The Queue: Yet Another Barbarian

I’m only playing the first one I made, the rest are just to see how much I can do with the character creator.

Well, I already answered this on the podcast, but the great thing about writing the Queue is I can always do it again.

On the podcast I said Lwaxana Troi and I stand by that — not just because Majel Barret finally got to play a character with something to do but because she had ridiculously hidden depths that only came out after a while — she was smart, powerful and kept getting into trouble. Her competence is often hidden, but she solves the terrorist plot in her first appearance on her way off the ship. And as time progresses and she appears again and again, we learn more about her — how she’s actually very compassionate in her dealings with Alexander, Worf’s son, how she lost her daughter Kestra and how that crippled her, how she believes in the sanctity of life and loves with her whole heart.

And never forget — Lwaxana is among the most powerful Betazed telepaths. She knows full well what Jean Luc Picard is actually thinking. She flirts with him because she enjoys making him squirm.

Runner’s up are many — Captain James T. Kirk himself just for the fact that when presented with a no win scenario his first impulse is to cheat, which is exactly what I’d do, Kang because Michael Ansarra rocks, Elim Garak for his everything, Commander Shran was my favorite part of Enterprise, Number One/Una Chin Riley on Strange New Worlds for her demeanor and competence — but I think I’m sticking with Lwaxana.

Honestly, if I were given the opportunity to make changes to Diablo Immortal, I’d put Eternal Orbs into the game as a currency you could get through gameplay — maybe make them accessible via a token, similar to WoW’s token. Let people buy the DI token with real money then put it in an auction house in the game, which players could buy with gold. Then they could use the DI token to buy things like Eternal Orbs, Platinum, and other store purchases. So you never had to actually spend a dime of your own money to min-max your character, but people who wanted some benefit in game could buy the token and sell it in game. Blizzard makes its money either way and people who hate the monetization could avoid it.

I’m personally playing the game without spending any cash, and I know I’m not going to progress or optimize as fast as other players. That’s fine by me. The game is completely soloable or duoable with my wife, I don’t have any interest in PVP, so for me the monetization is not an issue.

Honestly? No.

Anduin’s story has always been a parallel of Sylvanas, just as her story was a parallel of Arthas’ because Blizzard has an interest in stories about the things people do and whether or not you can do evil acts and still have good within you. I mean, you could just as easily say that Anduin is a parallel of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, or that Arthas was, or that Sylvanas was.

Heck, you could definitely argue that for characters in other Blizzard franchises, like Kerrigan in StarCraft or Leah in Diablo 3. Malthael in Reaper of Souls definitely has that kind of ‘once good, now doing horrible things, is there any of the being her was’ energy as well.

I would really like it if instead of making Anduin go down a dark path, his time away from the throne lets him finally grow into someone he’s always had the potential to be — someone who is his own person, who knows who he is and what he wants. I’d like to see him mirror Luke Skywalker more than Anakin.

I saw a big discussion of eye doctor stuff and since as I write this I’m less than two hours away from my usual round of eye injections and maybe eye lasers and I’m really kind of having a panic attack I just wanted to say that I’m not gonna be able to read any of that. I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s interesting, please forgive me this moment. I just need to get through the next two hours.

Man, maybe I’m way out of touch but I don’t find any of that funny at all.

I mean, Ken’s always kind of been a character who only existed to be a different colored version of Ryu, but he’s been in the series since the first game and while bad things can and do happen to anyone — I have no patience for the idea that people deserve misfortune, because misfortune doesn’t care who you are — I don’t find it funny when someone loses everything.

Someone help Ken out, please.

Chaosbane is surprisingly good, it really manages to nail Warhammer as a setting while also doing a really solid ARPG style of gameplay. I haven’t tried Inquisitor — Martyr yet, but I hear good things.

My favorite non-Blizzard ARPGs? Well, in no particular order:

• Darksiders Genesis
• The Torchlight series, especially Torchlight 2
• The Ascent
• Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance and Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance 2, not to be confused with the later Dark Alliance game that I did not enjoy.
• Titan Quest
• Warhammer Chaosbane
• I’m not sure if you count non-isometric games, but Remnant: From the Ashes is really pretty good.

I haven’t gotten around to playing Wolcen and Path of Exile is just too busy for me.

Okay, that’s the Queue for today. I’ll hopefully see y’all next week, because today I go get my eyes stabbed again.