's ghost as you run back in.
PvtDeth Dec 18th 2009 8:36PM
You're not still in the instance server. If you did a regular, non-dungeon finder group, you transfer back and forth between your home realm and the instance server every time you cross through the portal. With the new system, the same thing happens. The only difference is that the different people are transferring back and forth between the same instance server and separate open world servers.
Not much different from the old way. One realm is (suspected to be) made up of different physical servers. One each for Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland and BC starter zones, and Northrend. In a sense, before we ever started playing cross-realm, we were already playing cross-server.
TR Dec 18th 2009 8:43PM
@Zilar
I've noticed this as well: That I can see the ghosts of my party members flying/running back with me from the graveyard to the instance including their names with the (*) on the end showing they were from a different realm. However, if we tp out of the dungeon to the same zone to repair, etc., I can see their colored dot on the minimap showing them as right next to me, but they aren't there. I cast Invis once to see if that made a difference (since it's similar to the death FX), but they weren't there. When there's PUG member from my realm we've both seen the same thing. It makes sense since all the zone maps are the same regardless of realm.
The only wipes I think I've been in were in the new IC instances, and considering how easy everyone was getting lost trying to find the entrance again, maybe they're allowing people to see each other's ghosts so we can be "spirit guides" to each other. lol
Pemberton Dec 18th 2009 9:11PM
I think of them as phased to another ghost world - sort of like if you go to Icecrown with someone who hasn't been there before.
Of course they're not phased, just a point showing where they are on their own server.
JKWood Dec 19th 2009 11:33AM
As long as you don't drop group, you are also able to continue chatting cross-realm with your party, no matter where you are. So, you're not prohibited from zoning out to buy ammo or repair armor, for instance (though if you were with me, you'd have Jeeves to solve that problem.)
That said, I don't know that Jeeves works cross-realm. I can vouch for the fact that anyone can use my mage's portals from inside the instance.
Dienekes Dec 19th 2009 2:21PM
I can also note that in instances where one can mount up, cross-realm party members can make use of the vendors on my Traveler's Tundra Mammoth.
I, too, have noticed that the area between the graveyard and the instance portal seems to be a special place for cross-realm groups, which we all share. I also feel like releasing and zoning in from a wisp seem faster, almost as if that part of the world is instanced right along with the dungeon itself for the cross-realm group...
Mr Shinra Dec 18th 2009 8:08PM
Well, looks like everyone is in agreement that the 40-man raids was just excessive, and I'm fine with that. I just figured 40 people would contribute to the 'epic feel :)
Thanks for answering!
Colin Dec 18th 2009 8:10PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't FFXI avoid the Xbox Live system for precisely that reason? I believe that it ran outside of Xbox Live and you could play it without having a Gold account.
I still agree, WoW would be difficult and not very fun on a console.
Avan Dec 18th 2009 8:15PM
Most specs only use what, 5 buttons for their rotation? Less if you can macro a cast sequence properly? Plenty of empty buttons on a controller for that.
Both the 360 and PS3 can support keyboards, too. So that's always an option.