The Queue: It will now forever be known as “Diblo”

Know what happens when Adam makes a typo in the very first line of The Queue? Of course you do — it’s a good portion of what y’all talked about in the comments! With that in mind, I’m just going to call it “Diblo” from now on and see how long I can keep the joke running.

In the meantime, let’s Queue.

Well, after some very solid detective work on the PTR, I’ve determined that typing /dance on a Kul Tiran does precisely nothing. Looks like the answer is TBD. That said, I’m pretty sure there’s an inn or a tavern or something in Boralus where Kul Tirans are doing a dance that’s different from the standard Human dance. I tried to find it but 5 hours later, I was somehow back in the same spot and none the wiser. Boralus, man.

Maybe I’ve just gravitated toward a different crowd, but I think guilds were much more toxic back in Classic and Burning Crusade. Without the Group Finder — and with the need for 40 people in Vanilla — you pretty much had to be in a guild if you wanted to experience endgame content at all. Plus, the set raid size meant you needed a bench roster as well, because there was no way everyone was going to show up to every single raid. This meant leadership in successful raiding guilds could hold the bench over your head in some ways. And being benched when it felt like you shouldn’t would lead to grudges. On top of that, loot was a lot more “meaningful” (in that it was harder to come by outside of raids), so loot drama was a thing and led to even more grudges. Plus, with larger rosters, cliques are easier to form, which just leads to even more in-fighting and passive aggressiveness.

You could argue all of the older mechanics made guilds feel more important — and they did, in many ways — but guilds can still be special nowadays if you make them special. Throwing special events, having nights to just shoot the shpoot, naked Gnome runs, whatever — the onus is on the guild to make itself feel unique and important now, rather than that importance being a byproduct of the game’s systems.

But again, maybe it’s just that I’ve shifted how I play the game and as a result have removed myself from these sorts of guilds. Feel free to pipe up if you’ve had different experiences over time.

Hello!

In terms of games…

• WoW had a new patch and just started a new Season.
• Diblo’s Season 16 started last week, and the Darkening of Tristram event ends in 6 days.
• Overwatch’s Year of the Pig started yesterday.
• Hearthstone probably did something. Razmatazz’s Rumble? That sounds right.
• Heroes of the Storm died.

StarCraft 2 is just sort of doing its thing.

In terms of the site… I don’t know. A lot happens all the time. I’ll leave this one to the commenters. And also, welcome back!

Realistically, I’d go to California. It’s been my goal since, well, at least as far back as high school, if not longer. And back then, I wanted to live there pretty much just for the weather and proximity to the ocean. Now, a vast majority of my friends are there, and it houses several gaming studios, all of which make great career options. The biggest drawback as far as I can tell is the cost of living, but, like… I’ve spent a good portion of my life paycheck to paycheck, so it would be less about living comfortably and more about just plain living (which, ideally, a job out there would do at the bare minimum).

Now, if I’m stretching my imagination, Hawaii comes to mind because I’m pretty sure no one is ever not happy in Hawaii. As for the rest of the world, I’ve barely been outside the U.S., so I’d have to travel more before I could accurately say. I hear Japan can be pretty cool. Ditto London. Then again, moving outside the U.S. would make it even harder to see my family, which is a big factor for me.

What does the Innkeeper’s Daughter have? Comfy pillows? Sure, they might be deadly comfy pillows, but what chance have they against bread? We’re not just talking one type of bread, either — Myra has all sorts of loaves in her arsenal, and she’s not afraid to use ’em.

Long-range fight? Bust out the baguette. Need to shield yourself? Add a bit of yeast to your recipe and get yourself a nice, round sourdough. Time to finish the fight? Grab your oldest, hardest loaf of bread and smack that Innkeeper right upside the head. She’ll be out cold in no time (but with a deadly comfy pillow to land on).

┬┴PG┬┴┤ ͜ʖ ͡°) ├┬┴13┬┴

…

Okay, so maybe the face there is unnecessary, but I love that too much not to use it. Plus, the answer would involve violence. And most parts of the world rate violence at or above a PG-13 rating.

I don’t tend to ever “rush through” a game I’m really excited about so much as play it non-stop at my own pace. I like exploring, I like occasionally seeing if I can break things (going out of bounds and such), and I like just taking it all in. I don’t want spoilers, so I’m going to do everything in my power to avoid those, but I’m not going to just go boss to boss to boss to see the ending as quickly as possible, either.

All that said, I don’t even know when I’ll have the time to play it. I’ll have to adjust my schedule a bit or be irresponsible in order to get it done, most likely.

*Tries to think back over the past 14 years…*

I don’t have one single answer, since what was fun to me years ago may not be as fun now due to changing game mechanics, and because I have a lot of moments I’ve considered fun. But I do remember back in Wrath, my friend and I did Recruit-a-Friend and got the 300% experience bonus. That — plus wearing heirlooms — meant we leveled so freaking fast. At the time, it seemed unreal. I remember going from 1 to 54 in one weekend, and that blew my mind. Not to mention, I was basically one-shotting mobs with autoshot on my Hunter. Both of us were laughing at how ludicrously fast leveling was.

Alternatively — and it might not be quite the same, since everything was scaled down — Mists of Pandaria’s Challenge Modes were some of the most fun I’ve ever had in WoW. Yes, it was scaled, but you still had to figure out which stats to aim for and which trinkets were best scaled down. What’s that RPPM trinket look like in a Challenge Mode? How much is that proc worth scaled down? On top of that, learning the dungeon routes that were the fastest, getting that one pull that always stumped you, and beating the timer just barely fast enough to get Gold… man, that was a blast. It wasn’t power progression necessarily, but it was progression. For all my love of Mythic+, I still do wish we had something like Challenge Modes as well.

That’s all for today! I hope you all have a fantastic weekend :)