Wrathgate in Restrospect

| Tuesday, December 21, 2010
I noticed that Wrathgate quest chain was voted the best of the year last year over at the Pink Pigtail Inn Awards Ceremony of Awards and Honors. Pardon me, but I have to ask a painful question: Was it really that great?

Okay okay okay, put down the pitchforks. The torches too. The cutscene was cool and the Battle for Undercity was cool. But the actual chains leading up to Wrathgate, were those really that great? Riding a red dragon was fun, but I don't remember much that was particularly amazing. Kill 5 of these and loot that. Woo hoo. Did I forget something? Perhaps. But that I forgot it seems to indicate that it was forgettable.

If I had to pick a quest chain that ended well, and was actually memorable itself, I'd pick the DK starting zone quests. Who can forget the sheer joy of committing acts of pure evil? It sets the tone right away with killing another initiate, next thing I'm killing civilians, and before long I've destroyed the Scarlet Crusade. There was a clear plot running through it all, not the open-world tendency to have five stories going at once which just by coincidence happen to involve killing mobs in about the same area. The quests themselves were often more than just "kill ten rats which have Scarlet Crusade models", showing off Blizzard's new-found love of vehicles, cannons in particular. I share their love of cannons. WoW really needs more cannons.

Can you imagine calling a job great because it has a good Christmas party, but the rest of the year your pay is crap, your boss treats you like crap, and your coworkers have brains of crap?

3 comments:

Nikodhemus said...

I really enjoyed the new Ashzara start quests (The goblin engineers and the tree-cutting machines, being attacked by the nightelves) and the Felwood Jaedenar Cult quests (travel through the cave of cultists, killing their leaders one by one). I think Blizz has done a great job of varying the quests away from the 'kill 10 rats' variety.

Oh, and Undead and Death Knight quests openers are really the best... Get the poison, now poison this frog, now take the poison and poison this guys dog.. YESS!!

Chastity said...

I had the opposite experience. I quite liked the leadin, thought the cutscene was alright, and hated the Battle for the Undercity with a firey passion.

jeffo said...

Are you including the whole run-up of quests at Wintergarde Keep in your Wrathgate chain? That series of quests, culminating in Bolvar's appearance, really helped set the stage for the impact of the Wrathgate event for me.

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