The Queue: Fused with infinity
by Alex Ziebart 
May 23rd 2011 at 11:00AM
Mike Sacco was raving about Terraria so much all weekend that I was pretty excited to get to log on and rock some multiplayer with him and Mat McCurley. I log onto their server with my character, wearing some pretty sweet sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt. I flee through the night from zombies, flying eyeballs, and soul devourers to find Mike's character leaping carelessly around his godstone-hewn mountain fortress with his rocket shoes, wearing crimson crystalline battle armor that makes him look like a shinier version of that guy from Viewtiful Joe. I think his name was Viewtiful Joe.
Is that what it's like to be a newbie in WoW again?
mgall726 asked:
Do you think current Archaeology epics will scale to still be as good as raid drops in 4.2? Like having Zin'rokh become a 378 epic? If not, do you think they'll be adding more epics that are on par with the new raids to make archy still be worth it for end-game?
I don't see any reason why Blizzard would scale them up to match raids in patch 4.2. I also don't see why Blizzard would add epics of that ilevel to archaeology. The archaeology epics are very good items, but I don't think they're intended to replace raiding or doing actual PvE content. They're a really cool bonus to something you can do solo and they help you step into raiding more smoothly, but they don't (and won't) replace raiding.
Amaxe asked:
Working another alt through the Twilight Highlands, I was struck by a thought.
From the Alliance perspective, the Dragonmaw orcs are total bastards burning and sacking the area around Thundermar. From this view, the Wildhammer Dwarves are the persecuted and the Dragonmaw are the persecutors.
Since the Horde seems to have dailies in the ruins of Thundermar as well, it seems like they are the encroachers.
However, Blizz does seem to like giving both sides only part of the picture.
Can someone on the Horde side enlighten me as to how it looks from their perspective? Do the Horde quests come across with the Wildhammers attacking them? Or is it more of a "Yep, we're scum!" perspective? Or somewhere in between?
The commenters yesterday answered this question for you rather well, but I wanted to comment on it a little. The Twilight Highlands are very interesting to me in that the war between the Horde and the Alliance is almost completely one-sided from a player's perspective. Not once in the Alliance version of the zone do you go on the offensive. Not once. From the Alliance's point of view, the Horde is razing our few settlements in the zone, murdering civilians, and looting every resource we have. The Alliance tries to protect itself but never goes on the offensive.
From the Horde's perspective, it's a little more gray. The Wildhammer Dwarves do interfere with the Horde in some places, so it might somehow justify the Dragonmaw's aggression, but Alliance players never see that. We don't experience any of it. The Alliance spends its time running from the Horde so it can fight the Twilight Hammer instead -- oh, and throw a wedding.
In the daily quest hub in Twilight Highlands, the Horde are the aggressors. No question. The Horde quests require you to assault the dwarven settlement. The Alliance quests require you to fend off that assault.
The Twilight Highlands are at war, but it feels like the developers decided the Alliance doesn't get to participate in it. The Alliance is largely excluded from this conflict that Blizzard sells to the Horde as hard as it possibly can. I wish that weren't the case. I would like to take part in this major piece of Cataclysm's story in some meaningful way, you know?
Evenstar asked:
What happened to the KeyRing on the PTR? I have all my keys on my bags, no sign of the keyring. Is it a Bug or it's intentional?
It's probably intentional. If I had to guess, I would say Blizzard is most likely phasing out keys entirely so they can use that sliver of UI real estate for a more useful button than the keyring. I don't have a link handy, but I very clearly remember that at BlizzCon 2010's (2009's?) UI panel, a developer specifically mentioned that they didn't like how they implemented the keyring into the UI. They never said they were getting rid of it, but it was laid out that it didn't feel good.
The keyring is completely gone from patch 4.2's UI, and I'm not sure they would accidentally gut out a UI element like that. It's likely gone for good.
Whythand asked:
When looking at certain spells it seems as though they are really broad in their description. For EXAMPLE, Devotion Aura reads "Provides additional armor." Is there an option to turn on more detailed descriptions? I'd like to know the exact numbers without having to look them up online.
Yes! You actually have Beginner Tooltips turned on in your interface options. This is turned on by default for new characters, I believe. Someone who is brand new to the game likely does not have any idea what the specific numbers actually mean, so "provides additional armor" is easier to understand than "provides X number of armor."
If you turn off beginner tooltips, the game will go back to displaying precise numbers on all of your spells.
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 1 of 8)
Irin May 23rd 2011 11:07AM
I'm confused by what exactly Crusader Aura does not stack with since the perks of a guild are now faster mount speed. Does Crusader Aura and other movement speed effects stack with the guild bonuses or not?
Jack Mynock May 23rd 2011 11:42AM
Crusader Aura actually doesn't stack with anything. It doesn't stack with the 15% increase from Pursuit of Justice or the 10% from the guild perk, but it's greater than both. In fact if you have PoJ (or the DK equivalent), the guild perk doesn't effect you at all.
The effects that do stack, do so multiplicatively. This gives a pally a maximum mounted speed of 492%, which is your normal 100% movment speed with a 310 mount and crusader aura, or:
1 x (1+3.1) x (1+.2)
4.1 x 1.2 = 4.92
As far as I know that's the highest permanent speed attainable in the game.
richmale1969 May 23rd 2011 11:45AM
Same question for the 310% flying speed. When I mouseover the buff for my mount speed it still says 310%. Is that the actual speed I'm going or is it just my speed before adding the buff from the guild perk?
g2g591 May 23rd 2011 11:53AM
you can tell the actual max speed you can go on a given mount (or even unmounted) with your given riding/buffs/talents/perks using your character sheet :) they added that in.......... sometime but it gives you that nice round %, (or rather not so round if your on a lower level toon and have carrot on a stick or mithril spurs etc. )
Jack Mynock May 23rd 2011 11:58AM
Also, consider that a ground mount only says 60% or 100%. Those numbers can't be right, so it follows that 310% is also not your actual speed.
Amaxe May 23rd 2011 11:59AM
Yes. This is my experience. If you have Crusader Aura or On a Pale Horse 2/2, you're moving as fast as you are going to since they don't stack. The 10% guild bonus is less than the 20% talent/buff bonus so you get the greater of the two.
This has some interesting effects.
Max speed unbuffed: 410%
410% Speed with Guild Benefit (10% bonus): 451% (410+41)
Paladin/DK with 380% Flight and Crusader or Pale Horse (20% bonus) = 456% (380+76)
Paladin/DK with 410% and Crusader/Pale Horse = 492% (410+82)
Technically, Pallies and DKs don't need +310 flight to outfly other toons -- but I still like +310 on a Paladin anyway.
Amaxe May 23rd 2011 12:05PM
Also (sorry for the double post), I use the addon Speed to tell me my actual speed whether flying or on the ground.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/titan-speed-cont.aspx
Cetha May 23rd 2011 12:21PM
@ amaxe - you don't really need an addon for that anymore, as the character screen now gives you that exact info
Amaxe May 23rd 2011 5:08PM
I know its in the character box. Haven't seen an on screen option.
/shrug. I guess I can look when I get off of work.
Amaxe May 23rd 2011 5:10PM
Oh, I see what you're saying. But that isn't really that useful for me. It's unnecessary, but I like a sort of HUD telling me my speed at that moment.
ziis May 23rd 2011 11:08AM
has blizzard improved on the in game voice chat
MattKrotzer May 23rd 2011 11:18AM
Nobody knows, because after it's implementation, nobody ever used it again, because it's horrendous.
They've never listed anything in the patch notes about improved functionality, so I would wager they haven't.
Blizzard added that feature solely to shut people up about them NOT having it, IMO.
Matt May 23rd 2011 11:32AM
I can answer this.
A BIG FAT RESOUNDING NO.
I tried to chat with a couple friends using it while running a dungeon.
We all had mics.
We all had voice chat turned on, and could hear ourselves using the "Test" record button.
No one could hear each other... At all...
So we went to Skype. Free group calls, and since we all knew each other IRL, it was a no brainer. Quality was awesome too.
Nathanyel May 23rd 2011 11:10AM
You know you're a nerd when you read this Queue's title and immediately think of http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/12/31/
Nathanyel May 23rd 2011 11:14AM
Which is, now that I think of it, even what I guess Mr Ziebart hinted at.
Irin May 23rd 2011 11:11AM
Another question, this time lore-based. Vol'jin in the troll starting area credits "Heroes of the Horde" with bringing down the Lich King. However, Garrosh is hailed as some great leader because of his actions in Northrend... aside from an awesome buff what did he deliver in that conflict?
Necromann May 23rd 2011 11:14AM
He was the general in the northrend campaign.
Knob May 23rd 2011 11:22AM
According to the novel The Shattering, the common folk of the Horde believe that it was Garrosh who brought down the Lich King, and I don't think those who were actually there either confirmed or denied it. They probably thought it was better to have a "hero" figure at the helm of the Horde to boost morale among the common folk.
I don't think Blizzard has stated who canonically brought down the Lich King, but it's possible that it was just a champion band of adventurers who won Fordring's Argent Tournament who brought him down, and the people who know the facts haven't made it public for the reason stated above.
Nathanyel May 23rd 2011 11:26AM
The "lore version" of the Fall of the Lich King probably has Garrosh/Muradin leading the charge of those "heroes", or rather soldiers of the Horde/Alliance.
Similar descriptions exist of other "past" events that happened during the timeline of the game. It is left vague so that it fits with both the players performing the actions in the past, as well as H/A participating in some way, where ICC is of course a prime example, as faction-separated events were described within the instance.
Irin May 23rd 2011 11:58AM
My big problem with it in game is that Garrosh never shows up even as a quest-giver in the later areas of the game. Seems to me the Horde would be hailing their fallen hero, Saurfang the Younger, rather than Garrosh. Hell, the Heroes of Northrend were those that passed through the Trial of the Crusader that Tirion set-up. He became more of a general in the end than Hellscream.