The Queue: I don't want to look back yet
by Alex Ziebart 
Dec 22nd 2010 at 11:00AM
Be honest. How many of you winced, cringed, or shrieked in terror upon seeing that screenshot of Oculus up above?
Kal asked:
How do you feel Cataclysm compared to the other expansion releases in terms of bugs and hotfixes? I didn't play much during The Burning Crusade and Wrath's releases, so I'm not sure how this one compares.
I've found Cataclysm's launch to be extremely smooth compared to both The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. With the exception of Tol Barad, there have been no intense, gamebreaking bugs in Cataclysm's launch. Tol Barad is horrifically imbalanced, and that sucks, but Wintergrasp would crash servers every single time the battle started. There were major pieces of content that were simply unplayable in previous expansions. Cataclysm has nothing like that. Yes, there have been a lot of hotfixes, but they've been relatively minor and they've been great fixes. Cataclysm's launch has been very smooth.
Westoya asked:
Why does the WoW Insider RSS feed frequently barf and re-post everything from the last couple days?
We're in the process of trying to figure that out. One thing that would help when reporting this happening is checking which version of our RSS feed you're using. Because of all of the crazy domain changes we've had to go through, there are a lot of people using our old feeds, which is fine ... except when there's an RSS bug, there's a whole group of feeds to check rather than just one. Are you using our old WoW.com feed? Our original WoWInsider.com feed? The wow.joystiq.com feed? They're all the same content, but if it's a specific one screwing up consistently, it will help us find the problem.
xandrence asked:
I'm wondering what everybody thinks of the new dungeons. I can't put my finger on it, but to me, they just don't seem to flow as good as most of the Lich King dungeons.
Personally, I love the Cataclysm dungeons. I don't think there's one I actively dislike. It's no small secret that I, personally, thought Wrath of the Lich King was an overall weak expansion compared to Blizzard's other work, but I find Cataclysm to be excellent. I'll take the worst Cataclysm instance over places like the Nexus any day of the week. The Wrath instances didn't excite me. At all.
Steph asked:
Why do we not get XP when skinning mobs? It's a gathering profession like mining and herbalism, so why not?
My worgen druid wishes to know the answer to this question as well. If you ever find out, let me know.
My guess? Because you already earned XP from killing the mob, they don't want to give you XP for ripping its skin off, too. At that point, they might as well just give you a free heirloom item for picking up skinning. At least mining and herbalism make you go out of your way a little.
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 1 of 13)
Allan Dec 22nd 2010 11:06AM
The majority of things people skin tend to be thongs others have killed and left while leveling
Arrav Dec 22nd 2010 11:10AM
And i thought the Briefs had it bad
Necromann Dec 22nd 2010 11:10AM
Since when have we been skinning thongs?
Peepers Dec 22nd 2010 11:15AM
Ever killed a Furbolg
Galestrom Dec 22nd 2010 11:16AM
I assume he meant throngs.
But skinnies in thongs -- yah, that'll prolly make someone's morning.
Chetti Dec 22nd 2010 11:17AM
I thought that the reason that picking up herbs and hacking mines granted xp was to balance out the gathering professions that don't involve killing. I've got each of these professions across various toons, and I love free skins as much as the next skinner (big 'ol thank you to people who loot animal corpses!), but I don't miss the xp granted by picking up the skin because I get more than the "gather xp" the next time I kill an animal for its skin.
On the other side of that, I was surprised to see xp granted by picking up herbs (and mining mines). My main is an herbalist and I can't say that I thought I was missing out on anything while maxing out the skill during Wrath. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the xp, I just see it as a pleasant little bonus from Blizzard along with the new herbs to pick up in the new zones.
Eldoron Dec 22nd 2010 11:45AM
"The majority of things people skin tend to be thongs others have killed and left while leveling"
Don't think so. Really don't think so. Show data.
Bionic Radd Dec 22nd 2010 12:22PM
To back up the skinning other people's kills theory, my druid spent most of my farming time for medium leather in the dig site in Wetlands with all the raptors. If anyone else was questing there, i spent far more time skinning their kills than my own. STV, Ungoro, nagrand and Sholazar Basin were similar expeiences. It's one of the best things about skinning, really.
lesicor.caerlon Dec 22nd 2010 12:58PM
He obviously meant THINGS... THINGS people... not Throngs, not thongs, THINGS.
Amaxe Dec 22nd 2010 1:02PM
I skin other people's kills all the time... provided they are killing and moving on, and I make sure I am not stealing other people's skin targets.
So long as they aren't using them, I figure why not.
Andrew Super Dec 22nd 2010 1:46PM
WoW does not improve your ability to remove thongs. This is a fact.
Bynde Dec 22nd 2010 1:30PM
All I know is that when killing thongs, you have to get it on the first shot. Those things get really angry when merely wounded.
Magariz Dec 22nd 2010 3:35PM
I tend to find that if you level with someone who has Herbalism or Mining then they tend to start vastly outlevelling you if you have neither.
While I understand that the majority of players don't level in pairs and it will never change, it would be a nice extra if Blizzard implimented a feature that allows the turning off of XP gains from nodes. Having said that, I've no idea how difficult that would be to impliment.
Rakah Dec 22nd 2010 4:05PM
Is there any chance wowinsider could do competitions that apply outside the US and Canada?
vocenoctum Dec 22nd 2010 4:19PM
It's also worth noting (to me!) that Archaeology also grants xp!
I leveled to like 100 skill and got half a level out of it. (from high 82 to low 83)
kunukia Dec 22nd 2010 4:43PM
Although I skin other peoples kills if I trip over them, I skin several times more of my own kills. I utterly disagree. To make any serious progress in the profession, you must actually farm leather.
Artificial Dec 22nd 2010 5:16PM
It's irrelevant whether you can skin other people's mobs or not. The fact of the matter is, if you *want* to gain experience while skinning, you *can*. You aren't forced to take the option of killing to skin, but you can do so if you choose, so if you choose not to, that's entirely in your hands.
Miners and herbalists have no real options. Sure, there are a few mobs that drop herbs and ores, but very rarely, and they don't improve your skill, they just give you the mat. So they have to mine and pick herbs if they want to skill up, and unless they get XP while doing so, they're not advancing their character's level during the time they're "wasting" working on their profession. Fairness to them means allowing them to gain XP while mining and picking herbs, just as it means allowing you to gain XP while killing mobs for skinning. It's still slightly unfair in that you can choose not do (by just skinning other people's kills) whereas they don't have that choice, but it's more fair than the alternative.
Tim Dec 22nd 2010 5:34PM
"things" he obviously meant "things". Maybe
Derick Dec 23rd 2010 6:21PM
Miners and Herbalists only encounter nodes for their trade every so often whereas skinners can go out and choose from hundreds of nodes in any zone. Granting XP for something that is found occasionally and requires you to be watching for them is different from allowing someone to get extra XP for something they already got XP for and might even get XP for again when they turn in a particular quest.
I've leveled skinning to max and mining to max on separate characters and I think that the way it is now makes sense in terms of sheer numbers of 'nodes'.
zainwolf Dec 22nd 2010 9:12PM
I leveled from 84 to 85 on Archaeology alone. Got some nice toys and a cool land mount I'll rarely ever need to use.