Invasion!
"A communications disruption can mean only one thing—invasion." ―Sio Bibble
I had transmog my Ret gear into Tier 4 and my weapon into Hammer of the Naaru. Basically, I was what Maraad would look like if he was a sessy dwarf like me.
I like seeing the new and improved Khadgar.
I had stripped down my UI to just ElvUI and basically nothing else. I’m actually going to be doing a full UI makeover (and no it doesn’t have anything to do with the ElvUI backdoor that the Redditors found). I was inspired by my Tankadin Jedi Master, Dr. Theck. I really liked his UI and I’m going to see if I can’t incorporate into my own.
Even with my gear (iLevel 504), I was managing the quests in the Blasted Lands with no problems and the quest rewards (ring, neck, trinket) were all upgrades for me. I did regret not getting out to the Blasted Lands before the patch went live to say goodbye to the NPCs there as some/most of them didn’t survive the attack.
By the Light, they ran him through with his own sword. These Iron Horde are truly monsters.
I've heard it said in various places that Nethergarde is now 0 for 2 in guarding the Dark Portal. I would disagree, at least in the case of the Iron Horde. Nethergarde did exactly what it was supposed to. It slowed down the Iron Horde until reinforcements could arrive. Nethergarde is why we are fighting in the Blasted Lands and not at walls of Stormwind. Elywyn, Lakeshire and everywhere in between are glad it stood for as long as it did.
Player Agency
There was one quest in the chain that really bothered me and that was “Enohar's Revenge”. Enohar Thunderbrew is the sister of Keri Thunderbrew who provided potent potables to the brave men and women of Nethergarde Keep. But Keri was killed in the initial attack and Enohar was pissed. I’m all for meeting out justice, but Enohar asks you to poison the Ogre’s food supply. The poison is described in vivid detail as it will “slowly eat away at their insides… causing a prolonged and painful death”.
Yeah, umm....ewwww.
I can only imagine how this conversation would go. “Excuse me, yes, you, Paladin, the Paragon of the Light and Honor and Justice. I need you to poison the Ogre’s food supply so they die in most horrible and painful way because, hey, they didn't take up arms against an overwhelming force of well-prepared Orcs.”
I would have loved the option to say no, and get some alternative quest. Sure, I’ll bring the hammer down for justice, but poisoning a food supply is a coward’s act. Of course, I didn't have a choice. It was either do the quest or don’t continue the chain/story.
I treated it much like I did the quest in Borean Tundra “The Art of Persuasion”. In that quest, you had to torture one of the Imprisoned Sorcerer. Much like poisoning a food supply, I don’t believe my Paladin would resort to torture. I would really like to see Blizzard give us an option. In SWTOR, when I leveled my Agent through Balmora, there was a quest to rig areas with live grenades, but you were also told that kids often looted the areas for supplies. You got the option to go ahead and mine the area OR use defused grenades. This, of course, played into the Light Side/Dark Side mechanic in SWTOR, but it was still nice to have that choice.
But outside of that one quest, it was a fun little quest chain.
UPDATE: I did the Creepy Create quests and at one point you get a CHOICE!
I'd really like to see the Developers use this more often when our 'heroes' are asked to do 'questionable' things in the name of justice.
Comments
Forcing what can only be described as "dark/evil" actions upon characters that are supposed to be agents of "light/good" completely destroys the immersion. Even worse is the message it sends to the player. Of cause your paladin will help this woman with her sick revenge fantasies, rather than getting her some sort of griefcouncilling.
Bear in mind that if this was a forsaken- or even horde-only quest, I would be far less inclined to object to it. But by making making good characters do the quest, no questions asked, they paint the deed as one that a good person would perform. Which is in my book a VERY bad message for as big a company as blizzard to relay to its (especially younger) players.