The Queue: Happy Valentine’s Day!

If video games are to be believed, in Japan the tradition on Valentine’s Day is for girls to give a boy they like some chocolate. However, it’s generally considered a good idea not to have all the girls you’re interested in show up at the same time. Hoo boy.

While I try to remember what I’m supposed to do on this special day, let’s answer some questions!

The best Oasis song is Supercollider by Fountains of Wayne, don’t @ me.

As for removing “Rock and Roll” from the Hall of Fame, this is an argument that’s gone on for decades and will probably never go away. They won’t do it because “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” is a brand name, but even if that wasn’t a consideration I don’t think it’s a worthwhile thing to consider. Music definitions are fundamentally fungible and one generation’s Rock and Roll sounds an awful lot like another generation’s Adult Country Contemporary.

Besides, the most important thing that it does by keeping the Rock and Roll in its name is correctly place the impact of African-American musicians in its development. Going to a more generic name would just encourage those who wrongly want Rock and Roll to start with Elvis.

BM Hunters should not use Arcane Shot; their rotation is designed for the most part with Cobra Shot used in its place.

Exotic Pets in general are not necessarily stronger than regular pets of the same specialization. What sets them apart (besides the coolness factor) is that the Exotic families have extra abilities; for example, Clefthoof have additional armor and healing bonus, while Pterrodax can give you a Slow Fall-like skill. If you don’t need the extra ability provided by an Exotic Pet than there’s not much of a con to not using one.

As an fyi, if you choose the Animal Companion talent to bring out a second pet, the one from your stable doesn’t have a specialization or ability so feel free to use a pet chosen purely for cosmetic purposes.

I tend to think we won’t. Hero talents are going to be another layer of balance for the development team and so while I don’t think they’re averse to experimentation I feel like it’d be in their (and raid teams’) best interest to have the changes mostly be of the flavor variety rather than radical changes to gameplay variety. But we’ll know more when they release the info.

Frankly I was a little disappointed by the Dark Ranger reveal; it basically just felt like adding Black Arrow back to the rotation. I guess I was hoping more of the talents would be like Dark Hounds and Dark Chains, causing flavorful Shadow magic effects.

I suspect most of the groupfinder limitations are in place to be prevent trolling or in the case of the automated queues the inability to actually build a full raid. While I would love to sign up for both the holiday boss and LFR simultaneously it wouldn’t surprise me that doing so would cause neither queue to pop … for anybody … ever.

What I’ve wanted them to do for years is allow you to play another character while queued, however, I suspect that’s more of a technical limitation than anything. Maybe Warbands will help with that? Hard to say.

Do you know the common phrase that “sarcasm doesn’t translate in text”? That’s how I feel about systems with a series of answers without indication of what the intent of the comment is. “Good for you” can either be supportive, dismissive, or even venomous but there’s no easy way to convey that textually. It frequently results in scenarios where I think I’m choosing a joking answer but instead it’s a bad one.

That’s not to say I think they shouldn’t matter at all, just that the game has an indicator of the result of what you said. If there’s a ❤ or Friendly next to “Good for you” I know it’s a supportive answer. While some might argue that would allow players to “game the system” the reality is that players already game the system by using guides or googling the best answer before selecting.

Circling to your base question though, I’m not very fond of the idea of “right” or “wrong” answers either. Many times these conversations represent small moments between the characters; should one sentence said among likely hundreds in reality be an impediment to growth? Speaking specifically of the Persona games for a moment, I dislike the hidden relationship system where Social Links can grow awkwardly. I would much rather have them grow in a set manner – say every 2 encounters – rather than having to worry about whether I said the wrong thing. If you want “auxiliary” choices to matter you can do so (for example, at each Social Link step you could get an item and the type/strength of item is dependent on your choices) but essentially forcing a player to use a guide so their progress isn’t accidentally impeded doesn’t make for a fun experience in my opinion.

TL, DR: If conversation responses are meaningful they should have an indicator of their intention, and should function as adding flavor not possibly impeding gameplay.

Well that’s all the time we have for questions today. Hopefully if you did get any chocolate today it didn’t look like this!

Have a great day, and be sure to ask plenty of questions for Matt tomorrow!