The Queue: Now in musical format

While I really feel like I need to overthrow Alex as grumpiest editor (honestly, he’s the team optimist and I don’t know why y’all can’t see it), today I just can’t. Because today is all about Blizzard Watch: The Musical, and let me tell you I love Blizzard Watch: The Musical.

Why is there a Blizzard Watch: The Musical? I’ve honestly forgotten — but once it got started it took on a life of its own. Let me try to explain.

Blizzard Watch has been a labor of love for all of us. And sometimes you just have to express that exuberance in song… thus Blizzard Watch: The Musical. But there are a few problems with making our own musical. First, we’ve all been distracted by Legion, and second I don’t know that any of us have any actual musical talent (beyond liking musical theater).

But we haven’t let that deter us. At least not entirely. Here is our tentative track list (some of which are not entirely sfw):

1. What do You do With a B.A. in English? from Avenue Q, in which our crew of writers wonder why they ever decided to become writers.
2. Poor Unfortunate Souls from The Little Mermaid, in which the company that shall not be named makes us an offer we can’t refuse. What were we doing with all of those annoying words anyway?
3. So Much Better from from Legally Blonde, in which the company that shall not be named breaks up with us, but we can totally do better.
4. What Comes Next from Hamilton, in which maybe they’re a little sad to see us go (but probably not).
5. Let It Go from Frozen, in which your editor is very sorry to include this but it fits the narrative so well.
6. Coffee Break from How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, because, wow, could we use some coffee by this point in the soundtrack.
7. A Little Priest from Sweeney Todd, in which the musical gets kind of dark while we pick class columnists.
8. Diva’s Lament (Whatever Happened to my Part) from Spamalot, sung by Anna wondering why no one reads pet content anymore.
9. The Pirate King from Pirates of Penzance, otherwise known as “the time we discovered Outlaw Rogues.”
10. Glitter Force, in which @ScottLeyes tries to convince us to change our format. (It’s not working, Scott, please stop.)

Okay, so it’s a work in progress.

It’s worth remembering that the Legion we’re seeing right now is a very early version of the game — and what we’re seeing now may well change before release. When the Legion Alpha was last up, these Artifacts weren’t in the game yet, so we can’t even comment on what these forms looked like in Alpha. We do, however, have datamining showing different Druid forms and, you’re right, they don’t appear to show racial differences.

But, again, it’s early — so early that this wasn’t even included in the Alpha build. It’s possible that race-specific art hasn’t been finished yet… though it’s also possible that race specific art is going to be replaced by customization through your Artifact. We just don’t know yet… but I wouldn’t call the loss of racial forms a done deal quite yet.

The next Diablo season is starting soon and we expect patch 2.4 to launch next week, but I’m still not sure what I’ll be playing. I haven’t played through many of Diablo 3’s classes yet, though — just the Wizard, Crusader, and Demon Hunter, so I think it’s time to try something new. The only trick is deciding what.

Any suggestions, Queuevians? What will you lot be playing next season?

Blizzard never exactly clarified why they dropped these server first achievements, but I have a suspicion that it’s in part due to server merges, cross-realm activity, and the fact that it’s increasingly difficult to keep servers apart. If two servers are merged together, do you give out only one achievement for the merged realm, or do the populations of each still have a chance? If someone on one realm leveled mostly in cross-realm zones on another — perhaps quieter — realm, is that a fair competition anymore? Not to mention that increased numbers on merged servers and cross-realm zones can make it actively harder to quest.

I’m sure Blizzard could make calls on everything like this to make server first achievements — it’s certainly not technically possible. But the question in my mind is… does it really matter if they do? I admit, the realm first competition was fun (mostly to watch, because I was never a quick leveler), but it was something few players out of the older population got to enjoy. Admittedly, these achievements were a small thing, but I’d rather see Blizzard working on fun things for all (or at least more) players to work on rather than offering achievements to a handful of people in the first day of launch. Maybe that’s logic, too — that time can be better spent coming up with ideas that will encourage people to be invested in playing beyond that initial rush to the level cap.

To get back to the point, after removing realm firsts I doubt Blizzard is planning to add them back. But they could surprise me… after all, even valor points made a comeback.

I feel like this can only be answered with a song.

Okay.