The Queue: Sike? Psych? Psyche?

In yesterday’s comments, ValenceMagi mentioned “psyche” in terms of faking people out. I’ve never been quite sure what the best way to spell that word is, often opting for “sike.” But it got me curious about how YOU spell that word. So, there’s my question for y’all today. You think on that for a bit. In the meantime…

Let’s Queue.

Yes, absolutely!

Although I guess that depends on your definition of “we” and “expecting” and “right?”…

I can see Sylvans trying to play N’Zoth (not necessarily betray him, but siding with him out of convenience) — but I can’t see her doing it for the good of Azeroth or the factions. Sylvanas is in this for herself. Sure, she’s looking for ways to keep the Forsaken going, but at this point, I think she’s doing it for herself (even if she doesn’t necessarily realize that). There’s a bigger game going on here, and Sylvanas may be a pawn in that — but I don’t know how soon it’ll be before we’re far away enough to see the the forest for the World Trees.

I really like Worgen Death Knights. I’m not sure I have a great reason for it, but I’ve always found them pretty cool, especially compared to other Alliance DKs. Maybe it’s because they’re a lot less “pretty” than most Alliance races, and that seems to mesh well with DKs’ whole “we’re evil-ish” thing. I also think Worgen Druids are pretty dang fitting, for hopefully obvious reasons, but if I’m playing a Druid on the Alliance now, I’m going Kul Tiran.

I do like the idea of more dynamic weather and that weather having some sort of effect, but I think Blizz would go about it a different way. My guess would be that specific areas would have “weather” constantly happening. For instance, the little domes in Netherstorm — imagine each one of those had different weather, with effects like you described. It would help things feel dynamic, but it wouldn’t mess with balance in an unpredictable way.

Mind you, I’m not saying that’s my preferred implementation — I’m fine with randomness in open-world content. But it certainly feels more “modern WoW” to me.

Man, the nomenclature for this has been a bit of a nightmare, and it’s legitimately something we had to discuss and come to a solution to for this website. IMO, the best way to differentiate is to call the game released on Monday by its official name, “WoW Classic.” Anything from the original game (i.e., the one before Burning Crusade was even a thing) is either “original WoW” or “vanilla WoW”… “classic WoW” would work in a pinch, but is frankly too confusing. BFA and the ongoing game are either “modern WoW,” “retail WoW,” or “live WoW.”

Regardless, there are effectively three versions of the game that people can be referring to now, and it’s a bit of a headache.

Funny enough, while trying to find the answer here, I found an old KYL from That Other Site. Turns out, Varian’s first in-game appearance came during the pre-launch events for Wrath. However, he had a lot of story that happened in print which canonically took place before his in-game appearance.

Fun fact: He was hidden in a prison under Alcaz Island up until patch 1.9, during which he was replaced. There was a quest chain called The Missing Diplomat in which you have to find a missing diplomat who is eventually revealed to be Varian — but it never really had an ending. It just sort of…stopped. And then Blizz didn’t finish it up.

Surprising no one who knows me even a little, I feel Drustvar is the best. I’m not necessarily sure I’d say it’s because the zone tells a great story from start to finish — Nazmir probably does that best — although, don’t get me wrong, it totally DOES tell a very good story. More so, it’s because the zone feels like it was built around a theme and every aspect of that zone supports that theme. From the music to the enemy design to the look of the zone in general, it’s hard to find a zone as solidly confident in itself as Drustvar. It’s a fantastic zone all around, and it’s honestly become one of my favorite zones in the entire game. I’m very happy for its existence.

Why are they fighting? Tortollans aren’t really fighters, but they are good with scrolls and magic. However, Tuskarr are hunters who know how to survive any climate and also I love them. So they win.

I’ve always pictured Bards as wearing Leather, but the game needs another Mail user, regardless of what its primary stat is. (I swear, if Tinkerers aren’t Mail users, so help me Yogg…)

Anyhow, that’s all for today! I hope you guys are enjoying Classic and life in general, and be sure to take advantage of the long weekend to do… whatever the heck you want!