The Queue: I don’t know what happened

I’m gonna be completely honest with you guys: I have no idea what happened in terms of April Fool’s jokes yesterday. I spent Sunday away from home, fell asleep extra early, and then spent all of Monday doing work. So anything that transpired after Saturday is not something I’m privy to.

That said, you guys were pretty cool about asking questions, despite “Mitch having Queue duty the day after AFD [be] the most poetic form of justice,” according to PumaBackup. JOKE’S ON YOU, PUMA! I GOT PLENTY OF QUESTIONS!

With that in mind, let’s Queue.

I’m actually pretty torn here. Both Horde and Alliance have zones that aren’t necessarily GREAT — Vol’dun and Stormsong — but those zones still serve a narrative purpose and give us some really cool beats among the quests that feel more like side quests. Vol’dun absolutely beats Stormsong in my opinion, and my gut instinct was to immediately say, “Horde questing is better.”

…But then Drustvar throws a big wrench into my evaluation. It’s no secret that I love Drustvar. I’d play an entire expansion that used Drustvar’s aesthetic or expanded the story playing out there. I’d even put up with the tiny hallways if it meant we got a raid in the style of Waycrest.

I think, once we’re a few expansions removed and it’ll only take ONE zone to get through BFA content, I’ll prefer the Alliance side of things. But as it is, you (generally speaking) have to go through multiple zones to go from 110 to 120. As such, I’m gonna give this one to Horde.

Overall, though, neither side is a no-contest winner. They both have highs and lows. I think the Alliance’s highs are higher but its lows are lower.

Even if you destroyed my physical form (for some reason), you can’t destroy my legacy. You cannot destroy the ideas I represent. But also, yes, the land would be desecrated and barren for years to come, while I hibernated in a phylactery.

2BE: Today Mitch definitely beats 2018 Mitch, but I’m still not entirely sure Today Mitch would win against mid-2016 Mitch. It’s been a long climb back up, and that match is a toss-up.

Assuming Blizzard doesn’t pull a fast one on us and add an 8.3.5 or 8.4 boss, I’m going to say we’ll likely see raid details about the final boss appear as soon as the 8.3 PTR is up, which will probably be a few weeks after 8.2.5 drops. Given 8.2 is probably going to hit around July, that gives us 8.2.5 in October… and THAT conveniently puts the 8.3 PTR riiiiight around the time BlizzCon will likely be. However, given all signs point to an expansion announcement this year, would Blizz really announce 8.3 and 9.0 at BlizzCon? I don’t know. The patch timing in BFA is a bit off from what it was in Legion.

But even if we don’t see a PTR until November, we might see an announcement earlier at, say, Gamescom in August. So, TL;DR — probably won’t know until summer or later.

To your second Q: I’m not so sure N’Zoth is as much about maddening whispers as he is deals. In that sense, Sylvanas seems like the most likely candidate to outright make a deal knowing who she’s dealing with. But if you’re talking falling for a cunning trick? I don’t necessarily think it’d happen, but Anduin seems to be continually in over his head, and I wouldn’t be surprised if N’Zoth tried to take advantage of that.

Okay, yeah, this is definitely a trap. That said, Jaina’s old voice lines about reading, studying, generally being a nerdy student… those are a totally different version of Jaina than the one we have now. That’s not to say she doesn’t stay on top of her studies, but “I have no time for games” wins because it’s a lot closer to the same character we have now.

Jaina’s Warcraft 3 characterization was a quiet, studious love interest to Arthas. Her BFA characterization is a badass who could write book after book of how to kick ass and why all the old texts are wrong and she’s better.

As someone who liked the Timeless Isle but never exactly LOVED it to the extent I think most people do, I think the appeal was that it was a lot of random events/enemies in a relatively concentrated area. You could rare hunt if you wanted, you could click random objects if you wanted to do some weird platformer-type jump puzzles, and you could fight a couple different bosses for quick gear.

In terms of being better than World Quests, I think the Timeless Isle had the advantage of never feeling mandatory at any specific time. Having the “World Quest” label automatically makes it feel like it’s an objective to complete before a certain time runs out. The Timeless Isle’s endless supply of objectives were never labeled as such. You could do X if you wanted. You could do Y if you wanted. You could do neither and just run around! I do also think the size of the island was helpful. It wasn’t small, but it also wasn’t as big as, say, Argus.

Oh, and there absolutely was PVP activity for those interested. In fact, it could be done against your own faction!

Honestly, my favorite mount to use with Shadowform is Tyrael’s Charger. I realize that’s an exclusive mount, but it just looks so damn good. Any mount with that sort of translucent coloration really looks good in Shadowform, to be honest. The Hearthsteed looks pretty good with it, too, thanks to how the blues shine through the Shadow-y coloration.

Oh, and I don’t think it necessarily depends on your Old God affiliation unless you REALLY want to tie things together thematically. If that’s the case, the Ultramarine Qiraji Battle Tank works for C’Thun. The Hivemind kiiiiind of works for Yogg-Saron, but it’s not perfect (the original iteration was, however). Not really sure about N’Zoth or Y’shaarj (and I’m too lazy to sort through all the mounts right now for an answer).

I prefer the Scourge because do you know me? But the Botani are pretty cool in their own right. Also they exist in a different universe, so I guess they sort of win in that universe. Unless the Scourge exist over there, too..

There wasn’t a question here, but I always like seeing people happy to be picked for questions :) I hope you enjoy the two-days-in-a-row shout-out and continue to be awesome!

That’s all for today. Have a good one, folks!