The Queue: Meaningless it’s

I just got to remembering Static-X today, and so I’m listening to their music. Like, for example, the song that Wayne Static made for the Batman Beyond movie. You know, the one where Wayne shows up with his hair styled to look like Batman?

This is the Queue. Hope we don’t crash.

I think World of Warcraft Dragonflight is one of the best WoW expansions ever made, jockeying for #2 with Mists of Pandaria, and honestly now is probably the best time ever to be playing it.

I also think I have a lot of social anxiety about people that manifests in a marked distaste for crowds or hanging out with complete strangers and that also manifests in online spaces, and as a result, right now Diablo 4 is the game I’m letting devour all the time I used to let WoW eat. I can do everything in D4 by myself or with my wife, and that’s pretty amazing for me.

In a lot of ways, for me D4 is the anti-MMO. There are a lot of people around, yes, but I never once feel like I have to group up with them, and the only time I ever really accept a group invitation is when I show up at a world boss and someone extends one. I don’t seek them out but I’ll usually take them just because I’m there anyway. Maybe it’s because there’s no real threat or taunt mechanics and all healing is self generated, so I never feel like I’m forced into a role I don’t particularly feel like playing.

I know I’ll come back to WoW but for right now I’m very much enjoying my Barbarians (yes, I currently have four) and I’m looking forward to the Season.

I hope you did and I hope it was good.

That’s the worst, I’m sorry you didn’t get to enjoy it.

I don’t go around hugging people online, because IRL I am very uncomfortable when people I don’t know touch me. But I have either said or thought this exact sentence or something very close to it daily for most of my adult life, and so, I feel very strong sympathy at this moment. So consider yourself given an awkward “there there” pat from a bearded dude who very much understands your sentiment but doesn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.

Life can just be so draining sometimes. Like not being in an epic battle, but instead, you’re bleeding out from a billion paper cuts. I hope it eases for all of us who feel this way.

This is one of those things that reminds me of just how flipping BIG the game is. One of my friends who used to work on WoW until last year or so (maybe longer, the pandemic really screwed with my sense of time) made mention recently of how even the people who work on the game really only know about 70% of what’s going on in WoW at any given moment because there’s just so much being worked on by so many teams and you just can’t keep track of it all.

I’m not saying that’s what happened here, I’m just saying it doesn’t surprise me that it happened.

Man, don’t even do that to yourself.

Just like whatever you like. Life’s short, and you never know how short it’s gonna be, you know? Every so often I think of people like Wayne Static, dead at 48 with potential years left to him spent, or even Anton Yelchin, who died at 27 with literally almost all of his best work ahead of him. Or my mom.

Are you old? Sure, maybe, I don’t know your age. I know I’m old, but so what? I still listen to  music, play games, think of stories in my head and sometimes the crushing weight of ennui eases up enough I get to write them down. Just live your life, listen to some trumpets if that’s what you’re into.

I encourage you to level your Warrior.

In my opinion it’s so wonky in WoW because the game wasn’t designed for it and so applying it to older content — especially after two item level squishes and an actual level squish — has made the system feel very haphazard. Sometimes it’s great, like when you can take your level 31 character to all these zones you otherwise wouldn’t be able to access. Sometimes it’s terrible, like when you get to those zones and you get your face eaten off and can’t ever outlevel anything to help make up for gear or other issues.

There are a lot of games I’ve enjoyed mob scaling, but I always remember being on my Tauren back in vanilla WoW and getting my face torn off by the Son of Arugal, and then logging on to my then max level Naxx geared Warrior and just spending the next hour killing the Son every single time he dared to respawn and watching the various Horde players be really confused as to why I was there.

Okay, that’s the Queue for today. Take care guys. Be kind to yourselves.