The Queue: That was Rad….en

Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A feature for all of Blizzard’s games! Have a question for the Blizzard Watch staff? Leave it in the comments!

With the help of some friends, this week I finally got around to knocking out Throne of Thunder on Heroic and seeing the elusive Ra-den in his natural habitat. Well…okay, not his natural habitat, just the habitat he’s been stuck in since being imprisoned by the Thunder King however many thousands of years ago. So less “habitat,” more “really, really sad and depressing hamster cage,” or something along those lines. Regardless, it was a lot of fun and I saw a lot of things and took a lot of screenshots and have another chunk of material I’m currently digesting with my tinfoil hat on. Let’s get to your questions!

Not at all! It’s always more fun to do groups with people you know — mostly because you can spend your time in the dungeon joking around or talking about other things. When you’re with a group of strangers, people tend to have a little less patience for chatter, from what I’ve seen. Most of the time, dungeons are done in kind of an awkward silence. LFG isn’t really a necessary part of playing the game — unless you’d like to get your hands on a pug pet.

It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure how well received it would have been. Generally speaking, putting a limit on content, whether by virtue of needing to unlock something, or time limits, or not opening areas until a certain time period isn’t well received. People tend to look at it as a negative thing, rather than a positive thing — particularly if they’re the type of player that is used to rushing through leveling and getting to end game as soon as they can. Some people like to take their time and level, others just want to jump into raiding and max-level PVP as soon as they can.

I think it’d be nice. I think it’d be cool if we just saw a lot of our followers put in the game as NPCs in various positions around the world. Plunk them in the major cities or new areas, give them a little flavor dialogue about how they remember us. I always liked it when NPCs had things to say about my character — in Wrath, it was neat to see how the dialogue in Dalaran changed as my level and reputation did. Plus, getting a nod from your respective racial leader in-person would feel pretty awesome.

Lord Rhyolith was easily the worst boss I’ve ever done, and it had nothing to do with the fight itself, which was a pretty cool idea as far as design goes, and everything to do with me. I have a weird brain…thing when it comes to deciphering left and right. I know which direction is left, and which direction is right, but I have to think about it — it’s not immediate instinct, and it never has been. Same goes for cardinal directions. I know what is east and west on a map, but I have to think about it to make sure I’ve got it right. So when the raid leader is saying “Left left turn it left,” and expecting an immediate response, I get…frazzled. I’m really glad they labeled his feet, or I don’t think I would’ve ever been able to pull off that one.

I really liked fights that split people up into a variety of little groups, though. Razorgore was a favorite in vanilla, and I really liked the Lady Vashj encounter, too, for the same reasons. Fights where the big group has to divvy up into little strike teams always felt fun to me.

No. No I have not. But now I know, and I’ll be looking for it. Watching. Waiting.

Personally, I prefer a full clear my first time through a dungeon, particularly if I’m leveling. But I know that logically speaking, as mentioned above, people in LFG like to just get through a dungeon as quickly and efficiently as possible. So I prefer going with a group of friends, both for experience, sure, but also because I’m one of those people that will happily snap screenshots all the way through the dungeon the first time I run through it, and my friends understand this and don’t mind if I hold things up for a few seconds to get a good shot.

Later runs? I don’t mind blowing through them as quickly as possible.

That’s it for today’s Queue — if you have any questions you’d like to see answered, be sure to leave them in the comments below!