The Queue: Every crew is a chaos crew

In Critical Role Campaign 2, part of the group decided to call themselves the “chaos crew,” but it’s really the Campaign 3 group that brings true chaos. But can anyone really call themselves a chaos crew? When you put any group of people together, chaos ensues. Just look at the chaos Mitch brings to our lives every day. Just look at the chaos of a raid group of people. (Particularly my raid group. Have you ever seen us? It’s a wonder we get anything done.) And look at John de Lancie in any Star Trek series he’s graced — chaos.

The world is chaos. Unpredictable and frequently maddening.

And of course the Queue is chaos too, so let’s embrace calamity and answer (maybe) some questions (also maybe).

I have the idea that Mitch is actually playing the same Kenku in all of our campaigns. That he is in fact the glue that holds the Blizzard Watch multiverse together, which obviously means Mitch has to make a guest appearance in our current Weirs campaign as a chaotic Kenku. Whatever its name, age, or description, it is the same Kenku. It is always the same Kenku.

I like almost everything about Zereth Mortis. I like the fact that there are only three daily quests a day, and perhaps three World Quests at a time. There are rares and treasures, but they don’t spawn constantly. There are paths to traverse through the zone that aren’t packed with deadly elite mobs — and I can even fly to get where I want to go. When I went to Korthia or Mechagon before that or Argus before that, I was overwhelmed with the number of things there were to do. The number of things I felt like I had to do in order to keep up.

Zereth Mortis isn’t like that. There are a small number of quests. There are a limited number of rares and treasures. There are safe paths where I can explore (mostly) at my leisure without risk of death walking to the next quest. Of course Zereth Mortis still has its risks. There are elites. There are group quests. there’s a World Boss. I’ve died quite a few times there.

But I can also stop and take a breath. I can just not log on one day without significant consequences. And when I do log on, I can finish everything there is to do in a half hour or less. It means I can play the game while not having to completely devote my free time to the game.

It’s magnificent. Zereth Mortis is magnificent. I never knew that I wanted a zone to do less, to have fewer things. But it’s less overwhelming and that’s great.

There are other things I like, too. I find the atmosphere of the place refreshing. The music and colors are soothing. I love the little robotic beeps and boops. I love the automa, their design and animation. I love all of the orbs there are to ponder. I just like the zone. And that means even when I’m done with my dailies, when I have nothing more to do, I’ll wander around. I’ll look for rares. I’ll just sit here and listen to the music and ponder the orbs. Zereth Mortis is just a pleasant place.

Things I don’t like… well, the crafting system requires a lot of grinding — I haven’t managed to craft anything yet, but I have pieces of a lot of things. Cyphers of the First one seems like a slow grind, but it’s also not an essential one, so perhaps it’s fine. And for all my affection for Pocopoc, he is constantly beeping to alert me of things that aren’t there. Zereth Mortis isn’t perfect. But I like it quite a lot.

Since it’s made of rocks, I think that means it officially qualifies as an earth elemental. It’s just an earth elemental held together by fel magic rather than the elemental magic a Shaman might use. So maybe that just makes Warlocks fel Shaman? Hm. This is a rabbit hole of possibilities.

I think a mix is good. Players who like to solo should have things to do, and players who want to group should have things to do. But balancing content that works perfectly for group players and solo players is a difficult proposition. I think dungeons and raids are in a good place, because they’ve made systems that let you easily group up and accomplish things. And normal and heroic raiding both scale to your group size, so you can tackle these things without hitting a precise number of players. But scaling everything down to one could be difficult.

Group content is designed to require the abilities of a group — the abilities of multiple players and multiple classes. You can’t always scale down content designed for a team of players working together to work just as well for one person. So I think some group content really has to stay group content — just keep it flexible on the exact size of the group, and make it as easy as possible for players to group up, and I feel like everyone has a decent chance to get into the content.

However, there’s room for more solo experiences, or small group experiences. I actually think Torghast is a good example here: it’s a challenging encounter that scales to your party size, even a party size of one. It’s designed specifically for a small group, and it’s designed not to require the traditional tank/healer/DPS triumvirate, so that opens it up to anyone who wants to play solo. Torghast wasn’t universally loved (I don’t particularly enjoy it), but could be a good model to build future single-player and small group experiences around because it works really well whether you’re one player or five players. It. has the sort of accessibility you won’t see in any dungeon.

But when content is being designed for a small group, I think it has to be designed for a small group. There’s flexibility, sure, but if you scale a raid designed for a group of 20 down to one person, you’re going to have to strip away a lot of the experience. A Torghast model works specifically because it was originally conceived for small groups and doesn’t have anything meant specifically to challenge a raid.

In short: I think the amount of group content is good, and I don’t think all group content needs to be soloable. But I also think there’s room for more solo content so solo players have more interesting things to do than just level and LFR. There’s plenty of room for Blizzard to improve on the single player model.

Dyes are certainly the ultimate ask of any transmog fan. Heck, I just wish I could get all of my favorite armor pieces to have the exact same shades of gold — because there are lots of different shades of gold in the game and they don’t always match. (That may seem like a small thing to you, but I find it absolutely crazy making.) So for sure, dyes that let us color coordinate.

But my first ask would be to remove restrictions. Let me transmog any weapon on any weapon. Let me transmog cloth onto plate. Let me transmog holiday items year round. Let me look as awesome as I can.

Oh Jil. If you want to debate the best iterations of Doctor Who I am here for it. If you want to start a fight about Doctor Who, I will start by saying Colin Baker is the best Doctor and I will fight you.

Okay. I won’t actually fight you because I am a wimp and also because all of them have things to like and dislike. I also like Peter Davison and Patrick Troughton and Sylvester McCoy and David Tennant and Paul McGann. I did start with new Who but as with all things I ventured into every aspect from there. My enthusiasm has faded in time, but I have a collection of old novels (and new novels), and a frankly massive library of audio dramas. Did you know there’s a whole audio series about Leela and Romana going back to Gallifrey together? Did you know I used to do a podcast that was entirely about Doctor Who audio dramas?

Yes, if you want to pick a fight about Doctor Who, I am here with footnotes and a detailed bibliography of references.

I would argue about the reboot being “regrettable” though. It’s different. Like all modern media it’s extremely fast-paced and action oriented. It doesn’t have the gentlemanly charm of John Pertwee or the dangerous machinations of Sylvester McCoy. It uses CGI instead of hysterical bubble wrap monsters. But it has its own features. I haven’t kept up, though, so I can’t fight you on that one.

Anyway, that’s enough of this non-answer.

Picard: John de Lancie is pure fire. I just want to watch his scenes on an endless loop, really. I guess everything else is fine, too, but wow, John de Lancie.

Discovery: Haven’t watched it. On the list.

Strange New Worlds: I try to avoid getting excited about things in advance (that road leads to disappointment), so I won’t say I’m excited but I do plan on turning it on soon as it’s available.

All Star Trek is good Star Trek, even when it’s bad Star Trek. I’m so happy there’s so much new Trek these days, though what I wouldn’t give for just one more season of Brent Spiner as Data. That was the Star Trek that most imprinted itself on my psyche.

That’s all for now. So if you’ll excuse me, I actually have an episode of Picard to catch up on.