Solo Queue - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Episode 18 – How Do You Solo? Interview with The Snek of Vol’dun!

Show Notes

Welcome to Episode 18!

First episode of 2025 and Season 2 of Solo Queue is an interview with The Snek of Vol’dun, a vocal proponent of making the Sethrak a playable race. A chance social media encounter turned into a great conversation with a fellow solo player.

Still planning for a regular episode in January as part of the twice-monthly plan for this new year.

Interview with The Snek of Vol’dun – 8:52

• Why the Sethrak?
• A connection with the many snakes in Australia?
• Lore of the Sethrak
• A role to play fightinh Xal’atath?
• A Sethrak in a Delve? “Enough to get you hooked.”
• What classes could Sethrak play? Give us a Sethrak monk!
• All the pieces are there: starting zone, back story, models, more
• WoW 30th Anniversary Tour headed to Sydney
• How did you start playing WoW, especially as a younger player?
• Obligatory crapping on the writing during Shadowlands
• Obligatory praising of Chris Metzen and his return
• Snek as a solo player
• Time zones are strange
• Bits of Sethrak info in the Exploring Azeroth: Islands and Isles book
• Should Sethrak be available to Horde or Alliance or both?
• Predictions for what’s to come in the WoW story?
• Updating “old” world zones for graphics and story could be easier with story progress and the presence of so many “Classic” versions
• Blizzard, heed the command of The Snek of Vol’dun, the Sethrak’s strongest soldier!

Closing comments – 1:34:48

My thanks to The Snek of Vol’dun for coming on the show.

Outro – 1:36:30

• Thanks to Blizzard and OGRE for audio, my lovely wife, and you for listening.
• Support the show at https://www.patreon.com/c/soloqueuewow
• Thank you to contributing patrons Andrew, Righteous Bandy, ThatSkyGuy, Cyn, TheSnekofVol’dun, and Friends of Wumpus! Thanks to free patrons Max, Eddie, Tim, Bear, and Jon.
• Subscribe to the podcast at your podcast feed of choice, Apple, Spotify, and all the rest.
• The Snek of Vol’dun is on BlueSky at bsky.app/profile/snekofvoldun.bsky.social, on Twitter at x.com/TheSnekofVoldun and has a YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/@TheSnekofVoldun
• You can contact me at soloqueuewow at gmail.com, Bluesky, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
• January episode coming soon...

“We will see you out there."

Episode 17 – The Real Anniversary Episode

Show Notes

Welcome to Episode 17!

First year of Solo Queue in the books and stumbling into some creative WoW-adjacent media got me thinking about all the value added to WoW by content creators outside of Blizzard.

Four Tanks and a Healer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47d3fjDNSQ

Stormwind University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sgpgEy-UW8

Karazhan Library: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkDNwkGDS84

“What have you done lately?” – 16:52

• Trivia is now 42 characters every day – the end is in sight, January 7
• For max leveling efficiency, that meant getting 5 characters to 80
• I made my 2 Earthen characters
• Monthly inventory for first time in 3 months
• Sporadically getting weekly meta quests done to keep gearing the 5 level 80s

Addon Recommendation: Altoholic – 25:39

Tracks gold, levels, achievements, time played, and many more bits of individual character info account-wide, server by server, faction by faction.

...and Siren Isle – 27:03

• Yes, it feels a lot like 10.0.7, but it is kind of different
• Gameplay is...fine; better than the alternative of nothing until 11.1
• Story is hard to take in, maybe just for me?

News – 46:34

• Still 2 story questlines to come in 11.0.7, Dalaran epilogue and Lingering Shadows
• Turbulent Timeways coming January 7 – 5 weeks of timewalking
• New game modes coming to the Character select screen? Might it be...
• Plunderstorm returns January 14 with less demanding reward system, new rewards, same battlefield
• And two holidays are wrapping up next week, Anniversary event January 7 and Winter Veil January 5!

Winter Veil in your Garrison! – 56:36

The second-best place to celebrate Winter Veil is in your WoD Garrison, which naturally gets decorations and there are WV dailies to add more decorations. If you haven’t done it, why not now? I did, during the recording.

And, I’ve been thinking about WoD lately, which had its 10th anniversary in November. 2025 is my 10th anniversary in WoW. Throughout the coming year, I am going to go through some of the highlights of this much-maligned expansion to show what is still enjoyable, including featuring the 3 WoD raids in Raid of the Month throughout the year.

Raid of the Month: Antorus (Legion) – 1:12:02

Speaking of RotM, we visit the final raid of Legion, Antorus, the Burning Throne and see where that giant sword came from. Is it worth it? Lots of running around, Eonar a slow encounter, but if you want the 2 mounts and various transmog, then yes, get in there, at least a few times. Did I get any mounts? Listen to find out – no spoilers!

Also a plug for the website simplearmory.com – check it out to see all of your collectable items, along with a planner to go hunt them all down!

Drink of the Month – 1:30:20

All that raiding has me thirsty for Dwarven Mead and Greatfather’s Winter Ale at the Stonefire Tavern in Ironforge, in sight of Greatfather Winter himself!

Main Topic: Yep, more Winter Veil, including *SPOILERS* presents opened! – 1:31:50

We head across the molten channel in Ironforge to check out Winter Veil activities, including a ride out to kill the Greench, unwrapping the 2024 presents live, and sharing my Winter Veil wish list, now for 2025.

Plans for 2025 and gratitude for the influences that led me to SQ – 1:41:18

SQ plans for the coming year, a Season 2, if you will. Biggest is the goal of two episodes each month, a traditional (and shorter) episode, and a second episode of various formats, including interviews, single topic deep dives, or overflow topics for the month.

I want to close this episode with gratitude for my sources of inspiration for Solo

Queue including traditional radio, some Blizzard podcasts no longer with us, and many that are. Thank you, fellow podcasters! Honored to be among your ranks.

Solo Queue Mailbox – 2:04:16

The second and third reviews on Apple Podcasts from Mr Rascolwitz and Cyn (psmst1). #grateful

Truly, thanks for a great first year of Solo Queue! I hope you keep listening and sharing it with friends.

Outro – 2:08:47

• Thanks to Blizzard and OGRE for audio, my lovely wife, and you for listening.
• Support the show at Patreon.com/SoloQueueWoW
• Thank you to patrons, Andrew, Righteous Bandy, ThatSkyGuy, and welcome Cyn! Thanks to free patrons Max, Eddie, Tim, and Jon.
• Subscribe to the podcast at your podcast feed of choice, Apple, Spotify, and all the rest.
• You can contact me at soloqueuewow ...

Episode 21 – Undermine, You Get My Drift?

Show Notes

Welcome to Episode 21! – 8:58

Busy world in life, in game, and in podcast. Lots of 11.1 going on!

“What have you done lately?” – 16:17

• Love is in the Air recap
• Library in our Player Housing when?
• Barely hitting the 2000 points for the Trading Post
• An unexpected and difficult adventure to earn the Troll Heritage Armor

Main Topic: First Laps Around Undermine and Patch 11.1 – 36:03

• First thoughts of Undermine and connections to the OG Goblin starting zone of Kezan
• First playthrough NOT on my Night Elf Druid main, Human Paladin instead on a whim
• Opening cinematic and Orweyna do tie Undermine to TWW storyline
• Missing voice lines for Renzik the Shiv? https://gamerant.com/world-of-warcraft-patch-11-1-renzik-voice-acting-missing/
• Also, run, don’t walk to check out the new audio short story, Tipping Point! https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/media/audio/Warcraft%20Short%20Story
• Undermine the city – too much straight story; incredible detail; DRIVE is tricky at first but growing on me; SCRAP piles are fine; doing the jobs in DRIVE is a bit of a time sink; reached 2/6 storylines; one Delve down, one to go; skybox is hilarious; Bilge Rat Swabbie’s Brush mop transmog acquired; what is CHETT and how do I get the amazing double rocket-pack?

Drink of the Month – 1:13:30

Is this a dry town? Went with an IRL Old Fashioned instead.

Question of the Month – 1:16:18

Results - What should the next playable race be?

15 races suggested, but the top three vote getters were Naga, Arakkoa, and, by a landslide, Sethrak!

New question: What has you excited about WoW? For me, it is story and story delivery.

News – 1:24:52

• Warband camp scenes and ability to create new camps now available
• 30th Anniversary event in London looked good; hoping to get to it in Boston AND hopefully land an dev interview of some sort
• Welcome back podcast Realm Maintenance and congrats to Ease and family on birth of their first child!
• Twitch drop is Tock the Clocker Spaniel – a must get
• WoW services and other stuff sale – might have bought some realm transfers
• Why Kalimdor Cup as 11.1 launches?
• Map adds the Events tab to track Ongoing and Timed events
• 1 introduces 2 new Delves, Dungeon
• Raid schedule and Story Mode only comes week 2 (#followerraids when?)

Raid of the Month: Firelands (Cataclysm) – 1:39:57

One of the most loved raids in the game? When you add raid achievements, there are three solid mounts to chase here. I have the rare ground mount, I do not yet have the super rare flying mount, and I am one achievement away from the third one. In this episode, I bring you along as I try to sew up that last achievement. Do I get it? Does Charlie Brown ever kick the football?

Verdict on Firelands– 2:05:00

Yes. This is a simple verdict. Park a toon or two or many in Hyjal.

SQ Mailbox – 2:08:07

Voila and comments show up on Spotify! Some praise and one former listener who seemed to take issue with a single sentence from a single episode. I have a response to that.

Outro – 2:16:37

• Thanks to Blizzard and OGRE for audio, my lovely and supportive wife, and you for listening.
• Hoping OGRE will write the song “Mai'Zoth the Unkillable” for me
• Support the show at Patreon.com/SoloQueueWoW
• Thank you to patrons, Andrew, Righteous Bandy, ThatSkyGuy, Cyn, and Snek of Vol’dun!
• Thanks to free patrons Max, Eddie, Bear, Jon, Friends of Wumpus, Sean, Lavie, Curro, Aronaar, Aedan, Guardian Sandy, and Alice!
• Subscribe to the podcast at your podcast feed of choice, Apple, Spotify, and all the rest. Leave a 5-star rating and a written review to help grow Solo Queue.
• You can contact me at soloqueuewow at gmail.com, Bluesky, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

“I will see you out there."