Patch 5.4 patch notes
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The latest patch 5.4 newsThe Queue: I want a siege tank IRL
by Alex Ziebart 
Feb 18th 2010 at 3:30PM
Today's edition of The Queue is brought to you by my bruised ego after a half-dozen rounds of crushing defeats in StarCraft II. Seriously? Twenty mutalisks in my base while I'm still trying to figure out where my dragoon buddies went? I hate everyone and everything. Yes, even you. Especially you, Taylor. You know who you are.
Tethra asked...
"Any idea when we're going to get our Olympics pets, other than 'soon'?"
We've heard absolutely nothing about Olympics pets this year besides a (probably) goofy comment in the last Twitter dev chat. There's no guarantee we'll even get one, so I wouldn't hold my breath. If it comes, fantastic. If not, what can you do? The Spirit of Competition pet was rather specific to the country that was hosting the Olympics that year, it was a Chinese dragon. We've seen no Canadian equivalent. Of the pet, I mean. Not a Canadian dragon.
If there is a pet, it will be something very generic, but since we haven't seen one yet... I don't think one exists this year.
Beruza asked...
"Will we ever get to kill Mal'Ganis? He keeps running from us whenever we try to kill him! And I'm kinda confused... does he work for the Lich King? Or did he used to before Arthas took over?"
Since I am neither a seer nor a fortune teller, I do not know if we'll kill Mal'ganis. I can talk about his allegiances, however. Mal'ganis does not work for the Lich King, he works for the Burning Legion. The Lich King was originally the Legion's creation, placed on Azeroth to weaken the mortal races for a Legion invasion. The Lich King betrayed the Legion, only sticking with them long enough for them to guide a champion (Arthas) to him.
As soon as he had the power to pull it off, he betrayed the Burning Legion. Mal'ganis was a jailor of sorts to the Lich King once upon a time, but now he wants him dead.
Valt asked...
"Is there an addon, external program or macro that would turn my keyboard into a 'turbo' controller? You know in NES times those turbo controllers where you could press button and it would 'spam it' in reality. I ask this because I'm leveling a druid as a tank and my finger is feeling numb already from spamming swipe for hours in dungeon. And is using that against ToS?"
There are no addons that will do this, but there is hardware that will do it, as well as software. They are against the Terms of Service, so I won't be naming or linking to anything. The general rule is one keystroke per action. If you're multiboxing, it's one keystroke per action per account. So a turbo button is a no-go. If you push one button and it's executing multiple actions until you tell it to stop, that's against the rules.
One of my druid friends has actually bound Swipe not to a number key, but rather the scroll wheel on their mouse. Instead of slamming their finger on their '1' key all day long, they just roll the wheel while doing other things. It's an option you may want to consider.
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 5 of 6)
JC_Icefox Feb 18th 2010 4:42PM
I'm unclear if David was actually trying to be mean in his post, but the lack of context makes it hard to interpret.
Regardless of that, the Arrogant Worms are a musical comedy troupe founded out of Ontario (I believe) with such 'hits' as alternate anthem Canada is Really Big And Carrot Juice is Murder.
Feel free to Google them, but be warned they are often credited with songs that they did not perform, such as Ontario Sucks (performed by Alberta group Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie). This has been your Northern Exposure Education Moment for the day.
Thus I -assume- Daniel is not trying to cause International Slander. Admittedly, a Jormungar pet would be phenomenal.
I personally vote for a mini Loon as well. Need more birds in here.
Question as well, which Tabard is this you speak of? I haven't seen or heard anyhing about it.
Colin Feb 18th 2010 4:50PM
The tabard was called something like the Competitor's Tabard and would be sent to your toon for participating in a Battleground during the Beijing Olympics. It sort of had an Olympic motif, but instead of the five rings it was a bunch of randomly coloured rings haphazardly thrown on (probably due to licensing). I really dislike the look of it, if you can't tell. In fact, I imagine that's why you never heard of it (ie nobody wants to put it on).
Colin Feb 18th 2010 4:51PM
Also, the Arrogant Worms are pretty awesome, I will agree.
TR Feb 18th 2010 4:53PM
Will the current "sanctuary" areas of Dalaran stay that way? According to Know Your Lore, Dalaran is currently serves as a beach head for Alliance and Horde forces against Malygos and the Lich King.
However comments I've seen from Blizzard say they have no plans for more capital cities, and cooperation between Alliance and Horde against a common foe goes away in Cataclysm as they vie for control over surviving areas of Azeroth. Shattrath remaining a sanctuary is a different situation as it's maintained by A'dal and the Sha'tar who aren't involved in Azeroth beyond the Shattared Sun Offensive.
So where does this leave Dalaran? There's already potential dance off drama between the Sindorei and the Kaldorei, so Cataclysm would turn Dalaran into a powder keg.
Any thoughts?
Darksky Feb 18th 2010 5:59PM
Actually, Dalaran is neither an Alliance nor Horde city, it is wholly managed by the neutral-as-the Swiss Kirin Tor. The Kirin Tor are, to my understanding, allowing the Horde & Alliance to take up residence there merely for the common defense against the Scourge and the Azure Dragonflight, both of which would very much like to see Dalaran kicked to the curb again.
Lorewise, I'm sure the Kirin Tor would continue to welcome the heroes who helped fight off both the Lich King's and Malygos' forces after the Northrend crusade has passed, but would maintain the sanctuary status & not tolerate any unpleasantness.
Sinthar Feb 19th 2010 8:16AM
As a mage, i would like to see the KT kick everyone back out of THEIR city they allow us to use, so only mages would once again grace their streets. Do i think its lightly - god no. How is anyone meant to lvl through Northrend if they change the status of it? Dalaran will remain where it is, for the forseeable future, in it current state.
Jason P Feb 18th 2010 5:05PM
The scroll wheel:
For my Rogues, it is stealth.
For my Mages, it is Frost Nova.
For my other toons, I havnt decided yet what to map there.
Anathemys Feb 18th 2010 6:10PM
"Mal'ganis was a jailor of sorts to the Lich King once upon a time, but now he wants him dead."
Well, glad to see he's happy...
BoomingEchoes Feb 18th 2010 6:14PM
Honestly the reason why they bothered to give the summer Olympic pet probably had less to do with the Olympics being in China then it was about Blizzard already having a bunch of pets specifically for china only that we'll almost never see in America. Giving us one for the Olympics was just an excuse to allow them to give it to every one else in the world without slighting the Chinese players.
Honestly that makes the fact that they haven't given us the opportunity at a Winter Olympics pet pretty sad, cause it just goes to show how much Blizzard wishes to cater to China rather then the rest of the world that's actually able to play its game currently.
And if any one watched the opening ceremonies of the winter Olympics it would have been very easy to see exactly what animal they should have picked to be the pet: The Bear.
Sure there's a few bear pets already, one even being a polar bear, but that's never stopped Blizzard from re-skinning things over and over (looking at you raptor pets). All they need to do is add tiny multicolored rings to the baby Blizzard bear and call it a day.. I just fear the only reason they wont do it is because they don't need to pander to Canada for support of their game.
(The honest next choice on my list would be a baby Wolf. Or a Moose -Just saying)
Nandini Feb 18th 2010 6:18PM
We have had the ability for a while to rate user comments up and down.
Question: When will we get the ability to rate blog authors' posts up and down?
You wouldn't have to actually display a tally of results on each post. (I wouldn't want this feature to become a tool for the public shaming of particular authors by completely anonymous individuals.) However, I often like to give my overall opinion of the writing and content of a post, and don't always have time to make a comment.
It seems like this could be valuable editorial feedback for your team, and I hope it can be implemented.
John Feb 18th 2010 6:31PM
To the people using the scroll wheel to keybind abilities: how are you using your camera? I use the middle click to keybind, but I need to zoom in/out so often I don't know how i could do without that on the wheel.
Valt Feb 18th 2010 6:49PM
Shift + mousewheel is also option
Jason Feb 18th 2010 6:35PM
I think that a great pet as a symbol of peace would be the Canadian dove... The beaver.
Papagana Feb 18th 2010 6:51PM
Why is the Lich King so freakin huge? It's still Arthas's body..... was someone feeding that boy growth hormones?
Kar Feb 18th 2010 11:53PM
I've noticed this elsewhere in WoW, at least in dungeons. While not quite as pronounced, check out Paletress or Eadric next time you're in ToC for an example. I assume it's mostly a practical concern of visibility- the enlarged mob stands out more from your teammates. There's also drama to be considered: a normal-sized or even kinda tall Arthas would have a tough time looming over a raid full of tauren and orcs, wouldn't he?
Drakkenfyre Feb 18th 2010 6:56PM
At one point in time, in Team Fortress 2, pistols fired as quickly as you could click the mouse. Some people bound "Mouse1" to the scroll wheel, and when selecting the pistol, just scrolled as fast as they could.
It was deemed an exploit, and eventually the firing rate of pistols was fixed.
Task Feb 18th 2010 7:13PM
Will any lore based items such as the Dragon Soul make it's way into Cataclysm, as a quest chain that will eventually lead to Deathwing?
Arkonn Feb 18th 2010 8:24PM
Question: Having just read War of the Ancients and Day of the Dragon in which the mighty D-wing plays a huge part in both and with the upcoming Cataclysm expansion featuring said trouble maker, do you think we'll also be seeing more from the other dragon flights? Particularly Ysera and her Emerald Dream.
Kar Feb 19th 2010 12:09AM
Opening up new Chambers of the Aspects could certainly provide this, ideally with a bit more lore or at least explanation given than we had with the Obsidian Sanctum. I'd guess we'll be dealing with some corruption of the Dream in the Emerald Sanctum, some arcane disturbances resulting from the Spell-Weaver's death in the Azure, and perhaps some conflict between bronzes and infinites in the Bronze (with perhaps some involvement of Nozdormu). The Ruby sanctum is harder to guess - perhaps a mission to put down Scourged red (or other) dragons, or something involving Grim Batol.
Zahira Feb 19th 2010 11:03PM
A Canadian Lynx pet would be awesome, just a bit bigger then the cats currently available and make them chase and kill critters like nightsabers and such. It's an endangered species and Canadian native, and could help raise awareness of the animals fight to survive, the note that comes with it could include information such as this ie. a note from presumably breani stating that this little lynx is one of the last of it's kind and could you please care for it or similar text.
Just a thought