The Queue: We are not the same.

You are waiting with your spreadsheet to try to grab a unique first and last name. I am about to get on a steam train in the wilderness in a DLC for one of my favorite long-term games.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us the questions, and we deny all evidence to the contrary that the island in the DLC is named after me.

This is me with a lot of Blizzard’s games right now. The Hearthstone loop is fine for me, because I mostly just stick to Battlegrounds, and the seasons there are very forgiving. You can even stack the daily quests a couple days out so you’re not pressured to log in every single day, and most of them can be completed in a match or two. The couple-week shorter events with swag are either fine or literally impossible to finish unless I play Constructed so those ones I don’t even pay attention to. The Heroes of the Storm quests loop is similar, and unfortunately they seem to have given up on the shorter-term events and quests.

But Overwatch and WoW are both insurmountably overwhelming for me to even think about at this point. I went on vacation 2 weeks ago, so I was screwed from jump on even trying to complete the Overwatch Halloween event or battle pass. Even if I wasn’t, I would still have to play a minimum of 4 event matches every day to keep up. As someone with literally anything to do in my life and leisure time aside from Overwatch that is a huge ask.

And WoW… I’m at a point where I’m just out, man. Aside from social media stuff and all that, I haven’t logged on since 12.1.5. This is especially because while doing something a couple times to beat a challenge is fun for me, I’ve realized that just running a Delve or a pug dungeon or those Ritual Sites or Invasions or whatever in order to grind currency in order to buy some random geegaw just isn’t fun. I’d run that stuff a billion times with friends, because it was hanging out with friends. Without that, the only motivation for doing it is the extrinsic one provided by the game, and I’ve never been a stats or gear motivated player, in just about any game. And all those activities are stacked up against the stuff that I actually find fun just as a gameplay thing, so I’m so overwhelmed that I’m just not even playing any of it right now. I can’t imagine how overwhelmed I’d be if I had friends asking me to do keys while I was also trying to do a freakin Labyrinth.

I am looking forward to Talebound, because I love that game archetype — and because when I log in I won’t have three popup toasts from NPCs and a dozen quests on my minimap and a full quest log and mailbox and bags and a whole slew of both dailies and weeklies to deal with before I can actually play the pirate ghosting game.

My headcanon is that on Azeroth, everyone is exposed to the fantastical and magic all day every day, so for Hallow’s End, it’s custom to dress up in the most homemade-looking costume for the most mundane, boring people and jobs and ideas ever. One of the baseline costumes we’re given are paper printed masks that are just archetypes of other races. It’s like if I rolled up with a Mitch or Liz mask on.

So this year, my Hunter and her bear are absolutely dressing up as Lucy and Rutherford B Hayes. Some lady and a dude with a majestic af beard? Sure.

I’ve always had a soft spot for The Invisible Man. His movie is one which stayed relatively faithful to the source material, which I definitely appreciate. Dracula and Frankenstein are pretty even for me in terms of the sources with a slight edge for Frankenstein, but the changes for the movie to make them just monster-y monsters kinda takes the wind out of my sails. Plus, his story is somewhat relatable in a way none of the others except maybe Jekyll and Hyde is. What would you do if nobody could see you? Let’s be real though, I’m pretty sure I’d act just like I do now, only I would never pay airfare.

When I have an issue of pronunciation, I consult Julian. What are his credentials? No idea. How does he know? None of my business. But for whatever reason he’s the first stop for anyone who’s ever done voice or audiobook work.

Actually I’ve wanted to see Heart live since I was young, like 13, 14, and the stars just never aligned for me.

Cory.