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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: A plea for help
by Alex Ziebart 
Jan 7th 2010 at 8:00PM
Somewhere along the line, I've picked up this habit of discussing games I've been playing (besides WoW) as my introduction to The Queue. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's fun. Unfortunately, I'm currently playing Bayonetta and I'm not sure I can really talk about that one here. Just look it up on Youtube, you'll know what I'm talking about. Now before I shame myself any more, let's get to the Q&A.
Reuben asked...
"How does the disenchanting option work? I find that sometimes I can choose disenchant, and other times I can't. What determines the availability of that option?"
You need an enchanter of appropriate skill in your party to disenchant things. If you have no enchanter at all, you can't disenchant anything. If you have an enchanter that hasn't finished leveling the tradeskill, you might be able to disenchant greens but not blues or epics. If they have skilled it up high enough, you'll be able to disenchant anything that drops.
Many people asked...
"Why do people hate the Oculus so much? It's really easy since the nerfs, but people keep dropping group."
I don't think it has anything to do with the difficulty at all. The problem is that the Oculus is completely absent of tried-and-true methods of guiding players through a playing field. It isn't often that bosses wipe raids (besides Eregos), but rather the inability to keep your party going in one direction if someone that's never been there before decides to wander off by themself. They go in a different direction because they're not sure where they're supposed to go, they get jumped by drakes. They cry for help, everyone goes looking for them, people get split up and eventually the mobs pick them off one by one and everyone is falling to their doom.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Blizzard used some very basic visual cues as to where you're supposed to be going, this would not be a problem. Even in games where you're given the illusion of wide open exploration, there are cues guiding you in the direction the game thinks you should be going. The dragon GPS simply saying "kill all robots" is not helpful. The purple glow on the robots themselves? Also not helpful, since you begin this phase of the instance underneath all of those platforms. If you don't know ahead of time what you should be killing, there is nothing guiding you toward them. This isn't a problem in an instance where you're on the ground. In those cases, you go down a hallway or a path or whatever else. In Oculus, you're in a wide open area where you can move in any direction. Players need more direction.
Everyone has been in a group where that scenario I outlined at the beginning of this answer plays out. Nobody has fun in those runs. Some people have more patience for it than others. People with no patience for it drop group. I usually stick it out, but make it very clear that the group should follow whoever has a mark over their head. If they can't follow the person with the mark around when we're all on our drakes, that's a problem and we deal with it when it happens. But dropping group as soon as you get in wastes the time of too many people.
Velleekwitay asked...
"Why are most WoW videos, such as recordings of raids, on Youtube accompanied by bad music? Is there a rule against using the original soundtrack?"
There's no rule against using the original soundtrack, but it's pretty hard to get it out of the game files if you don't know how ahead of time (which actually is against the TOS, isn't it?). Plus, maybe those people like that so-called bad music and are perfectly happy with it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean nobody likes it. People who have watched my videos here on WoW.com know I like to stick to the game's soundtrack, but now and then I mix it up with some crazy jazz. Not everybody likes it, but I do. I made it, so that's what counts.
Ending with a question for you...
Hey, dear readers! In the near future (not this week, probably not next week) we're going to try to restart our ancient Pimp My Profile feature. If you haven't been reading us long enough to know about it, we essentially take "bad" armory profiles and help people fix them up. Poor gear choices? We'll help you fix that. Bad talent spec? We'll recommend better ones. Same thing with your glyphs, enchants, the whole deal. The problem is that this is a user driven feature dependent on submissions, so we can't start it until you give us something to work with. So if you want our expert opinions on how to fix your character, email us your armory link! Until we have a mailbox set up dedicated to this feature, send your armory submissions to alex @ wow . com, just remove the spaces. Please only submit your own characters, not some random schmuck you found in Ironforge.
In addition, give us as much information about your playstyle as possible. Are you a player that has time to run a single heroic per play period at most? Are you an aspiring raider? Do you have a ton of time on your hands to grind things out? They more you tell us, the more we can tailor our advice to you personally!
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: Enchanting, Analysis / Opinion, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 7)
Samutz Jan 8th 2010 10:35AM
The simple answer is Game Mechanics. Mechanic-wise, no gender has any advantage over another. And other than racials (that apply to all of that race, whether DK or not), elven DKs won't have any special advantages over other the DKs of the other races.
From a lore perspective, I believe banshees are created somewhat naturally when their living selves suffer horrible deaths and are considered dead/undead. DKs on the other hand are fallen soldiers chosen and brought back to life by the Lich king, and are considered to be living.
prenden2 Jan 7th 2010 9:25PM
Is Pimp My Profile the segue which finally bonds WoW.com to the Elitist Jerks mantra? Oh and GIEF more (or some) Aliena from Tankspot on the podcast... that would be awesome in a way that even Turpster, jumping a shark while wearing leather garments that he stole from combative bikers, could achieve.
Croe Jan 7th 2010 9:33PM
I should have mentioned, I've got the best gear I can get, know the fights and use the macros. However, even when standing still, best I can get as elemental shaman is 4900 dps, and that's with all the buffs in 25 man.
Of course, Warlocks are pure DPS, so hopefully they perform better than any shaman. :)
Oppel Jan 7th 2010 9:37PM
In Cataclysm do you think that the Blizz will redo certain professions so that you we can harvest from dead mobs be they plant, rock, or mechanical in the new Azeroth?
Al Jan 8th 2010 12:51AM
I thought Engineers could already strip-gear Mechnicals?
Samutz Jan 8th 2010 10:43AM
With the overhaul to Azeroth on the way, I don't see why they wouldn't do this. They're basically modernizing Azeroth's environment to catch up to new features added in TBC and WotLK, such as adding flying mounts and updating most (if not all) of the zones.
Cogswick Jan 7th 2010 10:00PM
Now that it's been explained, it makes sense. XD
I absolutely love the music
Raze Jan 7th 2010 9:59PM
Alex wins for jazz in the background of a WoW video. I clicked the link thinking you were being sarcastic.
I was very pleasantly surprised.
Ziberious Jan 7th 2010 11:04PM
Well, I hate it when I'm looking at a fine pvp video but it has crappy Linkin Park or friggin' screamo-death metal crap in it D:
WoWie Zowie Jan 7th 2010 11:05PM
so i was doing that quest on my horde toon where the tuskarr statue tells you to talk to the big fish on the cliff, and you have to jump off into the sea to complete it. and at the end the big fish tells you to instruct the tuskarr people to assist the forces against the scourge and against malygos. sooo what happened to the tuskarr? i didn't see them fighting against malygos or any blue dragonflight forces and i didn't see them fighting any scourge anywhere unless you count the sea viking people (they're not scourge, are they?). did they bail? were they put in a pug oculus and took the 15 min debuff?
Samutz Jan 8th 2010 10:52AM
They strike me as being more of a support ally than front lines soldiers. Plus they've been having to deal with wars with the various other races/species in Northrend, such as Gorlocs and Wolvar.
Darkshadow Jan 10th 2010 6:32PM
The Tuskarr all died in the Argent Tournament
Kylenne Jan 7th 2010 11:13PM
Sorry, but I'm dropping Oculus every single time. It has nothing to do with the difficulty of the instance, because it was never hard. It has everything to do with the crappy vehicle combat combined with vertical disorientation that frequently gives me vertigo to the point where I have to look away from the screen for a moment.
For some reason, flying mounts are perfectly fine and I've very rarely had issues with them, but stick me on the back of a drake in that instance and my cookies start lining up to get tossed.
I am not throwing up because people want badges, sorry.
Daniel Jan 7th 2010 11:29PM
You made a mistake on the Enchanting question. What you said is true as far as it goes but it doesn't go very far.
You cannot select disenchant on an item that cannot be disenchanted. That seems rather obvious but it's not always obvious what items can and cannot be disenchanted. If you are not an enchanter and you are not used to such things, you might not know, for example, that you cannot disenchant stuff like idols or scarbs in AQ40.
One of the things I think Blizzard could do to reduce confusion would be to simply not have the disenchant option display at all (rather than just be grayed out) if the item cannot be disenchanted.
Rinnova Jan 7th 2010 11:30PM
So I could understand being able to D/E greens but not blues when there's an enchanter of an appropriate level but why are we sometimes able to D/E blues but not greens? Several times I've run an instance and the greens had to be greeded throughout the instance but all the blues off the bosses, and trash, had the D/E option available. Should Blues>Greens in terms of similar level disenchanting?
Jawn Jan 8th 2010 3:47AM
That has to do with the enchanter's profession level. It's a quirk we have to deal with when DEing stuff on our own, too. It made me raise an eyebrow when i discovered this while leveling enchanting.
I guess it's just one of life's mysteries... like "Where the heck did the other sock go, dang it?!"
Newchron Jan 8th 2010 2:49PM
Sounds like an item level issue. Level 78-80 greens with higher item levels than a 76-78 blue.
rhesje Jan 8th 2010 1:30PM
After a bit of fiddling around, I think what is going on when you can D/E a iLevel 200 blue but not an iLevel 174 green is that A) you're Enchanter does not have the appropriate skill level to D/E iLevel 174 items (this is why you can't D/E the green). But also B) the iLevel 200 blue is a bind on pickup item and so the system allows it to be sharded even if the Chanter doesn't have the appropriate skill level.
The Greens are almost always BOE not BOP so the D/E option is not available on those items but because the only option on a BOP item is to sell it, blizz allows us to D/E it to make something useful out of it. Hope that makes sense.
Ilmyrn Jan 7th 2010 11:34PM
Are we ever going to see Ask a Faction Leader back? That was easily my favorite recurring column.
paradoxfactor Jan 7th 2010 11:52PM
Any indication that Blizzard is going to do the Spirit of Competition event again this year?
The Winter Olympics start next month after all, and the official description on the WoW site does mention it happening every two years.