The Queue: Holiday Road…map

The 2024 World of Warcraft development roadmap was released yesterday for Retail and for Classic and I love how forthcoming the development team has gotten in the past year with these and other updates. That said, I want to talk about something more important: the term “roadmap.”

We all pretty much know what a roadmap is, but speaking as someone of an advanced age they used to be ubiquitous and necessary just for normal everyday driving in your neighborhood. But in this era of in-car navigation and GPS applications on your phones they’re kind of a relic from a bygone time. While not completely obsolete I’m certain that the number sold annually has plummeted dramatically in the past twenty years. Pretty soon a “roadmap” will only exist as a curiosity, and like the Save File icon the term will be a reference to something that’s no longer around.

Well enough of that, let me navigate out of this intro and answer some questions!

I’ll be honest, I am loving Tavern Spells and I really hope they’re not a seasonal thing and are instead a permanent addition to the mode. They make the game feel so much smoother by letting you play around with your team (especially when it comes to setting up taunt minions) and they work as a nice consolation when you’re not getting the minions you need in the tavern. And they do all this without breaking the game! Frankly it’s the best change since the damage cap.

My favorite comp at the moment is what I’ve dubbed “End of Turn Dragon”. Dragon has always been my favorite minion type in the mode (even though frankly I do better with Murloc) but I’ve never gotten the hang of Battlecry Dragon so it’s always been a struggle to win it unless I’m able to get a ton of Divine Shields going. With the new End of Turn option available I’m able to build up my team a lot stronger and place in the top 4 more consistently.

Probably not. Have you considered playing Refresh Elemental? That way you can hunt and choose for specific minions and not feel like you’re wasting mana.

My favorite spell is Chef’s Choice, which gets you another minion of the same type because for 2 mana it’s cheaper than buying a minion you don’t need for the comp you’re building. Pro tip: you can’t get the minion you selected, so make sure to use it on a minion you don’t need another copy of.

Yes and yes.

While we were told to expect the Titans to be back on Azeroth in The Last Titan, I wouldn’t expect all of them to be there. Aman’thul and Eonar are the most likely candidates in my estimation to show. The rest will still be back with Illidan imprisoning Sargeras.

It would also be odd for the development team to remove a “symbol” of an expansion’s completion — I don’t think they’ll ever get rid of Deathwing’s chin, so I doubt they’d remove the star in the sky either.

It’s interesting that we already knew a lot of what was going to be on the roadmap because of the announcements at BlizzCon earlier this year so there’s nothing I’m particularly excited abou–just kidding, it’s clearly the secretive reveal of patch 10.2.6!

Remember when so many people were predicting that the next expansion would involve pirates that Mike Ybarra tweeted out “No Pirates“? Apparently all the clues that led to that prediction were actually pointing towards patch 10.2.6.

And while we don’t know exactly what it means yet (player housing is a popular guess, although I have no idea what pirates have to do with housing), I will state that I’m excited that the lore and quest teams are weaving strands of a narrative for future “minor” patches in such a way that players think they could be expansion previews. That shows real care for the story.

For those who don’t know, I’ve made it a goal/joke that the first thing I’ll be doing in The War Within is getting World First Earthen Heritage Armor. This goal has the twin advantage of being both relatively easy and impossible to prove.

The strategy is pretty simple tho: I’m going to level through the Campaign on my primary alt until Earthen are unlocked, then I’m going to roll an Earthen Monk who will follow my normal leveling path of Loch Modan and Highmountain until the Heritage Armor is unlocked.

The big question is how soon will the Earthen be unlocked in the game? I’ve heard conflicting information that it’ll be either towards the end of the Campaign or it’ll be towards the end of the Isle of Dorn questing, so the main pre-release preparation will be sussing out that info in order to better plot my course.

But I won’t be playing nonstop for 30 hours or anything insane like that, this is just a fun little thing for me.

I am almost ready! I still have to wrap presents which I hate doing so I put it off until the last moment. Also I’ve been designated as the family’s sacrifice to go to the grocery store on Christmas Eve to pick up our Christmas meal. Please send thoughts and prayers.

Winter Veil is just farming for the mount daily on one toon. While I do hope to get it, I won’t be too upset if I don’t like I was with Arfus.

I tend to play games these days that have a concrete end and my backlog is large enough that I feel guilty about replaying something when I have games I haven’t played yet. Back in the day it used to be Civilization and its various sequels, but nowadays it’s pretty much just WoW and Hearthstone.

That said I’m playing Persona 4 Golden and having fun and after playing that and Persona 5 Tactica in the past month I may need to replay P5 Royal and Strikers soon just to keep my Persona fix going.

I really like All Star and Walking on the Sun but if I had to choose just one song it’d be their cover of the Monkees’ classic I’m a Believer. It’s a fantastic song to begin with — and it’s important to note that the original is better — and they do a nice job of keeping the spirit of the song while giving it a more modern feel. I’d say it’s the best remake of a Monkees or Monkees-adjacent song since Davy Jones’ Girl in the Brady Bunch Movie.

That’s all the time we have for questions today! Hopefully everyone is staying warm (or cool if a resident of the Southern hemisphere). Be sure to leave plenty of questions for Matt tomorrow!