Hello there!
Apparently the quest is back in the game but in a slightly altered form! I’ll edit this if it changes. Hooray devs!
(An entire quest chain in Azshara has been removed, tl;dr at the bottom)
This quest chain is used by Joanna’s guide, it’s used in many unofficial routes like mine and it’s used in very official speedrunning routes for specific classes. I’ve always used Azshara to quite often get ahead of pack or for breathing space when the other areas are flooded with players. Please just change a few lines Blizzard instead of removing a completely innocuous quest chain because you’re seemingly confusing fiction for reality, or worse taking the context of a video game and conflating it with real life. There are simple changes that could be made that could keep this quest chain in whether that’s the dialogue or even the gender of the NPCs. You could have flipped the scenario around by making the orc a female and the blood elf a male, whatever you feel needs to be done but there are far more inventive ways of fixing this just nuking it entirely. If you don’t like the context then change it! Don’t just remove content!
Puritanically sanitizing a fictional fantasy universe built on violence, conflict and flawed characters is removing it’s soul. If you’re under the impression women are so weak that they need your protection from a biggoted NPC (big oof) then at least change the quest text to assauge your political narrative, rather than nuking it entirely in a petty act of e-vandalism. There are quest lines that have mild innuendos, death and other much worse themes in this setting because contrary to popular belief this is Warcraft. It’s objectively a much better game for it because it makes the world a more interesting fleshed out place and gives it a sense of depth, the fact they removed this is absurd. More importantly flawed characters have always been part of an interesting narrative that Blizzard has built. Characters like Daelin Proudmoore, Garithos, Grom, Arthas and many lesser known characters like Aedelas Blackmoore who were very important for the games story have all played an integral part in making the Warcraft universe in to what it is today.
Removing this is absolutely, unequivocally, small minded behaviour that accomplishes nothing other than to bastardize and remove content. This only appeals to political ideologues that are so far off the deep end they find EVERYTHING offensive regardless of the context, tone, or the fact it’s a FICTIONAL story with no bearing on abject reality. It doesn’t make the devs look virtuous it makes them look silly, out of touch with reality at worst and at best, out of touch with their own stated philosophical goals for the project.
Regardless of what side of the political spectrum you sit on, I would prefer Classic stayed true to it’s goals and tried to preserve as much as the game as it was. Adding content, mixing it up, that’s fine but this is straight up removal of an entire questline with out even the honesty to publically note it. Even if they have to change the quest text to keep this in the game with a few simple edits, the NPCs genders, even the context etc I could (regretably) accept that but just removing this entire questline like this is attrocious. I’m not asking forum goers here to be my personal army but if you agree with the sentiment a simple (emphasis on polite don’t polarize the issue with politics) comment of support and a thumbs up would help. I doubt we’ll ever get a response but I would like to try.
tl;dr
An entire questline has been removed (presumably because of a few lines of text) in an area that has very few quests to begin with. This has set a new precedent, removal of content with out even acknowledging it in hopes that it won’t stir up resistance or controversy. What else is going to turn up missing as time passes? There are reasonable compromises that could have been taken here, they could have changed a few lines of text to fix what they seem to percieve as a problem (?) or even the gender of the NPCs. Instead they nuked an entire quest chain in one of the zones that is completely lacking them. What content is next to be removed on their list?
