The game is what converts the text into nonsense speak. You type in English, and they type in English, but when someone of the opposite faction reads it, it comes out looking totally different.
One example that we actually know how it translates is “lol.” If you type “lol,” a Horde character will see it as “bur.” If a Horde character types “lol,” you’ll see it as “kek.” Unfortunately, there’s no way to create a dictionary for cross-faction communication, because it isn’t real translation: 99% of the time, it’s just based off the number of letters the word has.
Yes, there are various NPCs in the game who’ll speak their native languages. I know there are Dwarves who do it, too, and I remember the UC NPCs you’re talking about.
As for the lore explanations… Well, there really aren’t any. It’s purely game mechanics. When they tried to allow cross-faction communication, things got really, really nasty and abusive in PvP. So they cut it out of the game entirely.
Heh, in my surpressed lol-RP’er way, I understand. The irrelevant RP backstory to my Orc Hunter is that he grew up in a hostage-fostering arrangement with dwarves (a side branch of the Nesingwary family, in fact) and speaks Dwarvish well enough to say “Hi” to “Uncle” Hemet. (Also explains his preference to Marksmanship and firearms over bows.) So I figure I should have “Dwarven” on my languages selector, right? No joy.
BTW, there’s supposed to be an interesting trick to Forsaken (aka “Gutterspeak”). If you hear Human Common, and repeat it back as Gutterspeak, supposedly the Alliance will hear back the original Common (i.e., the original English input by the first speaker). Weird and useless, if it still works (or if it ever did… I never had access to Undead and Alliance characters that I could use both at the same time in the same place, so I’ve never seen it work in person).
Personally, I think they should add some kind of long, arduous, pain-in-the-ass quest chain to the game that will allow you to learn the language of one cross-faction race (one quest chain per faction) and thus be able to communicate with them. Alternatively, they should allow certain dungeons and raids (for example, ICC and ToC) to be “cooperative,” since lore-wise both factions are equally interested in seeing them brought down. If the Horde and the Alliance can work together to form groups like the Argent Crusade and the Ebon Blade, then why can’t cross-faction parties be viable?
I know, I know. PvP. I hate PvP so much sometimes, because things that would be really cool to add to the game are not possible because of “game balance.” But I still think it would be fun.
And, truth be told, I think the denizens of the Undercity are the canonical example. They were human. They spoke common, in a dialect only somewhat different from Stormwind. (Perhaps, American English versus Her Majesty’s Received Pronounciation, or Mexican v. Castillan). But now they’re dead, they’re zombies, but they are still intelligent, still have their full memories, and most of their previous personality (though a bit more grumpy and cold-hearted). But what they’re speaking is somehow not Common any more.
And that’s the truth. I mean, in the specific raids you speak of, you actually fight NPCs of that opposite faction as part of the raid event. (Champions in ToC, Lootship in ICC). You can argue from a lore perspective that those fights are incredibly damaging to the overall goal of defeating the LK, since you wind up killing some of the best champions of the other side in ToC and critically damaging the major firepower of the other side in Lootship. It’s about as counterproductive as it gets, but it makes for good PvP hate and in-lore warmongering. So it happens. And the next xpac makes the cold war go hot, lucky us.
I’d also like to see some form of cooperative play between Horde and Alliance. CoX has done it, without really hurting the PvP stuff…or had, last time I played that game, which was…probably about two years ago.
Could be something as simple as one group of Horde enters a dungeon from their side, one group of Allies enter from their side…clear their way to a meet-up spot in the middle, and then join forces to beat a raid boss.
I started a baby Hunter, but I’m finding that I can neither get my pet to attack a neutrally-targeted mob (the targeting circle is yellow), nor can I hostile-target a mob without automatically shooting. It used to be that you could turn off auto-attack but there’s no option for that in the Interface pane anymore. There’s an option to keep the Hunter from acquiring a new target and auto-attacking if the old target dies, but nothing about not automatically starting to shoot if you right-click a mob.
I used to be able to send my pet in to get aggro and Growl before I started shooting and it appears that’s not possible anymore.
I hate those friggin’ things. It feels so undignified. I try to imagine Kael and his army running into battle on their WarChicken (okay, that’s hilarious) and it makes me laugh.
(For anyone playing the more recent Final Fantasies, I feel the same way about Chocobos.)
Really? I’m not sure how you have your keybindings, but I left my mouse default and left-click selects a mob but I have to right-click to attack.
I have a macro set up to cast Hunter’s Mark and then send my pet to attack. So I left-click the mob so pet has a target and then right-click once pet has aggro.
It’s an interesting idea, and probably doable, but I doubt you’ll see it in Cataclysm. Half the intention of the story, what with appointing El Hothead Garrosh, is to drive a deeper wedge between Horde and Alliance. After all, the last two expansions provided a shared city each, but Cataclysm isn’t; people are only going to be interacting with their own faction more.
Before 4.0.1, hunters below level 10 didn’t have a pet at all. Now they added pets to make those early levels feel more like a real hunter, but they left out the pet control abilities, to make it easier for beginners. You will learn those abilities at level 10.
I think what you want is /petattack in a macro. Maybe macro’ed with /cast Hunter’s Mark, or perhaps /cast Growl (only while solo). This will make your pet attack without you needing to right-click.
Here’s the second which shows what’s in my bags. They’re not bandages yet. They’re just cloths. So what do I do with 'em if I don’t use 'em to skill up?
Also, although I’m not “there” yet, my intructor is going to ask me to collect Frostweave cloths, which I have already begun saving in the bank from drops.
When I get ready to make THOSE bandages and I move them into my bags, and I’m “trained up” for them will the game accept them or are they just going to stay in my bags like these are doing?
I have begun making bandages as soon as they drop the cloths and that works, should I be doing THAT instead of storing them (such as the Frostweave ones)?
Your first picture shows that you have the materials to make the number indicated of that bandage type. You will not get any skill ups for making those bandages because they are grey at your skill level, and may as well sell the cloth or pass it to an alt also leveling first aid.
You do not have the materials to make any silk bandages. If you did, you have a small chance to get a skill up from making regular silk bandages, because those are green at your skill level. You have a decent chance to get a skill up from making heavy silk bandages, because those are yellow at your skill level. It takes 2 silk cloth to make 1 heavy silk bandage.
The numbers in brackets (like [49] and [24]) are the quantity you could make with the materials in your bag. They are in grey because they do not provide skill-ups (grey = no skill up, yellow = medium chance of skill up, red = guaranteed skill up).
You may notice that the numbers 24 and 49 are there because a Heavy Wool Bandage requires 2 wool cloths to make, while a normal Wool Bandage only requires one.
Currently, you should be making Heavy Silk Bandages, using Silk Cloth. Either buy the cloth on the Auction House or kill mobs that drop it. Once you make enough to get to skill level 210 you can learn and make Mageweave Bandages (using Mageweave Cloth). And so on until you have learned everything and are all “skilled up”.
The leftover Wool and Linen cloth you can sell on the Auction House.
Okay, the problem is that what the tradeskill window is showing you is not how many bandages you HAVE, but how many bandages you CAN MAKE with the cloth you have in your bags. The wool and linen are grayed out, which means that you can go ahead and make them, but they’re not going to give you any skill points…you’re so far above that level that practicing won’t improve your skill. The ones you want to concentrate on are the silk, which are green for the regular silk and yellow for the heavy silk. Green means you can still get skill points for making them, but they’re going to be few and far between. You’re right at the edge of skilling out of that level. Yellow means you’re RIGHT AT level…almost all of those are going to give you a skill point until they turn green for you.
You have a couple more tiers of bandages before you start making Frostweave, Quasi…IIRC, mageweave, runecloth and netherweave.
As far as the bandages you’ve already made and the cloth you haven’t used that is below your skill level, you can vendor it, or try to auction it off. There are turn-ins to certain NPCs for each faction within your major faction (for you, Stormwind (in Stormwind), Ironforge & Gnomeregan (in Ironforge), Darnassus (in Darnassus) and Exodar (in Exodar). I doubt that interests you at the moment, but it IS another use for cloth you have no other use for, so I wanted to put it out there.
And I wanted to say that all that stuff I mailed Double L last night to auction - 120 borean thunder leathers, 10 iceweb spider silk and a bunch of equipment has disappeared. It NEVER got to his box and that represents about 2 hours worth of work and at least 100g.
At first I thought I typed his name in wrong: Wolkie instead of WoLLkie, but when I tested that out by trying to send a cheap item, the mail system would not recognize the name and refused to send it.
Can you mass-disappear something like that yourself, do you think it’s the latest in a long line of glitches, or could I have been hacked (I use authenticator)?
Haven’t heard back from a ticket I created on this.
