The Queue: Nostalgia is a hell of a drug

I’m still not sure whether I miss old WoW or if I just miss my old guildmates and being 22 with minimal responsibility beyond the tip of my own nose.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us the questions and yeah, we’re pretty sure there’s a German word for that feeling.

Honestly, the 20th anniversary stuff, just in general, is really hitting for me. To be fair, that’s a vast majority of the patch — maybe Dracthyr classes is really going to make somebody’s day? But both reaching that milestone, and all the associated old content is bringing a lot of big feels.

Our own wordsmith Kal wrote a whole thing about how to navigate Dornogal, complete with little maps!

And yeah, same, which is kind of wild because I don’t usually have the same issues in games where stuff is super samey and requires a lot of map knowledge. I play The Long Dark, for cryin out loud, but if you showed me a screenshot of snow and trees I’d probably be able to tell you which map it’s from. Maybe it’s the organic nature of it, or that it does require map knowledge, so maybe I shut off the navigation part of my brain when I play WoW? But then, I usually do pretty OK at WoW Geoguessr, so who knows.

I always get incredibly lost in most larger towns and cities in the Elder Scrolls franchise, so maybe it’s just cities I have issues with.

The Ring.

Daveigh Chase was such a phenomenal actress at such a young age, and all the visual symbolism is phenomenal. It’s one of the few movies where, despite being incredibly creeped out, I had to go back and re-watch it immediately because all the little details and flashes that led up to the conclusion were so freakin well done. It’s one of the few more modern works which use “found” and “archival” footage to build the story through in-universe “research,” which I adore as a plot device.

My cozy fave is The Frighteners, which is a really fun watch that doesn’t veer too hard into gore and jumpscares. It isn’t as masterful of its craft as The Ring, but sometimes it ain’t that deep and you just want a fun little scary movie.

If we’re talking long-term trauma, E.T. For real. The part where he’s dying in that plastic hospital thing with the people in hazmat suits gave me nightmares for years. I think I watched it when I was 3?

As a more adult answer, The Grudge. Sometimes when I’m in the shower I think of the scene with Sarah Michelle Gellar washing her hair and quickly rinse off as well as I can without actually touching myself with my own hands so I can get out. Have I ever actually encountered a vengeful spirit? Well, we’re not sure exactly what the thing haunting the Blizzard Watch CMS is, but it certainly seems like it has an axe to grind against someone… or something.

I’m sure it’s fine.