The Queue: Boo who?

I know, my last Queue before Halloween I usually show y’all my costume, but I unfortunately forgot to take a selfie of myself in my Halloween costume. This one on a totally normal day with nothing different from usual will have to do. What do you… no, there’s nothing different, I always wear this silver necklace. Don’t, no, it’s… no, it’s fine. Don’t.

Don’t.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us the questions, and nothing is different from any other day so of course we’ll provide the answers.

That’s an awfully specific number, but anyway.

It depends on what your priorities are. For me, I tend to go with permanent upgrades before the fun stuff. I’d check the list of pets I don’t already have and purchase as many as I could, starting from the cheapest. After that, the toys available for sale — the Pet Mirror is crucial for serious pet enthusiasts. Then, I’d go with the rarity upgrading Flawless Stone over the level raising Training Stone.

Personally, considering the breadth of pets there are (and how much I adore my Perky Pug) I’d probably buy some Pirate Hats before the leveling stones, but that’s just me having fun instead of min-maxing. I know that isn’t for everyone.

I feel like many of us, rather than being an actual boss to defeat myself, I would be a de facto escort-style boss. I would have wave after wave of adds, which would distract me from the task at hand. I would wander around the battlefield oblivious to my own safety, nose in a book, researching something. This would be a fight where both tanks would have to stay on their toes, because if I DO get distracted by the add waves I’ll enrage and lash out at the nearest target for a set number of seconds until I remember I was doing something. Healers would also have to make sure I get topped up (I’m going to be one of those fights which is a huge pain to try to go back in a couple expansions and solo).

Then, if you’re familiar with the Site Curse, at the end of the fight, I’ll finish, look up, and say “oh my god, while we were doing that Blizzard announced two new expansions and the date for BlizzCon!” and the race til the next boss would be on.

It’s kind of a tossup for me. I do think it’s much more immersive to have to, say, tame a Snake or Spider for a poison DOT, vs a Cat or Wolf with Claw, vs a Turtle with shielding, and in a vacuum, I do think that makes for compelling design. Especially now that Hunters have like, 80 billion stable slots and several ad hoc slots, it makes sense to be able to swap out your pets on the fly for function’s sake.

However, then that runs up against the reality of player behavior in large groups, and additionally, sentimentality. I hate having to put Rutherford Bear Hayes on the bench just because he isn’t ideal for groups, but that’s what I do because otherwise people will not be happy with me (even though he does functionally identical DPS to the Devilsaur I pull out, assuming we have somebody with that Heroism mechanic). And I’d be a naive fool if I thought that tuning for each and every flavor ability would be identical.

I like the concept of the flavor, but I realize and acknowledge that throughout the seesaw of “which pet is best” in an MMO people are going to be annoyed with every Hunter they see who doesn’t answer for whatever IcyVeins says is the most correctest answer this week.

The best horror game of all time which never fails to give me deep frisson chills, often for no real reason at all, is Subnautica. It invokes romantic-era terror like nothing else I’ve ever experienced across all media. There are more cerebral games, which ask the player to consider their place in the world, or position the player as a villain simply because they’re playing. Subnautica also doesn’t really contain jumpscares per se — I mean, it does, but only if you’re not really paying attention, and after the first time, you are always paying attention. If you really want to build a sense of dread, Subnautica is completely unmatched.

Remember, it hunts by echolocation, so if you can hear it, it knows where you are.

Happy Halloween!