The Queue: Wish upon a star
by Alex Ziebart 
May 12th 2010 at 1:00PM
I think I started an epidemic. I put up a poll about StarCraft 2, and now we have endless StarCraft questions rolling in. I don't mind all that much though, because I've been spending more and more time watching SC2 replays. I've never been a big fan of WoW arenas as an e-sport, but StarCraft? That's a game worth watching.
Now I really need to start answering some WoW questions here before people start asking us for a StarCraft 2 Insider blog. Oh wait ...
calaf asked:
"Are there any plan to make a companion StarCraft 2 Insider website?"
As far as I know, there aren't any plans for that. It could happen, anything could happen, but if it does it probably won't have much to do with WoW.com beyond the fact that it would probably be another blog in the Joystiq network. Maybe if you ask Joystiq really nicely they'll go for it, but that's a big maybe.
king_8_ball asked:
"Do the WoW.com staff have plans to rewrite all leveling columns since there will be so many changes to classes, races, and the overall leveling process in Cataclysm?"
Though it might take us awhile to get through them all, yes, we plan to start redoing all of our leveling guides once Cataclysm is near launch. Ideally we would start on these once the beta is winding down and most of the expansion's launch details are solidified, but that's going to depend on the availability of beta keys. We usually end up with quite a few, but we currently have 15 class columnists. Over 30 people on staff total. Getting absolutely everybody into the beta isn't a realistic expectation, but we'll see what we can do. Who knows, maybe we can pull it off.
Jack Liu asked:
"In ICC, how do the heroic toggles work? If you downed one boss on heroic, will you get n raid ID and thus get locked out of heroics? Are normal lock outs and heroic lock outs shared?"
You can flip it back and forth per boss as you please. You can do both normal and heroic bosses within one raid ID. For example, let's say you're going to run Icecrown in a 10-man raid.
- You start the raid. Your raid knows the Marrowgar fight pretty darn well, so you flip the raid difficulty over to 10-man heroic. You fight hard-mode Marrowgar, you kill him, your raid gets locked to the instance.
- You're not as confident with your raid's ability to down Lady Deathwhisper's hard mode. No problem, you just set the raid difficulty back to normal. No need to zone out, no need to wait a week for a reset. You just change the difficulty, get a little loading screen and then you're back in business.
- With Deathwhisper down, you move on to the Gunship encounter. The Gunship encounter is hilariously easy, so you want to do it on hard mode to get better loot. You switch the difficulty back to heroic again, get a little loading screen, bam. Hard-mode Gunship.
Blunaas asked:
"Do you actually have a Magic 8 Ball for times such as this when there are no answerable questions being asked?"
Though I've used Magic 8-Ball images a couple of times in the past, I admittedly don't actually own one anymore. I used to have one as a kid, but the liquid inside of it started to leak or evaporate or something so it wasn't exactly functional. I had to throw it away. I've considered buying a new one so I can upload our Magic 8-Ball questions to YouTube and you can watch the answer being unveiled as it happens. Maybe that's what I'll do today, buy a new 8-Ball.
Alternate Answer: Insert image of Magic 8-Ball saying "Ask again later" here.
taufmonster asked:
"Which Azeroth zones are you most excited to see what the changes are?"
A while ago I was asked which zone made me nervous when it came to potential changes, and my answer was the Plaguelands. The Plaguelands are as special to me as a zone in a video game can be, so the idea of it being completely changed is somewhat unsettling. That's why I have the same answer here. I'm both terrified and excited to see what happens to both the Western and Eastern Plaguelands. I don't think anything they do to those zones will live up to my absurd expectations, but there's still a lot of potential for character progression there.
Did we fix those farms in WPL? Is that land able to be used again? What about the Scarlet Crusade territories? Did the Forsaken move in there, or is Varian taking it to try and rebuild Lordaeron? What happened to Stratholme? Scholomance? Who's going to be at Light's Hope Chapel after all of this? Will it be the old, familiar Argent Dawn faces that have been around since day one, or will they all be evicted to stick an aging Tirion Fordring there instead? How far has the Scourge pulled out? Are we really just mopping up the leftovers, or are they still going strong despite the events of Wrath of the Lich King?
The amount of story progression they can do in the Plaguelands is astounding, so I'm curious to see if they'll follow up on even half of these things or if they'll just let it hang.
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: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
BigBadGooz May 12th 2010 1:08PM
Any plans to bring the wow.com show to ustream again the chat channel demands this.
Narshe May 12th 2010 6:39PM
This isnt so much a question for the Queue, rather just me thinking out loud. i love the new changes to old world zones, and i love the new zones theyre adding. I cant help but wonder, though, if the old zones that are being redesigned only serve the purpose to make a leveling toon fun again.
I wonder what a lvl 85 toon would do in these old zones, like if there will be daily quests spread around some of them, or even farming spots (unlikely i know). I know at any lvl players will check out all the old world changes for themselves out of curiosity. It would just be a shame for Azeroth to be a leveling zones you never return to after your toon reaches max level, and then be stuck in a new zones (tol barad or w/e) to do all your dailies, like Icecrown is right now.
I loved Outlands because you were forced to go to multiple zones to complete dailies and farm certain mats, where in Northrend you basically stay in either Icecrown, Wintergrasp and sometimes Storm Peaks.
BigBadGooz May 12th 2010 1:09PM
Any plans to bring the wow.com show to ustream again the chat channel demands this.
BigBadGooz May 12th 2010 1:12PM
Sindragosa: your iPhone betrays you.
Damn double post sry
Kyrro May 12th 2010 4:47PM
Why is the iPhone version of wow.com so slow? theese last days im barely able to open articles. Anyone else notice this? Everything else involving internet works fine on it, just wow.com is super slow.
Andostre May 12th 2010 1:10PM
Is it true that a player can see Azeroth in the sky from the Black Temple? If so, why? Are Outland and Azeroth physically close to each other in space?
Samutz May 12th 2010 1:28PM
It may be possible, but it's likely just an illusion provided by the twisting nether.
I couldn't help but think of that when I read this in Unbroken:
"Large chunks had been ripped from the desert floor and were inexplicably floating high in the air. And portions of the sky itself looked almost like windows to... something. It seemed as if Nobundo could glimpse other worlds in those windows, some distant, some seemingly nearby, but whether it was real or some trick of the catastrophe Nobundo could not say."
There are several different interpretations of the Twisting Nether and it's connection to the Great Dark (where Azeroth is supposed to reside).
In my opinion, it's an illusion caused by the Twisting Nether and the crazy energies around the Black Temple combined. Or just a silly easter egg added by the devs.
busuan May 12th 2010 1:46PM
I am inclined to the neighboring planets idea, because of the planet models we see in Hall of Lightning. While one of them is Azeroth, others have to be meaningful someway in lore too. Blizz team spent quite sometime to build that place surely not for cosmetic purposes.
Derrek May 12th 2010 3:51PM
The problem with the neighboring-planets idea is the flight of the Exodar. The Draenei didn't just point to a planet and say "Hey, that planet looks habitable, let's take refuge there." Their crash on Azeroth was caused by the Blood Elves, who sabotaged the Exodar, which has been described as a "dimensional ship" rather than an "interstellar ship". As I understand it Azeroth is in a different dimension, or at least very far away from Draenor.
"...the blood elves stole technology from the draenei and also sabotaged their dimensional ship, which crash landed on Azeroth."
(http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/faq.html)
This leads me to the conclusion that Azeroth and Draenor are either not in the same dimension, or far enough away from each other that it required trans-dimensional travel to reach one from the other.
That's my take on it, anyway. Blizzard hasn't been very clear on the website about how the two planets are related.
Also, you can't see Outlands from anywhere on Azeroth on a clear night, so they're not as close to each other as it would seem from the Outlands perspective. However, that doesn't rule out the possibility of them being neighbors entirely. After all, Jupiter is a pretty darn small speck from Earth, and they could be called neighbors.
busuan May 12th 2010 4:29PM
@Derek
A transdimensional trip doesn't mean it has to be going somewhere far-away. IMO, it means 'fast and simple', irrelevant to distance.
However, my point was largely based on story-making (as I see it).
With the 4(?) known planets in lore, it would be far more difficult to make everyone of them in its own system or dimension when there's a possibility of including them into a future expansion, because too many loose ends need to tie up. It is repetitive, redundant, and unnecessary. If Azeroth, Draenor and Argus are close enough, it's much easier to tell more intriguing stories: why they are so close and so different, why they are so special, how they are going to change, etc.
As for the reason that you can see other planets in Outland but not on Azeroth, it would be simple enough to say something in lore, like this: the Titans learned their lesson somewhere else and had shrouded each planet in such way that races can evolve and mature long enough before making contact with other worlds. On Azeroth the barrier is still intact but on Draenor it was torn apart by the opening of many dimensional portals.
Vaeku May 12th 2010 5:11PM
Okay, let's see here...
WoW's equivalent to outer space is the The Great Dark (Beyond). The Twisting Nether is a separate dimension which connects worlds together. In some cases, they overlap.
Tempest Keep, Oshu'gun, and the Exodar are dimensional ships, rather than interstellar ships. What this means is instead of going from point A to point B in space (the Great Dark Beyond), it goes from point A to point B in the Twisting Nether. I believe the reasoning behind this is that it's faster. Not "in the blink of an eye" fast, but much faster than normal space travel.
Now, I believe all planets are in the Great Dark, but in Draenor's case, when all of the portals were opened up and much of the planet was destroyed, it somehow was pushed into the Nether.
Perhaps the reason why you're able to see planets from Outland is because Outland is in the Nether and can see "into" The Great Dark, and thus see planets (like a one-way mirror). This is one reason why I think they're neighbors. It could be just an easter egg, but if you think back about what I said about the Exodar... Perhaps the Exodar just started traveling through the Nether, and when the Exodar was sabotaged that cut their flight short, and since Azeroth and Outland might be neighbors, that's where they crashlanded.
And there are 5 known planets in lore: Azeroth, Draenor/Outland, Argus, Xoroth (home of dreadlords), and K'aresh (former home of ethereals).
bobikinbobwalker May 12th 2010 9:02PM
I always saw the 'dimensional ships' as having magical hyperspace drives. The general concept of a hyperspace drive is to jump into another dimension that doesn't have the limits of our own (say, a parallel universe that doesn't have a universal speed limit like ours does) and then jump back into our own dimension once they reach the corresponding location in the parallel universe's space. According to wowwiki, "The Twisting Nether is an ethereal dimension of undulating green "nether" which connects worlds." (this is visible in the skies of Outland). I always assumed that the dimensional ships jumped into a dimension where they could 'tune in' to the bands of the Nether and jump from world to world along the bands. That's just my theory, though.
Wulfkin May 13th 2010 8:58AM
For a good exploration of this issue, see thi post on Oddcraft: http://oddcraft.net/wordpress/?p=485
I've also posted my own pet theory in the comments, which is essentially that Outland is in something of a Great-Dark-Beyond/Twisting-Nether cross-over, allowing strange dimensional distortion, timey-wimey type..... stuff!
That or a wizard did it.
andrew.wheeler May 12th 2010 1:11PM
Question: If you attempt a boss on Hard Mode and cannot down them, do you have the option to reset it back to normal mode? Or are you stuck on the encounter at the previously set difficulty?
BigBadGooz May 12th 2010 1:14PM
Yes u can change it heroic to normal as much as you want however your unsuccessful attempts will stick with you till reset
Ben May 12th 2010 2:09PM
Yes. You can switch. Think of it as a toggle. Nothing is locked until the boss is dead. You get a quick (on my PC, 1/2 second) loading screen and bam, the boss has more (or less) health and the extra stuff is enabled (or disabled).
There is a 5-minute cooldown on using the switch. And, it uses the same interface as ToC. Raid leader right-clicks on their unit frame and selects the raid mode.
Caz May 12th 2010 1:10PM
Has there been any word on if a minor or major glyph will be added when u reach the new lvl cap?
BigBadGooz May 12th 2010 1:18PM
Blizz always makes changes to existing glyphs. Chances are new signature tallents and spells will have new glyphs as for another glyph slot I doubt it
Gemini May 12th 2010 1:25PM
Judging by screenshots from Blizzcon 09, it looks like a fourth major glyph slot will be added, but 3 minor glyphs are probably going to remain that way. You'll also get a large a mount of ancient glyphs, which are tied to Path of the Titans.
Cypher210 May 12th 2010 1:28PM
I suspect he meant a new glyph spot, and no I don't think anything has been said about it to date.