The Queue: It keeps going back to Khadgar

Let us ponder this orb. The inescapable orb of Khadgar, our favorite wizard and also a huge pest who just won’t leave us alone when he wants something done.

You have questions. Khadgar has questions. Let’s try to find answers together. It’s the Queue!

Khadgar. The guy spent so much time contemplating orbs that he himself inside one to float around and harass people. That is the ultimate evolution of wizard contemplating orb. He has contemplated the orb so much that he has become the orb.

Dammit Khadgar, why are you always doing this?

Seeing the afterlife in person has to bring up some theological questions, but perhaps not as many as you would encounter in real life. In Azeroth we’ve already fought gods and demons. We’ve met Titans and chatted with Old Gods. Heck, some of us are on pretty friendly terms with the Old Gods.

In this context, the afterlife may not be quite as consequential as it seems. Our characters already live in a world of magnificently impossible things. Spirit healers and resurrection spells. Titans and world souls. Divine interventions. Space ships. Time travel. Alternate universes… every one of these things is concrete and real on Azeroth. So the afterlife isn’t all that much of a stretch.

Also, even having visited the Shadowlands, I don’t think we know everything. There must be more worlds, more afterlives beyond the few we’ve seen. More fates than we can possibly imagine.

And between our influence and the Jailer’s destruction, the Shadowlands are changing. The Kyrian have accepted the Foresworn, and are forging a new path for themselves. Every Covenant is rebuilding right now, and they may not come back together in quite the way they used to be. Perhaps after banding together to fight the Jailer we’ll see a new era of cooperation and friendship between the Shadowlands factions. Certainly I think the new Arbiter brings a certain type of compassion to the role that was seemingly not there before. By the time we leave, the afterlife will be a completely different place.

So what happens when we die? What kind of afterlife will we find for ourselves? I think we still don’t know. And that mystery means the philosophers and theologians still have a lot to contemplate. In that way, surprisingly little has actually changed.

I’m pretty low enthusiasm on this expansion. It’s nothing in particular it’s done wrong, and I have no pointed criticisms to make, just lately I haven’t felt like doing the effort of researching good decks I have the cards for and then researching substitutions for the cards I don’t have in attempt to put together a successful deck. It all sounds like work, and right now the decks I have are all old, dusty, and probably need to be rebuilt or thrown away, which means I can’t just pick it up and play. I’m much more likely to play Battlegrounds or Tavern Brawls, which I can (mostly) just jump into and play. And I keep meaning to finish the Book of Mercenaries adventures.

But I haven’t been feeling constructed modes lately, and since that’s mostly what these expansions are about, I’m a pretty solid “meh” on it. Sure, we got some neat things in the patch: a new Battleground hero, quests you can complete in Mercenaries mode, this odd new honor system rewards track… but it’s not really enough for me to get hype about.

And Mercenaries itself has left me feeling rather disillusioned. It’s just so frustrating to play. It’s so hard to earn currency. And the more mercenaries they add — which should be exciting and fun! — the more difficult it is to get coins to advance the mercenary you want. The entire system seems designed to annoy you into making very expensive purchases of very mediocre value, buying random coins or must-have heroes. The more you play the less likely you are to get anything of value even from spending money as packs are full of a random assortment of coins and, if you’re lucky, the single mercenary that was promised in pack. The game mode isn’t bad, but the whole package has just given me a bad taste for all things Hearthstone lately.

I think the correct answer to this would be to get Flan to write the Queue and then make him cook everything. However I have been informed that that is not in the spirit of the question, so I will try to answer.

• Thanksgiving Dinner: Anna. She is competent and organized, and I think she’d do a fine job of orchestrating such a serious culinary task. (Also she’s definitely smart enough to delegate, which is a big help for big projects, no matter the medium.)
• Outdoor Family Cookout: Matt. I have this vision of the whole BW team in a sunny back yard, sitting under a patio umbrella with cool drinks, and Matt and Joe at the grill, debating the doneness of the steaks like they debate game lore. I have no idea if either of them has any interest in cooking, but this is the image that popped into my head and now it’s stuck there.
• A Nice Apple Pie: Me! I think I lean towards this because it is a self-contained dish, a singular project — and it always impresses. Even a mediocre dessert is pretty good. Pies can be simple or complicated. They can lean on store bought ingredients or be entirely homemade. They can contain practically anything, and you won’t know until you take a bite! What a lovely (delicious) mystery.
• One Box of Macaroni & Cheese: Mitch. I’m giving this one to our resident vegetarian.
• An Omelette: Cory. His articles are always precise, honing in on the most important facts to highlight. Surely he would make an omelette with the perfect balance of the right ingredients, neatly plated. (Note: Cory says “Hope you like your omelettes scrambled.”)

So there you go.

I find them difficult to watch live — my attention span inevitably starts drifting around half-way through, or during long combats. But I don’t necessarily feel it’s impossible to keep up with, and it’s going to be easier this campaign because they’re taking one week a month off, so there’s a little less to keep up with.

It’s still a lot, but I don’t think it’s too much, and it’s much easier to consume when you break it into chunks

That’s all for now, friends. I hope you all have a pleasant day and a pleasant weekend to follow. Don’t forget to hug your pets and tell your loved ones that you love them, because life is too short to put some things off. Take care of yourselves, and I’ll see you back here next week.