Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsThe Queue: Short but sweet
by Mathew McCurley 
Jan 23rd 2012 at 11:00AM
What's up, ladies and gentlemen? I got some good news, and I got some bad news. The bad news is that The Queue today is a little on the light side. Possibly a weekend factor, mixed in with a depressing state of snow here on the east coast of the United States? Most likely. Lots of internet traffic frozen in the tubes. One day, the sun will thaw my pipes and finally, finally, Portlandia season one episode 5.
The good news is that you've got me, Mat McCurley, at the helm of today's Queue. I picked out some real winners, kids, so sit back, strap in, and let's get RadiQueue.
Vacasta asked:
Stupid cosmetic question, but if I hit Z to draw my weapon outside of combat, does everyone see that? Or us it just client-side?
Everyone sees if you have chosen to have your weapons drawn or not. Most things that you do in game are represented to all players in the world. It's actually one of the things WoW does remarkably well. The secret is that the actual animation is not shown but the result is. This cuts down on the amount of, well, stuff that has shown client-side, potentially increasing performance for some players with lower-end computers.
tw_holt asked:
Is there a tool/website/addon that shows more data in regard to the time /played?
For example I'd like to see how long, in time played, I was level 70, or 45, or 3, or 61 and so on.We can of course see how long we've been playing at whatever the current level you are, but I'm wondering if that past data can be accessed somehow.
The in-game /played function only reports to you the time actually played and no other time played information, sadly. Blizzard obviously collects much, much more data about your characters and gameplay experience, but for the very simple fact that the game isn't telling us that information, we cannot see it. An addon could collect information on its own, but that would not be retroactive and would only start collecting data from the date of installation. Maybe one day the APIs will be updated with even more information about a character's life in Azeroth.
@Atanae on Twitter asked:
If Blizzard is able to provide additional character slots, what is the likelihood that we'd have to pay for them?
You would never, ever have to pay for more character slots. Never. Ever. In a million years. The chance of you having to pay for extra character slots, if they are in fact introduced into the game at some point, will be zero. None. Impossible.
All PR isn't necessarily good PR, especially when it comes to the fine art of nickel-and-diming. Nobody wants to be nickel-and-dimed, and in an age when Yelp reviews sink businesses and Twitter recommendations are more lauded than professional critics, we are a vocal culture. Blizzard wouldn't get away with charging for such a deep-seated, core game play feature. Oh, someone at Activision-Blizzard has a chart with numbers and percentages and spreadsheets that shows the exact amount of subscriber loss-to-feature ratio and gains from the character slot microtransaction. It exists. This charge will never happen, though.
Jere Hunter asked:
I think you may have answered this before but im not sure. On the Load Screen, I like that they represent current expansions but I miss some of the old ones sometimes, Like the Classic, the Burning Crusade, and the Wrath with the chilly landscape. Do you think WOW will ever give us a Transmog for that so we can pick our Load Screen (the Sign on Screen) since after Cata we will be getting another one for Mists
This is actually something I've wanted for a long time, and I think that it is finally time to demand it from Blizzard. Hear us, Blizzard -- we wish to pick which login screen we see when we load up the game. Even the secret old Twilight portal one you had for Cataclysm. Yup, throw it in there. I saw it at BlizzCon! I know it exists!
Or something even cooler: The screen changes depending on the level of the last character you played on before logging out. I'm liking all of this already.
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 7)
undeadgoat Jan 23rd 2012 11:11AM
Maybe this question is pointless based on the playtime one you answered above, but I am a student who uses parental controls during the school year so I don't get out of hand with WoW. Is there any way to know how much I've played in the past week, so I can budget my time and save the last two hours to play with friends?
Pyromelter Jan 23rd 2012 11:36AM
I'm not sure if there is a module that can track that, but I know that the data broker bars (you know, like Titan Panel and Chocolate Bar) can keep track of time played at your current level, exp/hour, things like that, so if there is a plugin for one of them, that might be able to keep track of it. wowinterface and curse are your friends in that regard.
Culhag Jan 23rd 2012 11:14AM
Re: the log-in screen
That reminds me of Kane and Lynch 2 (which I'm playing these days) and Half-Life 2. Their main menus' background change depending on where you were the last time you played. I think it's very cool.
Of course if Blizz did one background for each zone that would be quite a lot, and most of us would only see the Stromwind/Orgrimmar one anyway.
Radioted Jan 23rd 2012 11:18AM
So, recently I was running UBRS and BRD* for transmog purposes. I hadn't been in either dungeon before, so I ended up stumbling into the portals for Molten Core and... um... whatever the other raid in there is. But it occurred to me... how are you supposed to get a full raid through? The dungeons are 5-people tops, but you need to get 40 people through to do the raids (or at least, you did). So... how did that work, exactly?
*may not be the actual instance abbreviation. I get all the Blackrock [Whatever] instances confused.
Kelly Jan 23rd 2012 11:29AM
I've wondered this too, but I think it was simply a matter of sending in 10 at a time (LBRS, I think, was a 10-man dungeon, UBRS was a 15-man, and those could be reversed). I'm interested in this as well
The Dewd Jan 23rd 2012 11:31AM
UBRS has a portal to Blackwing Lair (Tier 2) - which makes sense since you're seeing a lot of Nef's lesser creations in UBRS and he even shows up to spectate the fight against Rend in the arena.
I believe the old way, somehow, involved running a full raid through 5-mans - though that's before my time. I think you just couldn't have everyone in there at once and can't do 5-man quests when you're in a raid group. I'm guessing you could probably, somehow, do it since there was a way to get extra fire resist out of mobs in UBRS having a priest use Mind Control and then cast the mob's buff on you - though a lot of folks I know were never sure if that was against the rules or not.
VSUReaper Jan 23rd 2012 11:30AM
I think you can get around 10 people into those instances at a time?
I know I have had 10 people in UBRS, but never tried getting 40 into there.
The Dewd Jan 23rd 2012 11:37AM
LBRS and UBRS were both available as 10-man instances (at least when I ran them). I believe the gems for the UBRS key only dropped in LBRS if you ran it with 5 people, if I remember rumor correctly.
Also, don't forget - once you got a Warlock inside, you could summon folks - though they had to have a good stock of soul shards available and usually would summon the other warlocks first and then have to replenish shards on trash so they could give out soulstones, etc.
Geox82 Jan 23rd 2012 11:41AM
Way back in the stone age, raids had this crazy thing called attunements. They were quests that were required to even have the right to enter the raid instance. In the case of Molten Core and Black Wing Lair - once you completed the attunement, you no longer had to run through the dungeon to the physical entrance of the Raid, but there were orbs that teleported you directly to the raid near the entrance of the 5/10 man dungeon which they were linked to.
G_
avickwar Jan 23rd 2012 11:40AM
Upon doing the molten core attunement chain, you could enter a portal which was in Blackrock mountain, outside of BRD.
Revynn Jan 23rd 2012 11:45AM
Blackwing Lair is the other raid.
Also, UBRS and BRD used to be 10M dungeons back in the day, along with Stratholme and (I believe) Scholomance.
To answer your question, you can do a quest for each raid that gets you attuned and let's you skip running through a dungeon to enter the raid. That Blood Elf questgiver in Blackrock Mountain outside the entrance to BRD? Once you complete that quest you can just talk to him and he'll port you directly inside.
Pro-tip: MC and BWL are currently bugged so you can enter through the attuned entrance without being in a raid group.
Duerma Jan 23rd 2012 12:10PM
BRS actually allowed 15 people waaaaaay back in the day. BRD, Strat, and Scholo were all 10s, but you could only get your quests done if you were in a 5. (No one got quests done, lol.) The exception was UBRS - the quests there actually were raid quests. People used to go into these dungeons with Master Looter on for the blue dungeon set pieces. It was this way until the end of March '06 (so, a year & 4 months).
You would send people in a few at a time to get there. So glad I wasn't raiding before they put the attunement quest in, lol. I suspect they probably parked a warlock at the portal and ate all his shards to summon the raid there one by one to cut down on time. I weep for the poor soul (shards). Fortunately, when they added BWL the attunement quest was added at the same time, so the portal in UBRS is really there for more of a "gee whiz, that's how this place connects to the world" factor.
Fun fact, you can still see the portal that was intended for Naxxramas in Undead Stratholme (the place where you fight all the abominations - believe it's off to the left as you face Rivendare's building). It's blocked off though, unlike the others.
Eyhk Jan 23rd 2012 2:01PM
In addition to the explanations above, you can still do the attunement quests to get to the raid instances faster for transmog gear.
For Blackwing Lair, you have to kill the Quartermaster which is to the right of the entrance to Blackwing Spire. He drops an envelope which starts a quest. Then venture into Upper Blackwing Spire and kill the final boss, General Drakkisath and touch the orb behind him. With that quest done, to enter Blackwing Lair, simply go further down the path right of the UBRS entrance until you hit a dead end with an orb. Right-Click the orb and get teleported directly to Blackwing Lair.
For Molten Core, talk to Lothos Riftwaker who is right outside the underground passage to Blackrock Depths (Follow the chains down). He gives you a quest, Attunement to the Core, which requires you to travel through Blackrock Depths all the way to the Molten Core raid entrance. This was frequently done via "Lava Hopping" (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q0oEJjCsZI). Near the entrance is a rock that you right-click to get the Core Fragment. Return to Lothos Riftwaker to complete your quest. Next time you want to go to Molten Core, simply talk to Lothos and he will teleport you there.
Pro Tip: Blizzard changed the original Classic raids so that you no longer have to be in a raid group to enter the instance. Great for people who want to solo them as you no longer have to beg for a guildie to join your group so you can make a raid.
Skarn Jan 23rd 2012 3:49PM
The Attunement quests info is correct. That is how you got a full 40-man raid group into MC or BWL. Everyone did a simple quest then talked to an NPC/Orb and ported in. Well, that's how it worked for most of Vanilla. There's one thing that the previous commenters missed:
Way, way, WAY back in 2004 when the game was first released and no one had any idea what was going on, ALL instances allowed a full 40-man group. Yep, ALL of them. 40-man Blackrock Depths run? Totally possible. That's how you got your raid into Molten Core and Blackwing Lair before the Attunement quests were added. Those quests were only added after Blizzard added the dungeon cap limits.
Noyou Jan 23rd 2012 11:30AM
I have to disagree with you Mat on the character slot issue. I do think they need to give us at least 1 more slot per realm. Beyond that, I don think it would be greedy or wrong to charge us for more slots. I Have 10 toons on my current server and 9 on an alt server. That is MY choice. I like playing lots of toons. That is in no way, holding me back from doing anything else in the game. If they made it something like $5 per slot, I don't think many people who play alts would mind a whole lot. What we do mind is having to delete toons in order to try other race/class combos. They probably won't charge anything, simply because they would stand to make some good money in server transfers/faction transfers. In my opinion it would be a premium service and one I would happily pay for (within reason).
llcjay2003 Jan 23rd 2012 11:39AM
They have stated a few times at this point that they will be fixing this. The most mentioned idea is to keep the character limit at 50 but allow you to create as many toons up to that amount on any server. They will not charge for this.
Noyou Jan 23rd 2012 12:00PM
No, they stated, "they would like to" or "they are looking into it". I read that as well. They have made no promises on this subject and would be foolish to do so.
Lupos Jan 23rd 2012 12:33PM
I think they would charge people for slots. They charge us for server transfers and name changes which are quite simple and they charge us for in-game pets and mounts so why not. I mean you guys say that they won't stop WoW until it stops making money so that must be the main focus of the enterprise. If the main focus was making a good game and the community why charge for all this extra stuff when Activision-Blizzard clearly has no need for extra revenue streams.
loop_not_defined Jan 23rd 2012 12:34PM
Yeah...I'd like to believe we wouldn't be charged for extra slots, but wouldn't hold my breath for it.
If Blizz does end up going with the "Keep 50 toon account limit, remove 10 toon server limit" option, we probably won't be charged since we'd be using character slots we've always had. Definitely not feeling 100% about it, though.
wow Jan 23rd 2012 2:43PM
Final Fantasy XI: Online gave you 3 initial Character slots and then charged $1.00 USD for each additional slot. So it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility for Blizz to charge a similar amount if you want to go over your 50 toon limit or even the 10 toon limit per realm.
I had about 27 toons on FF XI before I final stopped playing.
Shinanji