The Queue: Battlecruiser operational

No, actually my Battlecruiser is not operational because I didn’t get a Battlecruiser. The Battlecruiser is off having adventures in Sanctuary or … uh … wherever the heck StarCraft is set these days … and I am in Azeroth wishing I had a Battlecruiser. Like every other sensible person in this world.

Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we want.

Anything would be more interesting than an achievement. Sure, it’s a Feat of Strength, but Diablo players got a pet and Overwatch players got a skin. Admittedly Hearthstone (which got a Brawl) and Heroes of the Storm (which got some portraits) aren’t terribly exciting, but they’re both more than the snippet of text Warcraft players got. Come on, I want an awesome Battlecruiser pet to follow me around Azeroth.

Sigh.

I like the idea behind Artifacts. Before Legion was released, it seemed like this would be a way to customize your character to your playstyle. Like an alternate kind of talent tree.

But in the end, it just feels like another thing to click. It doesn’t matter which traits you select on your Artifact, because eventually you’ll have them all. Relics offer customization, but it’s limited and random. (The number of times I’ve bought a Relinquished Relic trying to get something I want… yergh.) And now, late in Legion, all Artifacts are is a button to push. I dig through my bags to find Artifact Power items, make sure I’m in the right spec, click them, and every so often go to my class hall to click another button to increase my power. There’s no choice and no customization. It was a button to press. And press. And press. Until eventually you get an achievement and there’s nothing else to click. (At which point you start doing the same on another spec.)

Customization is interesting and fun, but Artifacts didn’t wind up really doing that.

Blizzard is presenting the Heart of Azeroth as offering meaningful choices, with a system that’s a little more like the Netherlight Crucible than the basic Artifact system itself. That sounds good to me.

Blizzard lets you download Blackthorne for free (just check out their classic game library), so they have to own the rights. (Or at least I assume so.) But maybe Blizzard is looking to the future instead of the past right now. Overwatch is the big hit of the moment, Hearthstone and Heroes certainly hold their own, Warcraft is moving forward into new stories… and, well, Diablo and StarCraft aren’t doing much, but they’re there. (And maybe Diablo is heading to the Switch!)

Rossi’s requests aside, Blizzard doesn’t seem to see enough nostalgia value here. (But still, why not a Heroes of the Storm character, at least?)

The current range of micro-holidays is fun, in part because they’re unexpected little events. WoW’s big holidays are tied to real holidays and they’d be on a predictable schedule even if they hadn’t been in the game for a decade now. Part of the joy of micro-holidays is that they’re new enough to still have that element of surprise.

Which means, to me, that Blizzard needs to keep adding and/or rotating the micro-holiday selection to keep it interesting. Otherwise these micro-holidays will soon be just as tedious as every other holiday in the game: they’ll be something we’ve all done over and over. I got What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been in 2009… and the over-exposure to all of those holidays really exhausted me. The holidays all been redone to some extent or another, but my enthusiasm for them hasn’t returned.

Micro-holidays have the opportunity to keep the holiday scene fresh. I hope they do.

Year of the Mammoth started with the release of Journey to Un’goro, and I would expect Year of the Raven to officially start with the release of the Witchwood. There hasn’t been an official date yet, but it’s sometime this month. Un’goro was released on April 6, if you want to use that as gauge.

So look for Lunara alongside a mountain of new cards in a week or two.

More customization is good customization. Let’s do it.

Though I suspect if Blizzard is going to be giving us new customization options, they’ll be more visible, like body types, faces, even eyes… all of which we’re probably getting in Battle for Azeroth, at least for some races. But more ways to make your character your own are always good.

And that’s it for today, my fellow adventurers. Tomorrow is another day for the Queue, so leave your questions below for some shadowy answers this time tomorrow.