The Queue: What time is it?

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky, senior editor at WoW Insider, will be your host today.
Answer me this, dear readers:
| Time for patch 4.3 to be released on the PTR | |
|---|---|
| Time for the next expansion to be announced | |
| Peanut butter jelly |
Also, a vote for peanut butter jelly means that I'll have it for lunch -- that, or sushi, if I can convince Katie to go and get some tomorrow.
Bellajtok asked:
Does Blizz have any plans for the future of the talent point limitations in the next expansion? If they keep them compact like they are now an just give us extra talent points, it seems to me that some third-tier talents are extremely powerful. (My balance druid would be casting free Wraths, I can tell you that right now.) But if they expand the trees again like they did for previous expansions, it seems like they're setting themselves up for danger.
This is one of the great questions about the next expansion. It's going to be very interesting to see what Ghostcrawler and his team come up with. Because of the restructuring of the trees they did in Cataclysm, they just can't go back and start building them up again, else they'll eventually have to tear it all down again.
My guess is that we're going to see a few more points and maybe one or two horizontal talents come into preexisting trees (in other words, they won't grow vertically anymore). These horizontal talents would be aggressively designed to basically force players in each spec to use them, eliminating the draw of speccing down further in other non-main-spec trees.
The other possibility is that we'll get an alternate advancement system like we've seen in other games, where the current talent trees will remain stable, but another set will appear that players can work in once the main set is filled.
Again, the only person who holds the answer is Ghostcrawler.
Sassa asked:
What happens if priest casts leap of faith on a target at the same a dk pulls the target with dg? In other words which spell ''wins''?
It can't happen -- one command will arrive and be processed by the server at an incredibly small time period before the other. Whichever one arrives later will win. If by some reason there is a time conflict, I'm sure Blizzard has conditions set in WoW that would resolve it by a roll of a virtual dice or some other measure.
Arrohon asked:
In-game Silvermoon and the Exodar are both generally empty, but are they still bustling metropolises in lore?
They're basically forgotten across the spectrum. Blizzard has referenced that they have lots of their respective races still going to and fro, but that's it. They're essentially inhabited by NPCs, low-level characters, and a few odd people. (Cue incoming deluge of people who say they're using them still.)
Filed under: The Queue






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
spectres Sep 8th 2011 11:02AM
A few unrelated Questions.
If the language (Troll) was changed to (Zandali) why would they change the language (Gutterspeak) to (Forsaken)? And for that matter, what reason could their have been to not let Worgen speak (Gilnean)?
Secondly, I want an to transmog an outfit that says, "This guy is an Engineer!" but I can't seem to track down and shoulders that have a mechanical theme. Are there any at the moment, or will I have to wait for Heroic Gnomeregan that might never come? (Other than the Goggles, engineering armor in general seem underwhelming. I want to be an EPIC Engineer!)
Lastly I am going to hitch two dead horses to a wagon as if I expect them to go anywhere. Someone mentioned that the newer models for Worgen and Goblins, and even Blood Elves and Draenei have more bones than those of the vanilla races. That would seem to cement new models for old races as a firm priority over the Dance Studio. There generally seems to be more buzz about updated models anyway. Any change you think we will see new models and dance studio hit at the same time? Or do you think they have given up on the dance studio?
Thank you for you time and accept my apologies for bringing up the Dance studio.
kingoomieiii Sep 8th 2011 11:17AM
Gilneans apparently just speak Common. With a hilariously overacted accent.
Gutterspeak exists because Horde players being able to speak Common had... unforseen consequences. Like undead rogues tricking lowbies into going to secluded areas to be murdered.
Bellajtok Sep 8th 2011 11:23AM
Well, goggles are really your top engineer option. I'm going with the Gnomish X-Ray Specs, because they have the best model for all engineers ever. Other than that, your various devices should be doing the announcing of your engineer-ness instead of your gear. 1/3 of the time, you should be under the effect of the Gnomish World Enlarger. You should take every opportunity to float magnificently by use of parachute. If you're a Goblin Engineer, BOMBS EVERYWHERE. If you're a Gnomish one (like me), you should spend all your time defying gravity with doublejumps. But yeah, there's not that much "Engineer- looking gear".
Shinae Sep 8th 2011 11:24AM
1.) The Troll language and Zanadi are two names for the same thing. Gilneans would speak Common as all humans do. The reason why Forsaken (undead humans) have a separate language is a gameplay reason, to prohibit cross-faction talk.
2.) An engineering outfit to wear as your battle gear depends on what type of armor you have. If you can wear plate, IMHO the most mechanical looking shoulders are the paladin tier 8 recolors: http://roleplaygear.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/red-aegis-recolour/
http://roleplaygear.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/blue-aegis-recolour/
If you wear leather, this set would work: http://roleplaygear.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/bards-set/
3.) I think that's a great point about the connection between dance studio and new PC models. There really isn't any point for the devs to do anything about the dances if the models are just going to get changed. IF we are to ever see either of these features implemented, the new models will come first.
Shinae Sep 8th 2011 11:29AM
Oops, I meant "Zandali" ^
Here's another Engineer outfit:
http://roleplaygear.wordpress.com/2011/04/23/the-engineer/
durandal Sep 8th 2011 11:29AM
As to the engineer's outfit: Finkle's Lava Dredger is a 2h mace which is also used a heirloom mace. For shields with a mechanical look, the Force Reactive Disk and Gizlock's Hypertech Buckler sprint into my mind. There are a few electric saw-like 1h swords out there, too.
For a wider selection of enginieering gear, I'm looking forward to one of the next expansion which will carry us to the machine planet of Mechanor where we kill Giant Robots gone insane.
Spectres Sep 8th 2011 11:32AM
To clarify, I am aware of that undead speak there own language to prevent cross faction communication, and I am aware that Worgen are unable to speak Gilnean.
My question is why would the tool tip showing the Troll language be changed from the race name (Troll) to the in character name of the language (Zandali), at the same time that the tooltip for the undead language would be changed from the in character name of the language (Gutterspeak) to the name of the race (Forsaken).
Bellajtok Sep 8th 2011 11:33AM
@durandal
SCAVENGE ALL THE THINGS!!!
loop_not_defined Sep 8th 2011 11:48AM
After twitting with Kolyarut about this recently, I had a thought:
What if the newer PC models are designed to accomodate new (and currently unused) character customizations? Stuff like size and girth? It'd be another good reason why redoing the original PC models would take a lot more work than simply updating the polys.
Telwar Sep 8th 2011 12:19PM
There is no Gilnean language, only Common. The humans have not had enough time as separate nations to develop more than slight regional accents.
I suspect they liked calling the Troll language Zandali better than just Troll. They may also have had more significant linguistic drift than most other races, such that there may be other non-comprehensible but related versions of Troll.
I suspect that if they wanted to be linguistically accurate, the elven languages should be notably related, and maybe still use a few of the same words. Dwarves are likely still at the accent stage, since their generations are long enough that they haven't had enough time to diverge, despite much greater separation than the humans had.
robsmith77 Sep 8th 2011 12:09PM
@Shinae
http://roleplaygear.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/red-aegis-recolour/
Hmmmm, I looked at these and my first thought was "Blacksmith shoulders". Which is a shame, because my main is a warrior engineer and I'd really like some Engineering shoulders
Minstrel Sep 8th 2011 1:22PM
@loop_not_defined
If in fact Blizzard were looking to overhaul the entire character creation process to allow body type customization (a slender male elf? joy!), that would be an awesome reason to delay character model updates.
However, my guess is that that level of character customization (which exists in spades in other MMOs) will never be in WoW due to the legacy systems. They'd also have to change the entire way armor graphics work, to accommodate the explosion of new character sizes...as it stands, they only had to code for armor visuals to scale in one way per race. I doubt it's set up to scale dynamically and implementing that change now would likely be a huge headache. They'd probably just rather save that for the future (and presumably more robust programming framework of) Titan.
I'd love to be wrong. I want to tailor my character images in WoW!
Drakkenfyre Sep 8th 2011 2:32PM
At one point in the beta, "Gilnean" was it's own language. Other people saw "Woof, woof, bark, teapot, guvenor" (as best as I can remember what the list was.)
It's a shame it was taken out.
Tfish92 Sep 8th 2011 4:10PM
Nobody seems to understand that he's asking why did blizzard change the name of gutterspeak to forsaken?
Make an undead and look at their language list, they speak Orcish and Forsaken now.
Unknown Sep 8th 2011 4:15PM
I noticed that as well spectres and am quite perplexed. My first thought was that perhaps some parents were angered over 'Gutterspeak', perhaps referencing some realworld slang?
Artificial Sep 8th 2011 5:33PM
They didn't really like the name "Gutterspeak". If you want a more complicated explanation, you're trying way too hard to read too much into it.
interceptingshadows Sep 8th 2011 5:56PM
Thats a thought, hasnt blizzard changed the names of the languages? i could have sworn that (troll) used to be (zandalari), its a change i noticed some time ago (unless it was just my memory playing tricks on me) and it only seems to be (troll) that has altered.
Chivvy Sep 8th 2011 11:03AM
On my server, The Bazaar in Silvermoon is like the Horde's version of Goldshire.
BrentJackson Sep 8th 2011 11:12AM
You must be from Moon Guard. :D
fallemwarrior Sep 8th 2011 11:29AM
Maybe >-> has race specific portals, that way only blood elves can port to the 5 new zones via Silvermoon instead of org
Maybe this will also just make everyone angry >-