The Queue: A very merry unhalloween to you (to you)

/hums

A very merry unbirthday to me.
To who?
To me.
Oh you!
A very merry unbirthday to you.

Right. Where were we? Oh, yes, the Queue.

Just head over to the Virtual Ticket page and click Watch Now in the upper right. If you want to watch on your TV, you can screen share from your PC to most streaming media players, including Roku, Apple TV, and Chromecast. (If you want to pick up something last minute, Chromecast is the budget option.)

{PB}That depends on you. I think there are a few kinds of people who will really enjoy having a virtual ticket, especially this year since it’s expanded to cover every stage at the convention center. The virtual ticket is great if you absolutely have to hear every bit of news immediately (and you’ll be home to see everything immediately). News will get reported by the blogs (including us) and posted by Blizzard fairly quickly, but it’s different watching it yourself. You’ll catch details that didn’t make the news summaries and funny moments that just don’t work in plain text.

The voice actor panels in particular are highly entertaining and utterly impossible to explain in words. They’re full of actors doing voices and making jokes. I bet the Overwatch voice actors’ panel on Saturday is going to be a riot. And that’s the kind of thing you won’t see without the virtual ticket.

And then there’s the in-game goodies. If you’re interested in them, a virtual ticket is currently the only way to get them.

Without the virtual ticket, you can still watch the opening ceremony and all of the esports events, but the other panels are locked off. If you’re cool reading the news after the fact, then you’ll be fine.

For my part, no. I don’t have a lot of patience for repetitive tasks like missions — whether in the garrison or the class hall — and mostly gave up on them by the end of Warlords and even now, in Legion (except when I need something). And while I know a lot of people made a killing doing gold missions in Warlords, they nerfed the rewards towards the end of the expansion, which didn’t make it particularly rewarding to do after Legion launched.

So… enjoy missions while you can, because it seems likely that the rewards aren’t going to be worth it at some point. Plus there’s sure to be a new timesink. I can’t wait!

I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed the class narratives and think they’re some of the strongest storytelling Blizzard has done in World of Warcraft to date. But the class fantasy angle doesn’t work without the class order hall, and I have my doubts it will follow us into the next expansion. After all, we came together to fight the Legion, but when the threat is dealt with, we may go our own ways again.

That seems the way of expansions: at the end of them, we move on. New game structures, new stories, new struggles. However, they usually do take lessons learned from the previous expansion as they move into the next one. Class fantasy or no, I hope Blizzard keeps up with these strong stories that make it feel like you have an impact on the game world.

I think unless Blizzard takes some very new angles we are hitting a saturation point… or are maybe already there. Even the addition of the Demon Hunter class felt like it cannibalized from the Warlock class.

We have 12 classes and 36 specs. Giving that many specs a unique identity is tough. So where does Blizzard go from here? What classes could fit the game lore and not cannibalize from the rest? Some of the team had interesting predictions for BlizzCon: Ted talked about a Tinker class (which could be super fun, though it might cannibalize on the Engineering profession) and Scott talked about new specs for existing classes (like a tank spec for Shaman and a ranged spec for Paladins). Whatever Blizzard does, they need to think outside the box — way outside the box — to keep it interesting. After Demon Hunters, I don’t feel like Blizzard is necessarily thinking that way. Sure, they’re a great fit for the story and they’re fun to play, but their addition felt like it actively took things away from other classes.

I guess that’s a really roundabout way of saying “maybe.” I hope Blizzard proves me wrong and comes up with some cool new class designs, but I’m not convinced it’s going to happen.

They’ve all been stashed away in the dustiest corner of the darkest basement. It’s a very big basement.

And that’s all for today, dear Queuevians. Check back tomorrow for another edition of the Queue from Anne… and then it’s BlizzCon time! Woohoo!