Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsThe Queue: Happy boys and happy girls
by Mathew McCurley 
May 4th 2011 at 11:00AM
It is no secret that most of my writing gets done against the backdrop of Europop and Europop-inspired artists. When I sit down to write articles or posts, I turn on Pandora and hit my awesome Aqua station, ready for the sweet, sweet Europop to blast in my ears. Why Europop? I don't know. For some reason, I am more productive when rocking out to fast beats.
What? You're going to listen to every second of Happy Boys and Happy Girls, and you're going to like it.
Felix_rew asked:
Did Blizzard explain why Ysera's eyes are open in Hyjal?
Yes. Usually her eyes are closed, but when her power is needed and she needs to be running on all cylinders, her eyes open and her influence is greater. Otherwise, her eyes are closed, but you can see her eyes moving under them watching the mortal races and the dream. Read more about Ysera and her Green Dragonflight.
Jirisundstrum asked:
Question for the queue: With the change to Blind in the patch notes adding yet another ability with different effects in pve and pvp, why doesn't Blizzard just accept the shift in paradigm? Players simply need different toolkits for raiding and arenas, and it seems the game is moving in that direction organically. Why fight nature Blizz?
My guess is that this is something Blizzard wants to do but will roll out very, very slowly and very specifically. Every single ability won't get the PvP/PvE treatment, but for where it makes the most sense, it will happen. Blizzard is reluctant to do it, but I think at this point in time, it's a no-brainer for PvP/PvE balance. I wish that it would have been a design aspect earlier, but at least the dual-purpose abilities are finally happening.
Having Blind as a regular CC option is great because now a rogue is doubly important for a good amount of Cataclysm dungeon content. Good call, Blizz.
Gauldrin asked:
Why do worgen have a cast time when they transform to their mount mode? They arent really changing into anything but dropping on all fours. Also why cant they pick herbs while in that mode? Druids can pick herbs while shapeshifted and insta-transform.
The worgen ability Running Wild is a type of ground mount with the ground mount standard cast time. It just has a unique animation fitting the worgen race. Druids, on the other hand, get the benefit of a flight form that is instant-cast. The class has a "mount" advantage, not a race advantage. In keeping with the race's relatively balanced nature, instant-cast ground mounts in places like battlegrounds, Tol Barad, and other ground mount-specific areas would favor worgen too heavily.
Worden asked:
Alright, since this is for asking questions. I was looking to start(after putting together some ach. first.) getting into heroics. I always hear about Gear and item level and DPS. How do you get these unbelievable levels of gear and strength. Can it be done soloing or camping at the AH? Or is it Raid gear that you have to hope!? that someone will let you join in if you don't meet their minimum levels? I'm just curious because I don't know.
Any help would be fine, and folks seem nicer here than on the normal forums
Here's my main strategy for gearing up alts to get ready for heroics. At level 84, you go straight to Twilight Highlands. The gear differential is just plain higher than the stuff you get in Uldum, and the end rewards for long quest chains are ilevel 333 blues, which are pretty great. Also, at 84 and 85, you want to queue for dungeons and have on a reputation tabard that has some good revered and exalted gear for you. Running level-85 non-heroic dungeons will grant you reputation based on the tabard you have on.
A combination of level 85 dungeon ilevel 333 gear, as well as blue rewards from quests in Twilight Highlands and reputation gear from friendly and above, will get you into heroics faster than you know it!
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 6 of 10)
(cutaia) May 4th 2011 12:48PM
"But... but... Some of us like Aqua AND Chumbawumba. :("
Well, don't worry. If all this hate is making you feel knocked down, I have a feeling you'll get up again. We're never gonna keep you down.
Andostre May 4th 2011 1:08PM
Okay, guys I get it! Give my inbox a break!
I wasn't defending the song (or asking anyone to justify their opinion of the song), just trying to point out how a lot of commenters were being pretty negative to someone offering a personal taste suggestion, which never feels good.
Granted, the posters here have thick skin, and Tim brought up the good point that maybe Mat posted the bad song on purpose, but it seems I'm in the minority, so I'll acquiesce.
Noyou May 4th 2011 1:41PM
I certainly have questionable music tastes. And if I ever submit any of them to be used as an article header feel free to critique away! I am pretty fair and open with my listening preferences. Probably a good 30-40% of the music you hear on the radio shouldn't be played but that doesn't mean it doesn't appeal to someone. I think as long as you don't get personal with the person playing it (OMG you are so stupid-etc.) or the artist providing the music it's fair game.
Grovinofdarkhour May 4th 2011 2:04PM
I cannot envision any circumstances in this life in which I would rather hear the very best Aqua song than the very worst Pearl Jam song.
They are worse than Celine Dion. You're damn right I went there.
Drakkenfyre May 4th 2011 3:19PM
Just to note, I wasn't defending the song. I have never heard it.
I was just tossing out two things I liked, as per your suggestion.
Sorcha May 5th 2011 9:09AM
And I cannot imagine ever wanting to listen to Pearl Jam. The world would be boring if we were all the same! :D
jrj_paladin May 4th 2011 11:52AM
Question for the Queue: When the next Tier of gear comes out I know my presious Valor points will turn into Justice points but will it still cap out at 4k and the remainder is just disapear or will it temporary go over cap and can't earn any more till you spend it and is the exchange 1valor for 1 justice or is it different. Thank you in advance
Val May 4th 2011 11:51AM
Worden,
Please spend some time with http://www.amazon.com/Style-Ten-Lessons-Clarity-Grace/dp/0321095170/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1 before posting again.
Regards,
My Eyes
Tonho May 4th 2011 11:57AM
Q for the Queue:
How possible would it be for Blizzard to allow the use of apostrophes in character names? I always figured it was some big coding issue, but I've always wanted a troll character to have a name like Rak'ijin or something that looks like a real lore characters' name.
Drakkenfyre May 4th 2011 12:12PM
They are unlikely to allow that.
Back in Diablo, you had people running around with names like 012BlaZiNPKerSukMe012. They decided for Diablo 2 to enforce more RP-like names, including banning any numbers from the name, and only allowing one hypen or underscore.
In WoW, they limited capital letters to the first one only. And any other form of punctuation wasn't allowed. So it's unlikely they would allow apostrophes because immature people would likely end up using them in ways that would violate the naming rules. It would be nice if we could use them, but blame the ones who would simply abuse them. It could also be a coding issue, but it's likely the former than the latter because the system could have been written to allow them when it was created.
loop_not_defined May 4th 2011 12:24PM
They allow diacritics (umlauts and whatnot) but those are at least letters, so even the craziest names are still (technically) pronouncable. My guess: since apostraphes aren't actual letters, character names that abuse it would be worse than character names abusing diacritics.
B'''''' (take a guess)
'''x'''
'''''''''''''
'l''l (inverted "horns")
Nipah May 4th 2011 3:06PM
I don't see why they couldn't allow them... they'd just need restrictions.
Say, only one or two apostrophes per name, and not allowed to be together.
So you can have a name like Lor'dal'n (if that's actually from something, than my memory is a bastard) or Ni'pah (yes, I want an apostrope in my name).
It would mostly be awesome for RPers and general people who play Elves & Trolls.
Hell, maybe they'll add it when they allow us to have last names (ie: so close to never it may as well apply for citizenship).
But we can always dream...
Samutz May 4th 2011 3:12PM
They could restrict it to only one apostrophe allowed in the name, similar to how you can't use the same letter 3 times in a row (eg. Maxxx). It could still be abused to make swear-like names (eg. F'cker).
Ultimately though it's not likely to happen due to the code changes required to allow it, not just in the game but on the site as well. Many programming languages use apostrophes in their standard syntax, so they'd have to make sure the apostrophes in names don't break the code.
As for accented letters (such as umlauts), I wish they weren't allowed just because it makes it a ridiculous hassle to type out someone's name when they have accented letters in their name. I'd rather have the apostrophe, because at least I can type that.
Daedalus May 4th 2011 12:02PM
Q4Q:
Maybe I'm just noticing it more, but it seems that with Cataclysm, Blizzard's doing more with character model sizes; for instance, I don't remember the ogres in Duskwood being so much shorter than other ogres; it also seems like I'm seeing more tiny versions of bigger models (like the lich under raven hill cemetary, again in duskwood.) Am I right in thinking this is something being used more, or was I just not paying attention?
Bapo May 4th 2011 1:08PM
I know for the ogres, back before cata (and I know it was there during BC) there was a group of ogres that was wandering around the Badlands, and the tiny one was a caster.
Shinae May 4th 2011 1:22PM
I noticed in vanilla that some mobs tended to be smaller at lower levels and got larger at higher levels, like their size was a reflection of their power or prehaps age.
Drakkenfyre May 4th 2011 7:18PM
They aren't. The Ogres sizes were bugged, and they never fixed them. I don't think it was intentional, and they probably didn't care enuf to track down the bug, and fix it for a single set of Ogres in one area.
cansylove May 4th 2011 12:05PM
The other important thing for becoming quickly geared for regular heroics is to level through questing because of the reputation gains. Quest in Hyjal through 82 since Vash'jir has hardly any rep, although I usually quest up to the Earthen Ring rep vendor. Then do all of Deepholm since you have to unlock the Therazane vendor, and then do Uldum until 84--preferably the Ramkahen chain instead of the Harrison Jones chain--again for rep.
Doing this and a mix of dungeons (queue directly for the 85 dungeons, don't do randoms) and Twilight Highlands at 84, my alts had enough gear for heroics as soon as they hit 85.
Cale May 4th 2011 12:06PM
Help me Queue!
I was able to read the whole Queue before the song finished! I was not able to listen to every second of the song! What, oh what, can I do to fix this problem?
Signed,
Not a Happy Boy! :(
Marcosius May 4th 2011 12:25PM
Question for the Queue: Are there any universal symbols of hope and peace in Azeroth? I'm thinking of starting a roleplaying guild, but I have this problem - I don't want the Argent Sun baggage, but so far I can't really think of anything universally revered that promotes good intentions (such as International Red Cross/Crescent). Okay, the game is called World of Warcraft, but.. Help me out here please?