The Queue: Three questions for the dev chat
by Adam Holisky 
Oct 27th 2011 at 11:00AM
I was thinking about some questions I'd like the WoW designers to answer today at the dev chat. Here are my three. There's very little chance they'll get answered, but I figure it'll be good to start a discussion and hopefully see some great questions get asked today.
1. Some encounters favor burst damage, while others work fine with damage that takes some time to ramp up. Yet not all DPS specs can produce the best possible burst damage consistently. Do you guys see this as a problem? If so, what kinds of solutions are you working on?
2. Removing auto-attack from monks is a neat idea for melee. If this change ends up working well, is there any thought on removing auto-attack from other melee classes?
3. What are your top three goals for classes and encounters in Mists of Pandaria?
Puntable asked:
Is there a datamined video of Tyrael's Charger anywhere?
Nope. Blizzard hasn't included it yet in the patch 4.3 files and only announced it last week at BlizzCon. Expect it soon, though.
Tolsimir asked:
I just finally fished up Mr. Pinchy, which brings my pet total to 149. Should I cheat and just buy a Pandaren Monk and/or Cenarion Hatchling, or grind out that stupid, stupid Crawling Claw for my 150th?
It's not cheating. It's being smart. You can either spend however much time it costs to earn $10, or spend hours and hours and hours farming. For me, I'd spend that $10 instantly.
After you've spent that $10, spend the extra time to get that 151st pet and be extra cool.
Cutaia commented:
Hmm...the question about the hero class reminded me that there gonna have to do some reworking with the way the DK starter zone works. Didn't we get talent points throughout that whole zone? Now, they'll have 3 talent points owed to them before level 58. Makes me feel bad for the QA people who have to think about all of these little things that changes like that end up creating the need for.
Yup, the death knight starting zone is going to have to have some mechanical changes to the talent point rewards. My guess is that Blizzard will give people one tier of talent every batch of quests and toss in some spells as appropriate.
I'm sure Blizzard's not too concerned about perfect balance here, just making sure that at the end of the starting experience, death knights are where they need to be.
Gdawg asked:
If race changing to a pandaren, would I be able to change to a new faction as well, or stay in the same instead.
While there's been no official word from Blizzard, I'm sure that you'll need to faction change as well. I can't imagine the service would include a free $30 faction switch as part of a race change.
Jerry asked:
Did Blizzard mention anything about Outland during BlizzCon? I'm not sure if I missed it or not. Specifically, is Outland getting a quest revamp in MoP? Or do our pandas have to suffer through there just like all our other classes?
I didn't hear anything at BlizzCon about Outland quest revamps. Asking people at tonight's dev chat would be a good time to clear this up.
NorricTehChickn asked:
With talk of controller/console support for Diablo 3, and the devs wanting the WoW Monk to play like a beat-em-up, do you think they'd develop joypad support for WoW?
No, Blizzard has always said WoW doesn't work with non-keyboard plus mouse interfaces like that because the game is so social. You can't talk to your guildmates in gchat without a keyboard.
That being said, there are joystick interfaces out there. However, none of them in my experience work very well.
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!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 20)
Didax Oct 27th 2011 11:02AM
Can a Horde Pandaren talk to an Alliance Pandaren by using the Pandaren language? Or at level 10 are they going to suddenly suffer a case of explosive amnesia, forgetting their native tongue?
Also, if a Pandaren uses an Orb of Deception, do they transform into a Pandaren?
Discolando Oct 27th 2011 11:08AM
Blizzard has already said that Horde Pandas won't be able to talk to Alliance Pandas. They understand it doesn't make sense from a lore standpoint, but in this case the rules trump lore.
eel5pe Oct 27th 2011 11:07AM
No, they will not be able to cross-faction communicate. According to Blizzard, it doesn't make much sense lore-wise but it's an area of WoW where game concerns supersede lore concerns.
And as for Orb of Deception, if that was the case I would hope that they would make the Orb 100% drop rate for Pandaren, but BoP. =)
Jamie Oct 27th 2011 11:07AM
They've said that the Pandaren will not break Blizzard's policy on cross faction communication.
But if you want the trick question answer, yes they can. IF they have Real ID with the other person.
See: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/204404/pandaren-not-understanding-pandaren
loop_not_defined Oct 27th 2011 11:07AM
Blizzard said Pandaren won't be able to talk cross-faction, and purely for gameplay reasons.
CLASSIFIED Oct 27th 2011 11:08AM
Yeah Zarhym confirmed on the forums that they will not be able to talk to each other once picking a faction at level 10.
Leroy Oct 27th 2011 11:09AM
They have said that Alliance and Horde Pandas will not be able to talk to each other. They said they recognize it presents a lore problem, but they had to make the decision for game mechanic reasons.
Don't know about the Orb:)
Aalokor Oct 27th 2011 11:10AM
generally speaking, cross faction chat is used primarily for griefing and taunting. I don't see them adding that back in now, despite lore concerns.
Sols Oct 27th 2011 11:10AM
If a panda farts alone in the woods, does anyone smell it?
Task Oct 27th 2011 11:11AM
No, they stated at the panels that cross faction chat would not be allowed. It's to prevent flaming, trolling, foulmouthed behavior during the expansion.
alzeer Oct 27th 2011 11:20AM
easy to explain
alliance Pandaren speak Mandarin
while horde Pandaren speak Cantonese
Muse Oct 27th 2011 11:25AM
It *does* make sense, lore-wise. Not the not-understand part so much, but I can easily see the kind of culture the Pandaren have, that when they swear themselves to one faction, they also swear to uphold that faction's ideals and truths, and some of those ideals and truths say that you don't communicate with the other faction.
Haden Oct 27th 2011 11:31AM
i dont really see the problem. Example of a bad scenario, I'm playing my lvl23 panda (ally) and another lvl90 panda (horde) one shots me then calls me a noob. its one thing to be killed by some1, its another for them to rub it in. Asshole argument aside there really is no point in letting the alliance and horde talk to each other anyways. Im only ever in SW, i cant group with them or raid. if we ever do try to communicate (use emotes) its only to maybe help each other out while questing.
erknost Oct 27th 2011 11:50AM
How would be the mechanics in which the Panderans go to Outland and Northrend? They are gonna travel in time?
Hadomen Oct 27th 2011 11:56AM
So here is a hypothetical question. If you are under Level 10 can you talk to both factions? Or will everyone sound weird until you pick a side? (though not sure if you could get out of the starting area before level 10...maybe RaF Summon?)
Scotty Oct 27th 2011 11:56AM
The Pandaren will take a vow of silence with their brothers and sisters that choose the opposing faction.
Eliandor Oct 27th 2011 12:35PM
1. RAF summon doesn't get you out of Gilneas early so it probably won't get you out of the floating turtle starting zone.
2. Its not just pandas that should talk to each other, but how many cutscenes have horde and alliance characters talking to each other, how many Cenarion mixed groups, Argent, Earthen Ring, or the caravan in EPL? My night elf has no trouble understanding the orcs yelling in several zones, but the dwarfs talking Thelsamar or Menethil harbor? Nope, don't know dwarfish. So the whole language thing is more broken than just anti-griefing and I don't think should be considered based on lore.
Asaron Oct 27th 2011 12:38PM
Lore-wise you'd expect Forsaken to speak the same language as the alliance races. Although I guess some of them lack the jaw for it.
Firestyle Oct 27th 2011 1:00PM
But how can Varian talk to Thrall, or Garrosh? I don't get it.
Even in any other fantasy fiction, most worlds have a "Common" language whereby orcs, rolls, gnomes, humans, and elves can communicate with each other.
Pyromelter Oct 27th 2011 1:10PM
@muse
"some of those ideals and truths say that you don't communicate with the other faction"
Seeing as how we see examples all over the lore, like everywhere, where everyone talks to everyone without any issue, I don't see this as an "ideal" or "truth." It's a gameplay mechanic, and frankly a bad one.
I foresee blizzard testing one common language on a server somewhere at some point, and finding out that it really isn't all that bad. I mean, seriously, cross faction chat can't be any worse than /trade chat. Everyone who claims that it'll only be griefers and trolls, IMO are completely wrong.
Why do I feel that? Well, for one thing, look at starcraft 2. There is no faction language barrier there. Haven't heard any problems with that. What about every FPS out there? What about the cross-faction chat that does happen, every day, on forums and messageboards?
I'm not saying x-faction chat would be this great panacea of awesomesauce, I'm just saying it's not as bad as virtually everyone makes it out to be. (And having recent experience in a different MMO that did indeed have cross faction chat, it really wasn't that big a deal.) Honestly I feel like griefing and trolling might even decrease, because the only people who seem to cross chat are people that make those phrases that are like "YO U L OS E" and spam it.