Patch 5.3 interview with Ghostcrawler
Mystery of the Unborn Val'kyr
The latest patch 5.3 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Fun fights
by Mathew McCurley 
Nov 30th 2011 at 11:00AM
I have two experiences to talk about before getting started with the questions and answers for today. The first is my general raid experience with the new content from patch 4.3. Dragon Soul is a pretty fun raid so far. I'm the kind of person who is happy to sacrifice a little bit of manufactured challenge for success and progress, especially in the normal mode fights. Heroics are perfectly fine being super challenging, but as far as normals go, letting guilds that can progress do so is fun. The first four fights in Dragon Soul are fun fights, especially Hagara the Stormbinder. I think she might be one of my new favorite encounters in this entire expansion.
The second experience I wanted to discuss was my first Raid Finder adventure. Surprisingly, after weeks of worrying about whether 25 strangers could accomplish the content, I finally found out that it is indeed possible. I had a great time running the first half of Dragon Soul with the random group that I was part of. To be honest, I'm really impressed with the level of difficulty that the Raid Finder setting allows for. If you just want to experience the content and have no aims for more than that, you're solid here. This is a good thing.
Questions, then?
Sarducci asked:
Do you still get locked to heroics if you run them outside the dungeon finder? Like, if we want to run the new five mans as a guild tonight, but some impatient people run them this afternoon, will those people be unable to queue specifically for the new 5-mans due to 24 hour lockouts?
Yes, you are allowed to run the new 5-man heroics once per day under the lockout. However, since the new 4.3 dungeons are in their own category of random heroic, and random heroics have no lockout, you can run those three dungeons to your heart's content. Not too shabby for getting those valor points, hmm?
Rédßèárd asked:
Since chaos orbs can be traded now, does that mean that all party members can roll on them also?
Yes, anyone can roll on them. Just roll need if you want the orb.
MattKrotzer asked:
In End Time... If Nozdormu can take us to the future, where Deathwing is dead... why doesn't he just take EVERYONE there?
Deathwing's gone, and we have a clean slate world on which to rebuild! Sure, it's a bit bleak, but where's that pioneer spirit?!
It's also not the real time line. In Twilight of the Aspects, Nozdormu talks about the real time line that we all exist in and how everything else is a weird branch from that. One of the major villains from the book exists outside of the real time line. It's the "what if" future versus the actual future, and you don't want to live outside the actual timeline? Maybe? I'm always the idiot confused by time travel so I don't know. Also, I think that the world of End Time is just an empty planet, devoid of all life, including the type to sustain other life. So we're pretty much doomed anyway.
byronius_primer asked:
Is there a cutscene after defeating Deathwing in the final encounter in the Dragon Soul raid?
There are four cinematics in the Dragon Soul raid. We've seen three of them so far, since the fourth is apparently missing from the files or is named something different or something. It hasn't been pulled out as of my writing the answer to this question. However, the other three are out there, and they are pretty cool. The first three cinematics are little 10- to 20-second transitional movies that show you some of the cool parts of fighting Deathwing. The final one is assumed to be Deathwing's ultimate defeat.
Scunosi asked:
So maybe I missed something but doesn't the majority of the DS raid take place in Dragonblight? How exactly are they explaining making you go to the Caverns to do something in the present when there's perfectly good boats that have been taking people there for years? I'm sure they just had to stick an instance portal somewhere and going to Dragonblight to enter Dragonblight would be kind of silly, but is there any real in-game explanation for it?
I think it's more of a thematic decision combined with a practical decision. The Dragon Soul raid fits in with the Caverns of Time motif and surrounding story, so it makes sense in that regard to put the portal near the other 4.3 content. The Bronze Dragonflight also plays a huge role in this raid content and story, especially since Nozdormu allows us to go back in time to grab the Dragon Soul, so keeping the portal close to Nozdormu makes sense.
Plus, it's fairly easy to get to versus Wyrmrest which involves a portal to Dalaran and a flight or boat or zeppelin to Northrend and a long flight.
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 3 of 13)
Deathknighty Nov 30th 2011 11:09AM
Am I the only person who is certain that T13 was originally going to be much, much larger, with the 5 mans we got being raids? (Don't forget that they said they were planning a WotA raid for Cata that never came)
Deathknighty Nov 30th 2011 11:10AM
Oh, also, T12 was going to include an Abyssal Maw raid. I'm pretty sure of that too.
So, yeah. All I'm really wondering is why they would basically halve the amount of content they put out with no explanation?
razion Nov 30th 2011 11:13AM
Not that we're counting, but they also "mentioned" Throne of the Tides raid (and infact we haev an empty portal doorway being unused down there for just such a purpose). I have a sneaking suspicion that if they were going to tie in Throne or War of the Ancients anywhere (although in my opinion, Well of Eternity is close enough), it would be like how they did the Ruby Sanctum in Wrath--near the end of the expansion to peak in for the following one. I know if I were doing it, I'd probably have Neptulon tied into the Mists of Pandaria expansion, seeing as how it's all tied to mists and water and seafaring and naval wreckage.
The more realistic point of view is probably that we're not going to see a WotA raid or Throne raid until the following Mists expansion is over (if then).
Quorniya Nov 30th 2011 11:14AM
I imagine they're putting a lot of WoW resources into making sure Mists launches reasonably soon, to help deal with declining subscriber numbers and the imminent launch of SW:ToR. I will personally keep playing both games, but I know a lot of people who are switching. A new expansion will do more to get people excited again than a new content patch.
Edymnion Nov 30th 2011 11:48AM
They always plan a lot more than they actually deliver. There was supposed to be a Zul'Drak raid as well (if you go into Gun'Drak and look over the rails in one spot, you can see the tail end of a HUGE snake, it was going to be in the raid). It had weapons and armor made up for it, but had to be cut due to time constraints. Thats why you get troll looking gear dropping in other seemingly random places.
From what I recall, we were originally going to have a raid for each of the four elements, but that it got cut back to just the ones we have now, again due to time constraints.
Nagaina Nov 30th 2011 11:55AM
I suspect the WotA raid got downgraded to a WotA five-man -- specifically, the most significant part of the WotA, the assault on Zin-Azshari and the Well of Eternity itself.
loop_not_defined Nov 30th 2011 1:58PM
Azjol-Nerub was also planned to be much larger in WotLK.
Prissa Nov 30th 2011 4:48PM
@Edymnion
Re. Zul'Drak, I don't think this was the case. I know we were all thinking that but I recall someone asking the devs about it at blizzcon. They actually had to show them a screenshot of the tail coz they didn't know what he was talking about. If it was gonna be a raid boss, I don't think that would have been necessary.
Pyromelter Nov 30th 2011 5:21PM
I'm going to get downvoted into oblivion (if anyone is reading comments at this point), but here is my opinion:
They mailed it in for end-game content for cataclysm. (Note: For end-game content.) It's like they did all this work on all the new stuff and were like "well F it, we did enough with the leveling experience, let's just go through the motions for the rest."
You know when you see actors on a tv show or a movie and they are bought in, and really enjoying themselves, versus just there for a paycheck. Cata end-game has been just for a paycheck, and it shows (and anyone being honest with themselves will think about this for a second and not just auto-downrate this post).
Deathknighty Nov 30th 2011 10:01PM
I won't really disagree with you there, Cataclysm has felt lacking in the end-game content, as if Blizzard would rather have just revamped the old world and leveling experience, but felt obligated to put out some kind of endgame content for the high level players.
I suppose it was a necessary sacrifice. And going off of what we heard at Blizzcon, they're focussing particularly on endgame content this time round. All we can do is wait and hope, I suppose.
Sinthar Nov 30th 2011 11:11AM
A typo here I think "Plus, it's fairly easy to get to versus Wyrmrest which involves a portal to Dalaran and a flight or boat or zeppelin to Northrend and a long flight." can be read several ways. I know its a bit grammer nazi like - but a comma after the 'dalaran and a flight' to seperate the two ways would have stopped me re reading it twice.
Lastly you refer to chaos orbs as being able to be rolled 'need' on.Is this confirmed? - as previously the supposition was they would be greed only to save the QQ that happened last time (on frost orbs I think) between different realms having 'greed' as the accepted action meeting people from realms where 'need' was the accepted norm.
KataSamoes Nov 30th 2011 12:03PM
As someone mentioned in one of the comment threads above, "need" is only available with a fully pre-formed group for any item. Chaos orbs included.
If the LFD tool has to pug even one person, then it's greed only.
TimR Nov 30th 2011 11:10AM
Some of my guildies used LFR last night and had a lot of success. I was worried it was going to be a slog, but am much more optimistic now. I do wonder if it will be most successful early on though, because of the somewhat high Item Level (372) required. A lot more people that do not typically raid will be able to get in after running the new heroics a few times in the next week or two.
gymboy91 Nov 30th 2011 11:14AM
This is what I was worried about :( I hope you are wrong though haha
Killik Nov 30th 2011 11:28AM
I fear you may be right. Also, raiders looking to get practice for the the fights in their guildruns.
Dennis Nov 30th 2011 1:14PM
Consider this, with the gear level requirement to get in, the people that are in LFR now are experienced raiders. When people like me get geared through the new heroics the quality of groups will drop dramatically.
Pyromelter Nov 30th 2011 6:33PM
I think you guys overestimate "geared raiders" and underestimate yourself and other people interested in raiding. The stated difficulty of LFR is that of Baradin Hold. Which means that as long as more than half the people in the raid are awake and not sleeping on their keyboards, it should be fine.
I think the only way that a raid like that will fail would be if the tanks were very, very bad or very inexperienced. Or if everyone was being uber douchey/trolly and purposefully trying to make it fail.
Go read the "raid explained in 5 seconds" post on wow insider... it should be doable for really any half-decent group with at least average tanks.
Fizzyl Nov 30th 2011 11:11AM
And thus began Captain Constance's war with the Bronze Dragonflight.
No one costs the captain of the Kraken that many first-class tickets to Northrend.
NO ONE.
Sinthar Nov 30th 2011 11:23AM
First class??? The bugger makes me stand on deck while he sails- if its meant to be first class then WHERE IS MY CABIN????
Revnah Nov 30th 2011 11:11AM
Question(s) for the Queue:
With many speculating that Mists of Pandaria might be released before/during the summer next year, shouldn't the Beta be well on its way? If you think back of how long the Cataclysm Beta went on, we should be seeing the first invites soon. Any ideas on when the Beta will open? This year or next?