The Queue: Ultimate ungulate
by Michael Sacco 
Feb 27th 2011 at 12:00PM
So that picture yesterday was actually a dik-dik (shown above), not a royal antelope, a mistake I would never have made if I wasn't super-tired. If anyone knows his adorable, tiny ungulates, it's me! Speaking as a former ungulate, I wholeheartedly apologize to any zookeepers or royal antelopes I may have offended with this grievous error.
Flynters asked:
Protection warriors and soloing/questing: good for that sort of purpose, viable but somewhat awkward due to lack of offensive focus, or slow and boring?
While you're right in that prot doesn't have a heavy offensive focus, I find that it really shines when you stop imagining questing zones as single mobs separated by Charge and start imagining them as packs instead. Pull a whole bunch of mobs at a time, heal yourself with timely Victory Rushes, throw up Shield Block whenever it's available, take heavy advantage of Blood and Thunder. And be aware that prot only really starts to be fun once you get talents like Sword and Board that let you dish it out even better than you can take it, but just because it's less fun earlier than that doesn't mean that it's less effective.
Etcee asked:
When 4.0.6 hit my dwarf main's eye color changed from dark brown to bright blue. I've been told by gm's first that it's intentional, second that it's a bug, third that it's looking at being reverted, then the otherday I was told that it wasn't even a known issue. I haven't seen any acknowledgmet on the forums. Is there any sort of precedent for just changing player models 6 years into the game? And why doesn't anyone else seem to notice?
Sometimes there are bugs with models when patches occur, but sometimes intentional changes are made, too. There's a long history of model changes that were never explained or publicly justified, from the human female "moon eyes" change to the inimitable Patchstache. If it gets changed back, it gets changed back, but these kinda of changes aren't normally reverted once they're made for whatever reason. Unless we're talking about orc shoulders, anyway.
Also, if I can make a slight tangent here, I need to make an important statement, and that is this:
GMs are not developers.
I can say this as a former GM and GM trainer. GMs are usually kept up to date on known issues with patches, but that does require input from the devs. Just like patch notes aren't always comprehensive, so too are known issue lists. Humans are also fallible, which means that a GM may not remember seeing an issue you've listed or may be thinking of a different issue when you talk to him or even may have heard incorrectly that an issue is getting fixed. It's not a perfect system, but WoW is also a game with hundreds of thousands of issues to track, so not every GM (and, more to the point, not any GM) will be personally aware of every issue, no matter how well everything is documented.
Until you see an issue is fixed in patch notes, see a blue post commenting on it, or see it on a list of known issues, assume it is not known and, if you feel so inclined, report it either via the forums or a GM ticket exactly once. There's no need to petition four times for the same non-pressing issue, especially after you receive a response that appears to be legitimate.
Rob asked:
Is it worth it race change my Draenei Pally to a Dwarf? I'm a lore nut, so I'd take a dwarf through the starting area first to get a feel for it... but I'm sick of being a race that people simply don't care about. The only thing holding me back, however, is the hope that Blizz might MAYBE add some Draenei stuff in soon. What do you think?
I can't guarantee any lore additions, but there's a more important reason to play a draenei paladin: I don't see dwarf paladins riding around on the world's biggest elephant! Seriously, the Great Exarch's Elekk is the biggest land mount I've ever seen. And it's got shiny new high-res textures, much better than that old horse. I think you know what the right decision is.
Haimdall asked:
What's the deal with the ritual sites dotted around the Eastern Kingdoms(at least)? I refer to the big statues of cloaked figures standing in a triangular pattern around a stone circle. I've seen one in Burning Steppes and Blasted Lands, and while I can't say for sure, I want to say I've seen at least one more.
That particular construction is called an Altar of Storms, and there are several in the Eastern Kingdoms. During the Second War, they were used to imbue ogres with arcane power to create ogre mages. Pulling the curtain back a little farther, they were also the building where your fallen heroes would resurrect while playing as orcs in the RTS games.
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 8)
Darky Feb 27th 2011 12:09PM
Darky's PSA: Please refrain from pointless tickets as the queue time is long enough already without question's that dont really matter all that much, or would be better served on the forums.
Darky Feb 27th 2011 12:14PM
Questions* neeed sleeep D:, (also edit button to make these mistakes more tiny :3).
David Feb 27th 2011 12:20PM
What Darky said.
Ian Feb 27th 2011 12:22PM
What exactly makes a ticket pointless?
Darky Feb 27th 2011 12:27PM
When it involves the colour of your character's eyes for example, I can understand one maybe, but four is just ridiculous.
Sleutel Feb 27th 2011 12:39PM
@Ian:
When it's something a GM wouldn't know or couldn't fix. Toon eye color is something a GM can't fix, so it should go in a bug report on the forum for bug reports.
Lissanna Feb 27th 2011 1:01PM
Things like bugs are better discussed on the forums than with in-game tickets. If you open an in-game ticket about something GMs can't change (like your eye color), then you just slow down the line for other people. If you post on the forums, other players may even have answers for you that a specific GM answering tickets in the queue might not even know the answer to.
transrelativity Feb 27th 2011 1:17PM
I agree that things a GM can't change ought to be brought to the forums instead and that submitting a bug report more than once is redundant, but multiple ticketing for issues that don't get resolved adequately the first time is another matter. As was made very clear in the column, not every GM knows what's going on and a player may get widely varying responses from different GMs. I don't think it's fair to insist that players accept a first response that is unhelpful or simply wrong when a second GM might have the ability to fix the issue.
Jonisjalopy Feb 27th 2011 1:48PM
@ transrelativity: Yes, but it's like calling 911 to ask why you have a headache. Sure, the first guy may not know and if you keep calling back you may get an answer you find acceptable. However, that's not what 911 is for. They can't help you with your headache just like the GM can't help you with your toons eye color.
The GMs are for fixing things like the bugged world events, stuck mobs, or to silence that guy who made a racist macro and thinks he's cute. They are not you mediator to the designers. That's why God invented the forums.
Sleutel Feb 27th 2011 1:59PM
@transrelativity:
Multiple tickets for an actual issue that wasn't resolved is fine. (I've done this myself.) Multiple tickets about something a GM can't help you with because you didn't like the first answer is just a waste of your own time *and* everyone else's. The person could have opened no tickets, or one, or fifty, and gotten exactly the same result: their eyes would still be blue. Tickets are not for reporting bugs or asking "what's up with this crazy thing I saw." Tickets are for reporting problems with other players (harassment, exploits, etc.) or things that GMs have control over (bugged quests, bugged achievement credit, lost items, etc.).
Michael Sacco Feb 27th 2011 2:18PM
There's a big difference between finding a response unsatisfactory and the response actually being unsatisfactory.
If I submit a ticket about a small cosmetic change to a GM and they say it's intentional, I say "okay" and go on my merry way. Other people have ants in their pants and need to go ask mom when dad says no. And then ask grandma. And then ask grandpa. And then ask Aunt Joanne. And then ask Uncle Doug.
Herman Feb 27th 2011 2:20PM
or asking a gm for a joke. are you so starved for human contact that you need to waste a gm's time asking for a random wow joke? seriously, they just get them online or something, its not a great us of time.
Drakkenfyre Feb 27th 2011 5:24PM
Herman, while I would NEVER say it was ok to put in a ticket simply to ask a GM a joke, if the GM asks if you have any other questions, I don't see the harm in asking for a joke as long as you don't do it every time.
GM's are human. They are doing a fairly boring job. They answer tickets all day, mostly from irate people who don't know what they are talking about ("What do you mean this thing I'm complaining about has been in the patch notes for 2 months? I don't care! I want it changed!") I don't think it bothers them too much to spice up the ticket if they are in a good mood.
I have seen some GM's actually thank a person after handling their request for spicing up their ticket, admitting it had been a boring day. I have seen some laugh at a player for the player's own joke, or something else funny they said or something they involved in the ticket (something in addition to a LEGITIMATE ticket, not a stupid one, or one for a stupid reason.)
Your reaction might vary, and depending on whether or not the GM feels like giving the joke. But I don't think you should say "Asking a GM for a joke is stupid, never ask them for a joke", I think you should say "Be selective when you ask a GM, and not wasting their time specifically for that."
That, and I have seen some really funny GM jokes.
These in particular come to mind.
http://www.wowbash.com/image-4826.html
http://www.wowbash.com/image-16885.html
This one? Don't do this. Don't ever submit a ticket for absolute nonsense.
However the GM response was awesome.
http://www.wowbash.com/image-8286.html
The Angry Intern Feb 27th 2011 6:05PM
@Drakkenfyre: I saw one the other day where someone submitted a tricky math problem and the GM actually solved it for him.
Necromann Feb 27th 2011 6:44PM
I submitted a ticket when my ghost form got stuck in the ground. This was before the return to graveyard option and nobody could find my corpse. The gm fixed it but I don't remember how.
Drakkenfyre Feb 27th 2011 6:57PM
This one.
http://www.wowbash.com/image-18123.html
Not to take away from the GM who answered it, because it was a funny reply, but it was copied and pasted from Yahoo answers. If you read the comments about it on the site, he even left in the typo which was on the original answer.
Tdog Feb 27th 2011 9:18PM
Thank you for posting this stop wasting the time of GMs for useless questions. I saw this and went find my password for this site because of the original posters question. Some aspects of the game are different to people, so I can understand why somebody might want to know about something as different eyecolor i guess. But come on, 1 ticket to the GM I guess is reasonable to ask the question although far from the correct avenue to find an answer. 4? Why would somebody have to ask 4 times. If you don't believe the first GM, the second GM, the third GM, then the fourth GM you obviously know something more is wrong and should be working for Blizzard instead of taking up their time. Post on the forums and stop wasting peoples time that are actually reporting important information concerning them or crap going on in the game that's unacceptable such as racism, bigotry, botters, and the like.
mibu.work1 Feb 28th 2011 4:14PM
I think we can all agree: Unless there is a new development with a bug or other issue, you only need to submit ONE ticket per issue. Submitting more is just wasting everyone's time, unless you ran out of room, which I have done on multiple occassio
Sally Bowls Feb 28th 2011 4:14PM
I disagree with this.
At least GM and tickets are something that Blizzard is tracking and keeping statistics ( quality assurance ) for: types of tickets, type of resolution, etc. If not because of a commitment to quality at least because of a desire to reduce customer service costs.
IMHO, Forums are essentially worthless.
So if you open a GM ticket there is a very tiny chance that, in aggregate, something might be accomplished.
If your four options are GM ticket, forum post, emoragequit and do nothing, it seems like forums would be the least desirable option.
If they make a change and they think it will generate 100,000 GM tickets and the VP of customer service thinks the fully-loaded cost of each ticket is (for example made up) $8.31 then Blizzard has an incentive of $831,000 to not do that.
Interficio Feb 27th 2011 7:28PM
So is there any info on what will be dropping in patch 4.1 new dungeons and raids? I dont want to spend my valors on an item only to find out that i couldve gotten something just as good in the dungeons.