The Queue: Research like it's 1995
by Alex Ziebart 
Jan 18th 2012 at 11:00AM
Do you like WoW Insider? Do you like WoW? Do you like the internet? Then you should be concerned about SOPA and PIPA, even if you're not living in the United States. Go read about them.
holtzmanneffect asked:
do you think the world will survive an entire day without Wikipedia? Some people on the Internet will have their first taste of a post-apocalyptic future tomorrow!
I didn't last very long. Thirty minutes in, I regressed to playing MindMaze.
Puntable asked:
Were there a lot of expectations that the previous expansions would happen sooner than they did? I'm not sure where this idea that MoP will be "soon" is coming from. Sure Blizzard recently said they *would like* to put expansions out faster, but they have been saying that since the release of the Burning Crusade. Is it all just a big pile of wishful thinking?
With every expansion (and some content patches), someone at Blizzard comments that the developers are trying to make releases more rapid -- less time between expansions, less time between content patches, and so on and so forth. Like you said, it never happens. I'm not getting my hopes up for a quick Mists of Pandaria release. We expected Cataclysm to arrive rapidly after patch 3.3, but we spent a full year raiding Icecrown Citadel.
After seven years of World of Warcraft, I'll believe a rapid release schedule when I see it. Blizzard's been trying to improve over the course of Cataclysm, but over World of Warcraft's entire lifetime, Blizzard has always been trending toward a slower release rate rather than a faster one, despite its stated goals. Blizzard's got great devs and I believe they are capable of speeding up their release schedule in a meaningful way, but they haven't managed it yet.
kaminari asked:
with account achievements in MoP, what does your magic 8 ball says about opening reputation stuff account wide once you unlock it with your first character?
How do you anticipate the raid finder working in the first tier of the new expansion? Run Heroics to gear for raid finder to gear for Normals?
The Raid Finder, I believe, is meant to be optional. You'll likely be able to go into normal difficulty raids with 5-man heroic gear and be able to progress without issue. The Raid Rinder will help, of course, but I don't think it will be mandatory.
@davegw asked:
Do you think they'll keep the same 10/25 man shared lockout system in Mists?
Yes.
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 7)
Larka Jan 18th 2012 11:05AM
Why isn't this site blacked out? Surly it would go under if SOPA passes?
Imnick Jan 18th 2012 11:21AM
Because site blackouts are a bit like those chain letters about starving people in third world countries or AIDs, they salve your own conscience while achieving very little.
Most people here undoubtedly already know what SOPA is, and if they do not then they probably read Wikipedia. WoW insider is nowhere near as high profile a website as Wikipedia is, and blacking itself out would do nothing but annoy people as if its readers are still, at this point, unaware of what is going on then frankly they aren't going to be persuaded by this website going black.
dmberreth Jan 18th 2012 11:24AM
Because this place is actually a business, with people who get paid to work here, and advertisers who pay for ad space. There are most likely contracts in place for the payment to and from both, and if they pulled their site for a day of protest, the people who paid for ad space today could get some strong legal grounds for a law suit.
Adam Holisky Jan 18th 2012 11:36AM
I support the blackouts, Joystiq ran an editorial this morning: http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/18/were-not-blacking-out-today-but-we-still-dont-like-sopa/ People following individual writers on Twitter would know that most, if not all of us, are very much against it.
But let's be realistic -- sure, we're big in our little corner of the internet. But compared to Wikipedia, Reddit, Google, etc... we're small fish. The best way for us to help is to draw attention to it in The Queue (seriously, this is by far the most logical way given traffic and community participation).
Grovinofdarkhour Jan 18th 2012 11:57AM
"Don't let them take our porn away. Call your congressman today."
Shrikesnest Jan 18th 2012 12:50PM
Frankly, any member of Congress that would be concerned about (or even aware of) WoW Insider participating in such a protest is already voting against SOPA and PIPA anyway.
Dennis Jan 18th 2012 1:22PM
Just like the joystick article you could have used a blackout graphic for the article header graphics. I would have shown your support.
Shadowwind Jan 18th 2012 1:29PM
Blackouts DO help causes. The Italian version of Wikipedia did a blackout some months ago to protest a bill that was working its way through their governement. Result was a quick backoff from the bill. HOWEVER. While a complete shutdown does draw attention to a cause, doing a partial shutdown the way Wikipedia and Google are also draws attention without risking ticking many of their customers off. Atm, considering the number of people I've talked to who had no idea what these bills were or what they were capable of (and sadly, I'm including some people who were fairly tech-savvy), I support anything that brings these bills to public attention.
P.S. Did you know that until a day or so ago, SOPA/PIPA hadn't gotten any attention in the broadcast news channels? The sole exception was some guy who had his own news show on...CNN, I think? and did a segment on them.
Al Jan 18th 2012 1:41PM
Didn't Obama already veto the thing? Maybe I missed something as a non-American, but the black-out's coming off like a storm in a teacup.
Nagaina Jan 18th 2012 1:52PM
@ AL ~
SOPA was pulled from the US House of Representatives' voting schedule and shelved "until a consensus can be reached" which is American Politician for "until people stop paying so much attention to this issue."
PIPA is still up for vote in the US Senate.
The White House has indicated it will veto either or both bills in their current form.
Apple Jan 18th 2012 1:57PM
It's not on Obama's desk, so he can't veto it. But he has objected to the wording.
Sirn Jan 18th 2012 2:31PM
I worry that sites like wowinsider and mmo-champ might be more susceptible to the ill-effects of SOPA than the joystiq article states. What if Blizzard/Activision decides they want all world of warcraft related news and discussion limited to their own website? They could very quickly sue AOL or Curse and they would be blocked by the US government. Leaked MOP Beta information - that's a banning. Data mining 4.3 patch items - that's a banning. Linking to a video of user generated in-game content - that's a banning.
I don't think Blizzard has a problem with any of these sites, but SOPA would provide them a quick path to block all news releated to their IP.
Shadowwind Jan 18th 2012 3:02PM
Music companies have already been issuing takedown notices for songs/videos belonging to other music companies, so it's not that farfetched that a rival MMO could have sites like WowInsider taken down in the hopes of disrupting their fanbase.
Nagaina Jan 18th 2012 3:27PM
In any case, if you want to learn more about the potentially wide-ranging effects of these pieces of legislation, Ars Technica is running an all SOPA/PIPA protest edition today that's discussing both the past history of legislation of this type, its primary beneficiaries/targets, the problems inherent in copyright maximalism of this type, and how to contact your congresscritters to register your opinion.
SamLowry Jan 18th 2012 3:43PM
And has been reported by others, SOPA would allow any movie studio or record company to shut youTube down.
Ace Jan 18th 2012 8:51PM
There is a very important difference between the words "The Administration does not support..." and "The Administration will veto..."
Just because obama has voiced that he does not support it in its current form, does not mean he will/would veto it.
Wait till a year from now, when candidates don't have to worry about an imminent election... this crap will be right back on the floor of congress, waiting to be voted on, and the only difference will be the people voting on it won't care because by the time they are up for re-election again the media will have completely different issues they will draw your attention to. Very few people will break the mold enough to remember SOPA at that point
Frank-potato Jan 18th 2012 9:37PM
█ ████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██. ███ ███ This comment has been found in violation of H.R. 3261, S.O.P.A and has been removed.
Svylva Jan 18th 2012 11:07AM
Does anyone know when Wowhead's character profiler will be back up or why it's down? Is there another web site I can see which Patterns/Recipes my characters know/don't know? I've been trying to waste my time at work seeing what I still need and the Wowhead maintenance is killing me!
Fubar Jan 18th 2012 11:14AM
The new armory does a good job as well now showing what patterns/recipes/mounts/pets you have and don't have.
Noyou Jan 18th 2012 11:18AM
It could just have something to do with....[blacked out]