The Queue: Well, this is awkward

It’s like I walked into the Queue in my favorite dress to find that Cory was wearing the same one. But I had really awful Doctor stuff this week and I’m not changing my outfit.

See, I have this theory about Bethesda games, and it’s a simple theory — the main story of a Bethesda game is almost nonexistent, and that’s the best thing about them. People reacted negatively to Fallout 4 for a lot of reasons, and I really believe that one of those reasons was that they got an actual voice actor to read the dialogue lines (and the lines they read weren’t very close to the choices you made as a player, which didn’t help) which undermined the key genius of these games.

See, most big RPG’s in the video game sphere are trying to tell you a story. But Bethesda is trying to get you to tell a story, one about all the weird things you did in the places they give you to explore. Whether it’s riding that weird bus beast in Morrowind and arguing with an evil old Dwemer about his magic soul box which he would like back, or trying to get a Super Mutant who is clearly immune to radiation to push the button in the room full of radiation, these games are all about the discovery of just how weird everything is. Did you blow up Megaton? Drop any pots on people’s heads so you could steal all their stuff? Spend almost no time finding your kid because you had settlements to build?

In a lot of ways, the reason I get so absorbed by these games is all the stuff I can do, not the stuff I’m expected to do.

Yes, they did. I mean, yikes. This is a big leak, and man, part of me has to wonder if the FTC did this accidentally on purpose. I couldn’t find much about actual games, but it’s a pretty interesting redesign of the Xbox Series X/S considering how hard it’s been for some folks to get those consoles.

Why? I mean, she seems so nice. They love trees, she loves trees.

Anduin Lothar’s secret daughter.

But Matt, you say, that’s not actually a thing, it’s just your weird headcanon for Joanna Blueheart from Cataclysm.

Look, I’ve waited to see more Joanna Blueheart for well over a decade now, we were supposed to get her in the Warrior Order Hall in Legion and then they decided that instead of getting a bunch of Warriors in there we should have the One Eyed Ash Ketchum throwing us at everything while screaming I choose you, Battlelord even though he knows we’re weak to Fel types.

You can’t train us out of being burned by Fel fire, Odyn.

So yeah, bring back Joanna Blueheart, make her Anduin Lothar’s secret daughter, and while you’re at it, make Anduin Lothar canonically Varian’s uncle through his mom Varia like in the Warcraft movie so she’s also Anduin Wrynn’s secret cousin and can take over Stormwind because he’s off not doing his job right now.

Part of me misses the days where I would play Champions with my buddies for literal hours and hours, and we’d stop for the day and it would be dark out and we’d have no idea it had been that long.

That part of me also misses long hair and the ability to go an entire day without shocking levels of joint pain, but it also recognizes that those are days that have since gone by and they ain’t coming back. As a player I can run about four hours with a couple of breaks. As a DM, maybe three hours, four if we get a solid intermission. As someone watching a stream, I tend to leave it on in the background while I play a video game and try and absorb it through osmosis.

A Diablo game set entirely in Whimsydale as it’s invaded by a cow army from the secret cow level, kind of like Cult of the Lamb meets Warhammer FRP.

Call of Duty. I don’t even want to play it, I just imagine CoD players would be annoyed by it.

I was gonna say Paleo Pines but I can’t even joke, they better not touch that game, it’s perfect and delightful as is. I love that art style.

Imagine a Spore game where all the weird, vaguely genitalia-inspired creatures had enormous pauldrons. That world could have been ours.

Yeah, so I’m writing this after a weekend of really bad eye stuff TM, so enjoy the picture of Illidan using his eye lasers to blow up a glowing windchime. Mitch is up tomorrow, so make sure to ask him all about how Splatoon is actually the world where the Old Gods win. I mean, they’re all squid people.