The Queue: LoFi Beats to Write the Queue to

I picked up the very chill game Spirit City: Lofi Sessions this week and I’ve been enjoying having it in the background while I play World of Warcraft and write articles for BlizzardWatch. It’s good to relax, especially since the rest of this month is giving us:

• New Hearthstone Battlegrounds season on April 16
• World of Warcraft Season 4 on April 23
• Cataclysm Classic pre-patch on April 30
• Patch 10.2.7 PTR Soon™
• The War Within Alpha Soon-ish Maybe?

And that doesn’t even include Tales of Kenzera: ZAU releasing on April 23 and Taylor Swift’s new album Tortured Poets Department arriving on April 19.

So while I try to figure out how to double the length of days so I have time for all of this, let’s answer some questions.

Present, yes. Working … to be determined.

I wrote about this last month, but I’m hopeful that Cataclysm Classic helps to fix some of the lingering issues still in Retail. While other expansions had their share of issues (I think the Alliance intro to Stormheim is still broken), it seems like Cataclysm had the most mechanical events fail. Besides the submarine there’s also the Alliance introduction to that zone which had issues, and of course the Worgen zone remains tricky to complete.

Of course, I’m not sure if the architectural differences between the two games allow for easy fixes to be transported between them, but if so maybe we’ll finally get those fixes almost 14 years later.

I’ve already mentioned Tales of Kenzera: ZAU which I’m super-excited for (I’ve already pre-purchased it and will be playing it the day of release). Other than it and the Blizzard-related stuff I mentioned there’s not much happening for the remainder of spring for me to look forward to. Depending on how you define the seasons Shin Megami Tensei 5: Vengeance is coming out on June 14 and could be considered a spring game so I’ll include that in my answer. I haven’t played an SMT game before but they share a pedigree with the Persona series so I’m expecting to enjoy it even if some of the normal high school shenanigans from those games aren’t present.

This is a question that could have a ton of answers depending on my mood and while I’m tempted to answer Jimi Hendrix’s version of All Along the Watchtower or Elton John’s version of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (fun fact: John Lennon is singing backing vocals on the track), I’m going to go a little more obscure and pick Boyce Avenue’s cover of Ed Sheeran’s Photograph. I’m not a big fan of Ed Sheeran outside this song and Castle on the Hill, but I’ve always felt that Ed choosing to go soprano in the chorus instead of having a female singer was a mistake, one rectified by Boyce Avenue having Bea Miller sing it as a duet. Just an outstanding version of an already excellent song in my opinion.

Starting with Mistah Jay, I’m going to say Definitely Yes Presuming You Can Afford It via Conventional Means. The Steam Deck has been a tremendous boon to my gaming and I’m very happy I chose to get one. That said, some games don’t play well (or at all) on the Steam Deck, so look through your library and wishlist first to see if the games you’re interested in playing next are certified for it.

As for Red’s question, I haven’t spent much time with the PS Portal so I’m still feeling my way with it so I don’t want to recommend it yet. I will say that the Portal is not honestly necessary — heck, the Steam Deck is able to take advantage of PS features to play it remotely. I am, however, a coward when it comes to using technology in non-standard ways, so I’d rather spend the money on a PS Portal which is 100% designed to be a portable device for the Playstation 5. So if you’re confident/competent in following online instructions to use your PS5 remotely you can save money doing so.

The Persona franchise is in an interesting place. Persona 5 Royal really helped it make the leap, so the all-but-announced Persona 6 is going to have some heavy responsibilities to both grow the fandom while also keeping the momentum going. That’s why I think it’s most likely to tie-in to previous mainline games than the others have, although of course that’s not guaranteed.

In terms of gameplay I feel that sense of wanting to build on momentum will mean they won’t meddle too much with what’s been working. I expect the Persona system to be largely the same as before, with your standard capture and fusion methods of acquisition. It should still be turn-based, and I do think the dungeons will be more like the Persona 5 palaces — although it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a training ground modeled after Tartarus in Persona 3.

While they may adopt a more “open world” feel for the series, I have to think the basic structure of calendar and social links will necessitate it being not extensive enough to feel like a radical reimagining of the world. I think that there’s a significant portion of the Persona fanbase that enjoys “min-maxing” and following guides in order to optimize their social link growth. While the development team may make the schedule less constrictive, I do think it’ll remain really hard on the first playthrough to maximize all the social stats and links.

Ultimately the game’s success will be in the story and the relationships that are developed alongside it, and I imagine that’s where the primary focus is.

I think it’s a bold move to reveal a long-term plan for the World of Warcraft and doing so should keep players emotionally invested (and therefore subscribed) for longer — I’m sure there are many players who are really looking forward to Midnight and are staying subbed through The War Within even though they normally wouldn’t have simply because of their connection under the rubric The Worldsoul Saga. It lends itself to a stability that benefits both the game and the players.

However, there’s a risk with long-term planning, and that’s the possibility of being trapped down an unpopular path. For example, suppose that during Mists of Pandaria the team announced “The Legion Saga” would cover Warlords of Draenor, a second expansion in Draenor, and then finally a return to Azeroth in Legion. Doing so would’ve likely trapped us on Draenor for another two years and it’s possible the promise of Legion wouldn’t be enough to keep players around for that time.

Of course the development team is pretty smart, and while we know the gist of what Midnight and The Last Titan will entail there seems to be plenty of wiggle room to avoid such a scenario. Still, I do feel there’s bound to be some unintended consequences with the reveal of the long term planning. Hopefully the positives will outweigh any negatives.

That’s all the time we have for the queue this Wednesday. I hope you have a great week, and be sure to leave plenty of questions for Matt tomorrow!