The Queue: Never trust a fish

Fish are always up to something, and while Warcraft has several talking fish, I’m extremely concerned about the addition of fishing to Diablo 4 in the upcoming expansion. What kind of fish will we find in Sanctuary? What will they whisper in our ears? Will we replace the Cow Level with a Fish Level?

I have so many concerns.

But for now, this is the Queue, our daily Q&A column where I answer your questions and we all get to hang out in the comments and chat. Let’s get to it.

It’s a tale as old as time; someone has power, someone wants that power for themselves, someone wants to keep others from that power. The fighting over Azeroth’s world soul is the same; everyone knows and fears the power there, as the Old Gods burrowed in and the Titans chained them because they couldn’t vanquish them — and then of course Sargeras stabs the planet with a sword because chaining the Old Gods is an unacceptable half measure.

And Sargeras could have a point, but also I live on Azeroth and keep all my stuff here, so we’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

World of Warcraft is a hyper gamified chore chart, and Abundance is on the list. I think it’s nice to have the option of all of these different activities, which let you pick what you feel like doing and ignore things you don’t enjoy. There are rewards here, but they’re not so grand that you have to go do Abundance every week. It’s a fun little diversion in which numbers go brrrr, and that’s its own kind of fun. It’s not super deep gameplay, but not everything has to have super deep gameplay to be fun.

So, yeah, it’s a weekly chore, and we have a whole lot of weekly chores in this game. But I also think it’s a weekly chore you can choose to ignore, which makes it easy to roll with if it’s not your thing.

I don’t have strong opinions about most of them, but I hate Stormarion Assault. I did it once, which involved me wandering around, unable to figure out what to do, with the game piling on side quests and goals that frankly did not help with that at all. It tells me to do something, so I attempt to go do it, but it requires materials I don’t have and don’t know how to get. Meanwhile waves of enemies keep spawning trying to kill me and follow me around so I don’t have much opportunity to figure out what I’m supposed to do. I fought against waves of enemies by myself until I lost, while NPCs complained at me for not doing a good enough job.

Well, maybe you should have made the job description clearer.

It appears to be a wide-spread event without a clear central goal that’s communicated in game, with a wide range of side activities that may or may not contribute to the overall goal. I was very confused throughout, and wandering around, confused and followed by an angry mob of mobs, just wasn’t fun. The game activity did not show me why I’m supposed to be interested in it, and it never explained what I’m supposed to do. It wasn’t engaging enough to make me even want to look up a guide to understand it. And no, I’m not asking you to look up a guide for me, either. The game mode just didn’t hook me.

Meanwhile, the other events have a clear purpose, quests that walk you through what to do, and a defined start and end point. Knowing what I’m here for is a big first step in engaging me in an event. Saltheril’s is a fun little side quest bonanza every week, with transmog behind every rep, and I’m motivated to collect all color variants. Legends of Haranir frankly just feels like a weekly side-quest giving us backstory on the people and their home, and it seems like it will have to come to an end at some point. There are only so many artifacts on display for us to investigate. But I probably enjoy this one the most because it brings some story into it. Then Abundance I’m fine with, as a little side diversion. I should probably hook up with raid groups to go through it faster, as Anna has suggested. The ding-goes-the-loot feeling is fun, but I don’t do it every week.

All in all, I like how much variety there is, and that none of it feels like I absolutely have to do it. I can pick and choose what I do every week.

We’re heading to troll town. If you wrapped up the story over there and talked to Zul’jan, you know there’s more to Zul’Aman than we’ve seen so far, and I feel like that’s the next adventure on the horizon.

I can’t say where World of Warcraft will take us next, but I can say you should never trust a talking fish.

As long as no one expects me to write in morse code, we’re doing okay.

That’s all for today friends. We’re almost to the end of the week, so take care and I’ll see you in the comments section.