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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Saturday, what a day
by Mathew McCurley 
Sep 25th 2010 at 4:00PM
Those were some adorable kittens Sacco posted, huh? Yay, it's Saturday! After this Queue I'm going to one of my favorite places for lunch, and I am eagerly awaiting some delicious spicy orange chicken lunch special. Mmmmm ... Stay on task, Mat! Stay on target!
Achnos asked:
As a newly transferred Alliance, what should I go see in the world? I'd like to experience the Alliance side a bit more, since I've been mostly Horde through these almost six years of WoW. Any quests, places, etc.?
In vanilla WoW, Alliance players swear by Duskwood (which rocks) as well as the Nathanos Blightcaller quest line. Portions of the Onyxia chain are also still around, and that whole adventure is completely awesome, filled with great lore and awesome events. I know a good amount of it is gone, but what's there is probably still fun.
As for Alliance content in the expansions, Northrend is one giant Alliance love-fest. Seriously, it's awesome. You get awesome lore about the humans, spectacular characters like Thassarian, and a host of cool quests. Experiencing Northrend as an Alliance character is pure joy.
Ornuk asked:
Question for The Queue: For most new zones, we've heard what the intro quests are, apart from Hyjal, unless I've missed it all this time. Is there a special intro quest to Hyjal like there is for Vashj'ir, Uldum etc., or is it simply, "Go there and pick up first quest"?
Hyjal's beginning quest starts you in Moonglade, where you are given instructions to fly on the back of a green drake to Ysera in Hyjal to prevent the summoning of Ragnaros and Deathwing's nefarious plans. While flying there, however, you find out that you're too late, and the Firelord's invasion has already begun. You witness Ragnaros' summoning and make it to Nordrassil to begin fighting back the elementals.
Haden asked:
What's the best place to get a Cataclysm Collector's Edition on release night? Should I wait in line or pre-order one? If I pre-order, where from? Would it maybe be better to just play it safe and pre-order one from something like Amazon.com? How many Collector's Editions do Gamestop, Target and Walmart get?
That's the beauty of pre-orders -- the stores usually get the number of copies that are pre-ordered. I never really worked for Gamestop, but I'm sure some commenters have and can give detailed information on how the pre-ordering works. Suffice it to say, I've never had a problem picking up a pre-order from Gamestop when I had successfully pre-ordered in time.
As for release-night collector's editions, I would find the most out-of-the-way, hidden big box store like Walmart or Target, because those stores have shelves of collector's editions available on release. Usually. Potentially. That's your best bet, really. Otherwise, if pre-orders are still going around, that will be your surefire way of getting the collector's edition at your local store. Amazon pre-orders will most likely get to your house on release day, unless otherwise noted, but not at the midnight launch.
Trever asked:
If tauren can be both druid and shaman, why not the night elves? I've said for a long time that it would be awesome if they could.
Tauren have a connection to both Mu'sha (Elune) and their Earthmother, two different types of faith that allow them to practice both the druidic arts and the shamanistic bond with the elements. Night elves, on the other hand, do not have the same belief system in the ancestors, spirits of the elements themselves and other shamanistic tendencies, and instead are "children of Elune," worshiping nature but not necessarily the spirits or the elements. That's the short lore explanation. Browse through some of our excellent Know Your Lore articles for a deeper explanation.
transrelativity asked:
Will completing "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been" confer 310% flight after Cataclysm, or should I just give up now?
Most likely, yes.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider 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 2 of 7)
Iirdan Sep 25th 2010 4:32PM
Actually, if you get the achievement after Cataclysm, it is ambiguous. We know that having a 310% mount on release guarantees Master Riding for free, but it has not been confirmed whether obtaining a previously 310% mount after Cataclysm is released will grant Master Riding for free or not.
Before the skill was introduced into the beta, the 310% mounts were still the only 310% mounts. I copied my DK with the Violet over there. Then they patched in the training, and my DK did not have it due to a bug with granting it to previously transferred players. However, the Violet Proto was no longer 310% - it was 280% in both tooltip and actual speed.
So it is possible that Master Riding will only be granted to those with a 310% mount on release, and subsequent acquisitions of 310% mounts will only be 280% unless you buy the skill.
kmfolino Sep 25th 2010 4:56PM
Hoping you can still do "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been" after Cataclysms release. My main is just 3 achievements (between Winter Veil & Lunar Festival) away from finishing it.
jishdefish Sep 25th 2010 5:27PM
I could sort of find out. My Druid just got What A Long Strange Trip It's Been, and I transferred her to the beta before she got it, and Brewfest is still going on...
Of course if it doesn't work, well... it is beta, things change.
Jack Spicer Sep 25th 2010 7:07PM
Because they are changing all mounts to scale with riding skill (instead of directly associating speed with the mount), I wouldn't be surprised if completing the holiday meta only nets you a fancy mount and not a speed increase.
Aurilia Sep 25th 2010 9:32PM
Re: PTR copying
"Copied Test Realm characters are not copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process."
Therefore, your copied PTR character(s) may have the Violet Proto-Drake learned on the PTR, but *not* the associated "What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been" achievement to unlock the 310% speed.
Powatodapeople Sep 25th 2010 4:15PM
in cataclysm will they finally have proper 1-handed weapons for frost death knights and fury warriors so that they can get some more strength instead of taking agility weapons? or is there some reason I don't know of that justifies agi weapons...
Pyromelter Sep 25th 2010 4:31PM
Yes. And those 1h weapons will also likely be used for tanks too, as they will be much better for threat than fast one handers. In fact, I'm not even sure if they will have fast 1h strength based weapons, since the 2.6 and slower weapons will be generally much better.
examples of greens, but these will be similar to rare and epics at later levels:
http://cata.wowhead.com/item=57329
http://cata.wowhead.com/item=59729
http://cata.wowhead.com/item=59732
MikeLive Sep 25th 2010 6:45PM
Combat Rogues and Enhancement Shaman use slow 1H weapons too, which is why they have Agi. Frost DKs are balanced around having half as much AP coming from weapons.
On the PTR and beta however, all ~2.6 speed 1H weapons have Agi replaced with AP for both Str and Agi users. I hold that they should take Agi/Str off weapons altogether and leave AP as the weapon stat, like SP is the caster weapon stat.
Boobah Sep 26th 2010 2:35AM
"On the PTR and beta however, all ~2.6 speed 1H weapons have Agi replaced with AP for both Str and Agi users"
No, no they haven't. Wowhead has a single one-handed Cataclysm weapon with attack power, and it's a blacksmithing item. By comparison, most of the other crafted weapons are caster weapons some of which have intellect, but no spellpower, and others which have spellpower, but no intellect. It's a pretty safe bet that all of these are headed for reitemization when they finish up the professions.
Mike Sep 25th 2010 4:16PM
When will the 'next' and 'previous' buttons match up with Joystiq's 'next' and 'previous' button scheme?
It seems like every blog out there has a different idea of what to call them, and which side of the page makes them show older posts vs. newer posts.
Deathknighty Sep 25th 2010 4:18PM
If you have a breakfast topic idea, but you're not remotely eligible for Seed, can you just send it in, and not require the Seed payment or anything? It kinda sucks when you have ideas for an interesting topic and you can't send it in because of the stupid Seed system. It's not as if I care about the money or whatever you're meant to get out of it. :/
Brien Sep 25th 2010 4:21PM
So it occurred to me while flying over Icecrown today... of what exactly are gargoyles the undead existence?
Everything else undead is either clearly a construct of some sort or has a living counterpart in the game. Are gargolyes constructs, too? If so they seem to be much more expertly put together than other constructs.
Its confusing me.
Brett Porter Sep 25th 2010 5:14PM
I think none of the above fits your question. I don't see gargoyles as undead, nor constructs. As most everything RPG related, gargoyles came from D&D and it refers to them as:
"a ferocious predator of a magical nature, found among ruins; it attacks anything it can detect... A gargoyle is usually chaotic evil. A gargoyle has the ability to hold itself so still that it appears to be a statue."
So it's not a dead "something" but rather something that would be considered evil, and thus in alignment with all those evil dead things out there.
Just my two cents though!
Al Sep 25th 2010 5:59PM
I'm guessing whatever a male Harpy is called, they probably picked some up in Kalimdor.
For that matter, didn't the Quillboar make a deal with the Scourge out of desperation? Northrend needed Zombie Pigmen.
Boobah Sep 26th 2010 2:39AM
Since we know they're undead in some way or another, and they are made of stone, I'd guess that they're statues animated by the spirits of the dead.
Not that I have any WoW-type sources to back that up, mind you.
Task Sep 25th 2010 4:23PM
Just a quick question:
I got into the Beta, (got the email from Blizzard, checked the url links when I moused over them [100% legit], and went to my account page on Battle.net [confirmed as well when I downloaded the Cata downloader).
Is there anything I should be aware of or be weary of once I do get it completed and start testing? I've heard a lot on here what is seen in the builds, etc.
Any advice would be great, thanks.
Matthew Sep 25th 2010 10:20PM
It is buggy as heck, and at the moment I can't log onto it.
The interface screen resolution thing was all jacked up for me. I couldn't see my action bars. I found out how to fix this on the beta forums.
Otherwise, enjoy yourself!
Alithoe Sep 26th 2010 12:08AM
Currently, the worgen and goblin starting quests are bugged, so you may or may not be able to finish those zones and get out into the world with a fresh one of those.
You should also be aware that if you race/faction change to a worgen you will still look like a human and have none of the racials, as those are attained from quests that you can't complete at the moment (they fixed the drowning work-around).
Pyromelter Sep 25th 2010 4:26PM
What's going to happen with soul shard bags, like Abyssal Bag? It's 32 slots so I can't image they'd just convert it into a normal bag, but I haven't heard what will happen to them.
Ronin Sep 25th 2010 4:36PM
This is just a wild guess on my part, but perhaps nothing will be done with them? They didn't convert quivers/ammo pouches for Hunters when they got rid of the need for them. I know it's not quite analogous, but it seems possible you'll just have another bag space, and you'll need to get a regular bag to put in its place.