The Queue: Old Man Shakes Fist At Cloud

Watching Mitch play through the Undead starting zone in Classic on the Blizzard Watch stream yesterday brought back a whole lot of memories. Do you whippersnappers not remember how we walked, on foot, uphill to our questgivers, who weren’t even marked on the minimap? You’re all spoiled rotten, much like the Undead starting zone.

The purist in me says heck no. The realist in me, who sees a huge vault full of money Bobby Kotick could otherwise be swimming in if such things were available for purchase, is a little less confident. As it stands, almost certainly not. Blizzard has never sold things like power or XP boosts so it’s fairly unlikely that will change, at least.

I’m not betting against the WoW Token hitting Classic eventually, though. To be fair, it would essentially be the same thing as buying gold from Susan Express but without the risk of losing your account.

This isn’t exactly a small thing and it’s definitely an Old Man Shaking Fist At Cloud scenario, but the monochrome palette of Boralus tilts me off the planet. I get that Blizzard is trying to get further from the more distinguishing cartoony palettes but they helped identify things so much better. The Trade District is blue. The Apothecarium is green. Boralus is a big ol mess of brown and I still get lost looking for the dang portals sometimes. Just make the room red or something so I can get my bearings.

Don’t get me started on the times I have to go over and talk to Katherine Proudmoore about something. It’s one of the few times I truly miss flying — but even then I wouldn’t be able to find anything because it’s all brown.

I’m gonna start a riot — I don’t think there’s really room for another class in WoW.

That’s not totally true. I think there’s room for maybe one more, and it’s a hybrid support Bard class. Even then most of the mechanics would be covered by the Power Words of Priests and the base gameplay would be somewhat similar to Fistweaving. Beyond that, every other classic D&D class and then some is covered by a combination of specs, races, and trade skills.

What would a Tinker class bring that Engineering doesn’t, for instance? An Explorer class like Elise Starseeker from Hearthstone would likely be a mix of existing Hunter stuff and the Archaeology profession. In terms of flavor Diablo‘s Witch Hunters are Shaman with more spiders, and mechanically would play similar to Shadow Priests or DoT-based Warlocks. What would having a Dragoon bring to the table that a Survival Hunter with double jump wouldn’t be essentially the same thing?

Of course, I still think adding Demon Hunters was wholly unnecessary — they’re essentially moody Rogues with double jump. I understand why people would want more classes, and I don’t doubt people love them and want to play them if — honestly when — they’re announced. We’re just at a point where, in order to make a new class unique we’re going to start stripping the flavor and mechanics from classes which already exist — Metamorphosis Warlocks say hi. Though there’s a way to trim the bloat from nearly any other aspect of the game, screwing with the number of pre-existing classes would be a mutiny. How would you even do a class squish?

The only class combo I can think of which would be fully unique is some kind of ranged or caster-based tank and again, Metamorphosis Warlocks say hi.

The official release date of Warcraft 3: Reforged is still “on or before December 31st, 2019.” They said there would be a beta coming in “early 2019” but “early” means essentially nothing, legally. I’m pretty doubtful we’ll see Reforged before you start seeing Santa displays in stores, but then I’m pretty sure they put those out in July now so that’s not saying much either.

There is no preparing for an upcoming Season. There is only Zuul.

Seriously, things like the campaign maps aren’t gated or anything, so you don’t even need to slog through the story on a normal character before Season 17 starts if you want to do bounties or whatever. Just decide on a class, then tick the Seasonal box when you create your new character, then get to hack-n-slashing!

We do have a few posts on starting a new season if you’re interested.

Macaroni and cheese. The sharpest cheddar you can find, garlic, mustard, a little cayenne, and just a dash of nutmeg (yes, really — try it in alfredo sauce too). I prefer it with bread crumbs on top if it’s baked.

Most of my favorite foods revolve around carbs and dairy, though. If I’m not craving mac & cheese, it’s usually chili cheese fries, eggplant parmesan, sesame noodles, or just straight up whipped cream. I’m trying to eat healthier since this past winter has been a big ol ball of suck for me and I tend to comfort eat, so this post is incredibly not helping. I’m really good about getting my Yoga with Adriene on every day, but I still eat like I’m the bus from Speed and the only thing that’s keeping me from exploding is way-too-big bowls of noodles.

Y’all are bad influences, and I feel sorry for tomorrow’s Queue writer.