The Queue: Pie party
by Mathew McCurley 
Jan 15th 2012 at 12:00PM
I threw a pie party last night, and I'm still recovering. There were two pumpkin pies, courtesy of my Kitchen Aid stand mixer and me, as well as two Ikea almond cakes, tons of cupcakes people brought, and lots of alcohol. There's this amazing bottle of Septima Malbec sitting on my desk and maybe ... just maybe ...
No, seriously, Malbecs are the best red wines. Even people who hate reds love Malbecs. Go purchase, now. Drink responsibly. How about some WoW questions?
ZodiacDragons asked:
I've been wanting to ask this for awhile because it seems like talk of faction leaders keeps coming up, but didn't Blizz say sometime at the end of wrath that Lor'themar was going to play some sort of role in cataclysm? I think I remember seeing a blue post about it in an article here but can't find it. I think if ANY faction leader needs lore development, it's that guy. At least Velen has that "end of the world" prophesy to fall back on.
So my question(s) are: did Blizz say he would play an important role in Cataclysm? If so, what happened with that plan? If not, what are the chances of him having an important role in MoP?
You're right. Blizzard was originally going to have a conflict occur between Lor'themar and Grand Magister Rommath, who was going to defect to Cho'gall's Twilight's Hammer cult much like Archbishop Benedictus did for the Alliance. Sadly, those stories did not play out in the game itself, and the Benedictus storyline was co-opted into the Christie Golden novel Twilight of the Aspects and the Hour of Twilight 5-man instance.
Also, an important fact that we all have missed could be the biggest takeaway -- we still have not seen Lor'themar's leader short story. The only other leader we have not heard from in story form is Velen, and he is thought to be just as useless as Lor'themar. Hopefully both of these characters' futures are spelled out in their stories.
kyle asked:
Should Goblins and Worgens have been neutral races? I think Gobs fit really well into the Horde but the more I see Worgen the more I feel it was shoehorned in.
I do not think that either the goblins or the worgen would have made very good neutral races in an expansion. The world is slowly moving toward sides, and the goblins' neutrality is still very much a slippery subject whenever you deal with ultra-capitalist, try-hard explosives engineers. The worgen are very much human and very much tied with humanity pre-Second War, so they would have never worked with the Horde, period. If you need further convincing, I can send Matt Rossi over to your house for a multi-hour lecture on the hatred King Greymane and his people had for the Horde and the orcs.
Philster043 asked:
Do you think Blizzard will go back and change anything else in the Old World in Mists of Pandaria (other than Theramore?)
Yes. I believe you'll see a lot of pandaren integration into the world in many ways -- breweries in cities, pandaren NPCs, some small settlements. Nothing like a new capital city or anything, but definitely some flavor and presence. One of the biggest complains about the goblins and worgen -- much more so the worgen -- from Cataclysm was that after their respective starting zones, the new race just disappeared. For worgen, the change was stark. One moment, you were fighting off the undead forces of Sylvanas, and the next you are fighting in Darkshore against rampaging trolls. It just felt jarring, and you never saw another worgen until Fiona in the Plaguelands or the denizens of Surwich.
Blizzard has learned from this cataclysmic (LOL) complaint and will give the pandaren a better presence in the game world than the worgen received. Breweries in the capital cities would be awesome, now that I'm really thinking about it. Dron's Distillery could actually exist in game! Make this happen, Blizzard.
zackwbrandon asked:
You have just been given Metzen's job. The first thing you do to the WoW storyline is...?
Reboot it, Christopher Nolan style. Metzen will play a much more meaner, leaner Thrall who wears all black, skin-tight clothing and trains at a snow-top monastery. The Joker will be voiced by Cam Clarke.
icepyro asked:
Will major US radio stations ever play innovative music again or will this kind of music forever be doomed to remain in the realm of college stations (which don't quite reach to where I live) and occasional, weekend features on sites I frequent?
Real, underground, new music can be found and found in mass quantities online. It's out there. You just have to be really lucky. And it's free on internet radio, too.
zomby_wc3 said:
Next neutral race: Ethereals
I wouldn't say no.
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 6)
Daniel.Korbey.Wright Jan 15th 2012 12:07PM
Lor'themar's short story is just "The Shadow of the Sun"... set in early-Wrath. So no luck there.
Luotian Jan 15th 2012 10:26PM
Someone told me that earlier, but I've seen no official word and I think we would as it was a contest entry not a real Blizz writer. Any links to prove otherwise?
Mr. Crow Jan 15th 2012 11:01PM
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/lore/#leader-story
On the official page, Pine's "In The Shadow of the Sun" is listed as Lor'themar's Faction Leader story. It's not an active link yet, but since we all know that was the winning story from the 2009 Creative Writing contest, and that Pine was contracted to write the Garrosh story, we should be able to assume that the story has just not been re-released yet.
musicchan Jan 16th 2012 10:01AM
They could always write another one to update his story more.
That being said, that short story that won is probably one of the best things I ever read about Lor'themas and I think it's great insight into his character.
Nix Jan 15th 2012 12:11PM
Q4tQ: Has there ever been any discussions about learning professions by buying skill points with in game gold?
I am asking because on all alts I level, I always over level the zones where I would find the mats required in the particular profession bracket. Leveling always gets boosted in terms of xp required but professions always stayed the same more or less.
What are the implications of boosting profession leveling (for example till Wrath) by buying skill points instead of grinding mats?
robsmith77 Jan 15th 2012 12:29PM
This is not a bad idea at all. In a sense you can already buy skill points by simply purchasing the mats you need from the auction house, instead of grinding them yourself. This of course can be ferociously expensive, so by being able to purchase skill-ups directly from a trainer, the levelling process would become a lot less expensive (it's not as if Blizzard would go overboard with the cost of purchasing a skill-up, I could easily see it costing perhaps 5g per skill point, which would be so much cheaper than purchasing from the auction house).
Schadenfreude Jan 15th 2012 12:38PM
I kind of hope this will be the case-- professions at 600 really calls for something to aid in the process. Leveling is much, much faster than profession skill gain. A revamp, more daily quests, buy skill points with gold, something.
tenaciousmonkey Jan 15th 2012 12:56PM
This could also help act as a sort of gold sink; I don't think it should be too cheap (5g/skill point might be a bit low; for the full range to 525, it's only 2625g [plus w/e the trainable skills cost], which isn't that large of an investment), but also something not WAY overblown. I also think it should be limited to how many of these can be done, maybe 10 per profession level, so that way it's not JUST a "buy your profession" and you actually have to get out and do some legwork.
Nathanyel Jan 15th 2012 1:38PM
With the DMF basically giving 5 free skill points every month, I kinda doubt it.
Noyou Jan 15th 2012 2:51PM
So you would rather give your gold back to blizzard than help someone out who took their time to farm them mats? That's kind of crappy. I like how it's set up now. You either work for it and farm yourself, or purchase the mats on the AH and reward the person who worked for the mats. Seems like it's working pretty good to me.
karatesmashunhurt Jan 15th 2012 3:12PM
I think it would have a lot economic implications, just a couple I can think of now:
* There would be less point having gathering professions at lower levels, because all the low-level stuff wouldn't sell for a decent amount of money, because it would be cheaper to pay for skill-ups than pay for the mats to skill-up.
* People who put crafted/prospected/DEed stuff on the AH to sell to people levelling skills would see their income dry-up.
Also if you never had to do a profession to skill it up it would lose it's flavour somewhat, and be seen as just about the stat bonuses they provide.
VSUReaper Jan 15th 2012 5:19PM
As a gold sink... Maybe.
But to make life easier? Nononononononono!!
This is an MMO - it's based around farming: grinding for mats, exp, gold, rep... It's already bad enough how simple everything else is in the game - lets not dumb it down further.
If you just want to buy your way to max level, there is a PS3 game over there for you.
Rollo Jan 15th 2012 7:19PM
It could be a good guild perk. Apprentices... just like irl, the master leaves the manual labour to his students, who in turn gets experience. Considering how many flasks and potions and leg enchants that needs to be crafted, there's a lot of skill point potential there.
Noyou Jan 15th 2012 7:59PM
@rollo
I have a level 25 guild, but you can't do that to people who are not in a high level guild. I think it's a little over blown. Leveling a profession gives decent bonuses. If you are level 85 and wanting to level a profession from scratch, you already have the advantage of being maxed.
What I would like to see is a buff to those people who have both the gathering and crafting profession on one toon. Like a 10% mining/skinning/herbs. I know that is a guild perk already, and a good one. But those are the players that need it. The other thing I would like is- a max level angler should be able to hit the pool he is casting into 9 out of 10 times. That and there should be a chance to catch more/rare fish/drops.
loli.gigis Jan 16th 2012 12:48PM
I would have gladly done this over spending almost 100g/stack of frostweave just to level my tailoring. I dropped close to 6k on my alt mage's leveling of Wrath tailoring/enchanting. I also farmed for close to a week to get my mats and finally just gave up and bought the materials. I don't have hours upon hours to spend farming for that kind of stuff and in that time I could have been to 85 rather then sitting in IC trying to farm Frostweave. It was very frustrating.
That being said I think a better idea is to let you buy mats in a limited quantity/day from your profession vendor and making it so that you can't buy mats unless you have a certain skill in order to buy it and to deter people from profiting off of it (although it will still happen)
Saitenyo Jan 16th 2012 2:58PM
Having leveled every profession at some point or another, some of them are really just fine as-is while others do seem to be outleveled pretty easily. I had problems with tailoring, enchanting, blacksmithing, and leatherworking, but not with any other professions (and gathering professions like mining and herbalism tend to out-level my own level more than anything else).
So maybe a better solution would just be to address why those specific professions lag behind and adjust what it takes to level them or availability of the mats required.
Bobby Earl Jan 17th 2012 8:26PM
It's a fine line between instituting quality of life improvements and having the game play itself for you. Face it, if your toon is heirloomed up or you level largely through the RDF, you're going to need to spend some quality time alone with your profession in order to level it as well. That's just part of the game and is working as intended. The gaining of ranks should imply that some effort and/or time was spent in achieving said ranks. To me it would be weird to go to a vendor and plop down a stack of gold and suddenly be an "Illustrious Grand Master" at anything.
@ Noyou
I don't think they'll ever allow any type of casting speed/accuracy advantages as long as the fishing tournaments are set up as they are. The premise behind those contests is that everyone has an equal shot at winning. It might work if the bonuses were locked out in the applicable zones during those events or something.
lancelott Jan 15th 2012 12:13PM
For music: I personally turn on "genius recommendations" on iTunes and let it scan all my music and make suggestions on what it thinks I'll like. Then you can find those bands music on one of the literally hundreds (thousands?) of online radio stations.
I know... you probably don't think of "iTunes" when looking for indie music - but they have more indy artists on board than some give them credit for. Heck, my friend literally just casually published a song (search for term: "Kortez" on iTunes - it's spanish pop) and he already has it there, no label required.
freebeatfly Jan 15th 2012 5:16PM
I find Last.fm does this much better than iTunes. Best music website ever ^^
raingod Jan 15th 2012 5:32PM
I don't think of iTunes at all, switched all my music to Google music as soon as I could and use Pandora for recommendations.