Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Blue
by Adam Holisky 
Feb 10th 2011 at 11:00AM
My favorite color is blue, just like the Blue Man Group.
Emprise asked:
Why do I see multiple loading bars when I'm logging into the game now?
The larger bar is the overall progress in loading the data, the smaller bar is for data that is being downloaded right then and there from the Blizzard servers. This is how it was explained to me, and I've not seen anything that contradicts this.
Dr. Knox asked:
When I logged back in on patch day, got conquest capped, and finally went to purchase my 2ksomething Vicious Gladiator weapon, it turned out to have become a 3ksomething Vicious Gladiator weapon! I didn't see anything explaining this in the patch notes, though it's likely I've missed something. Does anyone have a definitive answer on this?
There's always one of two explanations for this: Either the changes didn't make it into the patch notes, or it's a tooltip bug -- usually the latter (as is confirmed in the comments left yesterday). Blizzard tries hard to include everything in the official patch notes and tries hard to have all the tooltips right, but there are thousands of them, and there are bound to be errors.
Ralethisolur asked:
So I just noticed today on my character sheet. below the AVG ilevel, there is a speed calc thing. This was not stated in any patch notes and wasn't in existence before 4.0.6? Why weren't we told about this?
Same as above -- the change just didn't make it into the patch notes. Neat change, though; thanks for bringing it to my attention. I used to have an addon that told me this, but it's good Blizzard put in in the default UI, too.
Dragonrose asked:
How does Sylvanas' corset stay up?
Matt had it right in the comments: double-sided tape.
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 3 of 12)
Qot Feb 10th 2011 11:31AM
There's got to be a better way to say that.
Chris Feb 10th 2011 11:10AM
A question for the Queue. With patch 4.0.6, Blizzard fixed the BOA head enchant items from the various factions. I did notice though that the shoulder enchants from Therazane are now BOP. Any logic behind this? I really dont want to grind all my toons through Deepholm just to get the shoulder enchants, when the head enchants are BOA.
naughtyzoot Feb 10th 2011 11:45AM
The Therazane ones have always been BoP unfortunately. Unlike Sons of Holdir in WotLK when they were BoA.
I thought the head enchants were fixed, but yesterday the tooltips for them were still showing they require rep=Revered for each. Is that just a bad tooltip?
Chris Feb 10th 2011 12:02PM
I think its a bad tooltip. I was able to buy the enchant from Vahs'ir and send it to my tank who was only Friendly with Vash'ir
Nynaeve Feb 10th 2011 12:40PM
@naughtyzoot
Weren't Hodir enchants BoP at the beginning of Wrath? I personally don't know because my main at the time was a scribe. I just thought that the BoA changes came later.
Chris Feb 10th 2011 12:57PM
The BOA changes came later, but it was when Blizzard made all Head/Shoulder enchants BOA. It just doesnt make sense to have the head enchants BOA and not the shoulder enchants.
Pyromelter Feb 10th 2011 1:12PM
Shoulder enchants were BOP until 3.3. Also, all arcani (helm enchants) were BOP until 3.3. I believe all head and shoulder enchants from Burning Crusade were BOP too (and according to wowhead, are still BOP).
PvtDeth Feb 11th 2011 5:57AM
The difference is that you might have to grind one of several different factions for head enchants whereas all shoulder enchants are available from a single faction. I think I see the logic, but to be honest, I'd rather grind a different faction each time than do the Therazane dailies over and over.
I'm pretty sure they will change something to make the enchants easier to get at some point. Either making them BoA or making rep more accessible as they did in WotLK.
Bulbasaur Feb 10th 2011 11:10AM
I just blue myself!
Eros Feb 10th 2011 11:41AM
Thats some "talent" you got there.
The Dark Wayne [Planeteer: Power of the Batusi] Feb 10th 2011 11:14AM
Is there any kind of exact timeline as to when Cataclysm is taking place? An NPC in Hyjal says it's been 10 years since Archimonde was defeated, and if I remember correctly, vanilla WoW was 4 years after that, and the end of WotLK two years after the beginning of WoW. So Cata takes place 4 years after Wrath? That doesn't sound right, is there any other conflicting npc dialogue?
andvili Feb 10th 2011 11:23AM
Cataclysm is set 10 years after Warcraft 3.
Nawaf Feb 10th 2011 11:24AM
You counted it wrong.
4 years till beginning of WoW.
1 year till beginning of TBC.
1 year till beginning of Wrath.
1 year till the end of Wrath.
3 years passed till Cataclysm.
so that makes it 10.
It's not 2 years till the end of Wrath. It's 2 years till the BEGINNING of Wrath.
Joe Feb 10th 2011 12:08PM
But please don't try to read too much into the dates. Blizzard is perfectly fine with completely ignoring even their own timeline if required for story purposes.
For example, take kids like Anduin and Moira Brozebeard's baby. Their aging (and extremely long gestation, in the case of Moira's child) just don't fit in properly with any timeline.
So the answer to "how long has it been since [whatever]" is always "as long as it need to be for the story, regardless of whether that fits with other dates or not".
Pyromelter Feb 10th 2011 1:30PM
Timelines are somewhat in flux, and there is no official blizzard timeline (not anymore at least).
Here is a web archive timeline that was official:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070116010622/http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/story/timeline.html
According to wowpedia as well as my own interpretation of in-game events, I come up with something like this:
If the destruction of Archimonde is year zero, then:
0 - Archimonde bites the bullet at Hyjal
1 - Arthas coalesces with Ner'zhul and freezes himself within The Frozen Throne
5- Vanilla WOW
6- Burning Crusade
7 through 9- Wrath of the Lich King (with about a half a year to a year before The Shattering)
10 - Cataclysm
I vehemently disagree with "3 years passed til cataclysm" as well as only 1 year for wrath. Wrath in real time as well as in-game was 2 years. Maybe it took under 2 years to down The Lich King, but then a few months of the aftermath of that as well as pre-shocks were still going on before The Shattering.
A lot of people bring up the argument of "Well Pyro, look at how much orgrimmar changed, and how much the rest of the world changed," and to that I say, no one built any mega large pyramids, no one had to wire electricity or pour massive foundations, and with cheap (ie slave) labor from goblins, lots of things can get done very quickly with just massive man, er, goblin power.
Ronin Feb 10th 2011 2:15PM
"Well Pyro, look at how much orgrimmar changed, and how much the rest of the world changed,"
One of the Blues explained what Pyro is saying, on the forums. Although it seems like some things changed a lot overnight (Stormwind is another example-- aside from Deathwing's predations, it looks quite different from what it was before) this is simply the result of game mechanics. Lore-wise, there were many changes going on over the years, but it's not practical to make the game-world change incrementally to reflect that.
When they re-worked the game-world for Cataclysm, it gave them the chance to update lots of things that weren't caused by the cataclysm itself, nor did they happen during some long span of time between the events of WotLK and Cataclysm.
In other words, Pyro is correct according to Blizz-- the fact that so much in the game-world changed with the patch that introduced the Shattering, doesn't mean that (time-line wise) all of those changes occurred between Wotlk and the Shattering/Cataclysm.
Ronin Feb 10th 2011 2:23PM
Oh, I also forgot to mention, that same Blue post said that there was only a space of a few months between the end of WotLK and the Shattering/Cataclysm.
Boobah Feb 10th 2011 2:46PM
As near as I can tell, when something was added to WoW is a pretty good timeline for were it fits chronologically.
So adventurers killed VanCleef, Theradras and Prince Tortheldrin in that order (with a three or four month gap between each.)
Three months later, the skirmishes in Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley heated up. A month later adventurers found their way into Nefarion's Blackwing Lair, and two months after that the Zandalari started recruiting adventurers to stop Hakkar, quickly followed the month after by four scary emerald dragons emerging from the portals to the Emerald Dream. No wonder people keep positing connections between Hakkar and the Nightmare. (And it certainly says some things about the ways the game has changed that four 40-man world bosses headlined a major content patch.)
A month after the corrupted dragons show up, Vanessa celebrates the first anniversary of her father's death, and is presumably staying with the Saldeans by now.
It's very much worth pointing out that World of Warcraft changes by fits and starts, and an astonishing number of actions don't really change a thing; the world of Warcraft, on the other hand, changes continually, little bits at a time. And thanks to the nature of an MMO, you can regularly go visit locations that are 'off-screen.' Right now, that's most obvious with the bounce from the old world to Outland, but it's always been there and (in this game, at least) it always will.
scherbaddie Feb 10th 2011 7:57PM
You mean like how ToC was built (with help from players doing lame dailies) over a series of patches?
jfofla Feb 10th 2011 11:15AM
Article in the Business Section of today's LA Times about Activision. They mention the new Blizzard MMO. Just an interesting tidbit.
"Activision, which provided little detail on the upcoming service, also dropped hints about a new product it plans to announce next week at Toy Fair in New York, as well as a new multiplayer online title from its Blizzard Entertainment studio in Irvine. Executives declined to further explain the new projects."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/02/activision-guitar-hero-layoffs-call-of-duty-beachhead.html