Legion 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.
- 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?
I agree in so many ways. I’m often in dismay of my tasks.
There is some humor in there somewhere; we have a chance to turn into a Bear and wallop all of Nesingwary’s hunters — sweet revenge. So, the designers must see it on some level.
I loved that quest! But my favorite quest of this expansion is the one where you pretend to be the kobold king. You try to give your minions quests with elaborate prose which they reject because they are too lazy to try to understand and really only want a simplistic, one-line objective.
Hah, that quest was indeed fantastic. (The Kobold King) I screenshotted a lot during that!
I tend to try to avoid quests that make me kill wildlife , so that pretty much means most of Nesingwary’s quest are also out.
The absolute worst thing for me in the game is the whimper that wolfs make when you kill them, I really wish that sound was not implemented.
I 100% agree about the wolf whimper. Every time it goes off in game, I look at my two dogs to see if either of them notice so I can explain it’s not a real dog. They never seem to notice. ^_^
I agree, it did feel a tad over the top. But if I give it more thought, then again, so does many other quests. But many are well written and have some kind of “explanation” for the slaughtering which makes it less brutal.