The Queue: Bear-boozled!

April Fool’s have come and gone and the thing that has stuck with me the most is of course the Diablo accounts proposed classes for the upcoming Diablo 12. How dare they dangle the thing I want most in all video games in front of me like that! All I want to do is be a giant bear making a mess of things in anything I play!

Fighting game? Bear! Racing game? Bear! Quaint housing sim? You better bear-lieve me that it’s a bear!

I hope this is one of those situations like we always saw with the ThinkGeek products where a week later they’re announced as actually being produced.

While I sell someones soul to Diablo to make this happen, it’s time for — The Queue!

Kinda.

Having underdogs to root for is one of sporting greatest traditions, and now that Echo has such a Warcraft esports supremacy on its hands it’s creating a lot of underdogs. Having an underdog take the top spot is as much about their rise as it is about Echo’s fall.

I do think that we’re seeing an issue here where the pool of talent at the top has stagnated a bit since Echo has gotten so much further ahead than everyone else. With most of the best talent concentrated into the top two guilds playing in different regions, there’s not quite the same amount of shuffling and chances for newer players to get brought up. Especially since Warcraft isn’t as twitch reaction heavy as a shooter, players can stay at the top of their game in Warcraft for longer meaning much less turnover.

They’ve also proven that they’re really good at getting sponsorship dollars and donations which gives them a much more generous cushion for doing big events like the Race to World First. They can afford for their players to take time off to dedicate to the race in a way that other smaller organizations can’t. There were a few big names to drop from the past couple of RWF events after the first week because they had to go back to real life.

Hopefully, we continue to see other guilds put the work in to be big competitors. Method didn’t look unbeatable this MDI, there is definitely a universe where they got beaten in the finals.

Yep! Buried in the patch notes for the 10.07 update is this line.

It does make sense from a story standpoint, but it is annoying that it makes getting the Storm-related achievements harder for players down the line. The Horde and Alliance are still busy attacking each other back on Kul Tiras and Zuldazar, so why couldn’t they keep the two assaults up at once?

I did hold off on my weekly trip to ICC because it’s a great source of easy raid bosses for the Trading Post, but that’s about it. Even if I hadn’t I’ve found that I’m completing the trading post criteria pretty easily each month. There are a lot of days to do things in it after all.

I do wish that there was a way to get more of the currency each month, but I understand why they don’t let you. If there was — all of a sudden players would feel like it was “mandatory” to get everything done for fear of missing out. It’ll be interesting to see how often the items come back around though. I don’t feel like I’m really missing out on anything that I didn’t get from the first couple of months, but who knows how I’ll feel if I don’t buy the fancy two-handed axe from this month.

My raids Demon Hunter is very very happy that this toy exists, he’s been missing being a Vulpera.

I’m pretty tickled too since it lets me be in Bear while still seeing my transmog. It’s been nice getting to show off and see some different animations now and then. Even if I’ll still take my new kill screenshots only in Bear form.

I want the ability to make ghost bear copies of myself and have them do things, like a Mage’s Mirror Images. I would also accept being able to turn into a giant fire scorpion like Majordomo in Firelands. Where’s my scorpion form Blizzard? That was so long ago, surely a Druid somewhere has been working on it and can teach the rest of us by now!

I expect that things like Jaina’s arcane cannons, Khadgar’s tri-element orb, and Thrall’s giant lightning bolt are also pretty popular answers. Now that I mention it I would love to have the Malfurion super entangling roots that pull people down into the earth…

Who doesn’t love free swag?! This is the shirt I got for working a MMA event for my day job. Bacardi definitely doesn’t approve of how stinky it was after my 12- hour shift though…

So just focus more on the free t-shirt aspect of the luck this week, and maybe bring along a nose plug when you visit your vaults.

Today’s Anna Earworm™: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!

Have a great week everyone! Hopefully, you get to be a bear in all of your endeavors — or at least get a good sleep like a bear would! Don’t forget to leave Anna lots of questions to answer for tomorrow for an extra good sleep.