A tradesman is currently doing some renovations on my apartment. I feel a vague discomfort around the idea of playing video games the whole time he’s here, so I’ll write about video games instead. That’s much more respectable, clearly.
Let’s talk about what I’ve been playing lately.
World of Warcraft
As of this writing, my WoW sub has just expired. I’ve completed all of my main goals in the current patch, so it was time to take a break.
Midnight has been one of the most mixed experiences of an expansion so far. As you may have seen from me ranting about it over at Massively, the story has been a huge disappointment. However, I do still enjoy the “third era” endgame loop quite a lot, and as long as I don’t think about the big picture plot, it’s lovely spending time in Quel’Thalas and soaking up the ambiance.
I realize this is how must people traditionally approach WoW — ignore the main plot, just focus on the gameplay and enjoying the scenery — but it’s an alien and not entirely comfortable experience for me.
Aside from issues with the story, my main regret with WoW lately is my attempt to switch things up by prioritizing a different set of characters to play. In hindsight, that was a mistake.
I am loving my paladin, so leveling her up early worked out, but while the demon hunter feels okay, it’s not as fun as it was in War Within. If I had to do it over again, I’d still play her a bit, but I would have relegated her to the second string alt she’s traditionally been in the past. And as for the death knight, I’m afraid it still just isn’t quite clicking for me for whatever reason.
I started having a lot more fun once I’d finished leveling up my traditional rogue/monk/warlock triad — rogue in particular is the most fun it’s been in several expansions, as long as I stick to Assassination — but by then there wasn’t much time left in my subscription.
Overwatch
My relationship with Overwatch continues to be a bit of a rollercoaster.
The most recent major patch absolutely gutted my Hyper Healer Juno build by removing the Rally Ring power. It’s a bizarre choice because this was by no means a meta or even popular build. It was just a fun, quirky oddball build that let you keep your team buffed with speed and overhealth nearly all the time. Why it needed such a savage beating with the nerf bat is beyond me.
I’m learning to live without Rally Ring, but I definitely feel noticeably less powerful, and it’s just not as fun. It’s really demoralizing, and it feels like another example of a worrying trend of Stadium moving away from fun and creative powers that genuinely change how a character plays.
On the other hand, I have had a lot of fun with Stadium’s new addition, Ramattra, who has definitely become my favourite tank to date. I like his versatile, tactical playstyle and battle mage vibes, to say nothing of Ramon Tikaram’s exquisite voice work (took me longer than it should have to realize Ram has the same voice actor as Dorian from Inquisition, whom I also loved).
But then I was again discouraged as my preferred build with him — Vortex spam — was almost immediately nerfed. I still feel decently powerful post-nerf, so maybe it was justified, but the fact it came so quickly felt a bit kneejerk, and coupled with the Rally Ring removal it felt like another example of punishing fun and different ability-focused builds. I’m getting over it, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth.
To Blizzard’s credit, Ram does seem to have multiple fun and viable builds. While I settled on Vortex spam as my favourite, I also tried out several other builds, and they all felt viable and enjoyable, which is unfortunately pretty rare for Stadium characters.
I am pleased to know we’re getting more than one character for Stadium this season… but dismayed that the second will be Jetpack Cat. Who asked for this? There are so many older characters people have been begging to have in Stadium since it launched, but we get the most divisive of the new characters instead?
Like I said, rollercoaster.
Finally, I want to say I absolutely love the new Diablo inspired paladin skin for Brigitte. A proper paladin skin for her is all I’ve wanted since I started playing. Burn in the Light!
Age of Mythology: Obsidian Mirror
The latest expansion for Age of Mythology: Retold has arrived, much sooner than expected, and I can’t help but feel a bit too soon. Obsidian Mirror and its new Aztec civilization are not the unmitigated disaster Demeter was, but they do still have a certain vibe of having been pushed out in a hurry.
The campaign was quite disappointing. The story is an absolute mess of shameless fan service that tries to do far too much things at once and ends up doing none of them well. Meanwhile the mission design focuses way too much on defensive missions considering that the Aztecs were designed uniquely unsuited for defense. I also found it frustrating how few missions let you choose your own minor gods or make it to age 4.
Meanwhile the Aztec civilization itself is a mixed bag. A lot of their new units and god powers are quite fun, and everything’s very pretty, but their favour mechanic is a bit of a mess. I like the flavour of having to collect life force, but it’s hobbled by the fact the main way of doing so — your warrior priest hero units — are just… terrible. They’re squishy and weak, and they’re melee, so there’s always on the front lines, and usually the first to die.
I doubt it will happen, but if it were up to me I’d make warrior priests ranged. If they weren’t on the front lines all the time, it’d be a lot easier to keep them alive long enough to collect your tonalli. I also think the diminishing returns on sacrificing villagers for favour should be softened. Maybe make it more of a cooldown than permanent reduction.
I’ve also heard from those who are in the know about such things that it’s not a very faithful or respectful depiction of Aztec culture, which is disappointing. Even I as a layman can see issues. Jaguar riders are an absolute nonsense unit based on neither history nor mythology, and the god portraits all look like white Instagram models cosplaying Aztecs. It’s gross, frankly.
The Age of Mythology: Retold community seems to be as toxically positive as most game communities are toxically negative, and I’ve seen many rush to point out AoM has always had inaccuracies, but at the risk of being a stereotype, I really feel like we should be expecting more in the year of our lord 2026.
That’s really the crux of my issues with Retold, and why I keep griping so much even as I continue to play it. It’s not that it’s offensively bad or actively unfun (Demeter notwithstanding). It’s just that it always has this sense of just settling for the bare minimum. The game’s concept has so much potential, and I really thought after twenty years they’d be able to truly take it to the next level, but it just doesn’t seem to have the ambition. AoE2, despite being even older, is finding ways to continue evolving and pushing the envelope, but Retold is content to keep doing the bare minimum.
I don’t hate Obsidian Mirror, and I will play the Aztecs more, but in hindsight it feels like something I should have bought on sale. The level of polish isn’t high enough to justify its price tag.
The road ahead
While I continue to play Overwatch on the side, I plan to clear up some loose ends for the next week or two, now that WoW is off the menu.
I want to finally get around to finishing the campaign in Path of Exile. I’m not wildly enthusiastic about it, but there’s not so much left to go, so I might as well see it through to the end. If I don’t post about it again, assume I finished it, and that of all the RPGs I’ve played, it was certainly one of them.
When Nexon gave me that huge lump of cash shop currency to cover Dia in The First Descendant, I bought the current battle pass, so I think I might finish that up. Not much excitement left for TFD these days, but sunk cost fallacy is what it is.
Supposedly Scars of Honor is running a playtest around now, and I think I’d signed up for it, so we’ll see if I get in. I expect the reality of it is likely to disappointment me, but the previews do have me mildly to moderately hyped. I like the WoW style graphics, and the bearfolk race looks super cool.
I have pre-ordered the upcoming Yue Fei’s Legacy DLC for Age of Empires IV. Just as I’d fully written off AoE4 as having lost its way, this DLC seems like a step in the right direction. There’s a campaign, and an actual new civilization, not just some weird variant.
The irony isn’t lost on me that I refused to play Sultan’s Ascend at launch because I didn’t think it had enough content to justify the price, and Yue Fei’s has arguably even less, but an actual civilization with real historical significance is worth more to me than any number of nonsense variants.
Not that I’m sure I’ll even get to play it, mind you. It’s unclear if you actually get to play Jin Dynasty in the campaign or if they’re only antagonists, and last I checked the skirmish AI in AoE4 was still a disaster. But I’m voting with my feet for the kind of content I want to see.
Finally, if I can find the time, I’d like to pick up Tides of Tomorrow, the new narrative game from the Road 96 devs. Been looking forward to it for a while.
Superior Realities 