The Queue: New Year, Old Me

2025 has arrived and while I’m not one to eschew resolutions for personal improvement (see below for more specific answers), I feel like sometimes the focus on “New Year, New Me” detracts from current version of you. While most of us have aspects of ourselves that we’d love to change or improve, suggesting a radical transformation assumes there’s not a lot already worthwhile in a person and I don’t think that’s true at all. So yes, make plans to exercise more or be more attentive to family/friends or to finish watching Season 2 of Arcane (we’re up to Episode 8!) but don’t forget to take the time to reflect on what’s already good and beautiful about yourself. It may be hard to see, but I’m sure it’s there.

While we all pledge to make 2025 the best year so far, let’s start it off well by answering some questions!

This is a fantastic question, and I flew around Azeroth for 30 minutes searching for an answer. The problem is that the rivers in my favorite zones are either class 5 rapids with huge waterfalls — Highmountain being a perfect example of this problem — or there aren’t any (like in Dun Morogh and Loch Modan).

Of course, this could easily turn into a rant on how messed up the river geography is in World of Warcraft (an ocean drains into River’s Heart in Sholozar’s Basin; an OCEAN!), but we can handwave it away by claiming a Titan did it.

I did find one river that I believe I could navigate and possibly even survive a sinking: the Verrall River in Twilight Highlands — presuming I get to start at the base of the waterfall coming down from Loch Verrall. This shallow river has a solid flow but only a couple small falls that would require portage to bypass that shouldn’t be an issue. It may also be for the best that your canoe sinks, as there are hostile water elementals populating the lower stretch of the river. The lands surrounding the river have their share of challenges but no more than anywhere else in Azeroth. I just need to get to Thundermar (as Alliance) or Bloodgulch (as Horde) and I’d be set.

Here’s another question I probably spent way too much time thinking about. It needs to be something regularly available (so my dream of a Blue Rock Pizza and Tap crossover probably makes no sense) but also something I wouldn’t mind eating a ton of. So there’s really only one answer:

A Snyder’s of Hanover pretzel promotion to go along with Brewfest. Or Rold Gold, I guess, if they can’t get Snyder’s. Basically anything that gives me permission to chow down on a ridiculous amount of pretzels.

A new RF Kuang book? Oh that’s definitely going on my list as Babel is my #1 Novel of the Millennium so far. In terms of books that are already scheduled to come out my top pick is Written on the Dark by Guy Gavriel Kay (May 27) — I’m a big fan of GGK’s historical fiction-touched-with-fantasy novels so I always look forward to his triennial publication. I’ll also likely pick up The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older (June 10) as I’ve been enjoying that space mystery series.

For books we don’t have a confirmed release date — or even a confirmation they’re even coming out in 2025 — there are two series that I’m hoping to get the next installment in my hands this year. The important one is Alecto the Ninth by Tamsyn Miur as I absolutely adore that series and can’t wait to read the next installment. The other one is the Dresden Files series as we’re approaching five years (again) since the last novel. Jim Butcher is apparently making progress on Twelve Months but a 2025 release may be too much to hope for.

This is certainly not an original suggestion but I would definitely have liked more visits to other areas in the world. I know the Guest Relations and secret quests are supposed to do so, but they felt too specific. Something simple like a “collect a flower from every continent” quest would’ve been nice, or maybe a new S.E.L.F.I.E. quest (the portals were nice I guess, but they were pretty limited).

No, I think they’ll stick to what they have now. It’s a lot of work to balance stuff and I haven’t really heard any complaints about pet abilities for awhile now. I’m not even sure they’ll need to introduce any more pet families in the future; there’s certainly enough of them now that you can slot every beast we know of into one.

I will! I unironically enjoy parades so I’ll have it on while I do other stuff on my PC — I love a parade, but they can be a little slow so they’re easy to multi-task with.

1. 2025 is the year I plan to not grow my backlog for once — that’s right, I’m going to shrink it by gasp actually playing games! My focus is on the physical titles I have for the PS5 and Switch, but I also plan to play a good number of Steam titles. This is not to say I won’t be getting any new games, but the goal is to obtain fewer than I “complete” (however I define that for a given game)
2. Not really anymore. We usually do a cocktail shrimp and meat-and-cheese tray instead of a normal dinner but ever since Dick Clark died we don’t treat it much different than any other night.
3. Nothing too specific this year outside of learning to use a MIDI controller for my PC to play around with music. The standard “lose weight, exercise more” resolutions are in effect of course, but I’m trying not to overburden myself with specific tasks because I find that the more of those I have the fewer I accomplish.
4. Elite Beat Agents. Someday we’ll get a new game. Someday.
5. Same thing he does every night, Anna. Sleep!

That’s all the space we have for questions today. I hope everybody made a resolution for 2025 to ask more questions!

Happy New Year 2025, and be excellent to each other!