The Queue: Am I doing this right?

Okay. There’s a dinosaur in the header image. Am I doing this right? Have I convinced you all that I’m Matthew Rossi?

Well the joke’s on you, because I’m definitely not Matthew Rossi (and I don’t know nearly enough about Warriors to fake it). And since I don’t think I can keep up the illusion for an entire Queue, so I’m going to stop trying. But I’ll do my best to answer your questions anyway. Here we go!

As you may have noticed, I am not Rossi. However, I am entirely pro dinosaur and believe additional dinosaurs should be added to the game posthaste. Post. Haste.

Blizzard has a tendency to co-opt real world holidays, so it doesn’t surprise me that there’s an Azerothian holiday celebrating the real-world summer solstice. There’s not much more to celebrations like the Feast of Winter Veil or Noblegarden — they just happen to mimic holidays we already celebrate.

Basically, don’t ask why: ask why not.  And get to leveling those alts.

While Blizzard did remove “Heroes of Warcraft” from Hearthstone’s title, the game has built up its own zany world that’s fully rooted in Warcraft. The game has its own Argent Tournament, its own Gadgatzen, its own Un’goro. Adding in an interdimensional element (like Heroes does) with StarCraft or Overwatch themed packs just wouldn’t fit with the game’s existing card base.

Though an Overwatch-themed spin-off? I’d play that.

{PB}I suspect not having a goal would make things feel a little listless. We’re wandering around but not actually going anywhere or making progress to anything… and I’m not sure that works so well for a game. (And maybe a little too much like real life and too little like the epic adventure we expect from a video game.)

However, I’m not sure the game necessarily needs a world-ending existential threat to be fun (though tradition does suggest that won’t be happening in WoW). I’d love an expansion that’s all about rebuilding. We’ve spent so much time wrecking Azeroth, it would be nice to spend some time fixing the stuff we’ve ruined rather than rushing on to the next catastrophe. How about rebuilding everything the cataclysm ruined, reclaiming Gnomeregan or the Plaguelands (seriously, how many times can those things respawn before they’re gone for good?), or piecing Pandaria back together? (A rebuilding expansion would also be a great place to add in one of my favorite features that I don’t think Blizzard will ever add: guild housing.)

We don’t need the end of the world to have goals… but I do think we need goals.

The words open world. It’s not that open world games are necessarily bad, but it’s often a code-word for “procedurally generated content filled with random content and ‘kill ten rats’ style goals.” That often means huge swaths of land to explore with little in the way of meaningful content: it’s just forest after forest of assorted trees with miscellaneous monsters popped in. And I imagine that’s why these games are popular with developers: they can create a ton of content for players without a lot of design overhead… I just tend to find such games tedious.

In terms of Blizzard, that’s kind off what Diablo is… but they’ve never actually used the term “open world” to describe it (plus Diablo was a thing well before the open world fad). That’s maybe a bit odd, since I’ve been a Diablo fan since the very first game (and don’t even want to know how many hours I’ve sunk into Sanctuary over the course of the trilogy), but I may just have grown tired of the procedurally generated content thing since the Diablo days. Plus there is something compelling about dungeon crawling regardless.

As for a game I thought I’d hate but loved when I was convinced to play it: BioShock. I’d taken it for yet another shooter and ignored it for years, but when I finally did try it I found it had an amazing story. I’d have missed a great game if I just let my “I hate shooters” instincts guide me. So I guess that’s a roundabout way of saying that it’s worth experimenting with games outside your comfort zone. Sometimes they’re great.

Which probably means I should approach open world games with an open mind. They might not all be my thing, but if I ignore them entirely I might miss out on something I’d love.

That’s all for this week, my lovelies. (Sorry that it’s on the short side, but I am in serious need of a nap.) The Queue will be back on Monday with Mr. Adam Holisky offering his own brand of weirdness for your amusement. In the meanwhile, have a great weekend!