The Queue

It’s the Queue. I fell asleep at an inopportune time, because the only thing more inconvenient than my usual insomnia is when it fails and I sleep exactly when I intended to be doing something else.

Let us do things and stuff. Also, everyone hug Lefty and keep Wade in your thoughts. He’s a good boy. Wade, I mean. I’m not presumptuous enough to assume Lefty is a good boy.

Hello, Queue! It’s been a really long week, but we’ve all struggled our way into another Wednesday (and another Queue). And I am arriving precisely on time, as I always do. But have you seen the size of these drinks?

Let’s get to some questions.

The expansion name Midnight is excellent because it’s rich with meaning — it implies and conjures the image of many different things, from colors to the doomsday clock. However, from an editorial point of view, I’m a little flummoxed because it feels like there should be so many more puns available to me with this name. And yet, it’s mostly just sloppy entendres so far.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions, and we’ll mid-write them for you. Is that anything?

Pizza is so great, I love pizza.

Is it the perfect food? Possibly. As long as you’re not gluten or lactose-intolerant, that is. I would put it up against any other food in a March Madness-style bracket any day and expect a top-four finish at least. The other things at the top are likely burritos, bread, and French fries. I’m willing to hear arguments about what you think is more deserving of a top slot, but they’d have to be Atticus Finch levels of convincing for me to change anything there in the final brackets.

While I eat another slice, it’s time for — The Queue!

When Phase Diving was first announced for patch 11.2 I figured it was going to be a sort of “Maw lite” with harder challenges and trickier navigation (no flying? in 2025?!?) but it turns out that Phase Diving not only isn’t that hard to deal with, it actually makes getting around K’aresh faster and easier. Don’t want to be phased anymore? Just click off the buff that puts in you the phase — even if you’re being dogpiled by elite mobs. Want to quickly get from Tavazesh to the Oasis? Dive into the phase and teleport over. Have a challenging treasure to get? Fly to it in normal space and quaff an Untethered Xy’bucha and you may even get an achievement for your “hard” work recovering it.

It’s like the dev team got through 90% of phase diving development and remembered that the vast majority of the playerbase hated the Maw and scrambled to remove the worst roadblocks. I’m not complaining, mind you, as the Forge knows I have precious little time to play as it is. There’s just a dissonance between the challenge that phase diving wants to be and the fact that it actually provides some quality of life benefits.

I do look good in translucent sparkly pink, at least. Speaking of phase diving …

I mean, sure, it’s Paradox Interactive so I can’t pretend to be surprised, but finding out that two of the playable Vampire clans in Vampire the Masquerade — Bloodlines 2 are going to be locked behind a $20 paywall has really bummed me out.

There are six playable clans in this game, and of the four you get for the purchase price of $70 USD — the Banu Haqim, Brujah, Tremere and Ventrue — only one of the four is even remotely interesting to me. But I’d play the heck out of a Toreador. And the idea of having to spend ninety UD dollars just to get a clan I actually want to play does not exactly fill me with excitement.

Anyway, with that out of the way, let’s talk about Arator’s weird facial hair.

A void demon hunter, you say? A void hunter, if you will? I admit I am intrigued with the idea of a new ranged spec, even a new mid-range and highly weird ranged spec like this demon hunter appears to be.

Still… maybe…

Let’s get to the Queue.

Anything going on? Nothing important? Should I just play video games and watch youtube all day? There was a Hearthstone Battlegrounds balance pass slated for later today, maybe I’ll check that out.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions and I might answer if you bribe me with peanut m&ms.

Oops, I accidentally started playing Control again.

I just love this game full of Weirdness™. Like I said the first time I played Control, it feels like the game was made for me. All of the Weird™ stuff in it is my favorite flavor of Weird™ — mundane objects and places getting that supernatural flair. I’m not so far in yet, but I’ve gotten my telekinesis and started whipping fire extinguishers at my enemies with great glee. Such a simple yet evocative power to build a game around.

While I delve further into the mysteries of the Astral Plane, it’s time for — The Queue!

I asked for some questions, and you guys delivered in spades. Let’s waste no more time, cause if I write too much The Ghosts of The Queue™ will have their revenge!