The Queue: A crack in the sky

I’ve been playing a lot of Fortnite lately, and outside of the general “Flavor of the Month” hype, I’m actually really enjoying the way it expands its universe. Recently, after TVs in the game had a mysterious countdown, a rocket launched into the sky in a one-time only event. After what ended up being more than just a rocket launch, an inter-dimensional (?) crack opened in the sky, and it’s been slowly expanding over the past few days, with weird anomalies appearing all over the map.

One player made a seriously amazing “cinematic” video of the event that’s, in my opinion, worth checking out even if you don’t really play. It’s a cool look at how non-WoW games can use events to tell a story and expand their world. Frankly, taking part in the event itself and trying to figure out what it all means is giving me pre-datamining WoW vibes — and damn if that isn’t a feeling I’ve missed.

Anyhow, enough Fortnite. How about we sit down for a Queue?

No need to feel dumb! We change things up often enough that it’s probably not super clear. I know before I actually wrote my own Queue, I had no freaking clue who wrote on what day. As mentioned in the comments, however, from Monday to Friday it goes… Adam, myself, Liz, Anne, Rossi. But as I said, there are enough “off-schedule” weeks that there’s a good chance one day won’t follow that pattern.

I know people answered in the comments, but you were not just thinking wishfully. Highmountain’s skybox at night is gorgeous — one of my favorites in-game. Blizzard has absolutely made an effort to give some zones dark-sky love. Most of these are newer zones, but Eversong Woods and Redridge (correct me if I’m wrong) also got specific updates to their nights to be darker.

It’s not exactly the same as darker nights everywhere on the level of Vanilla’s nights, but it’s more than nothing. And, worst case, we have Inky Black Potions, which are fantastic.

There’s definitely potential for a larger discussion here, but I’m fine with this. At first, I was a bit shocked and thought that was a crappy thing to do. Then I realized, you can’t trade gold cross-realm — at which point, there’s Trade chat to coordinate selling of runs.

The Group Finder is there to help people find groups. Not bargain. It’s fine if people do want to bargain — but I think the removal of all the scam-like “groups” will be a net positive, even if it does mean some legitimate for-trade carries are relegated elsewhere. And before you say it, I know: Trade channel can be Yogg awful. But that’s an issue with Trade chat and not LFG.

So this kind of ties into my Fortnite-centric intro a bit. I’ve been so closely embedded in the WoW/Blizzard community for so long that I don’t really have a good sense of what’s “obvious” and what’s totally nonsensical. Even if I didn’t write for this site, being on Twitter, keeping up with Q&As, and all that other fun stuff would result in me basically knowing that we were retiring our Artifacts by overloading them simply by osmosis.

Some of the most eye-opening experiences I’ve had in WoW were back in Warlords playing with someone who wasn’t a big gamer and didn’t keep up with news the way I did. It was honestly a bit mind-blowing to see what things I take for granted that the game doesn’t spell out for you. Sure, new players who want to jump in and play with friends casually may have the tools necessary for it thanks to level boosts and gear catch-ups, but if you want to really understand the game? The lore, the mechanics, the patch cycles, all that — it’s confusing as all hell if all you do is play the game.

The very first thing that jumps to my mind is Algalon. I realize his ability to destroy everything and start over wasn’t innate power, but he was still incredibly strong and a product of the Titans with the purpose or re-originating the planet for a reason.

The others that come to mind are Ragnaros in his original incarnation (because we didn’t get help on that one), Lei Shen, C’Thun, maybe M’uru, and uhh… I guess Al’Akir should go up here if Ragnaros is, huh?

To your first ask: I don’t think that will happen, and I hope Blizzard does more justice to Sylvanas (and, begrudgingly, Anduin) than shoving her off for a rainy, plot-empty day. Because, yes, of course someone would free her. Not now, probably not in 5 years, heck, maybe not even in 10 years. But if Blizzard needed/wanted her back, they’d have the option, and she inevitably would come back. But I’d rather we get character growth from everything Sylvanas is doing in the expansion, rather than either outright killing her or the writers hitting the reset button on her like a 90s sitcom. Heck, I’d prefer some twisted, screwed up “Sylvanas was right” lesson at the end than either of those two things.

To your second ask: The Void fears undeath because it doesn’t understand it. It is an anomaly. Several things can kill the undead for real, however — not just the Void. Undead are simply a stronger focus for the Void because of the “wrench in the system” aspect of undeath.

Sort of depends on who you mean when you say “we.” I think Blizzard is trying to push this on us, but they’re doing so with knowledge of the whole story. That is not knowledge we have. Maybe pushing morally grey on us right now is their way of saying, “Hey, it looks bad, but don’t freak — it’ll even out over the expansion.”

Or maybe not! For my two cents, I do think it’s perfectly valid that Sylvanas believes with full conviction that she’s doing the right thing for the Horde. This is Azeroth. It’s Warcraft. Sylvanas has been around for a while, and she knows that the status quo is not peace. It’s war.

Right now, she has a legitimate opportunity to push for long-term survival of the Horde. Is it the “right” thing to do, especially now? Objectively, probably not.

But let’s say the entire history of Azeroth is laid out before us — past and future. Right now, Sylvanas is at a crossroads. What if — hypothetically — everything she’s doing does ensure the future of the Horde? What if — again, hypothetically — not doing what she’s doing would result in the end of the Horde? In the grand scheme of things, and as a Horde main with a fully realized biased, I think this does add more grey to the situation. Enough to fully justify it? I don’t know.

But I think if you look at it from Sylvanas’ perspective, there’s at least some degree of rationale in what she’s doing — in her mind. Regardless, I think we need to see the entirety of the expansion before we tell Blizz they were full of BS in calling Sylvanas morally grey.

Sorry we didn’t have a 2BE this week : Guess y’all just weren’t interested in one?

Maybe next week.