The Queue: What a view

While Elden Ring certainly doesn’t have the photorealism or detail of Horizon Forbidden West, it certainly still has beautiful locations and art.

Anyhow, this is Thursday and it is The Queue. Let’s Thurs it!

Hmmm.. I’d say about a 7? I’m pretty tired but I’ve been *much* more tired in the past 10 or so days.

We recently took in a stray cat that’s been visiting us since July and he’s… well, largely an angel, to be honest! But he has this nasty habit of meowailing from ~2:00 a.m. until sunrise and it’s wearing me down. I’m sure it’ll get better — and we still haven’t exhausted all our options for calming him down — but I know just about every day last week, I would’ve rated myself at a 8 or 9.

In a way, Blizzard has done similar in raids where players have to split into separate groups for a portion of fights. The most immediate example I can think of for this is the Dazar’alor for the uhh.. the big boss made of gold or whatever. Opulence!

Another example that comes to mind — mostly because I spent a lot of time there — is the “hallway team” that you need for Thorim in Ulduar.

To answer your question, I like the idea in theory, but I’m worried the human element to all of it might muddy it a bit. Mythic is a good example of this because it’s capped at 25 — it would effectively mean you need 30 people on your raid team, while simultaneously requiring a subset of that 30 to become the B Team. I also feel like the pressure of being The Five to have to support the other members of the raid might be a bit much over time. What if the entire dungeon group is doing great, but the raid group is still far ahead? That makes the smaller group feel like they’re letting down a large group. (Which, pacing is another issue if you needed to extend it beyond a single fight.)

Again, I do like the idea! But I think it gets complicated when you bring in actual humans to the equation.

I suspect Bolvar, Sylvanas, Anduin, and Jaina will get a bit of a break, and I hope we get more Tyrande in 10.0.

That said, my pie-in-the-sky hope is that we just get a whole new set of characters that can help move the game and story forward. If we really do go to the Dragon Isles, I’d be okay with Wrathion showing up, too.

It’s going very Well-den Ring! This is going to sound snoody, but I’m actually excited for NG+ because I’m out-leveling things so much that, well… it feels a little too easy. I know, hope, and can’t wait until I eat those words, but it’s a weird situation where I don’t think the game was designed for someone like me.

I like to complete everything before moving on, if I can help it. Sometimes I reach a point where I’m okay just revisiting later, but if there’s a zone unexplored or a mini-dungeon not beaten, I like to go explore and beat before I continue with the main story. And while Elden Ring doesn’t exactly have a traditional main story, it does have a bit of an intended route. So I’ve been doing the intended route very little and the exploration and boss-killing very lot.

It’s a good problem to have when a game is so enticing that you just want to explore and get lost in the world — but it’s still a new approach for Soulsborne games, and I think for a player specifically like me, it means it’s way easier to out-level intended content.

My only other complain is the dang fall damage.

The Shadowfiend can take on like three additional forms. Also, who do you think you’re talking to? Of course I’m gonna pick the Shadowfiend ;P

My mind immediately went to Travis Willingham and Turalyon. I feel like once he puts the armor and everything on, he could totally pull that off.

(And it’s not a WoW VA, but Matt Mercer as Cassidy would also totally work.)

That’s our Queue for today! Please leave lots of questions, pet your animals, and get more sleep than I am!