The Queue: Raids, Artifact Power, Expansions, and Discovery

Welcome to Monday’s Queue!

I didn’t know Matt was moving last week — I was doing the same actually. Liz was also gone. I’m surprised that a new expansion didn’t drop randomly.

This has never came from Blizzard officially. It’s been something that’s been discussed at length elsewhere, and in a lot of way it does make sense. Each expansion has lead into the other.

The said, I wouldn’t read too much into it. Blizzard telling one long story is a good thing; just look at epics like Game of Throne, Wheel of Time, and Lord of the Rings. Each book in the series is a self contained story, to a large extent, but each builds substantially off the events in the previous edition. With WoW turning out to be the same way, that’s kind of awesome I think.

Granted the Akorra are not going to have much, if any, effect on Argus, but still, there’s a pretty clear path from A to E.

In some ways you’re correct. But something I’ve noticed is that, as a casual player (just running WQs and class hall missions every day), I’m leveling my artifact about one level a week. With the increased artifact power that’s getting generated, it’s keeping up with it rather point-for-point.

It has slowed down a little; although that could just be my own choices. Either way, it seems like gaining a level on your primary artifact each week feels right. The one thing that will be interesting is how this shapes up down the road. Think a few months from now on your secondary artifact (or third). I’m not sure getting those to max are going to be achievable for the casual player — and that might be okay.

Either way, what I’m saying in a very roundabout way is that you shouldn’t necessarily wait. You’re still going to need to get the AP, it’s just going to come only slightly faster later on.

Somewhat spoiler-rific.

I just want to point out that I did not plant this question.

I absolutely love it.

Discovery is a return to form for Star Trek. It’s being done beautifully, with the acting, continuity, plots, and overall drama shaping up nicely. Even though we know the ending of the first Klingon war (peace), there’s never been a full  telling of it, and the series diving headfirst into why it started, what’s being done to resolve it, and (maybe?) the eventual end is great.

There’s a ton of stuff that doesn’t fit exactly into the continuity either. Discovery’s technology is, by many accounts, more advanced than that of the Enterprise E. But at the same time it has a similar theme to other expiermental ships that the Federation has pursued: a better way to travel than warp drive. The integration of the tartigrade was a great way to start as well — those things are going to be around long after Humanity’s last breath, and it’s intriguing to consider that there’s a wider reason for that.

I have my theories about Discovery as well. We know that the Enterprise is already active, Spock was name dropped, and Christopher Pike is an established figure. So why, in the pantheon of the Federation, haven’t we heard of this ship before? Something big is going to happen, I think, that makes the Discovery and its crew classified at the highest levels. We already know they’ve broken the law banning genetic manipulation, what else might they do that causes the Federation to disavow all knowledge and wipe the ship and crew from the history books? My guess is that there’s going to be a war crime committed that the Federation council can’t ever let out — and that’s how the story will end. I honestly see that as the only legitimate conclusion of the series.

Now that said… there’s a very interesting point that’s been made. When Picard and Sarek shared their mind toward’s the end of Sarek’s life, Picard knew of Spock in a way that a father would know of his son; this is shared with Spock eventually on Romulus. This means that either Picard already knew of Discovery and Michael (likely her, at least, given she’s a public figure), but also knew of Sarek’s clear trouble with her; and vise-versa. Since Michael and Sarek melded and shared such a strong connection, transitively when Picard melded with Sarek, a piece of Michael is there in Picard.

Let your brain go down that rabbit hole for a bit. Then consider Sarek’s “Sophie’s Choice” last night, and you start to understand Sarek’s resentment towards Spock.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I thought Mia Kirshner absolutely nailed Amanda Grayson last night. And Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd I thought was going to make me cringe, but holy !@#$, Dwight Schrute is perfect for that role.

Okay… that’s all. LLAP.

I’m going to highlight Xerianne’s answer, because this is what it’s previously been:

I’d say it’s more a we won’t risk releasing the raid before Blizzcon because Devs will be at Blizzcon if something goes horribly wrong they aren’t around to hotfix it. Also, Blizzcon is a major undertaking on all the staff so I can’t see them putting any more unnecessary pressure 2 weeks before the con. so I’m not in the least surprised.

I’ll also add a lot of the top guilds and players are at BlizzCon, and the races for world firsts are something Blizzard is aware of and doesn’t like to impact. So not a huge surprise.