The Queue: Arriving precisely when I intended (and I intended to arrive a half hour ago)

Hello, Queue! It’s been a really long week, but we’ve all struggled our way into another Wednesday (and another Queue). And I am arriving precisely on time, as I always do. But have you seen the size of these drinks?

Let’s get to some questions.

It’s time to unlock Paladins for everyone.

This expansion is the ultimate battle between light and void, so let’s bring the battle to the void as paladins, heavily armored champions who wield the light against the darkness. (The armored figures following Liadrin in the cinematic would have been a great way to say “here, see all of the paladins of Azeroth, now you can be one too!” but instead they’re all generic humanoid forms and also Blizzard didn’t announce paladins for everybody.) Every race can be a Warrior, and strap on a heavy armor and a shield to defend (or fight). Every race can be a Priest, and call on the light to heal (or harm). Squish those two classes together and you have a Paladin.

Just let everyone who wants to be a champion of the light be a champion of the light.

Personally, I’m not so bothered by an imbalance in Demon Hunter races. I can understand the desire to focus on a uniquely Void Elf narrative and not just add a bunch of new DH races. However I also think it tacitly suggests that Horde don’t need more Demon Hunter races because Blood Elves are just so great (which is true).

However, I support more options for players (even though my Demon Hunter is and will remain a Blood Elf), and it does seem like a low bar to add Nightborne since they share a skeleton with Night Elves. We’ll see how the expansion shapes up — parhaps in a patch or two more races will be available as Demon Hunters.

It would be neat, but also the audible voice of a character feels like a fairly small point of customization in a game like this, in which the player character has nearly no dialog. (Of course this same thing makes it an easier ask, as there is only a small amount of dialog to record for each character.) But on the list of customization options I want, this would be lower. Definitely under the ability to change the color of ribbons in my hair, and no, I am not being facetious, this is a serious color coordination issue that bothers me.

Ahem.

Beyond my problems with color coordination, I just suspect that amongst everything Blizzard could be working on, a customization like this isn’t likely to bubble to the top.

On professions: Blizzard hasn’t said anything about this, but I expect they want you to put the work in and make professions a time investment, not something you can level across your whole account. But the current vibe with changes at Blizzard is to respect the player’s time — not necessarily to require them not to spend time, but to respect time spent and not make them spend it again. To that end I might see them make specific professions account-wide unlocks, so if you switched mains you could still have those profession points available without leveling from scratch. But there are some problems with that that may need addressing, like for example what if you had found and learned a rare pattern, and then made an alt on a new realm to sell that item? Making professions purely account wide could be a license to print gold for the lucky who get rare patterns early (or the rich who buy them). It may be something that needs a few guardrails.

On Warband banks: No news. I suspect there’s nothing preventing Blizzard from doing this, and there’s certainly space in the UI for more tabs. But no word on when or if we might get them. (Personally, I’ve only bought two tabs because of the expense and they are packed full.)

On new classes: I think there’s plenty of room for new classes, and we should never say never. I’m gonna keep holding out hope for a bard or a tinkerer class some day. However there’s also plenty of space for new takes on existing classes, and these are probably both easier to develop and more accessible to existing players who may be able to swap without changing mains or leveling a new character… so I don’t think one prevents the other, and we could see Blizzard do both into the future.

My most wanted dream of a new class is a support spec for Paladin that focuses on buffs and auras. These things feel highly situational for most paladins, whose button bars are crammed with blessings that, when you need them you really need them, but most of the time don’t get clicked. Press devotion aura once and you’re done for life. (Or you would be if switching specs didn’t turn off your current aura.) This is something that plays into the current class, focusing on one aspect of gameplay and making it a central element — it makes the most sense as a new spec rather than a new class.

I sort of feel like how much you liked Undermine determines how much you like K’aresh. Both of these are places that have been in lore for a long time that we’ve never been to. Both of them are somewhat asides to the story. In Undermine we’re following the trail of the black blood (straight to Gallywix), in K’aresh we’re following the story of Xal’atath and the void… and the game’s usual tendency to send players noping off somewhere in the last patch of an expansion.

For my part, I didn’t care very much for Undermine. It was fine. It was an interesting place to explore, and the questing was really great. There were some fantastic characters there, and it gave goblins a lot more depth and character than they’ve had before. I loved that about it. But after finishing the quests (and I admittedly haven’t done every side quest), I wasn’t interested in grinding out reputation for five unique goblin cartels plus the overall Undermine faction and a raid faction. The car was neat but I wasn’t good at driving it and wasn’t interested in customizing it — but you really had to drive it around because it seemed to reduce your aggro range, and the city is full of mobs that will otherwise attack you. I didn’t casually spend time in Undermine, and I never set my Hearthstone there. I went there when I had something to do, and then I left.

Plus I’m playing a gnome right now and it’s just annoying to walk around and have goblin NPCs show up and /rude at you. It’s not a dealbreaker but it also isn’t exactly a welcoming environment.

Personally, I think K’aresh is beautiful, particularly after spending a patch digging through garbage heaps and wearing random scrap metal for armor. It’s shifted the color palette into the pinks and purples, with a massive stretch of sky. The desert sand sparkles in pink and purple under your feet. Tazavesh is an intricate, beautiful little city that doesn’t feel like any other city in Warcraft, from color palette to physical layout. (Tazavesh is also a great home base for delvers, due to its portals to each bountiful delve. It’s a serious time saver.) If we stayed here forever, we would grow tired of these vistas, but right now I think it’s refreshing after spending a full patch cycle under a metal sky with fake clouds. But you see what I mean when I say your like or dislike of Undermine probably predicates how you feel about K’aresh.

Of course I also really liked the vibe of Zereth Mortis. I thought the music and sounds were soothing, and the environment had a chill vibe that I loved. (Like with Undermine, I didn’t find the time or energy to finish all the grinds there, but I did just enjoy hanging out.) However… I don’t think K’aresh has as much to do as ZM did. Phase Diving is interesting, but not that interesting. Ve’nari’s Eco-Dome quests are a little tedious. The weekly quests have already gotten a little repetitive — in the last week I’ve already done the same series of world quests twice to get my Phase Diving quest done. (And I have to get my Phase Diving quest done every week because there’s transmog on the other side, and transmog is the true end game.)

So I like K’aresh. It isn’t perfect. It won’t be everyone’s vibe.

And that’s all for now my friends. Sorry for being late, and I hope we can all survive the rest of this Wednesday and through the week. Maybe with a nap somewhere in the middle.

I’ll see you in the comments.