Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Yes, kittens again
by Michael Sacco 
Oct 1st 2010 at 2:00PM
Don't like kittens? Too bad, I've got a room full of them, plus enough pictures of them to wallpaper the Taj Mahal.
Nyold asked:
I have a question about mastery system. A lot of the description says something like "each point of mastery increases the damage by an additional 2%." Does this mean each mastery RATING found in gear, or is there another conversion from mastery rating to mastery skill (kinda like how crit rating and crit percentage is)?
Mastery works like most other ratings in that there's a conversion from the points you have on gear (rating) to the effect you see on your character window (skill). The formula varies from spec to spec.
Xues asked:
I might have missed this, but how are talent points going to be distributed when leveling? Every two levels?
You get a trainable ability every even level up to 80, after which you get one every odd level. You get a talent point every odd level up to 79, after which you get one every level.
Rioriel asked:
I have a question regarding CE pets and codes that came up in a guildie Twitter conversation. If I were to pre-order the Collector's Edition and -- concerned that it would arrive late -- also pick up a normal copy on release day from which I use the activation code on Battle.net so I can start Cataclysm ASAP, am I able to input the CE code at a later date to receive the CE pet ... like an upgrade?
Hope you can clear that up for me, or any readers who experienced a similar situation with TBC or Wrath. -- Rioriel, The Sha'tar (EU)
Yes, you can call Blizzard billing to upgrade your account from a standard one to Collector's Edition.
Terethall asked:
Is the Scepter of the Shifting Sands quest line still in the game? I'm guessing it isn't, what with Azuregos moving around and what-not.
It doesn't look like it is, but there's still time for Blizzard to change stuff, if it decides to, before Cataclysm launches.
Clint Rice asked:
Has Blizzard said anything about providing vanilla owners anything to make up for the loss of everything it has taken away from them? As it stands right now, a level 60 player on a vanilla account can have a character that can at least get the 51-point talent in a particular tree. They also have the choice of several level 60 raids to run; they lost two with Wrath (Ony and Naxx) and they will be losing another come Cataclysm (ZG). I understand that Blizzard wants to sell expansions and make money on those sales, but right now it seems to just be slowly breaking a game that people paid money for and continue to pay for on a monthly basis. I understand that the old world is almost completely re-done, but at the same time, Blizzard seems to be taking the Sony route and removing features that you paid for after the fact.
Yes -- you get an entirely new 1-60 experience in vanilla regardless of whether you're buying Cataclysm or not, so it's easier and more fun to hit that six-year-old, obselete-for-three-expansions level cap.
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 12)
Sleutel Oct 1st 2010 7:44PM
Confirming that you can enter in the Collector's Edition key and it will upgrade your account. However, you won't get credit for a bonus version of the regular edition like you should, so you should probably call anyway.
I didn't know about the calling trick before now--does anybody know if you can call in after the fact and get a code back?
Moobs Oct 1st 2010 2:03PM
Keep the kitten pictures coming, they are cute!
SunGod228 Oct 1st 2010 2:53PM
I don't get what the big deal is about th---
***Distracted by kittens***
feniks9174 Oct 1st 2010 3:31PM
/groan
Orkchop Oct 1st 2010 3:52PM
Heck with the kittens, I want more pictures of Sylvanas the Puppy!
Spacehyena Oct 1st 2010 4:08PM
That kitten is clearly distracted by Wow.com.
Luminarie Oct 1st 2010 2:04PM
Is there a significant portion of the player base that plays at the lvl 60 cap? Not including people that just turned off their experience gains at 60.
Telwar Oct 1st 2010 2:13PM
I really don't think so. There might be more than I expect, but I expect almost no one would be happy rehashing the exact same content for over five years.
Saeadame Oct 1st 2010 2:20PM
I don't think it's significant, but it is the only remaining way to 'twink'. You don't get the expansions, and you, therefore, are unable to level past level 60. Then you can get your friends to run you through lvl 60 raids for awesome gear and you can rape face in AV.
I've seen it.
niko Oct 1st 2010 2:28PM
you can always just turn off xp gain @ 60. Same thing.
Cataca Oct 1st 2010 2:28PM
"but it is the only remaining way to 'twink'. You don't get the expansions, and you, therefore, are unable to level past level 60"
Or, you know, turn off exp on that character.
Much better solution for twinking.
Aquaryon Oct 1st 2010 2:30PM
There is an Alliance Guild on Skywall named Years Behind. They are all 60 (not sure if they all are true 60s or xp bar off) but its a cool concept. They are totally decked out in the best level 60 raiding gear.
Daethar Oct 1st 2010 2:40PM
No, turning off xp is not the same. People with un-upgraded accounts get to play against the same pool of players as those with xp still turned on.
XP-off twinks have to wait for a long, long, time in queues to play against people of equal gear. Account twinks are (ab)using the same bg queues as the masses, to roll people in lower gear.
There was hulabaloo about this before, and Blizzard changed the level brackets, but quickly caved to the account twinkers who "had no reason to play and pay for their account if they couldn't be the top level in AV" since they "already had to put up with being the lowest level in the other BGs (AB, WSG, EotS).
In my opinion, for BGs, anyone who refuses to upgrade their account to the latest expansion should be forced into the same bracket as people with XP off. Right now, they're using a loophole because their enjoyment (along with many other twinks before xp gains in BGs) comes from being able to single-handedly defeat 5 to 10 opponents.
Hob Oct 1st 2010 2:42PM
Saeadame is correct: if you turn off your experience at level 60, you will be in for a long, long queue for any battleground... if you ever get one... because you will be in a separate battleground instance for players who have turned off their experience.
If you keep vanilla and hit the level cap naturally, you haven't turned your experience "off", so you can queue for regular battlegrounds with everyone else. And at level 60, you're queued in with the 50-59 group, rather than the 60-69 group.
The PvP forums are fragrant with the QQ of twinks who have turned off their experience and can't get into a battleground on the battlegroundiest day of their lives, even with an electrified battleground-queueing machine.
CyberNigma Oct 1st 2010 2:51PM
@Saeadame
You know, I originally replied to contradict what you were saying (referring to npcs that allow you to disable xp and the fact that twinks that have disabled xp get thrown into separate BGs), however, I just realized that you speak the truth. If you go that particular route then you can twink without being thrown into the twink-only BGs since you have not technically disabled xp gain.
I decided to go ahead and post this in case anyone decided to reply to your comment for the same reasons. I just can't remember if 60 is the new tier or the old tier of bgs (60-79, 51-60, or just 60)..
Aalokor Oct 1st 2010 4:52PM
I'm guessing that has more to do with the fact that you still have to buy a game plus 3 friggin expansions if you're just starting up. someone new might buy just vanilla, and then seeing that he has to shell out for 3 more games before anything is playable would be completely frustrating.
Thundrcrackr Oct 1st 2010 4:02PM
I think the Terms of WoW (and other online games) all say something to the fact that, being an online game, content is subject to change. So if you're not willing to buy the expansions and keep up with the change that's your choice, but u can't really complain if they remove stuff in the process.
(Although I personally hate it when they do that, from a completionist's standpoint. I like to know that i can potentially do everything in the game, even if it takes me forever, so each time they remove something their just taking away one more reason for me to keep playing the game ).
Scott Clark Oct 1st 2010 4:26PM
As 80s doing old-school raids on Skywall, every time we zone in we field tells from level 60s asking if they can tag along. I suppose /who-ing the zones is their equivalent of watching trade chat for raids? AQ40 and BWL are the worst for these - the first time we had such a request from a Years Behind member we humoured them, but it is way more hassle than it's worth. Having a toon (or all of your toons!) in a true old-school raid is a really neat idea, but doesn't if defeat the purpose of facing these challenges at-level if all you do is tag along with players that overpower those challenges for you?
And if you're complaining about the sixty dollars you spent six years ago - amortized to less than a dollar a month at this point - I think it might be time to recognize that the true cost of your account is the monthly access fee; if you don't enjoy the direction the game is going, maybe it's time to find a better use of your time and money going forward.
noel mcleod Oct 4th 2010 8:53AM
I tried that, turned off Xp on my nicely-twinked lvl-19 warrior and found that .... I couldn't get a BG in an hour. This is a feature that didn't work, and the net result is that low-lvl BGs are FULL of heavily-twinked characters (like mine) who only play BGs and slowly level. Often we will choose not to cap the 3rd flag (or desert just before) to slow down the xp gain. If you have 2 or 3 toons set up this way you really don't care about the debuff. The only loss is that I used to measure my win rate (over 75% for Ally in abattlegroup where Ally overall is about 30%) but small loss.
I think this feature should eventually go away.
Ailuvan Oct 1st 2010 2:20PM
Yes -- you get an entirely new 1-60 experience in vanilla regardless of whether you're buying Cataclysm or not, so it's easier and more fun to hit that six-year-old, obselete-for-three-expansions level cap.
-------------------------------
Win.
One would have to ask, what have you been doing playing in vanilla for the last 6 years? How many times can you level up a toon to 60, again?