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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Memorial Day
by Alex Ziebart 
May 30th 2011 at 11:00AM
Today is Memorial Day. If you're an American and you know what it is, great. If you're an American and you don't know what it is, look it up. If you're not an American, you may continue to do whatever it is you do, unless you live in the U.K., in which case I demand you mail me Jaffa Cakes.
No, don't actually do that.
mik3st3r asked:
What is the story behind the dragons in the elemental planes? Most specifically, the stone drakes. Did they simply form from rock, or were they part of one of the dragonflights, and somehow got bound eternally to deepholm?
They're just stone elementals in the shape of a dragon. I think at some point, Blizzard realized that its lore structure for dragons is a bit ... adolescent? One of the first things kids do when they get creative is start color-coding things. I think every writer in the world has gone through a phase where they thought color-coding things was the most brilliant idea ever. Having "black dragons" and "red dragons" as specific species of dragon can work fine, but when you break sentient/sapient creatures down into rigid organizations based on color and make that your canon, it is not only rather childish, it is also extremely limiting. Also a little racist, if you want to put way too much thought into it.
I feel that at some point in World of Warcraft's lifespan, Blizzard realized that yes, those color-based barriers are foolish and they want to do a lot more with the idea of dragons than preestablished lore allowed. They said to hell with it and started making whatever drakes they felt like making. Nether drakes, Twilight drakes, proto-drakes, stone drakes ... the more drakes they add to the game, the less effort they put into trying to tie them to the preestablished dragon lore. I think we're better off that way, too. I like having these independent dragon variations. I like that much better than "My skin is green, therefore ..."
TL;DR: At some point, Blizzard realized dragons aren't the Power Rangers and stopped worrying about that dragonflight thing.
Tim West asked:
What time will the BlizzCon meet-up be? The Benefit Dinner is at 7:30pm – 11:30pm and my $500 requires me to be there.
Before I even start to answer this question I want to make a clarification so people don't start jumping to conclusions: We have not yet finalized plans for our BlizzCon meetup. We are not ready to announce a venue, so anything I say about event scheduling here is tentative at best. The only guarantee is that we will be doing something Thursday evening.
With that out of the way ... historically, our meetups have started between 6 and 8 p.m., and they last until whenever people leave or our venue shuts us down. This time around, we may need to implement a definite time for the end of the party, because we started receiving noise complaints as the clock approached midnight last year. While everybody going to BlizzCon is up partying that night, people visiting Disney and other attractions in that area are not.
Last year, I believe the final party attendees were flushed out around 12 a.m., and we did have a number of people who attended the benefit dinner manage to swing by our party for awhile. However, it looks like Blizzard's benefit dinner is running later this year than it did last year -- last year's ended at 10, not 11:30. You might be out of luck for attending the bulk of the WoW Insider party. However, the staff is all over the place that whole weekend -- if you're looking to meet someone in particular and we have them in California, chances are good we can hook you up with a handshake or a sweaty, sweaty hug at some point.
EidlonImp asked:
I'm going to surprise my baby tomorrow night by stuffing some dates with manchego and wrapping them in Bacon, but all we have in the house is turkey Bacon. That should still be good, right?
Does he/she like turkey bacon? The answer to that question will answer yours. Turkey bacon is very different from regular bacon, so if you don't know whether or not your baby likes it, you should probably take the extra trip for real bacon, if your goal is romance -- unless by "baby" you mean a literal baby and not your significant other, in which case you should probably reconsider feeding a baby stuffed dates.
Palamedes asked:
It seems for the past month or two, 6/7 days of the week the Queue is answering questions on the VP to JP conversion rate. Why is this?
...
Noyou asked:
Happy Memorial day! Brat vs Hamburger for your holiday feast? (no substitutions please) Also, favorite side dish for your outdoor grilling pleasure?
As I am a Polack from Wisconsin, I enjoy nothing more than getting my hands on a warm, juicy sausage and cradling it between two halves of a nice, fluffy bun. I'm a brat man, though I'm certainly not going to turn away a good hamburger if offered.
Also due to being from the Midwest, most of my side dish recommendations come in the form of noodle salads with either mayonnaise or Miracle Whip as a primary ingredient. My girlfriend is from the east coast and finds all such dishes vile, so I assume all of you not from the midwest would feel the same. I'll skip the noodle salads and go to my family's non-creamy side dish fallback:
Sour Cucumber Salad
3 cucumbers
1 onion
1 c. sugar
1 c. white vinegar
Peel and slice the cucumbers and the onion as thick or as thin as you'd like. Throw them in a bowl with everything else. Salt and pepper to taste. Marinate for an hour or two, stirring often. Hooray, you're done! If you want, you can add other vegetables to it -- wedged tomatoes, pepperoncinis, or sport peppers, for example.
Dang, sport peppers are a Midwest thing too, aren't they? All of you just need to relocate to the Milwaukee-Chicago region.
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 4 of 10)
erragall May 30th 2011 11:14AM
Dear Q,
TL;DR Why did blizzard stop allowing trials to join guilds?
Bar the obvious "X is a new guild....wanna join?", If you say played a trial due to your sub running out for a few days and wanting to talk to your guild (yea that is kinda cheating the sub thing...and not a very easy thing to actually accomplish considering they have to whisper you first) are blizzard not trying to steer WoW into a "Join a Guild! FTW!" type view? and by removing this from a trial surely the over all impression of new players playing a trial is hindered by not having access to such a prominent feature?
Bapo May 30th 2011 11:24AM
Pretty sure they want people to just see the content, and not the social part of it.
Bobury May 30th 2011 11:27AM
When did they do this?
I did RAF with my friend roughly 2 months ago and he got into my guild just fine.
Bapo May 30th 2011 11:32AM
@Bobury
He means the trial, and not things like RAF. RAF, as soon as the purchase goes through, you're upgraded to retail, and have full access to everything, if I remember correctly.
Bobury May 30th 2011 11:36AM
There's a difference? I thought the RAF only got the level up thing and teleporting (also the mount) compared to the trial.
Bapo May 30th 2011 11:45AM
What happens is, you RAF, and they get a trial. If they decide to purchase WoW, and a month of gametime, they are immediately moved to regular wow, with triple xp, summoning, and the recruiter gets the mount.
Erragall was talking purely about the trial by itself. I'm kinda glad they don't allow trial accounts (who can't even use the mailbox) to be invited to a guild.
Ata May 30th 2011 1:15PM
It was likely to prevent griefing or something related to hackers.
erragall May 30th 2011 7:34PM
I asked a GM about it, he says it was again intially to combat gold sellers but it is still widely debated. Also, if any of you are having problems in SW/org with computer freezes and u know your computer can handle those cities, type "/console accounttype LK" and relog. It fixes the problem
Skarn May 30th 2011 10:20PM
My guildmate enchanted her Ring of the Boy Emperor...and it promptly became soulbound. This might be due to the enchant being a profession perk, since non-enchanters can not enchant their rings. A Death Knight's Runeforging might cause the weapon to become soulbound, but I can not say for certain.
Be wary!
Irin May 30th 2011 11:13AM
Assuming I get lucky enough to unearth Zin'rokh can i still send it to an alt after the blade has been enchanted? Since I plan on giving it to my DK if I don't already have something better by that time is it still transferable after runeforging?
killercactiii May 30th 2011 11:20AM
Shouldn't be a problem. Heirlooms are enchantable still tradable to alts.
killercactiii May 30th 2011 11:22AM
...though with the DK's runeforging enchants I'd imagine you'll just likely lose the runeforge or the other toon simply won't make use of the runeforge.
Bapo May 30th 2011 11:30AM
While runeforging will obviously be the cheapest route for an enchantment, it'll behave like any other self only profession enchant.
You can use the runeforging on the weapon, but if you send it to another toon, the runeforge will not activate on a non death knight toon.
Kinda of like how you can enchant the heirloom ring, but you will not benefit from that enchant, unless you're an enchanter of the same skilll level
Amaxe May 30th 2011 1:24PM
Sometimes BoA (I guess it's BoB.NA now) item enchants seem to temporarily disappear when sent to a new alt. If so, I've found logging off and back on make them show up again.
Hob May 30th 2011 4:22PM
Hmmm... I thought runeforging always made an item soulbound to the DK. Not sure with heirlooms ~ haven't tried risking it. (And now that heirlooms are expensive, I won't be trying it anytime soon, either...)
Zanathos May 30th 2011 6:01PM
Runeforging straight up doesn't work on a heirloom, it's probably the same with other BOA items.
Irin May 30th 2011 9:39PM
Runeforging doesn't work on heirlooms b/c of their item level. In the case of Zin'rokh it's a 356 item level. Definitely a candidate for runeforging. The issue is if the runeforging makes it soulbound or if the enchantment is lost when the item is sent to a new toon.
Dril May 30th 2011 11:13AM
" I think every writer in the world has gone through a phase where they thought color-coding things was the most brilliant idea ever. Having "black dragons" and "red dragons" as specific species of dragon can work fine, but when you break sentient/sapient creatures down into rigid organizations based on color and make that your canon, it is not only rather childish, it is also extremely limiting."
What? How is it childish? It's a plot point, and it's an easy, visual way of showing what each flight represents and/or uses in the world. Sure, some of the dragon lore in WoW is a bit odd, but...colour-coding is childish? I really can't even begin to understand how you got to that conclusion.
"Also a little racist, if you want to put way too much thought into it."
Not really. Their colour is far more than just a minor physical difference within the species. It describes exactly what they are, what they'll do and what they can do...because WoW's dragons are ultimately servants, coded by the Titans, and the colour is an important part of dividing up the care of Azeroth between many, rather than just saying "look after the world, kthxbai."
Darasen May 30th 2011 11:38AM
So, am I the only one with "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" from avenue Q on his mind now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHKIMOgoJoU
NSFW
Saeadame May 30th 2011 11:46AM
@Darasen - I love Avenue Q.
Bad Idea bears - ROFL.