The Queue: Sleepless Again and Again

I was going to get The Queue done at the wee hours of the night/morning, but there wasn’t too much to work with. Thankfully, y’all delivered and my cup runneth over with queuestions.

So let’s dive right in, shall we?

There was more to your original post, but this was the crux of it, and the answer is… well, several answers.

• Even when we do branch out into other content, it’s rare that it makes the kind of splash that keeps the lights on. Relatedly, a lot of the content we do genuinely enjoy is, unfortunately, “not worth it.” I put that in quotes because I don’t necessarily agree with it, but at a certain point, there’s a cost and a value to each post.
• Sometimes, we do find content that works! But it’s either not something that can be consistent or it’s hard to find a writer who can consistently cover it (vs. when they’re able to on their own time)
• A lot of the content that does keep the lights on is built around factual, resourceful information (and, honestly, probably articles most of the people in The Queue do not read or see). If you hate it, blame Google. We bow to the SEO gods or we die.
  • This is also why you may not find us covering “basic” news or class guides as much. Other websites will rank higher for that sort of thing, and by the time we cover it, everyone who reads this site already knows the news. What we do cover for SEO tends to be guides like “how to find the turtle who made it to the water” or “every enchant that’s hidden in WoW.”
  • That said, this is NOT why it probably feels like there’s less editorial content on the site. That has more to do with the below.
• We’re small, and we work with what we can, but it’s still never going to be on the level of larger orgs. This also leads to a bit of a cycle where we need folks who can write but also who don’t rely on us to pay the bills but can also be around to write during normal hours but… you get the idea.

I don’t want that to come across as overly negative — everyone who works here is still incredibly passionate about games (and writing!) We’re regularly playing with content ideas and seeing what does and does not work. We’ve even had a (very long) ongoing brainstorm about changing the site name since we DO want to cover more. But that comes with its own hurdles, like losing a lot of the “cred” we’ve earned under this name. (You wouldn’t believe how many years after WoW Insider shut down we’d still find people discovering Blizzard Watch had formed from its ashes.)

Anyhow, I’m not sure if that helped or hurt, but hopefully it came across as genuine. We’re not going anywhere, but in order to make sure we can keep our word on that, we have to change over time. And with our size and resources, sometimes that can be a bit slow.

If anything, I think that’s a sign that we’re not going to get anything too intense or new during BlizzCon week. It would make zero sense at all to release a new patch while all of your biggest influencers are on their way over to California for several days.

Now, November 7? That could definitely happen (though I would prefer some breathing room, personally).

Blizzard heard players hate content droughts and decided to make us eat those words.

For real, though, a lot of games do this nowadays and it’s creating the same type of fatigue that the MCU is (or, seems to be?) facing. There’s too much and — even if there’s genuinely good, solid content in there — too much of it is surface-level.

Credit where it’s due, though: If you don’t want to do any of that stuff, you likely don’t have to. Dragonflight is pretty good about letting you play whatever content you want without needing other types of content to progress. Unless the type of content you like is collecting things. Then I’m quite sorry.

Honestly, it’s mostly because they were busy squabbling back by the airships. I think it’s safe to assume that a combination of Horde/Alliance fighting, “champions” being asked to clear a path, and out-of-game necessities like not wanting to find an excuse to freeze a whole army except for the players were the primary causes here.

Tirisfal is always my answer for this sort of thing. When I think back to my earliest memories of WoW, there are a few zones that really stand out and come to mind — but Tirisfal is the most powerful memory. It was the first zone I ever logged into, and it’s hard not to get a rush of nostalgia visiting it and hearing the old music (especially in Classic).

As for where in Tirisfal I’d put the monument… honestly, before Legion, I probably would’ve said the area to the west of Deathknell. It was always used as a speculation point for a hidden Old God, and back when it wasn’t actually anything except untextured land, I always had a sense of intrigue about it. I know nothing was actually up there, but I still wall-walked my way up as much as I could. So it would’ve been really fun to have something there, a la the smiley face originally hidden beneath Karazhan. (And technically still accessible, if my last round of exploration still holds.)

But in the modern version of the game? Umm… I guess add a secret location to Deathknell and put it there. Something closer to “click the bookshelf” than “needs Secret Finding Discord” but still not super obvious. A fun thing for newbies to discover, and a cool addition for long-time players to discover.

Part of this is a little hard because I have the memory of the actual expansions in the back of my mind, but I think I’d actually give this one to Wrath and Shadowlands.

I loved Wrath because of the way the ice kind of cracked when animated, and it always felt like the original logo had been taken to Northrend and gotten frozen over. Sure, there’s a hefty bit of nostalgia there but I still do like the way the ice hangs off portions of it. (Maybe it just feels like the Midwest though.)

Shadowlands, when it was originally revealed, did an awesome job feeling like a complete inversion of a “normal” logo’s colors. It isn’t actually, but that feel of an upside-down/mirror world connected to Azeroth was there visually in the logo, and I remember feeling hyped to see what was beyond the veil. The hype did not last as long as hoped, but it was there at the beginning, and I appreciate the logo for that.

I’m absolutely going to forget places, but there are a few that come to mind…

Kamagua with the Kalu’ak in Howling Fjord

Zouchin Village and the Isle of Giants in Pandaria

The original Shimmering Flats (technically, the little raceway hub)

Brill/Sepulcher/Terren Mill

It’s not going to be entirely out of nowhere but uhh…

An “inverted Cataclysm” of sorts brought about by messing with the timelines, to go with the 19th anniversary “cold Deathwing” stuff

All the Old Gods come back, take over major cities, and we can choose to side with them if we want because they seem pretty cool tbh

We finally see the other side of Azeroth

Maybe not a Feat of Strength, but a fun consolation prize like someone mailing you a tabard with a “buff” (like the ones from Brawler’s Guild) would be nice. I’m all for silly little things like this getting a special nod.

That’s me for today! And what a day it was. I hope you all have a good one and leave lots of comments for tomorrow’s writer. I — and everyone on staff — appreciate you 💙🖤