The Queue: Mabry Mill

There’s a lot happening next week:

The end of ReMists.

The release of the next Guild Wars 2 expansion Janthir Wilds.

Gamescom — Europe’s biggest gaming convention — starts on Tuesday with an opening night show featuring who else but Geoff Keighley.

Oh, and there’s a little thing called The War Within releasing in early access.

So even though I had earmarked this week for in-game cleanup, I knew I had to get out last weekend and take in the sunshine while I still could. So I drove on up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at many places on the Virginia portion south of Roanoke. Mabry Mill (pictured in the header) is one of the more iconic sites on the BRP so it was nice to see the water flowing and the wheel turning. Unfortunately the sun was high up in the sky when I arrived so the picture looks pretty washed out, but that’s ok — it’s a memory, not a piece of artwork. I saw a deer grazing on the side of the road, hawks riding the thermals, and lots of pretty butterflies. It was a nice trip, and hopefully I’ve stored up enough air and sunlight and mountain music to last me these next few weeks.

While I feverishly plan my next trip outdoors, let’s answer some questions!

Oh, we noticed. We always notice. We’re just careful not to get too excited because we know that when it comes to HotS “hope” is a 4-letter word.

Of course there’s always the possibility that it does get resurrected but the monetization ends up being horrible. Speaking of monetization …

Because verbiage increases engagement, and also hitting that magic eight-minute mark on YouTube means you can throw in a mid-vid ad for extra cash.

I more often than not just buy a $15 pair at a Sheetz gas station or Target; I’m awful with sunglasses, constantly damaging or losing them or letting my son borrow them and he loses them so I’m always hesitant to invest in a really good pair.

That said, I have recently bought a pair of $30 goodr sunglasses from REI because I liked how they look, and I like National Parks — it was win-win. I’m very careful with them though, which is why I’ll likely lose them next beach trip. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find them!

Isle of Dorn. Easily. No doubt in my head. None. Nada. Zilch.

Yes I’m a Dwarf stan so of course I was going to be predisposed to love the Earthen. But the aesthetic and story of the zone is so good. Seriously. We’ll see how I feel after I journey through it on live, but as it stands right now it’s very likely to be a top 5 all-time zone for me, and maybe even top 3.

For me, the act of character deletion is not always an act of character erasure. Sure, some characters are created by me to be disposable, such as those leveled solely for Heritage Armor. But for the 20 or so “regular” characters I have I don’t view deleting them as a change in their story. Gameplay and lore are distinct in my mind, and whether a character is playable or is languishing among deleted toons is solely a gameplay aspect.

Actually *enjoy* playing? Hmmm, that’s a tough one, especially with all the recent changes. I’m thinking five:

• Marksmanship Hunter
• Survival Hunter
• Elemental Shaman
• Fury Warrior
• Frost Death Knight

Most likely to join that list is Ret Pally, but I haven’t had a chance to really try it (or many of the other specs) out lately. Ask me again in a year, I’m curious how this list will change.

I have! Thanks for asking.

… oh you want more info than that? Ok. Here are books I’ve read in the past few weeks that I can heartily recommend:

• The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Destiny vol 1 — a Romeo & Juliet-yet-wholesome manga series about teenagers in different schools is getting the printed book treatment (I think most of the volumes with English translations are available online already). Can be a little saccharine but it’s still fun to read.
• The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark. The author of A Master of Djinn has a new fantasy book out, and it’s an interesting universe that hopefully gets expanded with more works in the future (as long as doing so doesn’t preventing us from getting more Djinn books, mind you). I won’t go into details because of spoilers, but it’s about dead assassins and a job that goes sideways fast.
• The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis. While not as good as To Say Nothing of the Dog (still my favorite book of all time — sorry, Tolkien) it’s an interesting take on the alien abduction subculture.

That’s all the time we have for questions today. Be sure to get plenty of rest this weekend because next week is gonna be a doozy! Also be sure to leave plenty of questions for Matt to answer!