The Queue: Escape from Violet Hold

If you were imprisoned in Dalaran’s maximum security prison for beings from all across the cosmos, Violet Hold, what would you do? Would you attempt a daring escape, or would you just accept your fate and wait for the heroes to inevitably come in, beat you up just for being there, and probably loot your pants on the way out? Look, I don’t know what you did but I ain’t no snitch.

This is The Queue, our daily column where we’re here to answer Qs and bribe some guards, and we’re all out of guards.

I’d think “this is odd” at 7.

I’d probably start to get nervous at 13.

I’d defintely turn around and reconsider my life decisions and everything else at 42.

But I’d only start running at something like 67 or 69.

And I’d probably just freeze, play dead, or start laughing nervously at 420.

Oh, I’ve been using that for years. “Discount” and “Price” are definitely the two I use the most.

I have no idea what “Your Rank” means, though. Even though it’s the default setting.

Power levels seem to be much higher than in previous expansions, which is great!

This expansion is all about breaking the rules, and the ways we get to do this are super fun for the most part. The Paladin Legendary that lets you have ten copies of a 2-cost card, Commander Beatrix, will lead to so many possibilities; I’m really excited about that one. Same with King of the Underbelly for Hunter, which lets you add three Beasts from ANY class to your deck, to be Discovered from its Battlecry effect. Or the new Aya for Rogue that buffs your Coins and makes you always go second!

And even cards that don’t break the rules still sound like a lot of fun, like The Living Plague for DK. The Prepare mechanic is great, as it adds some small amount of counterplay possibility, and rewards being attentive to your opponent’s cards. I think a card like Jailbird, which gets discounted alongside any other Prepare cards you use, might become a Neutral staple if the meta ever gets too aggressive.

As much as people might complain sometimes about overpowered cards or overpowered decks, the truth is that this is what makes the game fun — as long as it’s not oppressive. Balance should be much more about reigning in the power in those extreme cases than about “making sure everything has the same power level as everything else” all the time. The latter sounds like a good idea, but the truth is that it leads to a flat, homogenized, and ultimately less fun game.

All in all, I’m really excited for this one. To be completely honest, I was also really excited for Cataclysm and that expansion wasn’t the success it seemed like it would be, so just “excitement” alone is no guarantee of anything. But I’d rather be excited again than be grumpy and miserable!

The current Diablo 4 season, which didn’t really have anything special going on, was easily the one where I had the most fun in Diablo 4, by far. But I don’t think it’s because of the season itself — it’s simply because Lord of Hatred is a fantastic expansion that made the game really fun.

But the “thematic” expansions with very limited story quests and borrowed power didn’t really do it for me. I MUCH prefer the way Diablo 3 does seasons: you work toward a new armor set that gives you some cool new way to build and play your character. This alone incentivizes you to roll a new character of a class you already know, because you’re almost guaranteed to have a different experience, yet it doesn’t feel “gimmicky” or temporary.

With that said, Diablo 4 itself was not such a great game the last time I tried its “thematic” seasons. Now it is. So who knows? Maybe next time a new season starts, the experience will feel better for me simply because the core game is much stronger than it used to be.

Can’t say I’m a fan either.

I’ve been meaning to collect my thoughts about this a little more and maybe write something coherent, but while I don’t do that, I have to say: it feels like WoW has gotten a little “lazy” lately. It’s no longer a game that innovates or surprises me: they have seemingly found some patterns that “work” and are just sticking to those same patterns. It feels like I get bored faster now than I used to, despite taking breaks.

I wish they would really start pushing the envelope more again. Getting a bit tired of “go to new area, unlock the new power system (same as the old power system), upgrade the new special piece of gear (this time it’s a belt, not a ring! Totally different!), go to the new invasion zone where you kill a bunch of mobs and fill a bar, and then work on your weekly Vault by doing a TON of repetitive content — for a once-a-week upgrade.”

Sorry for the rant. Just been feeling that way about WoW lately. But your mileage may vary, and, in all honestly, I hope it does.

YEAH

This has been The Queue. Now GET OUT BEFORE MAIEV RETURNS!!!