The Queue: Holding down the fort?

Sometimes when a new content patch rolls over, I spare a thought for all the weirdos we’ve left behind in various states of peril over the years, forcing them into the thankless task of maintaining all this infrastructure in the wilderness. You think the Argent Tournament ever fixed the hole in the floor of the stadium? Who’s shoveling out my Horde Garrison every time it snows? What exactly is the Alliance doing with all those pumpkins? Sure thing, champion, whatever harebrained scheme you’re up to this time, see you in six months when you need a transmog piece from Kul Tiras or whatever.

Anyway, this is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions, and vroom vroom, let’s go beat up Gallywix!

It depends on the game I’m watching, and who’s live. If there are WoW drops, I’m almost always lurking Taliesin and Evitel. Evitel is squad goals, I wish we were besties. Taliesin is also there. For Overwatch I usually go with DanielFenner or Aspen, because they both play Supports at high level without being the stereotypical Gamer Words type of toxic, or Rudeism just to see what nonsense he’s doing today.

I will also frequently go down the list and just see who’s streaming in French, because there are several real gaps in what I’ve been learning on Duolingo, and it’s mostly related to actual people and real speech or internet slang. They use “mdr” instead of “lol,” for instance, a similar acronym which translates to “dying of laughter,” which Duo would never teach me, mdrrr. Plus, because Time Zone, the people living in Paris are usually live when I’m doin the ol work & lurk around 10 am EST.

The funny thing is, despite my Steam activity looking like I am absolutely exhausting to be friends with,

…I didn’t really play any demos during Next Fest.

Most of the time if there’s a game that piques my interest I just slap it on the ol Wishlist. There’s no way I’m not day 1 purchasing Wanderstop so I’m not bothering to play the demo, even though the demo looks good and fun. I’ll play almost anything as long as it’s not a platformer or platformer-adjacent (eg, Metroidvanias are also out). I am frequently pleasantly surprised even if it’s a playstyle I don’t naturally vibe with — Tactical Breach Wizards was phenomenal, and turn-based tactics is usually not the first genre I reach for — and I don’t think I’ve ever refunded a game with Steam. Weirdly, the ones I’ve been tempted to refund have all been deep into gameplay, where the story goes somewhere infuriating and/or deeply stupid (I am thinking of Twelve Minutes, which was both, and I should’ve realized would be bad because it opens with the Shining carpet pattern. While it’s intended as an homage, most games which pay that homage end up sucking).

Also, many of the games I’m excited for that are releasing what I’d consider “soon” haven’t offered up a playable demo, which makes me nervous. Atomfall in particular is going to hinge far more on gameplay than on story, and since that game seems like it’ll be pretty expansive, I’m a little surprised they didn’t offer up the first 20 minutes of gameplay, since it comes out in about a month.

The one I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about in terms of playable demos is Promise Mascot Agency, since it’s equal parts action and unhinged. You unravel a mystery about your past as an ousted yakuza in a cursed Japanese village, and can choose to hang out with a crying block of tofu or a severed pinky while you do it. There’s also Arctic Awakening, which is a more narrative-driven version of The Long Dark, but you have a court-mandated therapy robot as a buddy.

Hell yeah. Let’s do it, Queue.