The Queue: DJ Manastorm vs. Mixqueen Azshara

Who would be the most effective DJ: a Mage who summons Mirror Images to help him, or a Naga who has multiple arms to turn knobs, spin vinyls, and press buttons? The Mirror Images will certainly double as special effects, looking cool enough to get the crowd pumped — but the extra arms might be more useful as a focused tool to perform the task in front of you (with a single brain commanding all the actions).

Plus, let’s not kid ourselves: DJ Manastorm would probably try to come up with some devious scheme to drain infinite power from the crowd, while Mixqueen Azshara would mass charm the audience to ensure their bewilderment to her act. It would not be a simple, fair battle.

While we ponder who would win this ensorcelling music showdown, let’s answer some questions, shall we?

Good! You?

…is it still Monday? I am confusion

I think it all comes down to community outcry. Are there enough people clamoring for those options? Personally, I haven’t seen it; which is not to say that I don’t want those options to be added to the game. I’m firmly on team “more options” the vast majority of times!

I suspect they’d have to do some sort of work to split the items in two, which might be easy (or as easy as shoulders were, at least), or it might not; it’s hard to say without knowing how exactly the game engine works. For some reason I suspect that feet might present some difficulty: there are a few boots in the game I can think of where the two feet are very close together and almost overflowing because they’re so large. I suspect that could, maybe, cause some geometry issues; but I’m just speculating here.

But either way, it comes down to whether or not Blizzard is even considering doing that — and if they are, how high it is in their priority list. At the moment, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s not a very high priority feature for them to implement, sadly — unless it becomes something like a single dev’s passion project on their off time (we have heard of things being added to the game that way before).

I’m going to cheat and steal SJHawk’s answer for this one, for the sake of visibility (while adding some links to make it seem like I researched the subject as thoroughly as he did — which I totally did, by the way):

The Miscellaneous Mechanica? This is a low drop rate warbound item from the rares in Undermine. The supposed highest drop rates appear to be from the Renown 6 summonable rares, but they will drop from the others as well.

You need 38 for the pets, and 75 for the three mounts.

Comments suggest they’ll drop from the paragon caches as well.

So there you have it! My job here is done.

SJHawk: But you didn’t do anything.

Red: *flips cape, leaves*

I do! Especially on the explosive ones. I just think it’s fun to try and mine two (or more) small chunks of ore and then get out of the way before the whole thing explodes.

Realistically no, but at the same time, in a sense, yes, the thought has crossed my mind. I’ve had this idea of coming up with playlists where a song links into the next one mostly by tone rather than by beat — i.e., a song that finishes in the E key links with another song that starts in the E key. I’ve actually made a couple of playlists like that, and showed them to a couple of friends, who liked the results; so I did think about playing those for people in a party or something. More a fantasy than a real wish, though.

Also, mashups! I’d throw some unexpected mashups in there to surprise people and see their reactions. And video game songs as well — especially video game covers that don’t sound like “video game music,” if you know what I mean.

Heck, now I do want to become a DJ.

Let me ask you a few questions to determine what to recommend.

1) What kind of gameplay do you seek? 13 Sentinels is a hybrid between Visual Novel and RTS-lite combat sequences, though you’ll also feel naturally compelled to spend some time reading entries in a lore compendium. Unicorn Overlord is an Ogre Battle-like Tactical RPG where you spend most of your time either on the overworld map or in intricate tactical auto-battles.

2) What kind of setting do you want? 13 Sentinels is sci-fi, with mechas, kaiju enemies, and time travel. Unicorn Overlord is typical fantasy, with Elves, Necromancers, and Beast-people.

3) How much time do you want to devote? 13 Sentinels is a relatively short game, taking around 30-35 hours to beat. Unicorn Overlord is longer, requiring around 60-75 on average (though I took about 100 myself).

4) What kind of experience do you crave? 13 Sentinels is all about uncovering the story, piece by piece, trying to make a very complex plot make sense. The story is well worth it, with some people even calling it “the best narrative of 2020” despite it being a very niche game by a small studio. But the combat sequences, while not bad by any means, are nothing super special either. Unicorn Overlord is the opposite: you’ll be able to devote a lot of energy into very satisfying gameplay systems, carefully assembling your teams, deciding on your characters’ equipment, active and passive skills, formation, and more. It’s the definition of easy to learn, hard to master, and it pays off. But the story is nothing to write home about: it’s ye olde generic fantasy for the most part.

As for difficulty, both are relatively easy games. I’d say it’s safe to start 13 Sentinels on “Intense” or Unicorn Overlord on “Tactical” (which are the difficulty levels immediately above “Normal” for each game, respectively). You can always drop them down to Normal (or even Casual/Story) later if you want. For 13 Sentinels, the core of the game is the Visual Novel experience, which isn’t affected by the difficulty, whereas for Unicorn Overlord difficulty will have more of an impact on your experience.

Hope this helps you decide!

If you need to talk, just reach out, man. We have a support group, we meet on Thursdays.

While Millhouse and Azshara were busy coming up with illegitimate ways to win, MC Garona and MC Blingtron showed up to, quite literally, steal the show at the last second! Tough luck for the Mages: Team Rogue unexpectedly wins! And they weren’t even in the competition to begin with!

This has been The Queue. Ask some questions for Kalcheus to answer tomorrow!