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by Michael Sacco 
Oct 17th 2010 at 12:00PM
I'm completely out of witty intros. It's Sunday! Deal with it!
DarkSpade asked:
Was the WoW miniatures game ever officially announced as dead or is it still out there flapping in the breeze? Any chance of it coming back?
The license for the WoW Minis game was originally held by Upper Deck, a company with whom Blizzard no longer does business. Cryptozoic, who picked up the WoW TCG license, did not pick up the Minis license. I think you can probably extrapolate the status of the WoW Minis game from there.
Roht asked:
Is there going to be a Ring of Blood/Amphitheater of Anguish type of thing in Cata?
Yes: the Crucible of Carnage, located in Twilight Highlands. There's also one in Gadgetzan, available at level 46.
Blightmare asked:
I have a question about Wintergrasp's early stages, because I was looking at my Wrath box and when I opened it I was reading all the things you would be able to do in Wrath, one of which jumped out at me. "Engage in aerial dogfights with flying mounts and new gnome engineered planes". Was this in beta but they scrapped it or did it make it to Wrath but they took it out early?
Dogfights were indeed originally in Wintergrasp, but they were removed due to balance and gameplay issues. At least that's what Blizzard said.
Coincidentally, certain testers would just crash the planes into the fortress towers while yelling ... well, I'm sure you can imagine what they would be yelling. No, I'm not making that up. I'm inclined to believe that those guys singlehandedly got flying vehicles removed from the game, no matter what Blizzard says.
Sal asked:
Any chance the War Against the Nightmare will make it into the game in some form?
The major Emerald Nightmare storyline was mostly resolved in the Stormrage novel; however, the book dictates that the remnants of the Nightmare were banished to the portion of the Emerald Dream called the Rift of Aln, which coincidentally is the name of a track on the Cataclysm soundtrack. Intriguing, no?
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!
Reader Comments (Page 6 of 11)
Dementron Oct 18th 2010 10:54PM
"One word: Rhonin"
Fixed.
Transit Oct 17th 2010 12:34PM
Does the Taunka story line (What there was of it) come up at all in cata? Is there any new Taunka npc's in Tbluff, etc? (I wish they really did more with them.)
What about the Tuskarr? Any new npc's for them in cata?
Amaxe Oct 17th 2010 2:48PM
I suspect no more than we'll see the Northrend dwarves in the Alliance... which is odd considering their king was Magni's brother
Boobah Oct 17th 2010 10:12PM
Well, Muradin didn't want to drop the Alliance's problems onto the Frostborn. The Taunka, on the other hand, seem as though they'd fit right in to a Horde led by Garrosh; personality-wise, they seem more like orcs than tauren.
The Tuskarr are pretty much out, since they have this nasty tendency to die when the temperature gets much above freezing.
Sharvis Oct 17th 2010 12:36PM
Are the mobs in 1-60 zones in Cataclysm tougher than the ones on live? Without any heirlooms I'm plowing through mobs left and right. With heirlooms, it's insanely easy. This makes leveling a snorefest as I'd like some sense of danger with mobs.
This isn't even mentioning dungeons, though thankfully I saw a blue post recently mention they're going to tune them. Maybe we'll only get satisfying difficulty with the 80-85 zones. -.-
Ice Oct 17th 2010 12:46PM
They cant desing the zones and mobs in a way that "everyone has heirlooms" because that would simply be bad desing and not something they have done. Leveling must be accessible to everyone from "child to grandpa and in between". Leveling gets you into the game and still is suppos to teach you the game and the class, it would be insane to desing whole cata just for already paying customers. They have to get new people in.
So no, the mobs wont hit harder and you wont be in danger. (which reminds me I did try level rogue on live before patch without heirlooms and oh boy did I die a lot.. so that puts things on perspective)
But, I leveled in beta to and the mobs die at same speed as they do now but the thing is: You have more spells on arsenal, fore example I leveled warlock for while and even if I had Unstable affli, corruption, bane of agony and drain life they mobs didnt just "drop dead in second". They do have increased their healthpools so the guy who uses all their arsenal wont notice difference on speed, they still die at same speed but you do much more since you have time to do so with increased health. Guy who doesnt still know the limits or what to use and when might battle the mobs longer and be in danger without heirlooms.
Sharvis Oct 17th 2010 1:03PM
Right. I didn't say design them around heirlooms. I said without heirlooms they're too easy on live with the class changes. And I'm not saying they have to be brutally difficult.
There's nothing wrong with well-balanced mobs. It's what gives the player a sense of accomplishment and entertainment outside of quests. This can be done in a way that still enables anyone to level from, as you say, "child to grandpa and in between."
Ice Oct 17th 2010 2:05PM
Yeah I totally understand what you mean. But so far I think their desing philosophy is that
Leveling: Fun
Raiding/heroics: Co-operative challenge.
Bgs/arena: Competetive challenge.
Challenge does not seem to come from leveling so far I could tell. Also sadly it comes to that if you want challenge you should not wear heirlooms (or you could try solo group mobs.. who knows). But yeah: it seems theres not much "challenge" leveling for heirloomers, afterall their point is to make it easier and speed it up.
In the end when you are having fun you forgot the need of challenge.
chris crouse Oct 17th 2010 5:14PM
please stop transposing the n and g in design. i had to read the post after yours to figure out what the hell you were saying with "desing"
Christian Mathistad Oct 17th 2010 12:36PM
I did not mean the size of the bags, but bag slots. Where you put the bags.
Tbah Oct 17th 2010 12:50PM
You wish. I wish, too.
Our wishes are not answered as of yet (there's a month of Beta left).
Lin02 Oct 17th 2010 12:42PM
Speaking of Cataclysm soundtrack, will the new music come with patch 4.0.3, or with the expansion?
Tbah Oct 17th 2010 12:54PM
The music is alread there in the game files, so I'd say 4.0.3 enables it.
Sweet pieces of greater art, there.
Coopaloop Oct 17th 2010 12:50PM
Are we gonna get as sick of flame orange as we have of frost blue? Is it everywhere like frost blue was in Wrath?
Tbah Oct 17th 2010 12:55PM
Not quite. We'll be getting sick of that gloomy, bluish purple-black that the Twilight's Hammer likes so much, though.
Eddy Oct 17th 2010 2:25PM
I don't know what your tolerance for blue is, but I know that I'm sick of the thought of flame and red iron. It contours up bad memories of endless evenings of Molten Core and I know I can handle way more blue than I can red.
VioletArrows Oct 17th 2010 12:52PM
Probably better suited for a KYL, is there going to be much lore/interaction between the night elf type high elves leaving Dire Maul and the blood elf high elves?
MikeLive Oct 17th 2010 1:11PM
It seems unlikely. The Shen'dralar of Eldre'Thalas (now Dire Maul) were already somewhat isolated from the rest of the quel'dorei, and when the Sundering occurred, they built a magical device to siphon power from a captured demon and feed it as arcane energies to themselves, but the power would remain only inside the city walls. The highbourne that stayed with the rest of the night elves (and not those who sunk to the bottom of the ocean with Azshara) would later form a political uprising against Malfurion and the druids who led the society, though in the process got themselves exiled, where they went on to found Quel'thalas across the ocean, building the Sunwell. Due to lack of immortality, they eventually evolved into the different species we see today.
Artificial Oct 17th 2010 4:10PM
The Highborne are not high elves. They're the ancestors of the high elves, but are not themselves high elves. Likewise, gorillas are not humans. :p
Zanathos Oct 17th 2010 10:58PM
Gorillas aren't the ancestor of humans, gorillas and humans evolved from a common ancestor that wasn't either of those species.