The Queue: This would be more entertaining in rap battle format
@faience
Ladies and gentlemen, you could have been anywhere in the world tonight this morning, but you’re here with us in New York City the Queue. Are you ready for a cabinet meeting some Q&A? The issue on the table: Liz and Mitch’s ongoing bickering about which type of wine is better. And maybe some questions about WoW, Heroes, and Legion.
Secretary Mitch, you have the floor, sir…
Q4tQ: I’ve said before that I’ve recently returned to the game after an extended absence. One of the first things I do after such gaps is gorge on lore, forums, sites like this to try and get fully back up to speed with anything I might have missed and just try to feel like an active part of the community once more. What I’ve noticed this time, however, is a distressing number of posts on the official WoW EU forums of either returning players or, perhaps more worryingly, new players saying the game is lonely, they have no friends, nobody speaks in groups and no one will give them the time of day and, as a result, the game isn’t that fun. You could argue this is as a result of cross-server ‘stuff’, the LFG tool or whatever, but it’s sad to see potentially new converts to WoW being put off by having no friends and being lonely.
So here’s my question: would you think there is value in creating a guild specifically for people who are lonely and looking for like-minded individuals to make new friends with, to try and capture some of that original-wow feel of adventure and camaraderie, or would it be too full of lonely hearts weirdos and creeps?
I joined a random guild on my recently boosted druid and it was a bloody awful experience – imagine the wow forums, only worse and with a vile stream of consciousness being poured out at a rate of knots. Racism, sexism and every other kind of ism were on display within minutes of me joining and I quickly left in disgust. Wow. This ended up quite long, didn’t it?
Mitch: Yes, I do think there is value in that sort of guild. I would be wary of how you market it, though; “here’s a guild for lonely people!” might come off differently than you want. But yeah, it’s definitely nice for people to have a place to call home. And here’s where I give an anecdote/questionable self-promotion: I’m part of Convert to Raid which, if you hadn’t heard of it, is something like 10 guilds all linked together (chat and all, thanks to an addon). You can almost always find someone to group with, the chat is monitored so you don’t have to worry about offensiveness, and it’s never quiet. That last one might be overwhelming, but it’s still night and day to my old guild which would sometimes have 1-2 other people on and not a word said. Point being, it’s the exact kind of community new players could use and it wouldn’t have happened if someone had though the idea of a community wasn’t worth it.
Liz: The trouble with guilds that invite anyone, is, well, they’ll invite anyone. It’s that Groucho Marx thing, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.” Finding a guild that fits you isn’t simple and you’ll always find bad seeds out there… which just makes it more important to find the right guild. Otherwise you’ll just be miserable. I was lucky to get a recommendation from a friend that was perfect for me, but if you aren’t so lucky, you need to spend time searching (try your realm forums for a start). There are definitely people out there like you, you just have to hunt them down… or create a place for them and encourage them to come to you. :)
Mitch: Sounds like we need a Guildr app. Oh, wait, no. I didn’t say that. No one take my idea. BRB.
Liz: So like Tinder but for guilds?
Mitch: Yes.
Since Diablo2 and Warcraft3 got patched, who is going to be the legacy games columnist? I nominate Mitch.
Liz: Note that the header image above is the theoretical logo for MitchWatch.
Mitch: I, Mitch, owner of MitchWatch and unanimously nominated leader, loved by all and whose jokes cause eruptions of joyous choruses of laughter, also nominate myself. And I shall call this column, “thereisnospoon.”
Liz: Stop encouraging him.
Does the wardrobe allow you to sort your tramsmogs by tier or color?
Liz: Transmog search options are currently seriously lacking. I really, really hope there’s more detailed searching before Legion launches because otherwise there is so much scrolling.
Liz: Different question, but Kesperan asked about enchant options. This is what the interface looks like, but I can’t actually get any of them to work…. which might mean it doesn’t work or might mean I’m missing something really obvious. 50/50 chance.
Mitch: It was working fine a few builds ago and then one day just sort of stopped. I’d be more annoyed, but it’s the alpha so…
Q4tQ: Is the Heroes PTR open to anyone? How does it work? Do you get all the heroes? I didn’t even think to try heroes out there.
Mitch: The Heroes PTR is a bit… annoying. When it is up (which isn’t often), you do transfer over your characters automatically. Except they’re all level 1. Your account is also level 1 and you have no gold. Basically, the PTR is like starting a brand-new Heroes account, but with a lot more level-1 heroes on your roster. This is a little less annoying now that you don’t need to hit a certain player level to unlock all the talents, but it still baaasically means that if you’re looking to test a new hero, you have to use real money. It will transfer over to live when the hero is released, but it’s a pseudo-early access which I’m not a huge fan of. The only other testing it’s useful for is hero adjustments and new maps, which can definitely be useful but probably not as much a “casual” thing to do unless you’re just bored and want to see new things.
Here’s a question that I’ve been wondering about the Alpha, so if anyone in here is in it then maybe they could answer. Survival Hunters and weapons other than polearms, are they able to use them? I know that for Legion content we want to use the provided spear but are survival hunters limited to only using polearms and staves or are they able to use their abilities while doing stuff like dual-wielding swords, axes, or fist weapons?
Liz: I noted this in the Queue comments and I’ll repeat it here: skipping your Artifact for something else won’t be viable for leveling, raiding, or PVPing. It gives way too many benefits to ignore. But if you want to use something else for RP purposes or just for fun, you can. All Survival Hunter abilities only seem to require a melee weapon at this point.
And now it’s time to wrap up today’s Queue and…
Mitch: PS: April Fools. MitchWatch. I’m gonna make this happen or my name isn’t Mitch.
Liz: Nope, we have a killer idea for April Fools that I absolutely did not just make up and that’s not it.
Mitch: … you guys do? The Anti-April Fools Folks?
Liz: I’m really the only one who’s aggressively anti-April Fools. (Though “plan” may be a strong word. Please no one riot if nothing happens.)
Mitch: Well, if the other idea doesn’t work (now I’m excited because I honestly thought nothing was planned), MitchWatch. Think about it.
Liz: No.
Mitch: #MITCHWATCH2016
Liz: No.
…okay, well, that distraction out of the way, remember to leave your questions below and please be kind to Rossi and ask questions that aren’t just about Hamilton and April Fools.
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