Warcraft Stuff

First of all, Undermine was excellent! Goblins in WoW often end up as little more than a few tired jokes, but here they're written with nuance and humanity. We've got goofy slapstick hijinks in the sidequests, but the main story has real weight to it. Plus, the quests and activities are a joy to run through. The patch shows exactly why I love the goblins.

K'aresh kept the excellent writing, but the quests are a mixed bag. There's not much to do overall, and just because they brought back the ethereals doesn't mean they should bring back the BC-era drop rates for quest items. Still, the writing does a good job conveying the weight of this tragedy, and yet there's moments of levity and humor to be found.

The Eco-dome quests are almost great. I love the idea of them, but it feels like the story is stretched thin over too many quests. And it really should've ended with K'arrocs; the snake quests feel unfinished and aimless, and it makes for an anticlimactic end to go from reviving a dead species to grabbing snakes for what feels like no reason. Still, there were some great moments and I enjoyed the questline overall.

The Red Dawn was interesting. I saw a lot of hate for it online, but playing through it I found myself pleasantly surprised. There are some notable issues (like the Witherbark trolls being relegated to mooks for the millionth time) but from the hate, I expected much worse! Overall, it seems like WoW is trying to shut the book on the faction war and move onto conflicts within the factions, which I think is a good direction. It feels like WoW has done all it can with Horde VS Alliance. But who knows, maybe we'll look back on this in five years and all agree that it was a bad/good decision.

But they had nothing to do in Patch 11.0.7 and 11.1.0, and when they finally show up in 11.1.5, it's to be faceless empty mooks to be mowed down in the hundreds. You know, there's a quest in the main story where it was revealed that many of the Ascended were actually kidnapped and brainwashed civilians. And the patch completely ignores the moral complexity that these enemies are actually ordinary people forced to fight against their will, in favor of Paladin hits Monster with Hammer.

And then in Patch 11.2.0, we need to find an expert in pheromone synthesis and are sent to Azj-Kahet... to talk to the niffen. Like, the niffen do have a strong sense of smell and a good understanding of fragrance, but the Nerubians have an entire sect of society dedicated to the synthesis of specific pheromones! And we are personal friends with Executor Nizrek, so we have connections. But instead we get sent to a character that has only a tangential connection to the field and they're our "expert". It'd be like getting sent to Dun Morogh to seek out an expert in tinkering and then getting directed to some random dwarf.

Voting for Warchief/High King.

Imagine: every year we get an event where players can vote on the next heads of the Alliance and Horde. Pick your favorite leader and try to convince others to do the same! Generate incredible drama over pointless nonsense! Try to cheat!