The Queue: Confusion
by Adam Holisky 
Jun 10th 2010 at 11:00AM
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.
I don't know how I came about thinking of the Too Legit To Quit video, but I did. And then, of course, I had to share it with all of you.
But while watching it I saw Kirby Puckett in there, and I go, "Awwww."
Slaytanic asked:
"When our guild is standing outside of ICC, there is always about a third of us that are phased out. It's obvious that that there is some quest chain in Icecrown that must be done to create/prevent this phasing, but none of us seem to be able to pinpoint exactly which quests."
Ideally the person having issues will just do them all, collect a thousand or so gold for raiding supplies in the process, and then be phased with everyone else. But to be more specific, you'll want to do the quests located under the citadel. These are the ones where you get dropped down the big hole by the explosion. Follow the quests aboard your faction's gunships and you'll get there in an hour or two (just did this with my hunter a few weeks ago).
How can this be solved? More Mat McCurley on the podcast.
Gamer am I asked:
"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 roll 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?"
You bring up a good question. It could be for a number of reasons, and only the team that designed the city's layout would know for sure. The potential reasons are:
- Bad design. They could have just not thought of it. Remember that WoW has been a major part of the evolution of MMOs, so much so that the very game is designed from a significantly different standpoint than it was back in classic WoW. It could be that this design decision really just didn't cross their minds.
- It was intentional. Blizzard's goal could have been to make you move around the city a bit. They've said before they don't want people just hanging out in one spot; they want to see people using an in-game city like they would in real life.
- Lore. The forge might have had to been located back away from the JC area for a specific lore reason (although I don't know of any, nor can I find one).
Mac asked:
"Will Lord Ahune, the midsummer boss, be level 80 this year?"
All signs point to yes. There's a level 80, item level 232 version of his staff, the Frostscythe of Lore Ahune, in the armory. Chances are it'll drop from him this year.
How can this be solved? More Mat McCurley on the podcast.
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 7)
BigBadGooz Jun 10th 2010 11:02AM
elemental shaman totem talk has gone missing for a long time. should we take ads out on milk cartons?
Arizor Jun 10th 2010 11:06AM
How can we get more Mat McCurley on the podcast?
Odlanor Jun 10th 2010 11:16AM
How can this be solved?
Arizor Jun 10th 2010 11:18AM
Spikemoose would know.
kvanje Jun 10th 2010 11:21AM
Just wait for the Ice Stone to melt.
(cutaia) Jun 10th 2010 11:22AM
Distracted by puppies?
Adam Jun 10th 2010 11:29AM
MAT MCURLEY HAS NO TIME FOR ICE STONES THAT HAVE MELTED!!!
Dreyja Jun 10th 2010 12:05PM
What Would SpikeMoose Do? WWSMD ;-p
thegatherer Jun 10th 2010 1:26PM
Spikemoose for Warchief 2010!
caelwynn Jun 10th 2010 2:11PM
Spikemoose doesn't even NEED a buff to down Heroic ICC. He just walks calmly up to Arthas and sits on him.
Too bad they edited him out of the ending cinematic just to spite us.
Spikemoose for New-god 2010!
Tomatketchup Jun 10th 2010 3:38PM
Mat McCurly? YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!
elstor Jun 10th 2010 5:59PM
Basic Campfire vs. SpikeMoose, Ultimate Death Match. Hosted in Anaheim California, also available on DirecTV
Pete Jun 10th 2010 11:20AM
I have a question:
I know that 'downranking' (or whatever it is called) is not an optimal idea for Leather, Mail, and Plate wearers. However, what is the point of allowing them to do it? I am very tempted to grab pieces of cloth gear for my Holy Pally, even though I am missing out on the armor. However, on my priest, I am unable to even think about making this armor 'downrank'. If they (meaning Blizzard Dev Team) do not expect Plate/Mail/Leather wearers to want downranked gear, why even give them the proficiency? Why not specify that Paladins can only wear Mail and Plate? And Druids only Leather? Etc.
Arizor Jun 10th 2010 11:26AM
Well maybe originally it was to provide greater flexibility to those classes, making it one of thier strengths - being able to choose from more gear.
Now with Cataclysm's Mastery bonus for wearing the apropriate armour type, they're trying to usher people away from downranking armour, I Imagine simply becuase as the game's progressed, and they've gained more experience - they have more time to make more gear.
Dave Jun 10th 2010 11:26AM
Problem solved in Cata. You will get a bonus for wearing appropriate gear. You will receive no bonus for 'wrong' gear. If you are a Shaman, wearing Mail gives you a bonus, cloth will not.
Ilmyrn Jun 10th 2010 11:32AM
Why bother doing it at all? As it is it gives people more options, both in gearing and in personal appearance. There are far fewer opportunities to 'ninja' lower armor class gear from people, what with automatic Need Before Greed looting in random heroics and the ability to change looting rules in organized heroics and raids. If people could only use their max armor type, a lot more gear would be sharded once all the players of a certain armor type go tit. As it is, my Holy set for a long time had quite a few pieces of mail and leather in it that I was able to get after the shamans and druids had their fill. And finally, using lower armor class pieces already carries a penalty, usually in survivability with lower armor, or in non-optimal stat allocations.
So basically, why bother?
Samutz Jun 10th 2010 11:33AM
Partially for roleplayers I imagine. Any idea how pissed RPers would be if they couldn't equip cloth dresses, tuxedos, and hats and such?
I don't think it's that big of a problem for Blizzard to need to place restrictions. If a pally in a group is rolling on cloth that a priest in the group needs, then that pally needs to get kicked.
Boobah Jun 10th 2010 11:38AM
It doesn't much matter why originally; currently it's because they aren't willing to destroy many players' ability to play their current level of content. And wouldn't it suck if you trained at 40 and were suddenly all nekkid.
If the mastery bonus for sticking to your native armor is a big enough deal, it's certainly possible that that (restricted to your best armor type) could go into the next xpac. Except nobody will feel it's necessary, since people won't be doing it anyway unless the lower armor is way, way better than what they have available at their native type, which would make it a nerf to latecomers and levelers with no bonus to the already geared folks.
If the mastery bonus isn't a big enough deal, then they still won't do it; they'll try some other way to insure it's a bad idea, like Armored to the Teeth and Careful Aim did (with varying amounts of success) in Wrath.
Scooter Jun 10th 2010 3:03PM
Here's a dose of logic to answer your question. A while training with weighted clothing/armor that persons muscle structure adapts to moving with the added weight. The bonus for wearing "appropriate" gear is really more along the lines of a reducing the natural restrictions of moving with said armor. That being said should a person move to lighter gear he will likely find himself off balance because he is using the same amount of energy to move as if he had heaver gear. It puts you off balance which is key in surviving combat.
Try wearing steel-toe shoes for a few months. Then switch to sandles. You will notice the difference.
Aside from that...its fun! I don't know about you guys but mid-way through Cataclysm I plan to take a 25 man team put on a bunch of dresses and go take down Arthas.
Hanak Jun 10th 2010 8:58PM
I've always seen it as a heritage from other RP games. In WoW armor doesn't mean much except for tanks, but if you look at many offline RPGs or even other MMOs, solo play and thus mitigation actually plays a role for most people. The role of the tank is shared among the melee DPS instead of centered in one character in those games. Therefore, traditionally the armor-increase itself has been a reason to always strive for the higher armor class. So my guess is Blizz went with what was commonly accepted as the norm and then later found out that it didn't work as well in their game.