The Queue: It’s right behind me, isn’t it?

Where’s a gnome to have a peaceful snack these days, huh? It doesn’t matter where you go in Ny’alotha: there are always eyes watching at you. And when there aren’t eyes, there are tentacles.

How’s an innocent player to get their food buff when someone (something?) is always staring at you? Is my hair messed up? Is there blood on my face? Why are you staring??

After the nerf last week (and spending some Corrupted Mementos on Titanic Research) I can successfully complete Horrific Visions as a solo Mistweaver. I haven’t tried to push beyond the main objective: today I went in, killed Thrall, and went out. I burned about half a bar of sanity in the process, so I’m sure I could have done more, but I didn’t want to overcommit and die without getting something accomplished.

So I am all over getting the most basic component of a Horrific Vision done. My power is basically infinite.

I am old and tired and I do not put up with games full of advertisements. If it’s interesting enough to play, I will pay to remove ads so I can just enjoy playing.

But I don’t think WoW is the kind of game that would work with that kind of revenue model. Part of the joy of an RPG is getting lost in a fictional world, and having ads plastered around Azeroth would break you out of the fantasy. It’s not something you could insert subtly, which would make it a different (and rather less appealing) game. And free to play games of that sort tend to attract a different kind of player… which means we’d wind up playing a very different kind of game, all because of changing the payment model.

It’s not a game I think I’d want to play, honestly.

I’m a 5 out of 10 for excitement. Shadowlands has some cool sounding features. I like the Soulbind concept, the Class Hall-like environment of the Covenants, and the roguelike elements of Torghast.

But the proof is in the gameplay. Features can sound awesome and their execution doesn’t work out. And sometimes the opposite is true: features can sound lame but be really fun in practice. So I’m not excited but I’m not unexcited — I just need to see more (and get some gameplay in) to make a judgement.

I feel like Blizzard tends to do one amazing expansion and then one less amazing expansion and then one amazing expansion… repeat.

They’re always iterating, though. They took some of the cool stuff from Legion and tried to make it better with more cinematic storytelling (success!) and the Heart of Azeroth (less of a success). I wasn’t a fan of BFA’s story, but I think the way it was told was fantastic, with tons of cinematics that included your character as the star of the show. And I liked the idea of the Heart of Azeroth and Azerite armor for character customization, even though it’s become a frustrating hunt for the right traits and a grind for the right Essences.

Next expansion, they’re iterating again — looking at what went right and what went wrong in BFA and moving forward from there. I doubt doubt that the devs learn from every experience, but not every solution they come up with is fun in the long term.

I have not delved into this particular farm-stravaganza, but this is what Wowhead recommends for max level characters:

• Eye of Azshara normal
• First part of Karazhan Heroic
• Blood Gate in Zuldazar
• Warden Tower Assault quests
• Lost Temple on the Broken Shore during Simply Stunning

Genasi. They’re elemental/humanoid half-breeds that have a unique set of powers depending on their elemental background. (My sorcerer in the Blizzard Watch D&D game is a Water Genasi and I really like the character concept.) Not sure how that would play out in WoW, but they would certainly have some cool cosmetic looks.

None of this matters as long as this fictional child has loving parents, which I think is the case.

That’s all for now, my friends. Do your very best to get through the rest of this Friday and onward to the weekend.