The Queue: Bearing gifts and trust

It’s fitting that yesterday’s Queue was called “Kitty” because I’ve been cat-sitting this week and I’m writing this early in the morning as a result of a kitty waking me up every hour since 4 a.m. He’s a very good cat so I don’t hold it against him, but oof. I’m tired. And I have so much to do today.

Let’s delay responsibility for a bit with a Queue, shall we?

Knowing me, I’d probably throw in a Futurama reference — anything from naming a dog Seymour (sorry) to almost-quoting some of my favorite lines (e.g., “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the Angry Sphere” [since the original line is Angry Dome]).

I like a variety in these sorts of references, but I do think I lean more toward the “homage” angle than the quote one.

I don’t think it’s ever going to be that extreme, but I do think Blizz has something big planned for patch 10.0. The unfortunate part is that the lawsuit has thrown everything off. That coupled with the ongoing pandemic makes me think that any delays we see won’t be because Blizz wants to take more time polishing — it’ll be because they’re working through the fallout of everything that’s happening.

That’s not to say Blizz will (or wants to) release a delayed or unpolished expansion. I just feel like everything is going to be delayed, and what we’re going to see won’t be Blizz leaning into that; it’ll be Blizz figuring out how to work around it. Making the game F2P in 9.3 is in that same vein, but frankly doesn’t feel likely.

Maybe we’ll see more 9.x.5 patches. Maybe we’ll even see 9.x.2a — but the kind of updates needed for what you’re describing would have to have been in the works for a loooong time now, and likely by a different team working in parallel with the existing WoW team. At the end of the day, Blizzard is a company focused on making profits, and effectively shutting down WoW for that many years would only hurt the workers and the company.

But yes, I’m hopeful that WoW will do something big for 10.0, and at the end of the day, I’m fine with whatever delay or schedule adjustments it takes to fix the larger issues at Blizzard right now.

You are always welcome in the embrace of the Void. It’s safe. You can trust it. Let it wash over you.

Granted, this is assuming he’d have the means to make this happen, but the easy answer is that he’d go for all four Covenant leaders.

But if not that, Nathanos would be a good way to add insult to injury for Sylvanas, and I wouldn’t put that sort of thing past the Jailer. I would like to say Elune as a way of upsetting the Winter Queen and also basically everyone, buuuuut even that’s a bit outside what I think he can do. But maybe he’d try to take over the Winter Queen herself so we have at least one Covenant leader in our troupe. For the third, uhhh… Prince Renathal. Both because it’s a pretty big blow to Revendreth and because he’ll need a replacement after Denathrius let him down.

Oh, and your favorite Steward to round things out, because he’s just that evil.

I have no clue, but I have my TV’s brightness settings permanently higher for this sort of thing, and whenever a game tells me to make a symbol “barely visible,” you bet I make that thing mostly visible.

Game of Thrones fans will remember the notoriously dark (lighting-wise) episode in the last season. I remember that I saw the darker shots early on in the episode and immediately bumped the brightness all the way up. The episode was perfectly fine from there! But then the next morning, I woke up to review after review saying how poorly lit it all was, and I felt better about my decision to not watch it “as intended” because watching as intended diminished the experience for me.

I think that’s just the nature of games that unexpectedly take off the way Among Us did. There are still plenty of people playing it and looking forward to updates, and even if it’s not as big as it once was, it’s still big enough that it makes sense for other companies to want to mimic that.

As to why they’d do that so long after a game came out? Well, for one, development time. But also, let’s say you’re someone who heard about Among Us and saw all of the craze but never actually played yourself. It sounded fun, but it was another game and you already have a backlog of titles and several “ongoing” games taking up your time, so you never play it.

Now, one of those ongoing games (like WoW or FFXIV) adds an Among Us-like minigame. Suddenly, you can experience something close to the initial Among Us hype, but from the comfort of a game you’re already playing. Sure, it’s a bit late — but it’s still close enough that it generates hype and interest* and it’s gotten lapsed players to log in again.

*Or in Fortnite’s case, bad press.

I will almost never say no to more customization options, but I would want to make sure this isn’t just the sort of thing Horde races got. They’re already stereotypically more monstrous, and I feel like the Alliance could use a bit of gruffness to even things out. I’m not entirely sure how it would work, but all the same — yes to more customization, across the board.

That’s our Queue for today! I’m off to cry sleepy tears into my coffee while I try to make sure I get everything done today. Please leave lots of questions for tomorrow’s writer!