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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Queue: Scroll of Resurrection
by Mathew McCurley 
Mar 7th 2012 at 11:00AM
The new Scroll of Resurrection sounds like a pretty cool way of drumming up some business. Turn old subscribers new again. Plus, mounts. What's not to love? There are a lot of players I know who would love to start a goblin or worgen yet haven't played in years, so free Cataclysm and some goodies doesn't seem like too bad a deal for a month's worth of game time.
Questions?
Narayana asked:
I'm not really up with all of the norms for press behavior and such, but I am curious what the point of the NDA is for the press tour when it's only going to last about a week (at least, according to BB). What's the point of such a short NDA? What does Blizzard expect to occur in that week? Does that simply exist to give a "proper" amount of time to actually digest the information being tossed out during the event?
The efficient and effective way to communicate important information is to first process said information. Having a week between information accumulation and information release allows the press to work the knowledge they've been given into something more substantial than, say, a quick news post and a link to something cool. With real knowledge comes real expression of those ideas. That's one side of the coin.
For Blizzard, having that time between releasing information and then refocusing the message depending on press feedback is also important. For what it's worth, this upcoming press event feels like a big deal. It should, after all -- but I mean, we're going to be getting information, and lots of it. The message needs to be clear, and the presentation needs to be hype-worthy. With a week between showing off the goods and players' absorbing new details, Blizzard gives itself the wiggle room it needs to amend or refocus the message. All that I'm concerned about, however, is new information to process.
Adam put it similarly in the comments, with our real-world BlizzCon example:
If there wasn't an NDA, here's what'd happen:Nobar asked:
People would sit in the press room with a bulky setup, streaming the presentations and data back to a home base where 20 people would be writing and getting the content out as fast as possible. This is how BlizzCon is. The focus would be less on quality and more on production time.
But instead, here's what'll happen:
At the end of the day's presentations and gameplay we'll be able to take the information and make great posts about it and not have to have an epeen contest with other sites to see who can push the publish button first (a very stupid contest to have in the first place). The focus will be on quality, and not on production time.
This comment is brought to you by a possibly-too-honest-Adam.
1. For when you don't have enough questions, what is the twitter account you go submit them to?
2. I'm thinking about making a lore-blog that will deal in (mostly) speculative subjects of the wow-verse. Any tips?
The official WoW Insider Twitter account (@wowinsider) is the best place to go to submit Queue questions and where you'll see us shout out for submissions. As for starting your own lore blog, just start it. Grab a free blogging platform like Blogger or WordPress, and just start writing. Everything will take shape over time, but the ideas and words are what matter. Just start writing.
Morgatho asked:
Q4tQ: Do you think there is a chance well see Warlord Zaela in MoP? she is my Favorite new lore character in Cata and id hate to see her sit there and stew in twilight highlands.
Honestly? Yes. If we're bringing the fight back between the Alliance and the Horde, Zaela could be a huge part of that. She's already the warlord of a clan of orcs bringing war to the doorstep of the Alliance, so why wouldn't she bring the Dragonmaw into new lands with her Horde allies? I'd love to see her around more.
Blackdog asked:
So, do you think Orgrimmar reconstruction will be finished before the end of Cata or the start of MoP?
It's a long shot, but I believe the capital cities will stay the way they are because they are, essentially, part of the Cataclysm time line. While it would be cool to see progressive changes to the Stormwind and Orgrimmar facades, I am not anticipating anything. In fact, I kind of like the partially completed wall in Orgrimmar because it includes both the past and the present in its construction. If Blizzard changed it, that wouldn't cause me to cancel my preorder, though.
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)
wow Mar 7th 2012 12:32PM
I wouldn't be surprised if Mists was in some form of REAAALLLL early Alpha just after Blizzcon ('11) or at the very least the first of the year. So, they could be in a nice alpha test now to work out kinks in the new talent system. To me that would explain the changes to those talents now. :)
Shinanji
kaminari Mar 7th 2012 12:49PM
also while some new spell and talents have the labe NYI (not yet implemented), many spells don't have it.
so I'm guessing they have alread an alpha build with those spells and talents.
but probably I'm also reading too much into things too.
DarkSpade Mar 7th 2012 11:43AM
Why are heroic raid IDs so much stricter than regular raids? Has blizzard ever explained this, or is it just a relic from the old way raid IDs were handled?
For normals, you can hop between multiple raid groups all you need(depending on what bosses are still up) and even swap between 10 and 25 man raids. That's very helpful when raid night attendance can be anywhere from 12 to 30 on any given night.
All that falls apart once a guild starts doing heroic bosses. If you kill a heroic boss on 25 man Tuesday, your progression is done for the week if only 10 people show up the next time. If you split in to two 10 mans for a heroic kill and only half of each team shows up the next day you're just as screwed. Sure you can finish off the reg fights, but what's the point when you're DEing over half the loot?
Smashbolt Mar 7th 2012 12:51PM
I believe the locks were kept that way to try to appease the world-first crowd. Specifically to avoid having top guilds flop back and forth from 1025 in the same week to capitalize on difficulty imbalances between the two raid sizes and thus muddying who "really" got to the last heroic boss first.
Though outside of those top 100 guilds, I cannot at all see why anyone cares if you mix and match raid locks like you can with normal.
Grovinofdarkhour Mar 7th 2012 11:42AM
Dear The Queue,
Do you think Blizzard will ever let us "downshift" our gear? I'd like to be able to push a button and make old raids/zones challenging again.
Thanks,
Grovin
(cutaia) Mar 7th 2012 11:48AM
Challenge modes are going to add the tech required for that, but, in the long run spending the time to extend that to old content isn't something I would really foresee them doing.
Blizzard tends to give just enough relevance to old content to justify it being in the game, without allowing it to seem like something people should spend a good portion of their time in.
For example: Transmog. Hey, neat! You can go run old raids with friends for gear!
But the first boss of BWL still regularly bugs out after death and continues sending waves of adds out because they don't want to go in and fix it.
Noyou Mar 7th 2012 11:52AM
They should. I mean if they can insta poof someone to level 80 I would imagine they could shrink someone too. Not sure that they can do anything with your gear though. That is probably the tricky part. Perhaps they can make some kind of less powered heirloom type set. If they can do it without compromising current content, I am all for it.
Ryan.akens Mar 7th 2012 11:55AM
Grovin, I doubt that. There is talk of challenging modes in dungeons but I doubt they let you do it whenever you go into old instances. Just start taking off gear. Drop your weapon, lose the helm. Then see how tricky stuff is.
Mr. Crow Mar 7th 2012 11:55AM
They also tested that iLvl throttling in the 4.3 PTR, so yes, the tech is viable.
But (cutaia) is right. There's a lot of questions about how to make iLvl-throttled characters compatible with older content. Do 85s throttled down to 70 still have all their endgame abilities? How do those abilities affect how a throttled character can manage challenges in level 70 content? If those abilities are removed, is there the potentiality that due to how much spell acquisition has changed since level 70, throttled characters might not have tools that were available to normal 70s in BC, thus overchallenging them for the content?
And like he said, the fact that C'Thun's stomach room is still bugged six years after release means it would be a headache to have the encounter team revisit it for characters who want to clear it "like we did back in the day."
(cutaia) Mar 7th 2012 11:56AM
"Not sure that they can do anything with your gear though. That is probably the tricky part."
On the patch 4.3 PTR, the following debuff was placed on players testing the HoT dungeons: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=108972/modified-gear-level-ptr-only
This is likely the same tech they'll use for challenge modes, so the gear wouldn't be the thing stopping them.
mr.e81 Mar 7th 2012 12:14PM
@ Grovinofdarkhour,
Unfortunately, Blizzard thinks that if you want to play at level 70 raids such then you should level to the max level of that raid content and then twink. I really hope that they would instead bring the level of npcs and gear up to the max level for the vanilla, BC, and WotLK raid and dungeon instances like they did with shadowfang and the Deadmine heroics. This would give us a more endgame content and make the old material new and fun again.
Grovinofdarkhour Mar 7th 2012 12:18PM
Well I'm going on the assumption that we're still just talking about a gear thing, no changes to dungeons needed. If heirlooms can grow with you, we know an item's level can be modified, so why can't they just give us a slider labelled "Avg Ilvl" that runs from 1 to your current gear's level? Make us pay gold to unlock it from an Ethereal or something, I don't mind.
Or better yet, just a checkbox: "[ ] Tune Gear to Location". So whatever zone you pass through, whatever instance you enter, it's like you're going into everywhere level-appropriate.
Puntable Mar 7th 2012 12:19PM
It would be hard to balance without making it too easy or too hard. Would you balance MC around a 40 man raid or 10? Would you upgrade the loot? At what point do you decide it would be easier to just convert the old raid to a level 90 raid?
But the main reason is that most players don't want MC to be a challenge, they want to solo Ragnoros and laugh at him. Every time there is a discussion about "item squish", the one big concern is always "How will this effect my ability to faceroll old raids?"
Mycroft Mar 7th 2012 12:20PM
I hope for not just gear, but effective level downgrade too. With this SoR program, Blizz can be seen to admitting that it isn't fun for a raid-geared max level toon to pal around with a level 34 friend. I want to hit a button and be level 34 too, and run some dungeons with my friend. Other games have had this feature since even before vanilla WoW, and I hope Blizz gets with it and implements something soon, even if they throw up their hands and say it's not meant for retro raiding and they won't put in the resources to properly retune old content.
Balance shouldn't matter as much for dungeons, as those are very forgiving for low dps, and if someone blows through it on ez mode, it'd be not much different from full boa groups.
Noyou Mar 7th 2012 12:36PM
@Cutaia
I am far from a tech expert- I would imagine there might be different things active on the PTR for testing purposes that may or may not ever make it to live. That said, that would be great if they had that available. Perhaps on a scroll or something.
(cutaia) Mar 7th 2012 12:43PM
Also, Grov, when they develop ideas, they're going to be looking at how to keep people playing.
This is unlike "twinking" where people have to run MC every week to gear up their level 60 raid so they can try and do BWL and AQ40, etc. And Blizzard has never even really supported that playstyle.
With what you're talking about, though, you know that your gear is a certain level when you walk into the raid -- and presumably, it would have to be a level where killing the last boss is feasible. So, it's like you're already starting the raid with the appropriate gear to finish it. If you kill the first 4 bosses of MC this week, is there any reason to start fresh next week? You're not going to get any useful gear, you know. So, it's less like progressing, and more like a binary, "Can you kill Garr or not?"
So, realistically the additional play value of adding this seems to be: Players interested in a challenge will play each old raid once just to prove they can do it. Then..that's probably it.
Boobah Mar 7th 2012 3:07PM
I'd love the ability to scale my character down for the content/down to match a friend. It's City of Heroes' best (and most rarely copied) feature, IMO. If you've got the tech to do it, it works for challenge modes, making old content in general challenging, and running with low-level friends/guildies.
All this focus on skipping the low-level content so you can play with your friends is less productive, long term, than simply making it so you can join them in the low-level content without it being a boring (if occasionally hilarious) ROFLstomp.
Starlin Mar 7th 2012 11:43AM
It seems like Blizzard is taking big steps to stem the subscriber bleed. I wouldn't put it past them to add one more major feature to Mists (especially since transmog was moved up to 4.3). Personally I'd like to see player or guild housing implemented. What other major features are left to add and what would you like to see?
Drakkenfyre Mar 7th 2012 12:18PM
I would love to see player housing and guild housing added as well, but it's probably never going to happen. They have said several times it would essentially be a pain in the ass for them, and the last time they mentioned it, they pretty firmly said no. Now, as devs come in and out, and people stop subscribing, they may eventually decide to put them in, as a very, very last resort measure, but as they have said before they don't see the effort being worth it, I doubt they ever would.
Puntable Mar 7th 2012 12:26PM
They don't want your characters hiding in their houses. It makes the world empty.
I'm going to reiterate my suggestion of a surfboard mount being pulled by a herd of Murglesnout.