Matthew Rossi

This weekend, the Tavern Watch podcast — our brand new show focusing on tabletop RPGs — will be a special one because we're going to be talking to Brendan Conway, Lead Designer for the upcoming Avatar Legends tabletop RPG. You know, the game that just became most successful RPG Kickstarter pledge drive ever, raising over $7 million to build the Avatar tabletop game we've always wanted to play.

Patch 9.1.5 is bringing some alt-friendly improvements to the Shadowlands, so if you've been thinking of leveling up a new character you may want to hold off until the patch comes out.

I can't help but imagine dancing in the streets and parades of joy with the news that alts will be able to skip the Maw intro in patch 9.1.5.

In case you've been wondering when World of Warcraft's patch 9.1.5 will hit the PTR -- I know I have, considering all the stuff we've been told is coming -- we now know that it will be next week, thanks to this post from the official World of Warcraft site.

Recently, players noted a new Classic Era PTR dropped for WoW Classic. After logging on and exploring using older characters from a previous PTR cycle that hadn't been deleted -- because character copy had been disabled for the current PTR -- it seemed that for whatever reason, the PTR was on a different phase than live Classic Era servers.

California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing has amended its lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, claiming the company is actively interfering with the state's investigation.

My various Warriors absolutely want the Barbarian's Arsenal system from the Diablo 4 beta I played at BlizzCon 2019.

Many of the creatures we think of as "dinosaurs" are wrong.

Acrocanthosaurus atokensis or ‘the high spined lizard from Atoka County’ named for where it was found and its most distinctive trait, was the largest carnivore in North America when it lived, and remains the fifth largest theropod discovered in North America to date. At a length of about 11.5 meters — a little more than 38 feet — and a weight approaching six metric tons, it was a member of the Carcharodontosauridae although it lacked some of the defining characteristics of more derived Carcharodontosaurs like Carcharodontosaurus or Giganotosaurus. As mentioned, it had a series of extremely tall spines growing out of its back, with muscle attachments that suggest a ridge of muscle possibly anchoring a fatty hump.

Acrocanthosaurus lived between 125 and 100 million years ago, which means no, it could never have met or fought Tyrannosaurus. In fact, the most contemporary Tyrannosaurid we know of from that time period is Dilong paradoxus, which lived about 126 million years ago, or the closely related Eotyrannus lengi, which lived during the Aptian which is the same geological era as Acrocanthosaurus, and which wouldn’t even have come up to the animal’s hip. Basically, at the time this dinosaur lived, it would have eaten any extant Tyrannosaurids in one or two bites. Acrocanthosaurus teeth have been found near the remains of the massive Macronarian Sauroposeidon, suggesting it may have hunted or scavenged from these behemoth relatives of Giraffatitan.

This is the Queue. Here’s hoping y’all talked about dinosaurs this week because I’m super in the mood.

If you're a transmog fiend, it's okay, you're among friends here -- there's no shame in wanting pretty outfits.