The Queue: What an excellent owl

This is an excellent owl model. I’m very glad that I get to spend some of the time flying around looking pretty similar to it. Even if I’ll likely never get the actual fire form unlocked unless I get very lucky in a future expansion.

Maybe excellent isn’t the right word for it. I’m sure that there’s another word for this owl that is similar to excellent, but maybe starts with an s.

While I ponder that, it’s time for — The Queue!

The first requirement is that you have to be level 70. Once you’re that, all you have to do is a short questline that starts from your faction capital. Head to the Valley of Honor in Orgrimmar or the Stormwind Keep and you’ll find a quest called Prophecy Stirs.

The quest shouldn’t take you too long, and at the end of it, you’ll be able to make your Draenei have cool red skin and a toy that lets you pretend to be a Man’ari for a little while.

Same things he does every day. Mostly sleep, get into mischief, and complain about not getting enough attention. I’m sure that the lady and I will do something for Valentine’s day — but I don’t know what yet. Don’t tell her!

Maybe it’ll be a red herring! We’ll get a cinematic with a pirate to start but then he’ll slump over and a ninja will step out of the shadows and wink at us. I’d laugh!

My best actual guess though is that we’re going to get a new Privateer faction to build rep with by defeating pirates across Azeroth. They’ll have a variety of nautical-themed rewards with various references to famous pirates from tv and movies including a sword that was once wielded by a frog captain — who lost it when it slipped out of his hand in a duel.

Whatever shape Reese has managed to combine peanut butter and chocolate into!

Definitely not those tiny candy hearts though. Anyone who likes those must certainly be a monster.

Anything more than a handful of months of hype is too much, by far. Movie and game trailers are a big culprit of this. I just can’t stay excited for that long in a row to see your new stuff!

If we were talking about something like a mysterious faction flag included with little fanfare in a roadmap, I think that they’ve hit the sweet spot window pretty well. There’s enough time for a few different theories to pop up, but not enough that I’m tired of hearing about pirates.

As for vagueness, starting fairly vague gives you the best bang for your buck in rampant speculation. That’s a dangerous road though, because if rampant speculation is left too long then people will grow attached to the wild ideas that have popped up, and if the content that you’re teasing isn’t as exciting you’re going to see some disappointed players. So a week at most, but three days is better.

Multicraft for sure. You gotta get those piles of potions and phials promptly to procure plenty of payment.

I still think that both of those expansions were too disjointed with their map design. I just wanted to be able to fly to Kul Tiras from Zandalar, not have to click on a person at a ship to go over there! Same for the major Covenant zones.

The rest of the stuff in each expansion remains fine. I don’t think that I think as fondly of Shadowlands now that we’re in new content, but I certainly wasn’t having a bad time while I was in it.

I’d say that the thing that’s changed the most in my remembrance of Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands is that I’ve really come to appreciate how Dragonflight is telling a story that I can see everything in with only one character. I’m not missing big story beats because I only have a Horde character, or haven’t joined four different factions.

Uh oh, you must’ve made Bacardi get up. If you want good luck this week you better let him have his spot on the couch back. Hell hath no fury like a cat whose been forced to move slightly after all.

Today’s Anna Earworm™: Fernando

Have a wonderful week everyone, I hope your team wins!