The Queue: pumpkin spice?

Whenever we get close to those seasonal lines I start getting antsy to get over the line, already. It was windy and overcast and just below 70 degrees this morning, so it’s definitely time to bundle up for fall, right? Please?

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us the questions and we’ll give you the answers as long as we can do so under a fuzzy blanket with a mug of warm apple cider.

I mostly play Battlegrounds, so in a ton of these more recent events I’m basically stuck rerolling repeatedly until I get a quest I can complete.

Do I need packs? No. Will I ever open these packs? Likely not. Am I still annoyed by it? You bet your PG13 barrier I am.

The final leg of the campaign launches today with the weekly reset, which also means we’ll be able to unlock Earthen starting today. Heaven help anyone who stands in Kal’s way this afternoon.

When it was released, the transition removing tanks and revamping a bunch of characters was a little half-baked, plus, yes, the grimy feeling of not-so-microtransactions. If you were, say, a Hanzo main, the revamp was fairly whatever, but if your fave was Mei or Zarya, their tactics were so changed by the revamp it felt like a totally different character, and in many cases they fell deeply out of favor because they were so tuned around the previous iteration of a second tank. Also, many players — myself included — felt like the paring down and then all-but removal of the promise of single-player story modes basically removed the entire justification the playerbase was given for Overwatch 2 in the first place.

Sometimes after a rockier launch, a game can overcome those initial bad vibes. See: No Man’s Sky. But usually, those stories of redemption come only after the studio recognizes the shortcomings of the game and revamps a lot of it in order to gain favor. While there have been some degree of changes over time, the only core discernable difference in the ongoing seasonal rotation has truly been paying an additional $15 every 9 weeks. The esports scene is in flux because of Overwatch League’s initial huge shadow, and now its closure — despite having a demi-replacement in OWCS — has left investing in the title a very uncertain, dicey proposition, which is truly saying something in esports. There isn’t a ton of grassroots support, there isn’t a ton of institutional support. It truly feels like a shambling zombie of a game, limping along because Sparklepony.

There’s something that was truly special about Overwatch as it was, and especially the early seasons of Overwatch League has a ton of very “how do you know you’re in the good ol days before they’re gone” vibes. I don’t know what the solution here is, or what it could be, or if there even is one to be made at all. Likely, the game will continue into perpetuity as long as it’s making battlepass money. But man, does watching those old clip shows break my heart.

Weirdly enough, probably Lilith Faire in 1998. I believe it was at the Canandaigua Ampitheatre, which is a huge open space, so they not only the main stage but several smaller side stages playing all day. It was just a single-day concert, but it was packed with so much stuff it had bigtime festival vibes. No pyrotechnics, just a whole lot of great music, and a bunch of group pieces by these huge artists.

I’ve seen a few larger outdoor concerts including, also weirdly, Jethro Tull, but that one was probably the “biggest,” whatever that means.