The Queue: The Blood Moon rises once again

Happy Thursday, Queue! I hope y’all are ready for the weekend, because I sure as h*ck know I am.

Today. we’re talking about stuff. And things. I hope y’all are ready!

Let’s Queue.

I don’t know if I have a consistent go-to when I’m feeling burned out on WoW, but lately I’ve been thoroughly sucked into the Soulsborne games. I picked up the Demon’s Souls remake a while back and beat it last week, and now I’ve been plowing through Bloodborne (which I had through PS+ but never played until now).

In general, when I need a break from WoW, it’s nice to have games that end. Sure, there are little secrets and knickknacks and NG+ to play through — but by and large, when I beat a Soulsborne game, I’ve beaten it. My desire to play strictly comes from an interest in the game rather than a feeling of obligation. It’s a nice feeling coming from WoW.

Alternatively, I DO dip my toes into Overwatch a lot. It’s one I can play with my girlfriend, and it’s a good one to pick up and put down at my leisure.

I was actually worried I might be getting close to the end, and apparently I still have 7 bosses left (out of 17 total). On top of that, there are still 5 DLC bosses that I plan to go for when I finish. I’m going through the game quickly, so I may be done sooner than I realize, but I feel like there’s plenty of challenge left for me.

Why do I love it so much? Man, I could probably write a whole article on that, but two things jump to mind immediately: The gothic-horror aesthetic, which is 100% my jam, and the level design, which consistently blows me away in how clever it can be.

The game is all about loops. The map itself is pretty dang big, but you regularly will unlock shortcuts that make getting from A to B a whole lot quicker (and less painful). So you might zone in and notice a lever, but the lever says it’s not working yet. You’ll then spend a solid hour or two trying to make it past a certain gauntlet — learning the ins and outs of the enemies, memorizing patterns, etc. — and at the end of the gauntlet, you’ll find yourself kind of back where you started… but maybe one floor up and next to an elevator. If you hop in the elevator, it takes you down where you started and that lever you saw initially is now functioning.

So the next time you try the level, rather than run through the gauntlet, you can just take the elevator you unlocked. They do this sort of thing a lot, and while I’m not doing it full justice here, it really is some of the best level designing I’ve seen in a long time.

I went all in on transportation first, because I love being able to set my hearth to my Sanctum AND get to Oribos quickly. That said, I know others don’t love it as much, so my best advice is to just… not go for the Command Table. I don’t think many people find it worth the investment, especially compared to the others.

Huh, apparently you cannot. I didn’t realize this before, but I guess you’re stuck with your stats unless you start over. In general, I feel like a scrapper for legendaries would go a long way this expansion — refund us some Soul Ash at the very least, so the next time around doesn’t feel like a total loss.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know if this ever occurred to me either. And that got me thinking about WHY it never occurred to me — I think it would be a lot clearer as Thuzadian (with the extra “i”). That would basically force you to pronounce it “Thu-zad-ian” rather than “Thu-za-din,” which makes the reference/source a whole lot clearer, imo. Yay, language!

I do think it’s a little harsh, but mostly because we’re living in a pandemic. I think it’s easy to forget that sometimes, but working from home this long is going to affect video games for quite a while, and not just the ones we’re actively playing now, like WoW.

Do I like the idea of 9.1 not hitting until summer? Not at all! I don’t think it’s good for the game or for the players. But I also think Blizzard is fully aware of that. It’s not a great situation no matter what — and under normal circumstances, I’d be a lot more critical — but I do feel we need to be a bit more lenient about Blizz’s release schedule considering the pandemic.

Also, at least 9.1 is bringing us more than SELFIE filters or something. Take solace in that.

Honestly? I’ve barely played WoW lately. I haven’t saved souls from the Maw in over a month, I’ve done maybe a handful of Callings since the expansion launched, and the Anima grind is just too daunting to really feel interested in. I love the story this expansion, but the endgame content is just a lot of grinding and it’s already burned me out.

I really WANT to love WoW, but I think this maybe isn’t the expansion for me. From the get go, anything that effectively required four characters to see the full story wasn’t going to be my thing, and the grindy nature of the endgame only exacerbates that.

We have! There are Forsaken souls in Bastion sometimes during the introductory quests. But beyond that, I don’t know too much about the inner-workings of Forsaken dying. Maybe in the time between them dying and the Val’kyr raising them, they just kind of hang in limbo? Especially if their pre-Kyrian forms still use their Forsaken appearance and not their Human appearance, it seems likely they don’t really experience the Shadowlands until they die a second time.

Personally, I try not to think about it too much.

That’s all for today! I hope y’all have a good one, and be sure to leave lots of Queuestions for tomorrow’s writer. Cheers!