The Queue: A plea for help
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!
Filed under: Enchanting, Analysis / Opinion, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue
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Reader Comments (Page 7 of 7)
gboyd Jan 8th 2010 10:25AM
You said it was against the ToC to use the music from the game in those videos. I'm wondering though, this WoW.com article says its not against the ToC to get the music from the game files: http://www.wow.com/2009/08/29/music-from-the-mpqs/
So, is it only illegal to use the music you get from those files, but not to listen to it on your own?
Nazgûl Jan 8th 2010 4:54PM
Yeah.
Just like it's not illegal to listen to music you purchased, but it is to distribute said music.
Massa Jan 8th 2010 10:31AM
I know we don't know anything about the next hero class (or any new class), but I was wondering if there was a way to mention ideas to the blizzard developers (other than an email to a random person where you will never know if it was even read)? I know people dislike the occulus, but I think the abilities of the green drake are actually quite interesting and different when compared to other healers (as far as I can tell--if anyone knows otherwise please let me know). The green drake seems to mix the Health/Mana bar management of a warlock with the healing ability of a shadow priest. I personally think that would be an extremely fun new healer style, give your own life to heal the tank, but actually be doing dps to regain your own life. Maybe even make another talent tree be a tanking tree (no dps tree required as we would start at a higher level) to help (at least somewhat) with the shortages of heals and tanks (I mean just look at how many DK's we have out there).
nlpure Jan 8th 2010 11:32AM
I finally got to do the Occulus yesterday after doing about a dozen heroics a day for the last 2 weeks. The first min a DPS dropped before we even started. One guy kept saying nice lets do this lots of emblems! Well 30 seconds later and we where a full team, and whent trough the Occulus in a breeze. It looked like I (DPS) and the tank knew exactly where to go (I done the instance a few times for the winter hat only, still I have no problems with the instance at all) The rest just followed. So we did not get much add's against us.
In the end we got the extra bag and in it where 2 extra emblems of triumph. So 4 emblems from the bosses, 2 for the random LFG tool + 2 in the bag. I hope to run it soon again!
Syme Jan 8th 2010 11:02AM
I've always thought that Talking Head's "Life During Wartime" from their _Fear of Music_ album would make a great background track for a WoW raiding video. Since I don't make them, it will likely never happen.
Hope Jan 8th 2010 11:15AM
I'm trying to find a good elemental shaman blog or guide. I'm actually raiding endgame right now, but I still have questions about gear, and I'm not comfortable with rawr. Any tips?
BGO Jan 8th 2010 11:13AM
can i buy authenticators in IRL stores? i live in a remote area and blizz dosent ship to PO Boxes. they also do not take debit cards for payments (but yet you can pay for wow with one)
Gulliver Jan 8th 2010 1:32PM
Have they announced or data mined season 8 glad gear and Wintergrasp Gear yet? I may be imagining things but I though we ususally knew what was coming right around the end of the last 2 seasons.
Vilandra Jan 8th 2010 2:21PM
Question:
Now that we have the new Dungeon Finder tool, we no longer have the "looking for group" queue for group quests that we used to have. This means when that 5 man group quest shows up in my log, I have remember to spam trade chat and general during all of my questing to hope to find a group before I finish questing in an area and move on. Is there any word of group quests being incorporated into the dungeon finder tool?
Anticrystal Jan 8th 2010 4:02PM
Thank you for so clearly articulating the problem with Oculus. People hate it, hate it, hate it. Got into a random heroic the other day (my first time there), and one of the party members said upon zoning in ... erm ... well, he wasn't pleased.
That first time, I followed everybody around without too much trouble. The second time, I got disoriented and separated, since people are moving on the drakes in three dimensions, not two, and managed to pull the boss and wipe the party. Yeah, n00bsauce. Embarrassing.
Aside from the lack of visual cues about where to go next, I kind of like it. It's different.
Ruhig Jan 8th 2010 6:02PM
Just how easy is it to level through battlegrounds / PVPing now? I'm half tempted to roll a "PVP only" character, just to try it out.
erignamatic Jan 8th 2010 7:24PM
A neat little trick I've noticed with the whole 'Enchant' option is that it doesn't take into consideration the fact that the enchanter might not even be in the same zone.
I found this out when I was waiting for my 25 ICC to start. I Direbrew remote'd to BRD to for target practice while the raid was still forming. Nobody had followed me in, and I'm no enchanter, yet the disenchant option was still usable for any loot that came out of the bosses in there.
So go, my fellow WoW brethren. Use this to your advantage until it gets inevitably hotfixed!
Tom Jan 9th 2010 6:20AM
Which works unless the other 4 people are rolling Disenchant on the item. Then you just have to rely on a 20% chance not to have your gear upgrades destroyed for no reason