The Queue: In which Adam will surely get some QQ for his answer
by Adam Holisky 
Apr 5th 2010 at 11:00AM
One of the things about writing is that when someone asks "Do you think ...?", I get to give my opinion, and sometimes that opinion gets me in "trouble," for lack of a better word. Not in trouble with the site, mind you, but in trouble with people who disagree with me. As long as writers' opinions are well thought-out, we don't mind publishing them.
People who love twinking to just roll over characters in lesser gear? Yeah... read on. /duck
Kae asked...
"Do you think that Blizzard will ever remove 'locked experience' battlegrounds for twinks?"
Honestly? No.
Think of it this way: What is twinking? It's a way for players to super-gear up a low-level character and then completely demolish characters of the same level, even when the weaker-geared character has the same or grater level of skill. What the locked experience battlegrounds do is force those players who want to twink their character like that and sit at one level the entire time to face off against other players who have the same intention, rather than just killing other players in two shots, ruining their battleground experience. After all, a twink is there to play their character to maximum possible skill and not just to roll over other players who don't care about maxing out gear every nine levels, right? (And if your answer is no, then you're probably out of luck, because Blizzard doesn't think a game where players are able to instantly destroy other players is very fun. I tend to agree with them.)
Fundamentally, this comes down to the question of which is more important: gear or skill? In the first three and a half years of WoW's life, the answer was gear. This led to crazy things like people spending thousands of hours grinding to high PvP ranks without ever having any real skill (other than being able to sit on one's ass in front of a computer). And while your butt cheeks might have reached the epic level/size of 42, in actuality, you didn't really accomplish much. (Side note: I know people who had skill to go along with the gear, too, but I'm speaking in general terms.)
In Wrath, however, the focus has shifted more towards a skill-based game. While some may argue that the skill level is substantially decreased from what it was during BC (and they might be correct), no one can argue that gear matters anymore. Anyone can grind and get a 5,000 GearScore, fully geared in 232 gear, just by running heroics. You're not going to get in and stay in a raiding guild on gear alone; you'll need to show some skill along the way.
To me, this is a very big shift in the direction of the game -- a shift that's led to the game's life being extended significantly. If something just sits and doesn't change, people become uninterested and move on. But a game that's moved from gear-based to skill-based and then constantly changes what skills matter? That's a very smart way to keep a large number of players engaged for the next five years.
So will Blizzard ever again allow ultra-geared twink characters to roll over lesser-geared but potentially higher-skilled characters of the same level? I'd bet a trip to BlizzCon the answer is no.
Paul asked...
"How come Dalaran Lags so much? I mean, really its quite a ghost town. I never see anyone else there at all. In fact, when Im mounted, I sometimes dont even see myself ..."
It's normal after turning on the blue EPEEN meter. If you don't start seeing people again after four hours, consult a physician -- you may have a serious medical problem.
Oshaka asked...
"Can I buy cold weather flying and than send it to a friend to use?"
No, the book can only be transferred to alts on your account on the same server.
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: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
Hakker Apr 5th 2010 11:06AM
First I have a question about battlenet. If I get banned from world of warcraft on one account, will I still be able to access my other linked games or accounts?
Eyhk Apr 5th 2010 11:15AM
Currently, yes. Bans still occur on a World of Warcraft account basis, not a battle.net account basis.
scuba frog Apr 5th 2010 12:57PM
"FIRST I have a question about battlenet."
i c wut u did thar
Superthrust Apr 5th 2010 3:13PM
i dont think he meant it to be a "FIRST!!11ELEVEN!12" post, but was actually saying, First and Foremost.
Otherwise, if that wasn't the case, shame on you, firsty.
Edge Apr 5th 2010 3:41PM
It was OBVIOUSLY a ploy to get first in there because when you use the word "first" at the beginning of a sentence you are emphasizing that there are further points or questions to get across ofter this one. The OP only wrote ONE question so there was no need for having "first" in there.
(cutaia) Apr 5th 2010 3:49PM
First of all, Edge is technically correct that starting a sentence that way doesn't make much sense unless you plan to make a second point.
Nazgûl Apr 5th 2010 11:08AM
No flame here, excellent answer that I fully agree with.
Dave Apr 5th 2010 11:09AM
Blizzard called the twinks bluff, and now they can't say shit! I love it.
"But but my BGs are empty!"
Because you were one of like 15 dudes that actually liked twinking for the "challenge." The rest just talked shit because they love to ROFLSTOMP undergeared/unprepared players.
Holgar Apr 5th 2010 11:32AM
I have to say it is poetic justice. I remember back a year or two ago how many twinks were expounding on the glories of twinking and INSISTING that it had NOTHING to do will being able to steamroll lowbies and EVERYTHING to do with skill/community/challange/balance and all that kind of good wholesome stuff.
I haven't seen anyone advertizing a twink guild or buying dungeon runs for a twink for almost three months now.
Bronwyn Apr 5th 2010 11:42AM
I guess I'm one of the "15 dudes who liked twinking for the 'challenge'" because I think it freaking SUCKS that I can't get a BG queue. And honestly I really hate it when people act like twinks are some kind of horrible human being/player because they chose to do it.
I remember when the turn off XP option first went live, and before people got "sick" of fighting with other twinks or transferred off to whichever battlegroup housed their preferred bracket; queue times were FINE, and there's really nothing I got more of a tickle out of than porting into a BG to find 4 other people wearing the exact same gear as me. I thought that was just funny, and I liked it.
And I fucking miss it. Eventually I will probably transfer my twink to the 19s battlegroup- if only to make room for my cataclysm toons. But I'm not happy about having to do it just to get into a BG. Do I have a solution? No. Because I don't really want to run with the non-twinks. I just want to run.
Pyromelter Apr 5th 2010 11:55AM
The way I understand it works now, is that twinks in certain brackets gravitate towards certain battlegroups. I think there may be one US battlegroup that has many brackets filled? Anyway, if you are a real twink you migrate to that battlegroup to participate in bg's. You can find out which battlegroup has those brackets for twinks on the wow battlegroup forums.
Valt Apr 5th 2010 12:07PM
Theres some forum posts how people made 30(15+15 both sides) lvl 10-19 alts or used ones they had. Made them locked, got on vent, queued at same time for same BG.
Never ever got any BGs at all.
Do they talk truth or not? Well its ours to decide really.
Luci Apr 5th 2010 12:25PM
I twinked for a bit. Created my twink and then they came out with the new system less than six months later, lol. At first I hated it - and not because I love killing lesser geared players, but because I love lower lvl BGs. You walk into an end-cap BG and get owned by all the players with arena gear and you really don't have any fun until you grind out all those hours of getting owned until you finally accumulate some decent pvp gear. But with a low-lvl BG it isn't all that difficult to gear up a character and have a lot of fun.
Now though I have to say with the addition of XP in battlegrounds I usually level a character in dungeons for the first four levels of a bracket, then BG lvl the last five and it is a blast!
I enjoy it way better than old "twinking." However, I spend those first four levels of a bracket getting great gear, so combine that with my heirlooms and I'm usually pretty well geared.
raspybunk Apr 5th 2010 1:17PM
Nobody wanted to leave, but when every server only has a few, people had to move. It was actually quite unkind of blizzard. There are twinks on the ruin server now, we all moved, and we are playing against one another, and we are enjoying ourselves a lot. Thanks.
There was no calling of a bluff, people just didn't know where to go or what to do the day Blizzard killed it. The ones that have moved are having fun, just as they always have. If you think they don't enjoy fighting on a level playing field, you must not enjoy your 80 and your level playing field, because level playing fields are fun across the board.
Twinking isn't my major thing, but it is a blast to have a toon to treat like a level 80 without leveling one to 80. In the midst of worrying about what gear and gems to get and upgrades or honor and arena points, it can be nice to just go play a permanently perfect character for an hour.
Dave Apr 5th 2010 1:45PM
While I appreciate the respectful, well written responses, I feel that you guys are the vocal minority. The majority of twinks(god I hate that word because of it's original meaning, I would never twink just because of that) did have their bluff called, and have disappeared. I'm very happy for those of you who genuinely enjoy low-level competitive PVP and found a home.
The reason I can say with some fair amount of certainty that your dishonorable brethren did have their bluff called is this: with 11 million players, a (WAY)low ball estimate of 5 million North American players, there wouldn't be room on a battle group if that many people truly enjoyed competitive twinking. Someone mentioned Ruin as a home for twinks. When you transferred, did you find that the server/battlegroup you moved to was unbearably high pop? Do you have instant BG queues? I suspect the answer to both questions is no(or that someone will lie just to bolster their argument.)
INB4 people enjoy different things blah blah blah. Yes this is true. I'm not saying that your fun or time is worthless. My point has nothing to do with that, so if that's your answer, please move along.
Tridus Apr 5th 2010 3:37PM
Twinks have long queue times for the same reason that PvP only games that have things like gear stealing never do that well in the market. The behaviour in question is anti-social, preying on people who are weaker then you and can't fight back. Those people require a pool of victims in order to make it work. It's a lot like ganking, except we had a solution to that problem all along (PvE servers).
Unfortunately the victims tend to dislike being victimized, and outnumber the twinks by such a huge margin that Blizzard had to act.
I feel very little sympathy. Twinks were never more then a very tiny group that was vocal on the forums.
Razortooth Apr 5th 2010 6:32PM
What people seem to be forgetting is that twinking in and of itself was never actually a supported play style by Blizzard. Their addition of BG exp. simply improved the gameplay for those that they do support, and the addition to locked exp. at all was above and beyond what was required of them.
Bronwyn Apr 6th 2010 2:48AM
I think that the way everyone is coming across, though, is that "Your feelings of thinking it sucks what happened to twinking are not valid because those jerks who just wanted to own weaker toons got what they wanted!"
"with 11 million players, a (WAY)low ball estimate of 5 million North American players, there wouldn't be room on a battle group if that many people truly enjoyed competitive twinking."
Also i think you're wildly over-estimating the number of people who even regularly participate in PVP. I mean, I've heard (of course no citation because I can't be bothered to look it up) the majority of players don't even think about entering a raid, or arena and I know people who spend their whole WoW lives only questing and not so much as setting foot into an instance. While I don't deny that there were likely a number of twinks who moved on because they didn't want to pick on someone your own size, I don't think it's the huge majority you seem to think it is.
Dave Apr 6th 2010 8:49AM
I'm not saying 5 mil PVP, I'm saying that if there are 5 million NA players, that there would be enough twinks to overload a server with transfers. We would have heard rumblings of Blizzard closing server transfers to certain places/battlegroups, or something along those times.
Queue question. Why can't I edit my profile? I want to add a link in there, and change the picture, but none of the buttons work. (Firefox 3.6.x) I'm going to shamelessly link it here, but, dudes, whats up with profile edit?
http://www.technicallydeft.com
Triforceelf Apr 5th 2010 11:11AM
It's really a shame what happened to twinks. We got what we wanted (low level PVP against other twinks) but at the same time we were shafted, ridiculous queue times on most battle groups. I wish there was a happy medium, but unless your either lucky by being on a battle group with an active twink bracket or able to server transfer your twink, most of us have either just quit or are leveling former twinks purely through PVP.