The Queue: No one’s sure if it’s night or day

We’ve made it to yet another Friday, another week through our journey around the sun. Er. Glowing skyrock? Something? It’s hard to tell when we’ve all been living in a cave for weeks now.

Let’s get Queueing

I prefer audiobooks for travel, because they’re longer-form, with a narrative to absorb you and distract you even through long airport delays. I’m just back from a trip where I listened to the first three books of the Murderbot Diaries — most of them, I didn’t quite get the third finished — which were great fun.

At least for air travel, the goal is to really pretend you are somewhere that is not an overcrowded terminal announcing your fifth flight delay and third gate change (a thing that actually happened). That means some noise-canceling headphones to tone down the exterior environment and an absorbing story to take your mind somewhere else.

We handled UBRS the first time. The first dozen times. The first hundred times. The first thousand times..?

We can do it again.

That’s to say that it’s been long enough for me to have actually become nostalgic for the original experience. It would be nice to go back and revisit the place with fresh eyes.

I’ve been having fun exploring Khaz Algar. I’ve finished the whole main quest chain but only done a few side quests and a couple of dungeons, and I’ve gotten myself killed a number of times in Delves (thanks, Brann). But I’ve accomplished a lot less than I thought I would before Season 1 started.

I thought I’d level a second character; I was sure I’d have time, and the way rep works having an alt go do side quests through a zone would just feed back into my total rep, and I could have another gatherer to collect materials. It makes sense. But instead I’ve hardly touched alts; I log on and there’s always something to do on my main. And I haven’t done as much gearing as I hoped. I am a little lower than I probably should be to hit normal Nerub-ar Palace next week, but I’m not so low that I can’t fix it by running some more heroic dungeons this weekend.

But isn’t that always the way of things? You think you’ll have more time than you do, and gaming imitates life in this way.

This is why you need to buy a stack of Darkmoon Top Hats when you visit the Darkmoon Faire. When you pick up the buff and walk out, you tempt fate. The universe knows that a single death, a tiny accident, will destroy your plans. The temptation!

But with a bag stuffed with top hats, you have backup. An accident just means you put on a top hat. You have the same buffs and you are extremely dapper. A mishap won’t set you back or send you continent-hopping back to the carousel. Fate sees this, and remains untempted.

So pick up some top hats next time. A few, but not too many, because they won’t last beyond the duration of the faire. get a practical number for the amount of time you’re going to play… and then maybe a couple more. Don’t tempt fate.

That’s all for today, friends. Be kind to one another — because I am watching to make sure you do — and have a good weekend. Take care and I’ll see you back here next week.