The Queue: Clearing things up
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 9th 2010 at 3:00PM
This is your friendly reminder that Alex is not Adam and Adam is not Alex. Adam and Alex are also not Allison and Allison is neither Adam nor Alex. Got it? Great.
Hoofio asked:
"Is it true Cataclysm is the last expansion WoW will ever have?"
No. Blizzard is going to keep World of Warcraft going as long as it's profitable. Why would they arbitrarily end (one of) the most popular MMO(s) in the world? Even if they released their new MMO before the end of Cataclysm's life cycle, ending WoW would be foolish and probably one of the worst business decisions they could possibly make.
Tokkar asked:
"Will we be able to fly over all of the old world content, or only over the capital cities?"
There might be specific places Blizzard won't allow us to fly, but for the most part all old world content will be fair game. They're filling in all of the little eyesore gaps in the terrain, they're sprucing up the empty areas and filling in all of the zones that weren't implemented yet such as Hyjal. You should be able to fly from Booty Bay to Light's Hope Chapel with no issues whatsoever.
When it comes to places like Exodar and Silvermoon City, you'll probably still need to fly through an instance portal or take more mundane methods of travel such as a boat or a flight path. Those places are on different world servers than the "old world" of Azeroth, so flying straight to them isn't a viable option. You need the instance portal, rather than loading screens where a player can pop into some random spot in the zone all of the time.
sockmonkeyluv asked:
"Ghostcrawler gave us a pony and it sparkled. Will our moose sparkle too?"
No. It will be covered in spikes. It will impale dragons on its mighty antlers, much like the spires in Blade's Edge Mountains. Sparklepony can only be defeated by spikemoose.
Btaylortherogue asked:
"Leveling in Cataclysm: Raid gear or heirloom gear?"
They've mentioned that current heirloom items won't scale to level 85. You won't get the XP bonus from them, so there's really no good reason to use them unless they're better than any other level 80 gear you have. Considering the question though, I assume you have pretty good raid gear. Use that for leveling.
Hundreds of people asked:
"Why haven't you guys posted about that Norwegian kid that feign death'd a moose?"
We did. Three years ago.
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 7)
Gamer am I Jun 9th 2010 3:06PM
If you didn't answer this last time because you didn't want to, I apologize for re-posting it, but none of the replies I got really satisfied my curiosity.
There's something about the Draenei starting area that has always bugged me. Blizzard had to know that when Burning Crusade was released, people would role Draenei and most would give them jewelcrafting. Why, then, did they put the jewelcrafting trainer in one of the the farthest corners of Exodar and make every other profession trainer closer? Why not just put him right in Azure Watch? And on that note, why is he so far away from the mining trainer and the forge?
MusedMoose Jun 9th 2010 3:09PM
Personally, I'm still wondering why there are only Jewelcrafting trainers in the Exodar and Silvermoon, not in any of the other capital cities. Yes, I know they're around in Outland and Northrend, but that doesn't help when you're leveling up. -_- This is the main reason I've never taken up Jewelcrafting.
Aldheim Jun 9th 2010 3:19PM
You answered your own question. They don't have jewelcrafting trainers in other cities because JC is a Burning Crusade only tradeskill. The only way to maintain that is to ensure that a vanilla-only account cannot talk to the trainers -- i.e., make sure they're only in Exodar, Silvermoon, Outland, and Northrend.
Thayer Jun 9th 2010 3:20PM
@Musedmoose: Jewelcrafting was a feature of Burning Crusades. They want you to only be able to learning Jewelcrafting if you have Burning Crusades. Thus, there are only trainers for it in places you can only access if you have the expansion.
Hal Jun 9th 2010 3:22PM
Then why do they have a shaman trainer in Ironforge?
Tom_inf_realm Jun 9th 2010 3:25PM
Because you can only use the trainer in Ironforge if you're already a shaman, which requires Burning Crusade :)
Marolas Jun 9th 2010 3:26PM
http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=3969277
Edmon Jun 9th 2010 3:26PM
They have Inscription trainers in Org.
Isn't Inscription a Wrath tradeskill?
I guess not, can vanilla players learn Inscription?
foust117 Jun 9th 2010 3:29PM
Then what's the rational for having inscription trainers all over the place. Yes, glyphs and stuff did come out before Wrath did, but it is still technically the Wrath profession.
Bottom line, it may be on the to-do list for Blizzard, but it is still a pain in the ass to skill up unless you find a nice mage to help you set your hearth to Dal.
MusedMoose Jun 9th 2010 3:31PM
@ Edmon -
This is exactly what I mean. Since there's Inscription trainers in the mainland Azeroth capital cities, the "Jewelcrafting is a BC-only skill" argument doesn't make any sense. It's something I hope they fix in Cataclysm.
tatsumasa Jun 9th 2010 3:32PM
"Why, then, did they put the jewelcrafting trainer in one of the the farthest corners of Exodar and make every other profession trainer closer? Why not just put him right in Azure Watch? And on that note, why is he so far away from the mining trainer and the forge?"
please tell me how in the hell a wow.com editor would have any idea as to what was going through the minds of the game layout designers were thinking when they planned the positioning of profession trainers in one city. i would really like to know how you expect them to answer this. "well you see, gamer am i, the positioning of the mining trainer and the forge just wasn't feng shui with the jc trainer..."
i mean, really?
Gamer am I Jun 9th 2010 3:38PM
@Marolas:You win at life, sir.
@tatsumasa: I ask because one of the WoW.com editors may remember a blue post or something similar in which one of the developers explained why they designed Exodar and the Draenei starting area in that way. I don't expect them to have some wisdom I don't; just some memory or perhaps insight that I don't.
VerticalEvent Jun 9th 2010 3:51PM
Jewelcrafting is a BC only Profession. If you only had Vanilla WoW, you would not be able to train in Jewelcrafting (which, makes sense, as all gear with sockets in it is only in 60+ content). You can use JC items off the AH but you cannot train in it.
Meanwile, Inscription is a profession that, while introduced in Wraith, is available to everyone, including people with only Vanilla WoW. This is probably to offset the class abilities re-balance with the glyph concept.
In conclusion, only people with BC and higher can be JCs and everyone can be a Scribe.
Avan Jun 9th 2010 4:13PM
@MusedMoose:
That's because Inscription is NOT a tradeskill exclusive to Wrath of the Lich King. Vanilla players can learn and train Inscription up to 300, but they'll need BC to get to 375.
If you'll recall, Inscription was added in 3.0.2 "Echoes of Doom", the patch before Wrath of the Lich King was released. Blizz stated that this was done so that players could get a jumpstart on the profession.
(cutaia) Jun 9th 2010 5:25PM
"You answered your own question. They don't have jewelcrafting trainers in other cities because JC is a Burning Crusade only tradeskill. The only way to maintain that is to ensure that a vanilla-only account cannot talk to the trainers -- i.e., make sure they're only in Exodar, Silvermoon, Outland, and Northrend."
The fact that you need BC to learn jewelcrafting isn't much of a reason to keep trainers out of convenient places like Stormwind/Org.
People who haven't upgraded are already able to see plenty of things they can't use. What happens, for example, when a vanilla-account tries to walk through the Dark Portal, hop on the boats to Azuremyst and Northrend, click a mage portal to Dalaran or enter Karazhan or the CoT instances? I assume it just gives a red error message that says, "Requires Burning Crusade," or something.
So, having JC trainers in non-BC+ areas doesn't seem like a problem. They could just do the exact same thing.
And to tatsumasa: WoW.com editors tend to research the game more than your average person due to the nature of their job. This question is HARDLY outside the realm of things they might have possibly gleaned from a blue post at some point in time. He's not asking Alex and Co. to be psychic...merely to give us any insight they may have on the matter.
Boobah Jun 9th 2010 5:50PM
All the stuff you NEED an expansion to access are behind portals. If you try to cross a portal without the needed expansion, after the loading screen the game drops you back where you started (or, in the case of boats/zeppelins, back on the dock).
Haven't tried it with mage portals; I know the Shattrath-Quel'Danas portal gives an error message, though, if you're not yet seventy.
From what little I've seen, however, it doesn't look like the Cataclysm areas are 'roped off' at all, although I suspect there's the possibility of a zone expulsion mechanic like Wintergrasp has during a battle. I still think that would be a superior mechanic for keeping non-BCers out of the Draenei/BElf starting zones since they're rebuilding the maps anyways.
Spencer Gardner Jun 9th 2010 8:43PM
@Edmon
Inscription was introduced during BC, patch 3.0
icepyro Jun 9th 2010 9:43PM
@Cutaia:
Yes, you get that message. You also get transported to the nearest graveyard. IIRC, also dead and have to spirit rez. I didn't get Wrath until I actually had a character ready to use it, but that was quite a while ago still. I do remember being curious and trying though.
Shelly Jun 10th 2010 1:45AM
To the first post: if you were to follow the ramp down into exodar after entering the circular chamber your character would then be right on front of the wing with the jc trainer. A person new to bc or the alliance may walk down the ramp instead of jumping down like everyone else.
The question I want to know is why isn't there a *bleep* anvil and/or forge at this trainer.
Joey2250 Jun 10th 2010 3:53AM
If inscription was introduced during BC as everyone has said, why do you not need the BC expansion to use it? Your arguments against having JC trainers in old world cities doesn't hold up unless the inscription trainers are only in BC+ cities.
The correct answer is the thought process on profession trainers in pre expansion cities changed in the design of TBC to WOTLK, however the designers/implementers have yet to bring the TBC profession in line because of other more pressing issues. Hopefully this will be rectified in Cataclysm.