The Queue: Extra strength

Mike Sacco was unable to tackle your usual Friday edition of The Queue this week, so I'm going to use this opportunity to make up for my oh-so-brief Monday editions of The Queue and answer a few more questions than we typically do each day. Onward!
Noyou asked:
With Activision pulling the plug on Guitar Hero and True Crime, how will that impact WoW, if at all?
I highly doubt it will impact WoW at all. The company is called Activision Blizzard, but WoW's development house is specifically Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard, as a developer, does what Blizzard wants to do. What happens to other developers within Activision Blizzard isn't going to have much of an effect on Blizzard the developer.
Trilynne asked:
Has Blizzard said anything about fixing the phased ore and herb nodes in multiple Cataclysm zones? It's very irritating when you can see a node in one subsection of the zone, but as soon as you cross over into it, it disappears.
As far as I know, Blizzard hasn't commented on this at all. I agree with you on the irritation factor, though! It drives me nuts, and I fall for it every single time. Even when I know very well that a node is out of reach due to phasing, I try to race to it anyway. Not cool, man. Not cool.
I do hope they figure out a fix for it eventually.
Ezzy asked:
What is up with the killable Cinderbloom in Tol Barad?
I have no idea, but I love it. Unlike the node phasing issues, the killable Cinderbloom is hilarious. I hope they keep it. Or add a new plant to herbalism that requires you to beat it up to get at the goods. Cacti? Lopping off limbs to get at the meat inside? Who knows?
Svylva asked:
My guild just earned access to the Battle Standard of Coordination, which according to patch notes now grants 15% increase to experience, honor and reputation. However, when I dropped it in Tol Barad before turning in my dailies, it had no effect. It also had no effect on my rep for a Ramkahen daily turn in. Anyone know when/how these actually work?
It's a battle standard, so the idea is to take it into battle. That is, you want to put it down in combat and it will increase your experience, honor and reputation gains when you kill something. You would drop it in a big fight in a battleground, or when you're tackling a boss in an instance, not when you're turning in quests.
Telwar asked:
Anybody else notice that the mob spawn rate in the Tol Barad mini-dungeons seems to have increased?
I believe that the respawn rates on the mobs on the Tol Barad cell blocks is dynamic. The more people there are in the area (and thus, the faster the mobs are getting killed), the faster they will respawn. If it's a prime time rush and you have 20 or 30 players killing demons, they are going to respawn nearly instantaneously. However, if you're doing the quests at 3 a.m. and it's just you and maybe one or two other guys in the cell block, the respawns will be much slower.
rnave27 asked:
What ever happened to guild chat being added to the mobile armory? Did it go the way of the dance studio?
I don't believe Blizzard ever said, "Yes, we are going to add guild chat to the mobile armory." It's an idea Blizzard said that it liked and would like to tackle one day, but that doesn't mean it was planned immediately or even in the near future. It's on a very long list of things the team would like to do one day. Eventually. When they get around to it.
Danthrax asked:
Three times in the past two days I have received a dungeon in progress when using the LFG tool, without the pop-up box telling me it was in progress. Has Blizzard removed that message intentionally to avoid tanks queuing specifically for in-progress dungeons, or is it just a bug? Other people joining the instance at the same time have told me they also did not see the warning on their windows.
I'm fairly certain this was done intentionally, yes. Let me tell you, it is not fun to be a healer in line for a heroic, getting spammed with ready check windows over and over because the tank is queueing and declining repeatedly, waiting to get an in-progress proc. The in-progress notification inspired some really terrible behavior in people, so I'm quite glad it's gone.
Filed under: The Queue
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Reader Comments (Page 9 of 9)
Irish Feb 11th 2011 5:21PM
Question for the Que:
What are the chances we ever see Rated Bg's go to random ques? As in we PvP'ers who prefer not to get raids organized hence why we PvP and much rather just que for it randomly from our UI. Any chance of this happening or would this be poor man epics and just infuriate the elitist?
Lowlight Feb 11th 2011 5:27PM
Question: What happened to Archimonde's bones? They aren't anywhere to be seen in Hyjal.
Task Feb 11th 2011 7:00PM
Going with cacti the comment in the Queue and the replies/comments about it:
If Blizz was to implement a non combat pet cacti (it's name would be Spines as a placeholder), who would win between Spines, Deathy, Grunty, Lil' KT, Lil' XT (minus the annoying voice), and the Pandaren Monk?
Weiss Feb 11th 2011 7:22PM
Why must the AH take a cut from your profit? Its not like the goblins do any thing with the gold.
Maribel Feb 11th 2011 7:52PM
Of course goblins do things with the gold! They stack it up in secret storage rooms, like the no-longer-secret ones in Booty Bay. They swim in it and roll around in it.
Drakkenfyre Feb 11th 2011 8:57PM
The Goblins only run the neutral AH.
It's to curb inflation. The same reason there are repairs.
Maribel Feb 11th 2011 9:57PM
Most of the auctioneers in Orgrimmar are now goblins, too, which may have been what he meant.
To be less of a smartass - have you ever listed something on Ebay? They take a cut of the seller's profit too. I don't know how it works with, say, Christie's, but I assume something similar is how all auction companies make their money. Lore-wise, that's the purpose it'd serve, paying the salaries of the auctioneers, and whatever behind-the-scenes mages do the arcane work that lets a bank alt in Stormwind see the gems I just handed to an auctioneer in Ironforge.
Ominous Feb 11th 2011 7:28PM
"With Activision pulling the plug on Guitar Hero and True Crime, how will that impact WoW, if at all?"
WTF?! Did somebody really ask that?!
Thomas Higgins Feb 11th 2011 9:24PM
Killable Cacti? Yeah, I remember those Cactuar. And one particular one the size of a fricking mountain which was a boss character in one of the FF games. Final Fantasy VIII if i recall. Otherwise known as the game which cost so much it ruined the development of one of the best games ever made for the PS One, the immortal "Xenogears".
Elethiem Feb 11th 2011 10:51PM
Putting my tin foil hat on, my take on the failing of Guitar Hero for Activision is that they will look to existing IPs to make more money. The CEO has already mentioned their adversion to building games on new IP because of the risk involved so with respect to Wow, will they look for new money making opportunities here?
Darkseid Feb 12th 2011 1:15AM
The Queue: Has anyone else noticed that with the arrival of 4.0.6 also came more phasing issues. Previously, where there were issues with mining and herbalism nods being out of phase, now it seems to be toons as well.
Twice in the past two days, my toon has gotten out of phase with the entire zone. Where essentially, it was 'moved forward' in a quest series, even though I had never completed the quest. This of course causes serious issues with completing quest and requires an end to that questing session until a GM can fix the problem.
The first time this happened was in Ulduum(a very heavily phased zone) at the end of the Harrison Jones chain. Leaving me unable to finish the last quest and get the lead in quest for Halls of Origination. Then today, while grinding rep in Hyjal with the same toon, I took a que in the Dugeon finder only to return to Hyjal to find that the Regrowth had occured in my absence. LOL So again, this requires a stop to questing until a GM can phase me back into the right time/space/continuim....thingy.
The herb and mining nod thing was annoying, but this is just plain problematic.
Xantenise Feb 12th 2011 2:58AM
QUEUE. My Teldrassil Sproutling has turned yellow in the patch! It is such a small change but one that confused me. Has Blizz said anything on it - is it a bug or intended?
Dif Feb 13th 2011 11:08AM
The LFD not longer showing dungeons on progress is a nerf to DPS too, beside tanks.
Considering the high queue time for DPS (on Hakkar-EU the average is 30-40 minutes), doing a dungeons take actually more than an hour (considering queue + actual run). With the knowledge of the dungeon being in progress or not I could queue even if I had little time available, because if I ended up on a already in progress dungeon I could fit it on the limited time on hand (or refuse the join if it was a starting dungeon); now I cannot longer queue unless I am sure I can afford the full time (therefore losing possible points and loot).
Emile Feb 12th 2011 7:04AM
I honestly don't get why tanks would wait for an in-progress dungeon. Usually if I as a tank ditched a group (meaning they would need a new tank) it's because the group was terribad. And as a new tank joining that in-progress dungeon, I'd rather not deal with a sucky group. Gimme fresh runs please!
kebosangar Feb 12th 2011 9:26AM
Hi guys,
You know how when you mouse over the PC icon and it'll show you your latency? Now there's two of em; Home and World. What's the difference and which one has more effect to gameplay?
richtoad Feb 12th 2011 10:33AM
Why is Thrall giving cards to Garrosh for the Love is in the Air daily? Is Garrosh to lazy? Thrall has his own problems ya know!
phoenixxx73 Feb 12th 2011 11:25AM
Random and perhapse Stupid question for the Queue....
But one that i have wondered on several occasions.
Why do we not see Mixed race NPCs about the world?? Surely it is possible that a Tauren has fallen in love with an Orc, or a Troll with a Blood Elf.. Maybe a Dranaei with a Human? or God forbid, a Worgen with a Gnome (Can anyone say Chihuahua?)
are there any lore type reasons for this? ir is it just laziness on the part of the model makers?
Eldoron Feb 12th 2011 4:34PM
Once I had a great chat with a GM, I asked him (her?) several questions, one of them was why the nodes disappear. Answer: they do not disappear. In fact, you do :D