Tag: world quests

Cruelty-Free Animal Questing

Phaelia in Druid 6 Comments

card-dehta-membershipLegion is probably the most well-written expansion I have played. It makes me wonder if Blizzard might have found themselves with a surplus of excellent writers when Project Titan was shelved and decided to put them to good use developing class-specific content and innumerable world quests. With the introduction of Order Halls and spec-specific Artifact questlines, tremendous effort was obviously devoted to inspiring a sense of class immersion. And so, as a Druid, it causes me great distress when a world quest such as Munitions Testing calls for the mindless and exceedingly unsportsmanlike slaughter of otherwise inoffensive wildlife.

If you haven’t yet done this quest, it requires the player to kill five hawks and five packs of wolves. To aid you in this endeavor, you are provided a mechanical rabbit with two abilities: the first, to lure the unsuspecting creature; the second, to detonate and kill them. Once I understood how the dynamite rabbit mechanic worked, I was so horrified I tried completing the quest without using them. Unfortunately, at the point where you have to kill the larger wolves and her two smaller packmates, it was just so much easier to use the rabbit. This quest made me extremely unhappy as a Druid and as a player (honestly, I expected Archdruid Lathorius to jump out of at tree and demand I hand over my D.E.H.T.A. card). If it weren’t the only quest remaining to fulfill an Emissary requirement, I would have abandoned it altogether.

An actual robotic rabbit, used for composting and companionship
An actual robotic rabbit, used for composting and companionship … not carnage
It is probably too late to ask Blizzard to re-write this quest and those like them, but I would implore their quest design team to consider offering alternative methods of completing similar quests in the future. Some examples could include:

  • Convince the questgiver there are better uses for her munitions.
  • Sabotage the collection of munitions.
  • Catch and relocate the animals further away from the murderous NPC.
  • Side with the animals, putting players in PvP state with players that choose to side with the questgiver.

I realize that many quests require the seemingly pointless slaughter of wildlife. But the exploding rabbits made this one seem particularly egregious. What do you think? Are you similarly bothered by being asked to kill wildlife as a Druid or are exploding bunnies just another objective in your quest toward the destruction of the demonic hordes of Legion?

6 Comments

Off-Spec World Quest Rewards

Phaelia in Blue 4 Comments

I’m sure I’m not the only Restoration or Balance Druid who was — at least temporarily — frustrated by the plethora of Agility trinkets being offered as rewards for World Quests. It seemed for a week or so that I would never see an Intellect trinket, making me envious of the “pure” classes (like Mr. Phae’s Arcane Mage) who only have one primary stat to pursue. I originally viewed this as an oversight on Blizzard’s part and assumed that they would correct it in one of the tuning patches. However, the development team actually makes some good points:

World Quest Rewards
  • World Quests don’t adjust rewards based on your loot specialization.
  • If the map changed every time you changed spec that would be an annoying experience.
  • Having to cycle between your different specs to see different rewards is not great.
  • It also allows you to get items for off-specs without having to change your loot spec.
Source: Live Developer Q&A: Patch 7.1 (as summarized by MMO Champion)

In other words, don’t expect this to be changed, although if you’re like me, you now have the Intellect- or Agility-based World Quest trinket drops you were looking for anyway.

4 Comments