The Queue: Image related
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 27th 2011 at 11:00AM
The image above is most certainly related to a question in The Queue today. The question is ... which one!? You'll just have to read and find out! Mwahaha!
... that guy's kinda cute for a disgusting slime creature, isn't he?
Mal asked:
Is it just me or are many guilds dying lately?
I certainly don't have numbers I can provide as to how many guilds have died (or have been born) lately, but if you're experiencing that, there's probably an easy explanation for it.
One, while patch 4.2 is imminent, we've had largely the same content for half of a year now. If you're a raider, even if you haven't beaten all there is to beat in the current tier of raiding, you've been banging away on it since Cataclysm's release. You're going to be really damn sick of that content. I, personally, have not killed Sinestra. However, my drive to get there is almost completely nonexistent. I've been seeing the walls of Blackwing Descent and Bastion of Twilight so often that if I had to be in there for another month or three, I simply would not be interested in playing the game anymore. I think I have a higher tolerance for tedium than most, so people with a threshold of, say ... four months? They're long gone.
Can you think of any other type of game where it's standard practice to kill the same things repeatedly for half a year? To break down for you how long I've been zoning into Blackwing Descent, I have 20 Magmaw kills. That's at least 20 weeks back-to-back of going into BWD. It doesn't matter if I've killed hard mode Nefarian or not -- 20 weeks of zoning into the same place is about 10 weeks too many. With how slowly Blizzard trickles out content, you're inevitably going to reach a point of burnout prior to every tier of raiding.
Two, it's summer -- at least in the United States. Even huge dorks find better things to do during summer. Either they drop raiding (or logging in) completely, or it becomes a weekly song-and-dance to figure out which of your raiders will actually show up and which of them decided to hit the beach or a barbeque or a festival. Some guilds don't want to put up with that so they just call it quits, either permanently or temporarily.
Mal also asked:
Everyone is saying that Dragonwrath is going to be bis for dps casters for this patch and maybe the whole expansion. But in this patch the tier 11 raids are being nerfed so more players can do them. So what will happen in 4.3? Will everyone be raiding the nerfed 4.2 raids for a chance at a weapon better than what 4.3 drops?
Sure. Even if Blizzard doesn't specifically nerf tier 12 content when tier 13 rolls around, the simple addition of tier 13 will go a long way toward trivializing tier 12 content. Legendaries always become easier to acquire after awhile. Val'anyr in Wrath of the Lich King was good for quite a while in the right hands, and you bet your butt it became easier to get when Trial of the Crusader loot rolled around.
Grigor asked:
Maybe this is too early to ask but I'm making my annual clothes shopping trip soon....do I need to pack shorts for Blizzcon or can I get by with just pants? Blizzcon is October after all.
Oh, dear god. Shorts, my friend. Take shorts with you. Even if you take nothing else, take at least one pair of shorts. I'm from Wisconsin, where it's usually freezing over by the time October rolls around, so my first BlizzCon was a huge shock to the system. It's still hot and humid in California in October, and you'll be doing tons of walking around in a tightly packed building full of other nerds. You want to be as cool and comfortable as possible.
Worst case scenario, it's cold and rainy. Pants still won't feel good once you get indoors. You'll get wet outside, then once you're inside ... your wet jeans will get heavy and stiff and cling to your legs. You'll sweat in your moist pants all day long, and with pant legs going all the way down to your shoes, nothing will be able to breathe or dry. You know what happens then? Crotch mildew. Do you want crotch mildew? No. You don't. Bring the freaking shorts.
If you truly and honestly never wear shorts at any other time of the year for some crazy reason, just find one decently fitting pair of shorts on discount somewhere. Hell, go to Goodwill or some other secondhand store. BlizzCon is full of people dressing up like elves, panda bears, and fish men. Nobody cares if your shorts are secondhand.
All you need is one pair. If you got sweaty and gross on day one of BlizzCon, don't even worry about it. Every hotel has a laundry room. Even teeny-tiny hotels have one washing machine. It might cost you a few quarters to get them washed, but that's no biggie. Throw them in the washing machine after BlizzCon day one, wear them again on day two, done.
After BlizzCon 2010, I spent a few extra days in California to hang with Mike Sacco and drive eels to extinction. We stayed at the Sheraton Park (which is absolutely gorgeous; I spent some time there in 2009 as well), and their washing machines were poolside outdoors. While my laundry was running, I sat by the pool ... and hunted snails. I had never seen a snail in the wild before. It was very exciting! I tweeted pictures!
Many asked:
Is patch 4.2 tomorrow?
I will neither confirm nor deny the arrival of patch 4.2 tomorrow. However, I will request that you lay the patch 4.2 questions on thick in the comments today. For ... you know. Reasons.
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 10)
lazymangaka Jun 27th 2011 11:05AM
I must be weird, but summer was always the best part of the year to dedicate more time to nerdy pastimes, not less. During the summer we could spend hours or even days at a time doing little more than marathon D&D sessions, or throw ourselves head-first into whatever video game we'd been hooked on. I never played WoW while I was in school, but I can only imagine that if I had I would've been more active during the summer, not less.
But again, I must be weird. :/
raingod Jun 27th 2011 11:10AM
And when it hits 115 like it will here today, who wants to be outside anyway/
Noyou Jun 27th 2011 11:11AM
Ahh, D&D on my friends front porch in the summertime into the wee hours of the night (not that late he usually had to go in by 10:30 or 11pm). Yeah, I miss that. If it was rainy we would play in his garage on a card table. Simple times my friend.
Oteo Jun 27th 2011 1:04PM
Yeah, what the hell do nerds do during the summer anyway? I always feel like a big loser when I'm on WoW on Friday night and... no one else is.
Noyou Jun 27th 2011 1:59PM
At BWW or a bar wishing we we back playing wow. /headdesk.
Whyisretgimped Jun 27th 2011 4:11PM
Let's not forget that one of the biggest reasons why guilds are dying has nothing to do with raiding or summer, but the fact that so many players hated Cataclysm. There have also been competing games like Rift. My guild emptied out like a fist full of sand the week Rift came out and guild recruitment stopped dead in it's tracks. People are also waiting for KOTOR which will hopefully be able to live up to at least some of the massive hype it's generated.
WoW's sub numbers have been way down since the expac and though they might spike again when 4.2 is finally launched, the changes they made to the game have chased away a huge amount of casual players. Maybe giving away free copies of the game will help, we'll see...
Thundrcrackr Jun 27th 2011 5:05PM
I think old guilds are dying at the same rate as they always have (due to various reasons - summer, other games, pre-patch luls, etc.) the difference is that not nearly as many new guilds are coming along to take their place anymore, because nobody wants to join new guilds thanks to the guild perks/rewards system Blizz added in Cata. So we're ending up with fewer and fewer guilds. Instead of leaving dying guilds to start new guilds, people just quit playing now because they know starting a new guild is largely futile.
Moghar Jun 28th 2011 7:06AM
Well, I find it extremely (and by extremely I mean, I'm almost quitting the game) hard to play wow during the summer. Music and film festivals, sports, sunbathing, swimming or simply hanging out with friends, drinking beer or shots, all get in the way of me logging in to the game. The problem is, during the school year, I can't hang out anywhere, because I have to get up early on the next day and I can't even go anywhere outside, cos its freezing or wet, so nothing gets in the way of me playing wow, but during the summer I always end up doing something with my friends till late at night. My guilds being patient and understanding though.
Tfish92 Jun 27th 2011 11:06AM
Question for tomorrows Q.
Is 4.2 today?
wow Jun 27th 2011 11:10AM
Most probably tomorrow. Blizz loves to interrupt holidays with patches. hehehe
Shinaji
Galestrom Jun 27th 2011 11:26AM
Will patch 4.2 fall on a Tuesday? If it falls on a Tuesday, and no one is around, does it make a sound? Is it true that 4.2 is a number, then a fraction of another number? Has it ever occurred to you that four is two times two, and that you're at least two-thirds of the way to this realization with 4.2?
Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, the answer is NOT 42, but is instead 4.2?
GuyverIV Jun 27th 2011 11:49AM
Will patch 4.2 fall on a Tuesday? If it falls on a Tuesday, and no one is around, does it make a sound?
When the patch falls on Tuesday and noone is around, the PATCH may not make a sound, but countless millions shall be making a near infinite variation on the sound of *RAGERAGERAGERAGE*
/says a future RAGE-er.
//I know myself.
///Fark is right, slashies are fun...
edgeblade69 Jun 27th 2011 1:01PM
If 4.2 is in fact this Tuesday, then why hasn't there been any background downloading of data? Or at least I haven't noticed any. None when starting the launcher or anything. Every prior patch since they implemented this functionality has done so. Where's my data?
SR Jun 27th 2011 1:12PM
I've seen a lot of "Downloading noncritical data" stuff popping up on my loader, and since Firelands has been in the PTR for... a while, I wouldn't be surprised that the actual downloading has also been going on for a very long time.
Hypocriticalhit Jun 27th 2011 4:34PM
It be coming "soon" (tm)
Jorges Jun 27th 2011 5:05PM
@edgeblade69 this is exactly what I've been wondering myself. If patch 4.2 is supposedly tomorrow, why haven't we downloaded ANY pre-patch data yet? Is Blizz expecting us to download 2GB (wild guess) of data on patch day? (I, for one, can't do this, for several reasons), or maybe we have the data since the last patch and we're only going to download the "unlock/fixes" part?
or maybe there's no patch at all :p
(cutaia) Jun 27th 2011 11:06AM
When is patch 4.3?
(It begins...)
wow Jun 27th 2011 11:09AM
Patch 4.3 September/October 2011: Revenge of the Fire Elementals.
Shinaji
(cutaia) Jun 27th 2011 11:10AM
Oh, and the sad thing about snails is that they're so easy to accidentally step on in places where they flourish. I remember back in Florida there were multiple times -- no matter how carefully I walked -- when I'd suddenly hear this awful crunch sound then look down to see this mass of broken shell and slime just taking these deep, pained breaths. It still makes me a little sad to think of the image.
I'm not really sure why I told that story.
Noyou Jun 27th 2011 11:11AM
It's toooo early!!!