The Queue: It is not Thursday

Not anymore. I have vanquished Thursday and arrived with Friday, as we all wait for the weekend to come. (Or dread the holiday shopping to come.)

In the meanwhile, let’s Queue.

I have only finished a couple of parts of it, though I had planned to get through the quests this week they are quite far ranging… and can be as frustrating as fun, even as the frustration is nostalgic.

I was doing the Green Hills of Stranglethorn quest, and wandered all over the celebration area and into the Caverns of Time to find all of the pages except two. There was a hint to try the world bosses in the zone, so I went to Doomwalker, and got one more page. I did the other two bosses in Tanaris and got duplicates of that same page. I was still missing one. I checked Wowhead, and it said the page dropped off the Tanaris bosses, so I went and killed all three of them again — no loot at all, of course, since I’d killed them already. I went back to Wowhead checked again. Checked the comments. Nothing of use. The book dropped off the three bosses that I had already killed twice within an hour.

I finally went and did the shortcut hinted at the beginning of the quest: a hidden vendor that sells the whole book for a hundred gold.

So these quests are nostalgic fun, but can also be frustrating. Also I am an idiot for trying to do them without just looking up coordinates on Wowhead.

As to the second question, I would use my power to make more time for myself. I could take more naps and read more fanfic and probably quadruple the number of hours I presently have across Dragon Age games.

I am partial to Pyrex as both a cooking dish and a serving dish; I have a small collection of vintage Pyrex that gets most of its use during holidays.

No, but I would say that is because mac & cheese should always be a main dish. When I picked up groceries on Wednesday I got macaroni and two kinds of cheese, so I’ll make some when we get tired of leftovers.

Last week I talked about an innovative new strategy for killing Queen Ansurek that required you to crush her with the help of a large frog, who would leap down at the opportune moment and squish that bug. It’s a perfectly straightforward plan, but what if you could be the frog?

I started contemplating this over the week, when I saw one of my guildmates turn into a frog before a pull. I of course used the sky mirror to duplicate it, and while we did not kill Ansurek I can confidently report that fighting as a frog was a big morale boost. (Though the frog’s casting animation is only to open its mouth in a gulping motion, so you have to be more mindful of your cast bars than less of your player model. Also the frog is larger than the average player model, so it can be harder to tell if you’re standing in something, so you have to pay extra attention. Other than that, it’s great!)

However, the way my guildmate became a frog is rather convoluted and not guaranteed to turn you into a frog. First, you need to level up BFA alchemy and make Silas’ Sphere of Transmutation. Using the sphere will turn it into one of four things, one of them being Silas’ Decanter of Disguise. This will turn you into a random creature, one of which is a ghost frog.

I am considering it. I have two gathering professions right now; I could pick up alchemy, level it, and collect all of the materials for this thing… to sometimes become a frog.

It might still be worth it.

There will be no DLC for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The team has shifted to work on Mass Effect (after much of the Mass Effect team shifted to Dragon Age to give the game a final push out the door).

And that is a very strange thing from an EA-owned company. The game is purely single-player, with no DRM, no cash currencies, and not a single purchase beyond the initial game box. (Though you could buy the deluxe edition with some cosmetic armor sets, and there’s plenty of Dragon Age merch out there, which I say as someone who has already pre-ordered an Assan plushie.) In fact, it’s kind of odd for gaming in general, which seems to follow the rule of monetize, monetize, monetize.

I don’t think the game necessarily needs DLC; it is a complete story by itself. But there’s always room for side stories, which is what Dragon Age has always done: used DLC to tell extra stories in addition to the core narrative. I’d love to see more stories in Veilguard, or DLC of what’s happening in southern Thedas while this is going on in northern Thedas. There are lots of ways it could go, but it doesn’t sound like any of them are on the way. We have already gotten three patches for the game, but unlike Larian’s content-rich patches, Veilguard has mostly been bug fixes. Continuing to get fixes certainly isn’t a bad thing, but it seems most of the dev team has moved on.

So no more Dragon Age for now. It isn’t as though I don’t want a Mass Effect sequel, but I also want a Dragon Age sequel. Unfortunately, the nature of life is that we cannot get everything we want.

That’s all for now, everyone. I hope you have a good Friday (holiday or not) and a good weekend. Take care of yourselves and I’ll see you again next week!