The Queue: Bok

It has been one crazy week after another here, but A Thing™ I’ve been helping work on for a while finally made its way out into the world last night, and it’s been cool watching people react to and devour said thing. (Sadly, I still have to keep details brief for now.)

Anyhow, I’ve also been playing FFXIV a bit again, and, hoo boy, is that game a trip. I appreciate Square’s willingness to let it just be weird sometimes.

But enough about that. Let’s Queue.

I’d like to preface this by saying there aren’t too many games I ever 100%. Rarely have I ever beaten a game and thought, “I immediately want to do this again!” Plus, I usually run into the same issue you do of “Oh, this doesn’t end” or I find myself overwhelmed with just how many things a game wants you to do in order to 100% it.

Not too long ago, however, I finally got the Platinum trophy in Bloodborne, which is basically 100%-ing the game. The way the game works, if you beat it, you automatically get dropped into New Game+. Except that keeps happening up to something like NG+6.

So I didn’t go quite that far, but I did beat the game twice — once normally and then again on NG+ — in order to get Platinum. And honestly, if there were more content to devour, I’d absolutely still be playing it. Heck, sometimes I get the urge to go back and start a NG+2 playthrough just to see how far I can get. I really, really love Bloodborne.

(Semi-related, before I got Bloodborne’s Platinum trophy, I got the Platinum trophy for Bugsnax… but that took less than a quarter of the time to do. I also love Bugsnax.)

Okay, it’s not exactly what I’d call the “greatest,” but as a kid, I freaking LOVED the second ending to Inuyasha (Fukai Mori). It left enough of an impression that it’s one of the first answers I thought of when you said this.

But the real answer, of course, has to be the ending to Snakes on a Plane. I actually saw it in theatres the first time — but I’ve still seen it on TV, so it counts! — but when Cobra Starship’s Snakes on a Plane video started playing during the credits, I was DEAD. Imagine not only seeing a ridiculous movie on the big screen, but then having it surprise you with a freaking theme song. It was amazing.

Now, I realize those are both very subjective picks, but it’s about the memories for me.

I think that totally depends on how involved you want to be. If you’re focused on story (which is what I’m focused on right now), then yeah, you can play multiple MMOs pretty easily, because it more or less turns into the type of experience offered by a single-player game.

If you’re focused on hardcore raiding? Sure, it’s doable (I know people who do both), but it’s not doable for me personally. I don’t even want to try, because I know I would feel stretched too thin.

Ultimately, it comes down to how much you’re okay with missing. MMOs are largely designed to keep you playing, day in and day out. So if you’re trying to do that with more than one, you’re inevitably going to miss out on something. It’s up to you to figure out where you want to draw that line. I don’t love missing WoW content, but I’m having more fun experiencing other games right now, and the happiness/relief I feel from playing games with clear end goals outweighs the frustration I feel missing out on some WoW stuff.

Well, I sort of talked about it just now, but I’m mostly interested in the story at this point, so it needs to deliver a compelling story… and ideally, it’s one I don’t need alts to fully see.

What’s getting me down about WoW lately is the Anima grind, the endless types of currencies, and the fact that (basically) need a minimum of four characters to see the full story when I am very much a one-character player. Most of those won’t be solved in 9.1, so… give me story content that will last me a decent amount of time and not require unnecessary grinding to unlock.

It won’t change my opinion of Shadowlands as a whole — because my issues there are, as mentioned, not going to be solved in 9.1 — but it’ll warm me up to WoW a bit at least.

To be clear: I don’t envy anyone at Blizz for trying to make a game (especially one like WoW) during a pandemic. If my worse-case scenario happens, it’s likely because the entire world is being upheaved right now, and not just a Blizzard thing.

With that in mind, I think my worst case is Shadowlands only getting two major patches but us still having the same amount of time in between expansions. And while patch 9.1 is absolutely going to have more than patch 6.1 did, having only two major patches would open up a LOT of Warlords comparisons… and unless you’re comparing to the Warlords leveling experience, that’s not usually a good thing.

I want WoW to succeed, and I want the players to be happy. If we get three patches and an underwhelming story, I think it’ll still make players happier than two patches. I really just want the game to do well and for public perception of it to shift more toward the positive, because I do care about the game and the people that make it, and it never feels good when people are dissatisfied with things.

It completely depends on the activity I’m doing in-game. A lot of times, I’ll try to immerse myself as fully as possible the first time through something. Lights off, headphones on, and game volume the only thing I hear. But once I’ve gotten used to a game or am doing something repeatedly (like dailies), I’ll rotate through background noise.

Those background noises include music, TV shows, ambient sounds, or sometimes just whatever sounds come from outside when I have a window open. At the end of the day, I need white noise for most activities I do. If I’m not actively trying to immerse myself in a game’s world, I just need something in the background.

It depends on the type of Dwarf and said Dwarf’s fire resistance. If WoW has taught me anything, it’s that 10-40 individuals can take down pretty much any threat, no matter the size.

…But Dwarf with enough fire resistance would basically negate the dragons’ best weapon. At that point, it would come down to a battle of attrition. Do the dragons fly into the air, out of range of the Dwarf, and slowly whittle its health down? Does the Dwarf take out foolhardy dragons one by one until the remaining ones give up? Does the Dwarf have any sort of ranged or AOE attack? It’s anyone’s game!

(All that said, I still like the idea of a bunch of tiny dragons toppling a giant Dwarf. Sorry, Kal.)

That’s all for today! Be sure to leave lots of questions for tomorrow’s Queue writer, and have a great rest of your week!