The Queue: We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty

This is The Queue, where you ask the questions and we supply the answers — as long as you pick up the phone. Why would you even screen your calls? This is important.

I’m not totally familiar with the FF community, so it’s not exactly possible for me to contrast the two. However, as we saw with Overwatch, it’s definitely possible for a game community to both idolize a particular lead developer on the project, and be a toxic dumpster fire simultaneously. They may meme him, but seriously being mean to Papa Jeff is a no-no.

However, Jeff had shown himself to be a charismatic leader with a slight edge to him from before he started working on WoW in his EQ days, so it’s not much of a leap that he would continue that general demeanor in a leadership role at Blizzard. By contrast, Ion worked as a white-collar criminal defense lawyer in DC. As such, his way of speaking is rapid-fire and polished to perfection. He’s also clearly just staggeringly smart in a way which makes him seem unapproachable and intimidating — and for some, therefore, hard to feel chummy with in the same way as Jeff. And, of course, in both cases, pretty much nobody in the community knows what either of them are actually like in real life. Maybe Jeff is painfully shy. Maybe Ion is the type to buy everyone a round as soon as he’s found a fan at the bar.

There does generally seem to be an overall air of negativity lately in the WoW community, I will definitely grant. Some of it seems to center on story decisions and some seems to center around specific gameplay decisions, and of the latter, a lot of the ire does seem somewhat wrapped up in the lawyerly way Ion can relate things at times — lots of “perhaps” and “one day” and “allegedly”. Some of it also seems to center on influencer culture and how that affects a larger gaming community. We all know negativity in the titles and tags and a shocked face on a thumbnail gets clicks.

My own experience is such that, yesterday, after tweeting in a non-butt-kissy-way how soul crushing it must be to write the WoW franchise sometimes (regardless of how you feel about the narrative’s direction, that’s an accurate statement) I spent much of the rest of the day being yelled at because Sylvanas this and Illidan that, and Game of Thrones for some reason. I don’t even write it, man, I don’t know why they’re yelling at me.

It’s a weird place to be, especially since I generally tend to be pretty neutral and don’t feel strongly enough about it either way.

I usually keep my general sounds — combat and footsteps and mail jingle and wisp hum — on, while the music is hit or miss. Usually my first play through I’ll keep the music on to really immerse myself in the ambiance, but later playthroughs I’ll listen to podcasts or audiobooks or Twitch streams instead. Many of those usually have an additional background music element — it’s a good strategy for covering the slight buzz of your computer fan, or your children STOMPING in the floor above you, without losing the fidelity of the original recording when you try to level out your white noise and then try to normalize it back into higher peaks.

I know other people can deal with it, but for me, it puts me totally on edge when I hear two tracks playing at the same time. SO for me, keeping the in game music on can be really distracting, especially when it’s something like the heroic, ethereal Kyrian tracks while I’m trying to watch a true crime video with an ominous background track. That particular combo works out better if I’m in Maldraxxus, but still not the best.

🤷‍♀️

I’m kind of indifferent on Classic in general, because I was there when it happened. Though I could dabble with a new character, the best part of that era was being a young 20-something with no real responsibilities, and the good time I shared with good friends. Even if I could go home again, just the time constraints of the freelance hustle-til-I-die lifestyle is wildly prohibitive to playing Classic beyond simply questing — running Shadow Labs again to get attuned to Karazhan as a fresh 60 would really cut into my turnaround time on Rev or ACX.

I will say the TBC-era Shadow Priest was by far the best time I’ve had playing a class in the game, period, so now that boosts are a thing, I give it a solid maybe.

Also… those old face options. Brrr.

Bless you.

It really depends. Of late, because my playtime is super wonky and even more limited, I’ll jump right in and try to check all the various boxes right at reset. In general, I have the “easiest” time if I leave it til like, Thursday at 11 a.m., so not only is it an off-peak time it’s an off-peak day. And yes, of course, sometimes I wind up doing it as reset happens, while I try to remember to take a Queue header image.

Not that I ever forget to take a Queue header screenshot, I’m just saying.