The Queue: My head hurts

Today is Day 12 of having a headache. It gets immeasurably painful when I do any sort of physical activity and turns into a dull, regular headache the rest of the time. It’s been real fun. But hey, the doctors insist I’m not dying, so there is that.

Anyhow, that’s as clever an intro as you’re gonna get from me today. Let’s Queue.

Ooooh, I like weird questions like this one. I agree with your Sindragosa assessment, though I’d be totally fine with C’Thun as a navigator. I think Cho’Gall could get annoying if we assume we’d hear both of his heads talking. And if we go with the random, sometimes-different voice Lor’themar has had since patch 8.2, I’m not sure how much of that I could take. But you know who would be the worst?

Malfurion. I’d probably just walk everywhere and/or find my own way to my destination if he were my GPS system’s voice.

There are a couple options here, but they’re all for Classic. I mean, retail’s not gonna stop any time soon, so it’s really a matter of how Blizz chooses to fill the retail lulls with Classic content. I can see Blizzard either… starting new servers that begin at Phase 1 again, so people can relive some of the special releases, releasing Burning Crusade servers and moving on from there, or simply leaving Classic alone and going back to retail being the only version of WoW they update. Of all of those — and I’m actually sort of surprised to say this — but I think BC servers are the most likely. Then again, interest in Classic may die down very fast and prove BC servers to not be worth the long-term investment.

For the most part, yes. But Blizz has decided to release specific content in waves. Part of this is to recapture the feeling of “new raid/dungeon!” content people felt back in the day, and part of it is to give a more accurate feeling of progression (and balance) through Classic. I mean, think if you were on a PVP server and the guys from Method or APES cleared Naxx in the first week or two. There’s no way you’d ever have a chance of being on their level. But with phased releases, there’s at least a “cap” to player power that helps keep things slightly more even for all types of players.

Also, it means they can extend the hype much longer. Arguably, the business behind phased releases is the biggest reason for their existence. Regardless, we’re getting specific content at later dates, but balance, talents, systems, etc. are all the way they were in patch 1.12.

I understand where you’re coming from, but there’s no way Blizzard isn’t announcing a WoW expansion at BlizzCon this year. We’ve had patch 8.x or patch 8.x.5 release roughly every 3 months, with the PTR for the next patch showing up shortly after. Patch 8.2.5 content has already been on the PTR for a decent amount of time, and end of September/early October is likely when we’ll see it launch. That still gives close to (if not more than) a month for patch 8.3 news before BlizzCon.

Even though there’s no way patch 8.3 actually releases before BlizzCon, we’ll have enough info on it for Blizzard to drop an expansion announcement. And while the scenario you described is certainly possible, Blizzard should be smart enough to know how to talk around spoiling major story bits like who dies in the final raid of BFA. All you need for an expansion announcement is, well, the announcement itself, the location we’ll be going to, the major features being added/changed, and the level range. If the story focuses on Old Gods, why would I need to know what happens to Sylvanas or Jaina or Genn right off the bat?

I mean, maybe they will “spoil” 8.3 in their reveal of 9.0. Maybe they will say what the leaders are up to. But whatever they do, they’re going to announce a WoW expansion at BlizzCon.

I used to be very completionist about content, and I would chase achievements wherever I could, rushing to get everything done and check off every box. Nowadays, I don’t have time for that, and it honestly feels more relaxing not worrying about those sorts of things. It’s weird, because I used to care very deeply about finishing everything and now I just… don’t? But hey, it is what is is, and I’m enjoying the game more for it.

I guess that puts me somewhere in between the second and third options.

I’m almost done with Amazon’s The Boys after having watched a bunch of it a few weeks ago. I also need to finish the final season of iZombie since it was recently added to Netflix, and I am genuinely curious about the Dark Crystal, though it’s lower on my list. Oh, and I really want to check out Chernobyl and The Righteous Gemstones. And and and…

Crap, my watch list is very long.

Sadly, I don’t think this’ll happen. If anything, Blizz will add a skin that is vaguely reminiscent of a Nintendo character (like they did for Morales and Samus in Heroes of the Storm) and make it available for all platforms. We don’t have Xbox-specific skins, nor do we have PS4-specific skins. There’s no reason to believe we’d get Switch-specific skins.

Oh, and skins and collections and all that will almost assuredly not transfer over. They don’t for Xbox or PS4 right now, and I can’t see that changing. If it DID happen, you’d probably have a lot of multi-platform players claiming they wasted money buying Loot Boxes on PC and PS4 when they could have just waited for the cross-platform collection to be put in place. Plus, if people are willing to spend money buying Loot Boxes on multiple platforms, it makes no sense business-wise to change that model.

Sorry, that answer was kind of a downer on all fronts.

You are correct, this happens in plenty of stories. The most prominent example I can think of right now is Snape, Snape, Severus Snape from Harry Potter. He was never painted as a “good guy” — and he still genuinely had a dislike for Harry — but it wasn’t until his dying moments that we saw how everything he’d done (including his killing of Dumbledore and infiltration of Voldemort’s ranks) was done in the interest of good. Yes, there were some context clues that are even more obvious in retrospect, but he’s a character that could very easily have died a villain had JK Rowling wanted him to.

But at the last moment, we saw everything, and the picture became a lot clearer. I still don’t think Sylvanas is about to turn into the savior of Azeroth, but it’s not unprecedented to not know someone’s true motivations or story until the final moments.

That’s all for today! Go play outside or give me bad medical advice or something. Whatever you do, I hope you have fun doing it!