The Queue: A gourd time was had by all!

I know that Hallow’s End hasn’t started yet, but at least I’m not playing Christmas music like that one store I was in… last weekend! It wasn’t even October yet!!! Halloween is supposed to be the barrier that stops Christmas from leaking too far forward; honestly, it should be Remembrance Day on November 11, but at least Halloween is big and commercial enough that it could stand a chance. Clearly, someone has been getting too much of a jump start on their Christmas decoration buying, and it’s ruined everything. I blame Mariah Carey.

At least I still have lots of pumpkin spice flavored things to keep me warm, plus with Canadian Thanksgiving upon me, I have eggnog in stores again! Best of all, the pumpkin-shaped Reese’s are back in stock, and they’re the best! I don’t know why they taste better than regular cups, or even the other holiday shapes — they just do.

While I do more taste-testing on different Reese shapes, it’s time for — The Queue!

It’s next Sunday/Monday! Just around the corner, which means my birthday is also just around the corner! Canadian Thanksgiving is always the second weekend of October, which means just like yours, it can move around a few days. At least it’s not that awkward holiday in the middle of the week that ruins the flow of everything. So next week I may or may not be here, depending on whether I can sucker another of the Queue writers to cover it for me!

A little sad. There must be internal numbers that show that the Pet Battle system isn’t widely interacted with in a way that warrants fully maintaining. It’s been a part of the game for so long with basically no changes that anything less feels weird.

I fondly remember the early days of Pandaria, and rushing around the world collecting and battling pets instead of getting bound up in the bottlenecks of the starting areas. Who cared that there were five hundred people all trying to fly gyrocopters or fight over quest spawns? I had a new snake to name Monty!

This could be the first sign of pruning things down to reflect the new reality of lower player counts, or it could just be that there are only so many attacks you could conceivably have a small animal perform before you start doubling up. With the wide wide wide stable of battle pets already in the game, that’s certainly possible. Sure, you have seventeen other rabbits, but this one has a new hat!

So this is a thin excuse to muse about something that’s been on my mind recently. Overwatch just tweeted out a series of entreaties for people to come back and play with their friends again, with messages like “Junkrat needs his Roadhog,” “It’s 11:59, you still have time to make High Noon,” “Roadhog needs his Junkrat,” and “Genji still needs healing.” They came off a bit desperate, and I’m so mad that the high noon post wasn’t actually posted at 11:59 because that would’ve at least been a fun little nod to the content, but what really stuck with me was the Genji needing healing joke. It’s such an old joke, from back at the height of Overwatch popularity, that I feel like there’s no possible way for anything to ever come along and supplant it in people’s minds — just like Leeroy Jenkins and World of Warcraft.

I get it, these are bits that were scored deep into our collective psyche and got momentum because of just how many people were playing the games at that point and parroting the bit to other players. The developers saw the organic buy-in from the community at large, and then the jokes made it into the game more. We’ve seen countless references to Leeroy in Warcraft: Achievements, items, and the character showing up during anniversary events. The same goes for “many whelps, handle it” and “you face Jarraxus…”

I struggle to come up with something from the last few expansions that even comes close to the repetition of those early memes. Maybe it’s just the nature of the internet now, maybe it really is fully dependent on the community being smaller. All I know is that I’ve been so over Leeroy Jenkins for so long, and I don’t think anything is going to replace him.

That’s an excellent question, and while the game tracks my playtime, it’s also been screwed up because my roommate doesn’t sign me out when he plays, so my account is on when he is, and now I’ve got 10 days in Borderlands 4. Which, for a guy with things to do out in the real world, doesn’t quite line up.

It was fun though! Timekeeper could’ve used more presence if they wanted to make him a truly standout villain, but that also runs into the ‘why doesn’t he just kill you’ situation, so a detached leader who’s amused by your antics and fully self-assured in his eventual victory makes sense. The Ripper Queen has a great design. I love the big, giant arms holding up a little body look that she has going for her, much better than the other two act bosses, which were what if a spider had a guy where its head should be, and what if a guy, but larger. Claptrap was used sparingly to better effect than if he were by your side the whole time.

The gunplay is excellent, and for the most part, the gameplay holds up as well. It can be tough to get the mods specific to your class and preferred manufacturer. While the legendary weapon effects are fun, if sometimes underwhelming and beaten by some randomly perfectly rolled purple quality. I really didn’t like them locking the infinite grind paragon points behind completing the main story quest; it really felt like I wasn’t playing right by doing all of the exploration and side stuff before then. I also want whatever designer thought that having a bunch of things to hold and run back to base, that locked you out of your movement abilities and vehicle — and could be thrown off a cliff, accidentally forcing you to go back and start over —  to mildly suffer. Just like they step on a lego piece every once in a while, or catch their pant loop on door handles. I wouldn’t be sad if those were removed yesterday.

The returning cast of characters was fine, although any time any of them were paired up with you, it could be hard to see that they were friendly, so I wound up trying to kill my NPC friends too often. I’ll keep trying to push myself up the difficulty curve now that I’ve finished the main game. There are a lot more random citizens with silly problems for me to solve.

I’m still not sure if I’ll start up another character or try and make my Amon super strong after that. I have seen a tease of what looks like a robot wild west gunslinger with a gambling mechanic for the next Vault Hunter, which does sound like it could be fun.

Today’s picture of Bacardi is him studiously not looking up at the camera. I tried making all kinds of noise, and he was more interested in what was happening elsewhere. C’est la vie. Hopefully, you have better luck attracting his good loot luck for your resets.

Would you rather

Go on adventures with wild horses

Or

Go on adventures with wild dolphins

Today’s Halloween Anna Earworm™: For I Am Death

I hope y’all have a great week! This was a little short today with so few questions asked. Make sure to leave lots for Anna tomorrow!