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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Entering the modern era
by Alex Ziebart 
Jan 24th 2011 at 11:00AM
I have a horrible confession to make. Until late last week, I've been playing WoW with only 2 GB of RAM in my gaming PC. It didn't run well, but I managed to do everything with it, including the highest levels of raid content in Wrath of the Lich King. Sure, my FPS wasn't great, but I still managed to kick ass. Cataclysm ... no. Never. It was never going to happen. 2 GB is not nearly enough, especially if you run any mods. Let me tell you, fighting the Omnotron Defense System with 2 FPS is not a good time. So I've upgraded to 4 GB. It's much nicer.
As an added bonus, I can now actually keep a browser window open while I raid. I am standing over Magmaw's broken husk as I write this. Feels good, man. Feels good.
Zack asked:
Now that Sinestra is down, what is the "terrible secret" she was guarding? I can't find a link to it anywhere!
She is the terrible secret. Were it not for datamining, she would have been an unknown. Cho'gall was hiding/guarding Sinestra, Deathwing's consort and broodmother of the black/twilight dragonflight. See those horrible scars all over her model? That's what happens when you mate with Deathwing. Ow.
cloudhopper013 asked:
Will we ever be able to change our username? My username was by default set as my email address (minus the @fancyemailwebsite.com), which I created when I was 10. As a result, my name is pretty... stupid. And not at all an accurate description of my personality.
You can't change your username, but you can reregister fairly effortlessly. It won't attach your old comments to the new handle, but your personality shines much brighter than your comment history! Also, everybody will need to reregister when we inevitably switch over to Joystiq's commenting system.
Cloudhopper seems like a pretty slick name to me, though. Hopping on clouds sounds awesome. I bet cloudhoppers would be pretty cool people.
Randomize asked:
I have a question. Just what exactly is the point of the Trapped Eyeball Beast in Baradin Hold? Can't kill it, can't see any special tricks, etc.
Personally, I liked Eldoron's response so much that I'm just going to go with there. Yesterday, Eldoron responded, "Why is there a painting on your wall? Can't kill it, can't eat it ... It's decoration, dude."
magic.swordsman asked:
Where are the ret and prot pally articles? All I've seen are lame holy ones for the last several weeks, what gives?
Well, first of all, holy isn't lame! Holy is super-fun in Cataclysm, and I found healing terribly boring as a paladin previously. Healing as a holy paladin now is just so ... zen. Get into your groove and make things happen. It's wonderful.
Second, we're working on getting our protection and retribution columns going again. You should see it start up from Gregg Reece again in the next week or two. If that turns out to not be the case, I will most likely write a few retribution/protection pieces myself, as my main is a raiding paladin of that variety.
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: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 10)
Drakkenfyre Jan 24th 2011 12:31PM
MikeLive, you are also running an emulated program while running another OS to run a game. You are going to have performance loss for that. If you were running straight Windows 7, the performance wouldn't drop like that.
jrblackyear Jan 24th 2011 12:36PM
I want to point out, as no one has yet, that if you have a Macbook--not the Macbook Pro--you cannot upgrade to 8GB of RAM.
Currently, 6GB of is the maximum allowed in most Macbooks. However, the 15 and 17" Pro units can support up to 8GB.
Vladeon Jan 24th 2011 3:29PM
@joshua
It is in fact very possible to replace the video card in laptops. In fact, alienware laptops are specifically designed this way. It's even possible to replace the video card in other laptops such as Sony vaio and HP laptops but its very labor intensive and since the video cards in these laptops are integrated, they require you to replace the motherboard.
Now I don't know about macbooks as I've never personally modified one but I've seen what others have been able to do with them that I'm very sure it would be possible. Though Apple is going through such amazing lengths to make sure that the owner of their products (i.e. you) is unable to modify them that I wouldn't be surprised if you'd be unable to even modify RAM in the near future.
To answer the original poster's question, it depends highly on the rest of your computer but in general adding a few gigs of RAM will greatly increase performance when running multiple applications such as addons.
For anyone interested in laptop hacks Google Ben Heck, he's done some amazing things with laptops.
vltsu123 Jan 24th 2011 11:36AM
Any idea when the new patch is coming? (If no, just skip this any move to the next question)
Do you think, that we ever get to a point where spec meant only the way you want to play your class? We're already at the point where Blizzard is trying to make people choose people to raids, not specific classes who grant unique buffs. I'm talking about the article "It's okay to be in the middle pack".
I myself play with MM huntard always, no matter the buffs and nerfs, and at the moment I'm kinda 'rare' case as even you guys usually refer that huntards equals SV. Not to me, I love to play MM and I WILL play MM if I want to. I wont change to SV now, and after nerfs go to MM, then BM, then MM and back to SV, no thank you.
I'd want to see the day where all classes POTENTTIALLY could do same DPS / HPS etc. and spec would only tell others how you want to play your class. Skill (and gear for some point, of course) would be THE thing that had the most impact on your DPS. Naturally even now best players are able to do moar DPS than others with same gear and spec, but still your choice of spec, in my opinon, decided too much in advance.
Am I just dreaming?
RS Jan 24th 2011 12:42PM
Please do not resort to calling the Hunter class "Huntards". You degrade yourself and other hunters who are doing their damnedest to make a good name for themselves.
All classes have their ass-hats. No need to perpetuate the myth that hunters are lesser beings.
I think Frostheim has done the most excellent job proving this with his articles.
Keep your chin up, we are a great class with great players.
RS
Pyromelter Jan 24th 2011 2:35PM
1. Soon (tm)
2. Skill does have the largest impact on your dps. The difference comes in where the ceiling for your spec's dps is, so that if you are playing with 20 people of equal skill, the higher the potential maximum will determine how high the dps will reach, because elite level raiders will be somewhere at 93-99% of their maximum dps for every encounter.
3. Yes, you are dreaming, because classes will never be in perfect balance. Things will get better as the expansion goes along, however. In the first bit of an expansion, there are many new and unknown things, and the biggest imbalance will occur in the first month or two of an xpac.
What you are seeing is a result of natural imbalance, so I do think you'll see the 3 hunter specs even out as we go forward, but you'll never see all dps specs of all classes in perfect dps harmony.
Skarn Jan 24th 2011 4:23PM
RS, I want to upvote you some more. I'm fine with using huntard to describe someone who is actually a failure, but for those of us who are good, competent players...it's flat out insulting. I'm pretty thick-skinned, but that...just...GRR!
vltsu123 Jan 26th 2011 11:04AM
Well seems like I'm getting REALLY misunderstood... I use 'huntard' name daily, and I see it just as a sarcastic nickname, because of the hunters history. I dont use it because hunters would be stupid or something, it's just ... C'mon guys, chill out. Just a name I use while talking about them, nothing 'bad' behind it and I can't believe someone STILL takes it seriously.
That's the joke guys. It's old as time itself. It's the same thing as when I say that every loot is hunter loot. A joke. J-o-k-e. Got it? Does someone really take thoese seriously? Or offensively? If so, I'm terribly sorry, but go back to your basement and grow up. Get over it. I doubt that I had anything in the post that would even realate hunters being stupid. Just writing like I normally do, but seems like it doesnt work here that way. People take things way too seriously. When I communicate with people, I always refer hunters as huntards in heroics and everywhere. You are huntard, I AM huntard. And this is the first time someone really gets hurt by it.
And thank you for completely missunderstading the whole goddamn point in my post.
/rage
To Pyromelter, thanks for seeing what I tried to say. Yeah, I kinda doubt that we will ever see 'perfect' balance, seems kinda impossible. But I just thought as we are getting closer to that 'choose the player, not the class', so if next step would be 'choose the player, not the spec' .
(Seems like I failed trying to response...)
Derleth Jan 24th 2011 11:37AM
I've only played a little of the new 1-60 aliance side quest chains. Is it ever explained why the aliance invaded the Barrens? are the soldiers from theramore or stormwind? what does jaina say about it?
Pyromelter Jan 24th 2011 12:05PM
It's been a while since I quested through the south barrens (this was hordeside), but this is what I can remember:
1. Through questing in the area, pretty much all of it was explained. The alliance are invading the southern barrens to have a link between Theramore and Northwatch Hold, as well as their allies and resources in Stonetalon. Closer to the Great Gate, I remember something about the Alliance wanting to bust into Mulgore to attempt to take over Mulgore and Thunder Bluff, but the Tauren were able to close The Great Gate just before the Alliance made it through Camp Taurajo
2. It was Theramore, but I believe it had the blessing of the alliance/stormwind (or at the very least was tolerated by the greater Alliance).
3. Jaina is nowhere to be found. (Take this with a grain of salt as I've never played alliance higher than level 20, but from the horde perspective there is no influence of Jaina to be found in the southern barrens, and I can't find any quests with her involving any new cataclysm content.) Also, I don't know if she had any role in The Shattering which might shed some light on things.
Artificial Jan 24th 2011 12:22PM
Don't forget Durotar. In addition to regular Alliance forced taking over Tiragarde Keep, the southern areas of Durotar (the valley formerly filled with centaur, as well as part of the Valley of Trials) are full of invading Alliance. If the new Orgrimmar looks substantially more martial, don't chaulk it entirely up to Garrosh's taste. Durotar has been under Alliance attack since vanilla, but they seriously upped the scale and aggressiveness in Cata, not just in the Barrens.
matt Jan 24th 2011 1:23PM
aggression toward horde for aggression sake.
I just assumed it had to do with Jaina being jilted in the pre-cata novel.
hell hath no fury
Tenko Jan 25th 2011 1:16PM
Yeah, question for the Queue.
Where the hell is Jaina? Has Jaina gone AWOL or has she dropped 5 years of fence building and diplomacy for total war?
The locals of Theramore were never as obviously horde neutral as their ruler but they were't out burning and pillaging every Tauren settlement west of them pre-cata. Jaina would never have allowed it for a start.
But now they've basically blitzreiged through to Stonetalon leaving a war zone in their wake.
Has Jaina gone awol
Kylenne Jan 24th 2011 1:49PM
@Pyromelter: It's been quite a while since I read it, but IIRC Jaina had a fair-sized role in the novel, though it was largely relegated to babysitting Varian and his kid by turns. Her diplomatic efforts were pretty much spent trying to calm King Shounentard the fuck down, as per post-BC usual; she was trying to mediate the talks re: the murdered Sentinels but if I recall even she got tired of Thrall holding the Idiot Ball and went on about her business. Then she spent the rest of the book trying to keep Theramore from turning into Waterworld.
She did have one scene with Thrall that I'm 85% sure was a Rowling-esque attempt to troll the downtrodden shippers, though.
HDPriest Jan 24th 2011 1:49PM
I assumed it was in response to the Horde's actions in Ashenvale after being freely offered Elwynn lumber for Org's rebuilding. Garrosh would rather take it by force than owe Varian anything.
Hollow Leviathan Jan 24th 2011 4:15PM
Durotar has been under *human* attack/occupation since vanilla, but until the Shattering it was a vagabond detachment of Kul Tirans not under the command of Stormwind or Theramore or any member nation of the alliance.
Benjamin Jan 24th 2011 11:41AM
What happened to the kitty version of Shifting Perspectives we we're told was coming yesterday?
Andostre Jan 24th 2011 11:41AM
Back in vanila WoW, there used to be vendors in various quest hubs that would sell lower-level cooking recipes that pertained to the zone you were questing in. I can't seem to find anything like that (for Cooking) now that the Shattering is here. This makes it tough to organically skill up Cooking without going out of my way to grind for reagents. And I often come across cooking reagents that I never see a recipe for! Is there a centralized place to learn new Cooking recipes other than the trainers in the major cities?
BigDumbFace Jan 24th 2011 3:18PM
For alliance there is a vendor in Stormwind. He's at the inn in Old Town. He sells all of the recipes you used to get via questing before, so that may help.
Boobah Jan 24th 2011 5:09PM
It's not like he's new; I first noticed him sometime during BC (or possibly earlier, since I spent most of BC horde-side...)