The Queue: Waffles > pancakes

This month’s Splatfest was all about those two classic, syrupy breakfast foods: Pancakes and waffles. At first, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to go with. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, while I do have pancakes more often, it’s hard to actually beat the shape, crunch, and overall fun waffles provide. Looks like I chose wisely, too — waffles won in all three categories, which (AFAIK) hasn’t happened in quite some time.

Enough about syrups and inks, though — let’s Queue.

I almost guarantee you WoW’s content is based on D&D rather than the opposite. Not having specific examples, though, I can’t say for certain 100% of content came from D&D first — but WoW (more than most Blizz IPs) takes from a lot of different “classics.” The Old Gods, Odyn and everything relating to him, literally all of Uldum… it’s all “heavily inspired” by pre-existing material.

I know people answered in the comments, but for the curious — you get one for free at the end of the chain, then you can buy the rest. Technically, you can do the Netherwing grind on several different characters and just choose a new mount reward at the end if you want to save some gold… but I’m pretty sure the cost to buy them is more efficient then spending the time grinding on several toons.

You’re absolutely right in pointing out nostalgia’s role here, but the very first thing that jumps to my mind is the (now removed) Linken quest chain. It started at level 47, brought you all over the world, and was chock-full of Legend of Zelda references. It’s the one quest I was always excited to do as soon as a character hit 47, and I still have items from the chain in my banks.

Nostalgia aside, though, I think everything about the Forsaken storyline introduced in Catacylsm — from Deathknell all the way through Silverpine, Hillsbrad, and Western Plaguelands — is fantastic. It gives you a real sense of how Blizz wanted to go from “a continent worth of leveling” to a subset worth of zones telling a story. Not every revamped zone tied together as nicely, and the Forsaken experience set the high bar for how quests and quests chain could be done from that point onward.

Also the Death Knight Class Hall campaign. That was fantastic.

Do I think the community could handle it without having a meltdown about fairness? No. Not necessarily because I think the community as a whole would disagree, but more so because it’s easier than ever for the vocal minority to form mobs and make it seem as though negativity is pervading the entire community. As a small example, the patch guides that Blizz has put out for WoW typically have a horrendous amount of dislikes compared to a very small amount of likes. The community sees this, spreads this information, and it soon becomes “fact” that the game is in such a horrible state that even the videos are being mass-downvoted.

Take a look at the videos from the French WoW channel or any other number of non-NA channels and the ratio looks much better. But that fact doesn’t change the community’s view, and it’s not going to stop mass-downvoting future videos until “fans” feel the game is what they want it to be.

All that said… who cares if the community can’t handle it? If it would make a class better, Blizz should do it. If people are going to whine about that, I’m sure they’d have whined about anything else. Blizz doesn’t always make the right game decisions, but community reactions and overall perception of reactions shouldn’t affect their willingness to try new things.

I get where you’re coming from, Omedon, I do. But at the end of the day, one of the things that sets Blizzard Watch apart from other sites is that we are an editorial-based site. Our writers have opinions. Those opinions don’t necessarily reflect the site as a whole, nor do they overlap with all the writers — just look at Rossi and myself for an example of differing opinions within the site.

But it would be a disservice to the “Rossi crowd” if I said he couldn’t write something negative just because I disagreed. There are people who read the site who agree with him, and they’re completely valid in their views. Likewise, I’m not going to not publish an article with my opinion just because I know Rossi would be upset by it.

People dislike parts of games. That includes folks at Blizzard. So articles in the vein of, “Which part of the game do you dislike?” are just engaging in a dialog with the community about shared frustrations. That said, if you see something you feel is egregiously over-stepping bounds — “sky-falling inferences,” as you call them — please let me know (Twitter or Discord DMs are easiest). I don’t feel anything we’ve put out recently falls into that category, but I’d be interested in chatting if you have one in mind you feel does.

At the end of the day, it’s important we discuss the games we play — good, bad, everything in between. The important part is that we’re civil about it.

It’s never Malfurion, dude. Never.

Boring answer: Because gameplay always trumps lore. Blizzard has said so in the past, and it holds true today.

More fun answer: They view us as their little babbies and want to make sure we can hold our own. They’re watching us fight with pride in their hearts — they’re just really bad at knowing when a good time to step in and prevent their babbies from dying is.

If you’re re-rolling (lolz) and not race changing, then, uhh… I mean, there are account-wide goodies like mounts and pets you might want to farm now so your KT Monk has a buddy? And it might help having your current Monk able to farm BoA gear (which… I think is coming at some point…) to help gear your new Monk.

But, really, even if there are points I’m forgetting about, go play another game. Have fun! Experience something new! WoW knows you’ll be back.

That’s all for today’s Queue!

However, before I go, I want to remind you all that today might be a rough day for our friends at Blizzard. At the time of this writing, nothing is certain — but please remember that the folks who do get affected by layoffs likely aren’t the ones who make any of the decisions you hate. Even if someone you know doesn’t lose a job, they’ve likely just had to watch a friend lose theirs. Be kind, offer hugs, and — above all — let those individuals reveal if they’ve been let go or not rather than asking them about it.