The Queue: Riding this joke 'til the tires go bald
by Alex Ziebart 
Aug 15th 2011 at 11:00AM
The Queue is now in order! We all know that Samwise Pandas Club threw a party the other day and not one of us was invited. Now what do you say if we form a new club and call it the ... He-Man Panda Haters Club?
Now I think we oughta have a president. Now, the man we elect must be the worst panda hater of us all. I nominate ... myself. Because I hate pandas.
Gutrot asked:
Alex I think you write the Queue on Monday right? The other writers have speculated about Mists of Panderia but you haven't except for your panda hate. What do you expect to see?
I think Mists of Pandaria is a bit of a red herring. If the expansion is called Mists of Pandaria, I still expect the pandaren to be only one little part of the overall product. Blizzard is working pretty hard to snuff out leaks, but the one leak it always has to deal with is the fact that when it trademarks its game title, information about that title falls into public domain. If it doesn't make the title obscure, it's one big spoiler in advance of BlizzCon. When Wrath of the Lich King shows up as a new trademark filed by Blizzard Entertainment, what do you think the expansion is about? Not the Lich King?
I expect that yes, Mists of Pandaria will have pandaren and Pandaria, but it won't be the narrative focus of the expansion any more than the goblin starting zone is in Cataclysm. Blizzard's trying to hide the narrative, the core of the story, and where we're going to spend most of our time in the next expansion.
Priestess asked:
Has anything more been heard about or seen of the guild transfer service? And with Blizzcon coming up Soon, what are the chances that it appears either before or after that?
Something that you need to keep in mind about things like the guild transfer service is that Blizzard is forced to announce that those features are in the works long before they're ready. If dataminers found the test code for the feature in a PTR client and revealed it to the world before Blizzard announced the feature itself, then everybody would go nuts with speculation. Blizzard would lose its chance to explain what's going on ahead of the chaos.
We have no idea when Blizzard plans on opening up the guild transfer service. It might be released next month. It might be released next year. If it were up to Blizzard and the developers didn't need to worry about datamining, Blizzard most likely wouldn't have even announced that the feature is in the works yet. If your guild is sitting around and holding their breath in anticipation of the feature ... don't.
MagikTrik asked:
When will we get wand specialization back?
I'm assuming your question is for laughs and not for reals, but I'm going to answer it anyway because it touches on one of my game design peeves. When will we get wand specialization back? Probably never. Never ever. Blizzard is more likely to completely remove the ranged slot from the game. Its existence doesn't make a lot of sense, and modern RPGs move away from split ranged/melee slots more and more. Couldn't a caster's primary weapon serve the same function as a wand? Give weapons with caster stats different animations. Let a staff shoot bolts of magic rather than needing a wand. Or just give casters a baseline low mana/no mana spell that doesn't do much damage but regens low amounts of mana and keeps you engaged. Remove the ranged slot for hunters, too.
"Well, what would a hunter do in melee range?" I hear you ask. Just look at modern RPGs like Dragon Age 2 for your answer to that: Guns, bows and crossbows have melee applications. No, you're not going to melee someone to death with a gun, but you can sure as hell clobber someone over the head with the stock of your rifle or crossbow to disorient them while you retreat to range again.
That's my wild statement of the day: Screw the ranged slot. Destroy 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 1 of 9)
Fletcher Aug 15th 2011 11:05AM
I seem to recall reading about a way to make a macro that would play music from other zones; so you could, for instance, play the Grizzly Hills music in Stormwind. Does anyone know anything more about this? My mage just hit 77 and I'd really like to avoid hearing the horrible Icecrown music if it's at all possible.
Tim Aug 15th 2011 11:13AM
You have to type in long ass macros for this to work. It's a pain in the ass. I already did 2 and just said screw it. Grab the Lich King music off the net and listen to it that way with your favorite mp3 player or on your computer. it's easier and less of a headache that way. TRUST ME.
mikebulko Aug 15th 2011 11:17AM
http://www.wowwiki.com/API_PlaySoundFile
Kurtis Aug 15th 2011 11:22AM
Erm... the music is already on your computer - just extract it. Don't encourage piracy.
Bapo Aug 15th 2011 11:26AM
At first I used Finalfantasylization (back when it had sound packs), and after that got taken down, I swapped to Epic Music Player. They were both nice, but I didn't want to keep adding songs to it. So now, on the rare occasion of me playing, I just have youtube running :P
Cbeefman Aug 15th 2011 11:29AM
you dont like the ICECROWN music? I think it fits that zone so perfectly, it's freaking scary. at some points in the zone, even the CLOUDS have spikes...the freaking CLOUDS!
that being said, yes there is a mod that allows you to play different music from outside the game
i used to use one during TBC to replace what i felt was awefull music in Shattrath city. it could even play different songs for combat, ground mount, flying mount etc.
all you would need is to get the mp3 of whatever song you like
what i want to find out is if it's "legal" to switch combat sounds. For example, i recently got my hands on a lava bolt crossbow and it's currently still bugged to sound like a gun which made me realize just how much i missed having a gun. so now i want ALL my ranged weapons to sound like guns regardless. Is that allowed?
lazymangaka Aug 15th 2011 11:32AM
You're not really encouraging piracy if you're downloading something that's already on your computer. You'd just be obtaining it in a more convenient form.
Fletcher Aug 15th 2011 11:39AM
Cbeefman - yes, the Icecrown music is thematically appropriate. It's also really freaking ugly if you have to listen to it for more than about a minute. I *can* just turn off in-game music and turn on iTunes, but that involves a bunch of fiddling about that's just annoying.
Shinae Aug 15th 2011 11:44AM
@Cbeefman
Yes, it's legal (as in, not against the ToS) to change sounds. Using the PlaySoundFile command in a macro is fine, as are addons that add non-game-file sounds. Afterall, the sounds will only play for you (locally).
Hache Aug 15th 2011 1:35PM
What I do is look for a special music I want to hear in Wowpedia, like:
/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Music\\GlueScreenMusic\\BCCredits_Lament_of_the_Highborne.mp3")
and put it in a simple macro.
Hierakles Aug 16th 2011 7:13AM
For added fun, macro sounds in with your abilities. I had my lowbie Gnome Warrior calling out lines from Kologarn and Hodir etc, was very epic XD
I did however have them tied to a shift modifier, so I didn't have to listen to them ALL the time.
Professor Orc Aug 15th 2011 11:06AM
You can take my ranged slot when you pry it from my COLD, DEAD HANDS!
Hal Aug 15th 2011 11:31AM
Back in Wrath, I might have been okay with getting rid of it forever. When paladins, death knights, druids, and shamans had to deal with relics that used odd mechanics and were difficult to balance well, it would have been easier to just dump them. At the end of Wrath, everything became interchangeable amongst the relic classes, and those relics became stat-sticks to make balance with the ranged-slot classes easier.
I don't necessarily want the ranged/relic slot to go away, but I want Blizzard to make better use of it. These used to represent iconic aspects of a class (Paladins and Librams, Shamans and Totems, etc.), but now it's nothing but a place for additional stats. Hunters are the only class to really care about the item in that slot. I think something much better could be done with that; simply dumping it would be the easy way out.
Spellotape Aug 15th 2011 11:44AM
This. Even if the slot is pointless, having a wand is pretty iconic for a caster, just like having a bow or a gun is for a hunter.
Shinae Aug 15th 2011 11:52AM
Alex is just jealous that relics don't have any models. ;)
Wouldn't it be cool if relics could be shown in our characters' hands like how wands do? Paladins would use a libram like how the draenei does in the BC cinematic.
VSUReaper Aug 15th 2011 11:57AM
IMO, make ranged weapons hunter only items, and allow everyone else to use relics.
I absolutely **HATE** being a warrior with a gun, and have to hold my breath and count to 100 in klingon in order for me to get a ranged weapon that fits my specialization (i.e. str with either tanking stats or offensive stats).
I think rogues are the only one with a strong argument for still having a ranged slot, but even they can have FOK retweaked a little so that it doesnt require anything.
Relics for all imo
Arrohon Aug 15th 2011 12:26PM
If you play WC3 paladins have book (libram) on a chain attached to their waist. The cut scene when Arthas obtains Frostmourne is a great one to see it. Give that to pallies. Add a book that just hangs off of our waist and different librams would have different textures. It would probably be simple and add a nice bit of flair to the class. If you could open it (via z-hotkey) it would add a simple touch to rp as well.
Vladpr Aug 15th 2011 12:27PM
@Spellotape
Wands are not necessarily iconic to casters ... until you live in the Harry Potter world, and even then Mad-Eye Moody had a staff, not a wand(Have no idea why).
Look at mages in Lord of the Rings ... for them the staff does everything they want, no wand needed. although they had swords ... weird.
Alex apparently likes the idea of casters in the LOTR world, no wand is needed.
Elmo Aug 15th 2011 1:08PM
@Arrohon
agreed, and a similar thing for DK's only a dark version, and a pair of totems on the back of a shaman (like Cairne Bloodhoof)
don't know where to put the druid idol though.
however relics aren't class exclusive anymore and not nearly as much fun as they were (basically an equipable talent) instead they are as boring as neck/ring slots, invisible and just there for the stats.
Prelimar Aug 15th 2011 3:42PM
i can't believe i just upvoted an orc, but the professor is 100% correct on this one.