The Queue: I am totally pumped
by Alex Ziebart 
Oct 12th 2011 at 11:00AM
Can you smell that? Smells like ... anticipation.
Dom asked:
Alex, you're writing the Queue today right? Yesterday Adam said he wasn't pumped about Blizzcon. How do you feel?
I'm pretty pumped. BlizzCon '10 had absolutely no game news of note, so BlizzCon '11 cannot possibly be more disappointing than that. We're expecting expansion news, StarCraft 2 news, maybe a Diablo 3 trailer ... pretty excited about that! Maybe we'll even see a Blizzard All-Stars update?
Even if the convention itself turns out to be a bore, the community parties never disappoint. The WoW Insider Reader Meetup is the one time a year we get to go out and meet all of you guys and interact in a personal way. That alone is worth the trip to SoCal. Really, I wish we could throw major events like that more often, but BlizzCon is the only time something of that scale is viable.
So yeah, I'm pumped!
Revynn asked:
Any chance Blizz would ever dabble in licensed replicas? I would love to have Thunderfury hanging on my wall and see my wife in Azshara's little getup.
They already have licensed replicas, though not of the items you want. Thunderfury would be a little hard to forge in real life; it has a such a bizarre shape and build that the finished product would probably collapse under its own weight. Blizzard (via Epic Weapons) has done Frostmourne, however, and is currently doing Doomhammer.
durandal asked:
Perhaps I overread it in the announcements from the PTR, but has it been etablished where Deathwing has been hiding for the last 10 months?
He wasn't hiding. He's been terrorizing the planet for the last 10 months. I think he may have set up a summer home in the Eastern Plaguelands. That's the zone where he's torched every single one of my alts, at least. Sometimes twice. That zone is a death trap.
Blue Jay686 asked:
razer naga epic and nostromo. good combo?
I don't use this combo for World of Warcraft, but I use it for other games. I was having some wrist issues recently, and playing PC games came packaged with a great deal of pain. Eliminating my keyboard for awhile helped, so I played through most of Dead Island with the Naga/Nostromo combo rather than mouse and keyboard.
You need to do quite a bit of hotkey customization to eliminate a keyboard from your play completely, but sometimes the end result is worth 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 12)
Arrowsmith Oct 12th 2011 11:05AM
Is it safe to say that the LFR raid difficulty will remove the need to nerf raid content so severely mid-patch, or is it still possible that Blizzard could do an across-the-board nerf before 5.0?
Wowcoholic Oct 12th 2011 11:10AM
Hopefully.
Puntable Oct 12th 2011 11:18AM
If a lot of guilds are having a problem with a certain boss on normal mode, it will be nerfed. LFR will not change this at all. It is not Blizzard's intention that guilds use the LFR, unless it's to practice the fights in preparation for normal mode.
Devin Oct 12th 2011 11:37AM
@Puntable
"If a lot of guilds are having a problem with a certain boss on normal mode, it will be nerfed."
Arrowsmith is referring to the blanket nerfs to normal, like the nerfs we just got to FL a couple weeks ago. You're referring to balancing nerfs, which are of a completely different nature.
" It is not Blizzard's intention that guilds use the LFR, unless it's to practice the fights in preparation for normal mode."
It is more likely Bizzard's intention for anyone and everyone to use it; even established guilds. This way people who can't raid with a guild due to time constraints or any other myriad of reasons can still see the content Blizzard spends so much of their time and resources developing and maybe even get more people interested in raiding.
Puntable Oct 12th 2011 11:57AM
I thought I saw a blue post that stated the "blanket nerfs" to FL were because a lot of guilds had "hit the wall" in that raid. Am I mistaken?
Devin Oct 12th 2011 12:09PM
That is correct, but your initial comment, through saying "having a problem on a certain boss" led me to infer you were referring to balancing nerfs.
@Arrowsmith - Had Blizzard not nerfed heroic encounters this time I would be more inclined to believe that they wouldn't blanket nerf normals in 4.3, because at that point it's hard to argue that the nerfs are in place just so people can see the content; which is what LFR would provide. Due to Blizzard nerfing heroic mode it's obviously more of an attempt to reinvigorate the playerbase to continue raiding and despite having LFR they would probably do it again.
Pyromelter Oct 12th 2011 12:10PM
I'd bet 100k gold that there will be at least a small nerf to the deathwing raid before 5.0. I wouldn't bet further, but I would expect that it would be "significantly" nerfed. It's generally easier on the player base to nerf an overtuned fight than to buff a fight that's too easy, the incessant QQ from buffing a boss that is undertuned is way worse than a nerf to an overtuned boss.
Gindy Oct 12th 2011 12:17PM
@puntable
I think arrows point was more, when they nerfed BoT/BWD they used the reasoning that they wanted more people to be able to see the content that couldn't steadily raid, with LFR theres no need for that, not counting nerfing particular bosses people just can't seem to do.
GuyverIV Oct 12th 2011 1:21PM
As a casual non-raider who plans to dip his toes in LFR, I rather hope that the challenge is maintained for the guilds who want them.
That being said, I understand WHY the blanket nerfs happened, they wanted more people to experince it, I just think they missed an opportunity that had been established by Icecrown and the progressive buffing.
Instead of a flat nerf, they could have introduced it with another mechanism similar to the Wrynn/Hellscream buffing. A progressive debuff on the bosses called something like "Nature's Assault," with the option to turn it off by talking to an NPC. That way those who want the challenge of un-nerfed content could have it, those who want help could have it, and the assistance would have the flavor of the Druidic Assault that resulted in the Sentinal Tree. Plus, folks who had a hard time would have had something to look forward to, instead of getting frustrated and /ragequitting or loosing interest.
Instead of *WHAPPA* Ok, bosses are easier now.
What does this have to do with the future of raiding with LFR vs "Proper" raiding? I guess I'm just saying I don't mind the idea of nerfing content as long as it is:
1 - Planned and
B - There is a reversable mechanism for those who wanna flex their stud-muscles.
That's all I got.
Chris Gonzalez Oct 12th 2011 11:08AM
I am disappointed, Alex. The opening line could have been a pop culture reference; I was under the impression that you guys never missed the chance to jump at those.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxPbu5LtXo4
Alex Ziebart Oct 12th 2011 11:14AM
I was considering it!
laim Oct 12th 2011 11:35AM
I can only imagine how many pages would be filled with, "...pation." if he did that...
Ott Oct 12th 2011 11:17AM
Q for the Q,
Now that Deathwing has come along and Cataclysm changed everything about the world (terrain, flying mounts, reworked quests) have the developers come out and confessed whether there were any quests that had never been done by the players? I remember hearing rumors years ago about quests that were hidden so well by the developers that some had never been done by anyone, as well as cryptic hints about mountainous locations and 'butterfly clouds' given by the GMs to those who sometimes asked. I would be real interested to know if anyone at Blizzard has given any such information.
Arbolamante Oct 12th 2011 11:50AM
Back when the old version of Loremaster took some 2800 quests minimum, and most everyone wound up doing a lot more -- I think everyone I know who has it got Seeker (3000 quests) first -- it would have been hard for a quest to get completely missed. In the forums you'd find people talking about how to track down those last few quests.
There was a quest in Azshara you could not actually finish that was also in a remote place most folks wouldn't stumble across -- a shipwrecked crew being attacked by waves of naga you'd have to fight off, but no matter how many you killed, the quest would not finish.
Sean Oct 12th 2011 11:53AM
I would guess that all those hidden quests were found by people going after the Loremaster and Seeker titles during Wrath. That's when I started to notice add ons and guides devoted to finding every quest in every zone.
Puntable Oct 12th 2011 12:00PM
Just FYI, you could complete that quest originally. It was just broken in a later patch, and they never fixed it.
Pyromelter Oct 12th 2011 12:13PM
No one from blizzard has commented on that. There are a few blogs out there that discussed some of the more esoteric quests, like there was that one questline with a green dragon from Sunken Temple that dead-ended.
chrisdick Oct 12th 2011 12:57PM
I recall that quest that Arbolamante is mentioning about. My engineer was happy to find the trainer that was located in a hut down there also - and I had completed that quest at the time, so must have been broken some time afterwards. Not really much reason to go to that area otherwise.
Jestin Oct 12th 2011 2:38PM
The crew here at the WoW Insider did a story a few months (or maybe it was a year? hmm...) ago about mysterious quest chains or dead-end areas in Vanilla. I found it fascinating and wish I could find it again... there was one in particular about a box near Strahnbrad or the Uplands that was locked and rumor had it there was a key that would open it. Don't think anyone ever found out what it was.
Man, I wish I could find that article instead of sounding like a babbling idiot.
Jarett Oct 12th 2011 11:09AM
After reading yesterday that Blizzard artists would have their own stage, I was very excited, then very sad I wasn't going to be attending, because let's face it, tickets/flight/hotel are pretty pricey. In other news, I will totally tattoo WoWInsider on my butt for a free ride to BlizzCon. Get on that.