The Queue: It’s Turkey Lurkey Time

This is the worst holiday, both in real life and in WoW. Mashed potatoes and mac and cheese are fine and dandy but I can make those any day of the year without the additional pressure of a holiday. Even the media celebrating it is the actual worst.

This is The Queue, where you ask us questions and we’ll answer while stealthed AFK in the Exodar to avoid being shot, probably. Bah, humbug.

I’m not really a console type of person. I have small hands and my thumbs are double jointed, so when I use a thumbstick I’m usually leaning right on that knuckle, and can barely reach the trigger keys around the top. Besides, my office chair is actually incredibly comfy, and doubly so when I start playing a game with really good graphics and a lot of particle effects — my computer may be cool but my feet are toasty.

That said, most of the stuff I’d manage on a console version of WoW would be equally well-served with mobile controls, and that would still be exceedingly useful to me in so many ways. I still miss the Mobile Auction House.

If we’re talking quest rewards from the initial storyline through the Covenants, then yeah, those are shared from character to character. If you’re talking the rewards from the actual campaign, then no. If you really want that cool Night Fae cocoon backpack or the Kyrian wings, you’ll have to run through the campaign on that character.

Transmog this expansion is kind of an intricate tangle to untie due to the various systems, I’ve found.

This kind of delves into the problem we see throughout WoW as a whole. Up til recently, the inclusion of women was an afterthought — and so, therefore, the stable of now-deceased characters available to them was also somewhat limited. The roles they were cast in were also relatively narrow in scope. Thrall being able to meet up with Taretha, for instance, might’ve been a nice story beat, but Taretha’s role was basically to be Thrall’s BFF then get shoved in a fridge. Not exactly Maldraxxus material, and he already has a far more satisfying full circle moment with his mom.

Most of the women we’ve worked with either have a lot of atoning to do, their character is such that they wouldn’t end up in Maldraxxus, or else they’re just… still alive. Even now, trying to think of what other notable women I’d include in Maldraxxus… Magatha maybe? No, she’s (probably) still alive. VanVan’s alive. Whitemane? Undead. Tiffin would probably be in Bastion. Maybe Lady Anacondra? Granted, I don’t have the encyclopedic knowledge Matt does, but by contrast I could pull dudes off the top of my head no problem. We had a whole boys’ trip full of them!

That said, the real quibble I’d have here is that there don’t seem to be a ton of set dressing-style NPCs in Maldraxxus that present as femme. In Bastion, there are male and female angel-y and acolyte forms. In Revendreth, there are distinctly male and female models. In Ardenweald even though the faeries are barely dimorphic at all, they identify as male or female, and there are a ton of non-binary NPCs to boot. In Maldraxxus, there are very few skeletons or abominations, or even the cloaked NPCs, that used a woman as a VA. It’s a weird thing to focus on, admittedly, but hey, I never promised to not be weird.

Like some of the other commenters said, basically anything where instead of “magic” there’s some kind of scientific justification. To me, Sci Fi does include works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, where she kind of handwaves a lot of the more science-y aspects of building The Monster as, “idk science,” but there’s a scientific(ish) grounding to it. Contrast that with Star Wars, which I will nerdily contend is a Space Opera, not Sci Fi, because instead of “idk science” they say “it’s uhhh midichlorians?” There are a lot of science-y aspects throughout, but the question of The Force is basically ley lines with the serials lightly filed.

The last long-form work I read under that label was Treason by Orson Scott Card, which was alternately enthralling and imaginative, then clunky and low-key cringe and ableist and racist. I read a lot of classic lit so I’m used to dancing around, eg, Blackwood’s lazy characterization by just saying “you know those Swedes,” or gosh, Lovecraft’s Whole Deal, but this was… hoo boy. I guess the prose is good as long as you don’t look too hard at what it’s actually saying.

I was always more into gothic fiction than science-based fiction, anyway. Someone please turn Rebecca into an ebook (like, a real one, not a pirated PDF).