The Queue: Another beautiful day in Azeroth

It’s just another perfect day in Azeroth. Nothing remotely strange happening here. Nope. Nothing at all.

Let’s get on to today’s Queue questions, shall we?

One of WoW‘s greatest assets is its huge player base. No matter who you are, there’s a good chance that you have a friend who plays WoW, and it’s the ability to play with friends (and, of course, make new ones) that I think has given the game its longevity. Gaming with friends is fun, and no matter how great other MMOs are, it’s hard to match WoW‘s population and the fact that every one of us has friends who play or have played.

The problem with that population is that as you get more people, zones and realms become increasingly crowded, to the point where it has a detrimental effect on gameplay — thus splitting people up across different realms. But the problem here is it keeps you from playing with your friends. Today we have a sort of middle ground, with server merges and cross-realm zones that have brought players back together, but they also bring us back to the original problem: overcrowding. I personally think that cross-realm zones have made rare battle pet hunting a lot harder simply because now, instead of competing with the players just on your realm, you’re competing with many more if you want to catch that Minfernal or Unborn Val’kyr.

As you’ve said, there’s phasing, and phasing can fix these sorts of problems. But unfortunately, phasing can cause new problems, too. Just look at Tanaan Jungle, which seems to have a lot of phasing, perhaps, to reduce crowds and keep the zone playable no matter how many people are that. You’re looking for a rare spawn or a battle pet and you see it on your mini-map. You leap forward to jump into a fight… only for it to vanish from your map. Problems like this seem to turn up in a lot of phased zones simply because phasing isn’t perfect.

All of that said, I do think it would be great if Blizzard could build a way to let us all play together. I don’t think the WoW code being too old necessarily plays into it, because it can always be updated. But, at present, the phasing tech we’re seeing on live servers doesn’t seem ideal for such a large task and I don’t think Blizzard would roll out such a sweeping change unless they could ensure a good gameplay experience. Maybe they will one day, but I wouldn’t count on it any time soon.

I got a number of questions about the upcoming Mercenary Mode yesterday, but let’s start with this one. I’m a big fan of it, personally, simply because I have friends on both factions. I’ve played Alliance and Horde to end-game levels, and while I’m currently playing Alliance, I miss being able to play alongside my Horde friends.

Though Mercenary Mode seems to explicitly be intended to solve PVP queue times due to faction imbalance — thus not exactly tailored to PVE — I hope it eventually expands. Whether it does or not probably depends on how Mercenary Mode works for PVP and whether it’s well-received by players — which is something that can only be answered when it goes live.

Another question, from Rob, asked whether this mode might encourage players sabotaging their team, which is certainly a possibility. However, you already see this within factions and it might not be any worse — or any better — by enabling cross-faction play. This is another wait and see situation, where we’ll have to see how it plays out over the long term.

I’ve fallen into this problem too, like you, after a guild breakup. Without a group of players to play with, I did fewer dungeons and more solo content, and then I got to end game and felt like I didn’t know how to do any of this content and it was too late to learn. But, really, it’s never too late.

The best way to tackle dungeons, especially if you aren’t an expert in grouping, is really with a group of friends. Maybe this means setting aside a time to play with people you know who will help you figure out the mechanics without getting frustrated if you mess up (and all of us mess up sometimes) and maybe it means finding a guild that has similar gameplay goals to you and will help you along the way. If your friends have moved on to other things, there are a lot of casual, friendly guilds out there — though it can be a hunt to find the one that’s a good fit for you.

If that’s not an option (or you’re still on a guild hunt), LFG and LFR both make it easy to get into groups — and though you might catch flack from other players (or even be kicked from a group by players who aren’t particularly understanding), if you let people know that you’re new to grouping when you join, you may find a lot of people willing to lend a helping hand and walk you through the tricky bits. If you aren’t at level 100 yet, this is definitely what I’d recommend: lower level dungeons have a pretty easy difficulty level, and can often be done without too much trouble even if you don’t have a lot of experience, and they’ll help you learn the ropes.

If you are at level 100, I honestly recommend LFR over doing dungeons or heroic dungeons. Raids may seem like a bigger challenge, but because the difficulty for LFR raids is tuned down and you have more players, you also have a larger safety net: if you make a mistake, that doesn’t mean your entire group is doomed, because there are other players who are likely to jump in and help.

Regardless of what level you are, take a minute to do a search on the dungeon name before you plan to dive in. You’ll find lots of info on every dungeon online and players have written guides for most that will help you through the ins and outs before you even step a foot through the dungeon portal.

Most importantly: don’t be afraid to give dungeons and raids a try, if that’s what you’re interested in (group content, admittedly, isn’t for everyone). Though you’ll probably hit some hurdles, we were all newbies playing the same learning game once — and a lot of players out there will understand. Good luck!

Gnomes really need to retake Gnomergan one of these days. Why not now? What are we waiting for? Come on, fellow gnomes, let’s do this!

I think a lot of players are nostalgic about the World of Warcraft of the past. (I, myself, will wax poetic about Karazhan if given the slightest opportunity.) Just look at the popularity of Timewalking: we all want to take a trip back to our favorite era in WoW, which we tend to look at through rose-colored glasses. Starting over has the same kind of nostalgia, I think: we’re going back, in a way, to a time when the game was new, and it was all new experiences and new friends and new places. I think that’s a powerful draw… even though most of us are pretty invested in our current characters.

It’s bacon: there’s really no wrong way to prepare it and even poorly prepared bacon is delicious. It’s my understanding that Warlocks prefer to prepare their Hellboar bacon using fel fire, though some may find this gives the meat an overly demonic aftertaste. Me? I’m simple: take bacon, apply the most convenient source of heat, and enjoy.

That’s all for today’s Queue — be sure to leave your questions in the comments and come back tomorrow for a new round of answers from Mr. Matthew Rossi.