The Queue: San Francisco? More like San-ctuary
by Alex Ziebart 
Aug 1st 2011 at 11:00AM
My good buddy Daniel Whitcomb described the Diablo 3 real-money auction house as "the nerd gold rush." I think it's very apt, considering the entire WoW Insider staff is quitting our jobs to go pan for Grandfathers.
As for World of Warcraft ...
FartyMcGee asked:
Has Blizz given any explanation why the Battle Standard of Coordination (and similar) aren't allowed in Firelands? It seems odd to me to exclude its use there but not (to my knowledge) anywhere else.
Nice name! Also, it is most likely disabled in the Firelands because Blizzard has the Avengers of Hyjal reputation gains very specifically measured out so players will begin to hit exalted precisely when the developers want us to do so. Humans get their racial bonus, but everybody else is on even ground. They don't necessarily want guild levels and whether or not you remembered to click your banner (or hit your banner macro, for the nitpicky folk in our audience) to be factored into the equation.
bmongeg asked:
Why are mages able to summon water elementals and are these real elementals or just some magically animated water? Also, why cant shamans summon water and air elementals? And why cant they have a permanent elemental pet like frost mages do?
Mages do not summon elementals like shaman summon elementals. Mages conjure up magically animated constructs made of water. Shaman commune with the spirits of water.
Why can't shaman summon water and air elementals? Because the developers didn't give them those spells, and mages already have water elementals.
Why can't shaman have permanent elemental pets? Because Blizzard doesn't want shaman to be a pet class.
That cover everything?
Fathertouk asked:
Great Queue today Anne! Will the Queue be taking questions from twitter often? Should twitter questions be directed to @Wowinsider, or somewhere more Queue specific?
While I'm not Anne, I think I'm qualified to answer this question! We writers of The Queue generally turn to Twitter when The Queue itself doesn't have many questions or many questions that we are willing/qualified to answer. In between patch cycles, things always get either highly speculative or highly nitpicky. Why doesn't Blizzard do this, why doesn't Blizzard do that, when will Blizzard ... you get the picture. Those aren't things we can answer, so maybe we'll only get one, maybe two really good questions we want to try to answer. That's not enough to fill out a day! So we turn to Twitter.
Sometimes we ask on the @WoWInsider Twitter account for questions, sometimes on our personal accounts. The regular Queue authors are: And some of common irregulars are:
- @Shadesogrey (Anne Stickney)
- @gomatgo (Mat McCurley)
- @FoxVanAllen (Who?)
"i love the queue! :D
So do I, friend. So do I.
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)
(cutaia) Aug 1st 2011 11:05AM
"They don't necessarily want guild levels and whether or not you remembered to click your banner (or hit your banner macro, for the nitpicky folk in our audience) to be factored into the equation."
Why?
Guild levels already factor in, don't they? Guild levels 4 and 12 will increase rep received by 5%-10% respectively, won't it? As far as the banners go, they don't affect quests, which is how you get most reps up. Raid reputations are really the only ones that you increases solely through killing mobs/bosses, so isn't it kind of weird to have an entire item dedicated to increasing that, but never have it work in future raids...the only place it's really all that useful?
SlimPickens42 Aug 1st 2011 11:30AM
That was exactly my question. Why put an item in the game if you're not going to let it be useful. I get it's use in Heroics, but did they really want to make an item obsolete so quickly?
Kragragh Aug 1st 2011 11:58AM
"Why put an item in the game if you're not going to let it be useful."
Your definition of useful is not everyone's...especially, the developers. They want it useful in some situations, but not others.
Also, there are plenty of items in game that aren't "useful" to many.
Just because it doesn't do specifically what YOU want it to do doesn't make it not "useful".
styopa Aug 1st 2011 12:00PM
^ this.
"They don't necessarily want guild levels and whether or not you remembered to click your banner (or hit your banner macro, for the nitpicky folk in our audience) to be factored into the equation."
thus means
"They don't necessarily want guild levels to matter where it's useful."
Knob Aug 1st 2011 12:03PM
It's there to make pwetty killshots. That's really all the use I've found for them.
ZodiacDragons Aug 1st 2011 12:27PM
I agree that it makes no sense for them to leave out the banner. At 85, the only thing to use it for is increased rep or honor, and when you already have exalted with the heroic reps, this thing is basically only useful in pvp situations which makes it another item just to level alts.
jishdefish Aug 1st 2011 2:37PM
Maybe Firelands is to battle standard of coordination as Rated BG is to flexweave underlay?
Noyou Aug 1st 2011 4:23PM
It's working as intended.
Zanathos Aug 2nd 2011 9:07PM
If the battle standard worked in firelands, they'd have compensated by giving mobs less Rep per kill. You're not missing out on anything.
(cutaia) Aug 3rd 2011 10:46AM
"If the battle standard worked in firelands, they'd have compensated by giving mobs less Rep per kill. You're not missing out on anything."
Wow, that's super presumptuous....
Necromann Aug 1st 2011 11:08AM
May the Dark Lady watch over you.
jonblaze81 Aug 1st 2011 11:09AM
Did the show get eaten again last week?
MusedMoose Aug 1st 2011 11:35AM
Nope! It just didn't show up until Thursday:
http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/07/28/the-wow-insider-show-episdoe-203-the-case-of-the-missing-cat/
You can always click on the "latest show" link over on the sidebar to get... wait for it... the latest show.
Hal Aug 1st 2011 11:10AM
After working on the Darnassus cooking quests, I've noticed that the Night Elves have sort of a pan-Asian culture, sort of like how the Dwarves are pseudo-Scottish. Have the Night Elves always had this dynamic? And what other real world cultures do the various WoW cultures replicate?
Amaxe Aug 1st 2011 11:28AM
Interesting you mention that. I was questing in Feralas yesterday and saw the new Feathermoon. My first thought was it was an Asian style architecture kind of "elf-ified," and it made me wonder if we should consider Nelfs to have that kind of society.
Drakkenfyre Aug 1st 2011 12:37PM
Yes, they have.
Their entire architecture is based on Japanese designs.
The Elder's Festival, however, is based on a Chinese holiday.
Kurtis Aug 1st 2011 11:35AM
Draenei: Russian/Eastern European
Tauren: Native American
Human: Western European
Troll: Caribbean
Those are the big ones that spring to mind.
Shinae Aug 1st 2011 11:40AM
Yes, Night Elves have always had an Asian-inspired culture in WoW. The night elf food vendors have always sold kimchi. Their buildings are rather pagoda-ish. The cooking dailies are just a continuation of that.
To add to Kurtis' list:
Gilnean - Victorian English
Troll - a mix of Caribbean, African, Polynesian, and Meso-American (Hakkar is quetzalcoatl-like)
Goblin - New York/Jersey
Blood Elf - Californian
...What? Haven't you heard their emotes?
Lou Gagliardi Aug 1st 2011 11:46AM
By the Horde:
Tauren=Native American
Trolls=Caribbean
Orcs=Stereotypical African (?)
Elves and Undead=Unsure
By the Alliance
Humans=English
Dwarves=Scottish
Gnomes=Unsure
Night Elves=Asian as discussed above
Draenei=Eastern European (listen the accent!)
Please don't hesitate to correct where I'm wrong, this was a rough guess.
loop_not_defined Aug 1st 2011 11:52AM
Gnomes - MIT?