The Queue: Bus Stop Bird

You thought it was Anna… but it was me, Red!!!

I don’t own a bear named Rutherford Bear Hayes and I don’t have dozens of great literature recommendations, but I’ll still try my best to honor the age-old tradition of the Tuesday Queue as Anna enjoys her vacation.

I’m gonna play it safe: gotta go with Standard Tuesday Queue rules. Best of five, single elimination, no jackpot, winner takes it all.

So buckle up, birdos, and let’s Queue.

Big same. I think this is the perfect development for “Vanilla” WoW Classic, outside of the other things they’re already doing, such as Season of Discovery — in fact, this feels like a natural evolution of that, given how well-received it was. Season of Discovery effectively added new content to old WoW, killing the “no changes” arguments once and for all, and most players seemed to be into it. The idea was so compelling, in fact, that it caught the attention of people who weren’t even interested in playing Classic.

Replaying through content from years ago has its allure, whether from a nostalgia standpoint or from a feeling of “I never had the chance to experience this content before, so let me check it out.” However, both of those things have an expiration date: few people are willing to keep playing an old game mode for months, or years, based on nostalgia alone; and “checking it out just to see what I missed” rarely turns into “I’m super hooked into these simplistic raids from 20 years ago, I’m gonna keep doing them for years!”

New content, however? That absolutely has the potential to get people constantly seeing what’s new, talking about it, experiencing new dungeons or raids without them being completely solved from day one. It lets Blizzard tell new stories, or add more depth and nuance to old ones. It allows the designers to re-imagine old mechanics and work with a different, more limited toolset that certainly puts their creativity to the test. I think it’s a truly fantastic idea.

It’s possible! …but I admit I’m torn.

On the one hand, yeah, it’ll be awesome to farm things once Warbands are in the game and any character can learn transmog appearances for your entire account — it doesn’t matter if you’re playing your Priest and get a plate helm or a bow to drop; you’ll get to add them to your collection anyway! So activities like farming old content are suddenly far more attractive.

On the other hand, I don’t wanna spend too much time playing WoW right before The War Within hits, if I’m being honest. I made that mistake last time: I kept myself super engaged with Shadowlands during its tail end, mostly chasing transmog appearances. Once Dragonflight was out, its “shiny new toy” allure kept me going for a while (leveling was very good!), but as soon as I hit max level… I was fatigued, and needed to take a long break from the game. I don’t want that to happen again this time!

So we’ll see. I’ll most likely at least check out the new transmog farming experience, run a raid or another… but I likely won’t delve too deep into it until later. I’m saving myself for actual Delves.

Blizzard hasn’t said anything, so we don’t know. However — if it’s any indication — the Bullion vendors from the Bronze Enclave in Valdrakken are gone in the Beta.

To be safe, you really should spend your Bullions now. We’re not sure yet, but they’ll probably be gone once the pre-patch drops. A few (usually well-informed) content creators (with Blizzard connections) have recommended as much; given the lack of official word, I think they’re the next best thing we can use as an educated guess.

Yuffie singing the Victory fanfare, and the I’m So Bored song, and the Chocobo song, and–

The storytelling. Since the very first few quests, I was already hooked by everything: the camerawork, the script, the voice acting, the music, the emotions. It’s a game that really grabbed me right from the start, and even after moments when I was pretty frustrated with the gameplay (I’m looking at you, Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon), the story was quickly able to pull me back.

So it’s a game that’s definitely worth experiencing for its storytelling. The character interactions are fantastic, the dialogues are great, and it often hits you in the feels.

It’s not a secret that I’m not super enthused by the theme (and lack of exciting mechanics) of the upcoming expansion, Perils in Paradise, but I still think there might be something really cool brewing up with the concept of Tourist Cards, which allow you to add new cards from a specific different class to your deck. I was a little disillusioned with Constructed Hearthstone recently, but the last few balance changes the game got have made things considerably better — and right now, I’m having a ton of fun with my Shopper Demon Hunter deck.

At the same time, Battlegrounds is always there: a solid game mode that requires no investment in a card collection, so you can just jump in and play at any point you want. And the rotating mechanics keep things fresh every few months. Nothing is changing for Battlegrounds right now, since it’s on a different release schedule from Constructed, and thus unaffected by the release of Perils in Paradise — but it should also be getting a new major patch soon-ish.

The Kirin Tor.

Look, I’m no soldier, I’m no fighter or warrior or knight. If I had the real possibility to learn how to cast magic, heck yeah I’d do it. And being in the Kirin Tor would mean I’d be able to either take to the field slinging my spells against foes that threaten us or, if I eventually found out that such a life was too dangerous for me, I could just kick back and become a scholar, a professor, a researcher, or even a Mage Trainer.

They’re being converted into Armor Penetration rating.

This has been The Queue. Ask tons of questions for Kalcheus tomorrow! Be cool, and play nice!