So I recently had the Fyr’alath drop from Fyrakk. Finally! Yes! Amazing! I have the legendary axe! Sure, there is some sort of questline that I’ll embark upon before I can wield it, that makes sense. It is legendary after all. Where, in this vast and expansive fantasy world we call Azeroth will my quest take me in order to become mighty enough to wield such a formidable axe!? Will we visit the greatest Dwarven blacksmiths of Iron Forge? Perhaps we delve in to the bowels of BRD or Molten Core to forge gauntlets powerful enough to grasp such a weapon. We might seek the aid of Azeroth’s greatest Mages before embarking on a shadowy quest deep into the Tirisfal Glades where we will discover dark magic powerful enough to tame the blade? Perhaps we might face powerful foes on our journey; there are many across these vast cotenants who seek such power and many others who’s souls may be used to quell the Axe’s monstrous rage. Who, knows!? There are many a snow-laden-tundra, many cavernous dungeons, there are endless places that we might visit or revisit, many famous characters who’s artisan craft might aid us in taming our new axe!
I’m sure Blizzard have a real juicy questline in store for us now that we’ve finally had the legendary drop! Where will they take us?
Well as it happens, not very far. Turns out, in classic Blizzard fashion, they’ve managed to take something that could and should be an obvious win for the game and turn into another laborious chore. A tedious, monotonous task that demands as much engagement and yields as much enjoyment as counting beans. What a boring, anti-climactic, unimaginative route to obtaining what for the classes that can yield it, is the best item the game has to offer. No epic journeys? No intense battles? No reusing of the abyss of unused fan-favourite locations within the game? No old faces coming back on the scene to offer their arm or expertise? No. Go grind 6 to 10 super-blooms, they’re as fun as sitting in traffic, but we want you to grind the hell out of them until you never want to do one again. Ever. While you’re there, tag 30 or so rare mobs and kill them. And disenchant some epics, too…yeah, that’ll be fun.
Lets not forget the second leg of our “legendary” quest that we have in store for you. Go and spend about 250k on mats and craft three items. You might need to buy a WoW token, maybe? We’re not sure? Sorry if you do (it wasn’t by design, honest!).
The quest line is, yet again, Blizzard showing at best a lack of understanding and at worst actual contempt for their player-base. This is supposed to be a high-fantasy MMO. You have 9 expansions worth of content at your disposal and the best you can come up with is, “go farm some boring content in our newest zone and drop a WoW token if you want your legendary”. If it wasn’t for the fact that you can cheese most of the quest line I’d sincerely have never bothered. It’s tedious enough having to farm the same boss over and over and over every week waiting for the opportunity just to even start on the chore-line, the least that they could do for the player is say, “right, okay, you’ve got the drop…lets go have some fun”.
I don’t really know what the solution is for Blizzard, but I know that what they’re doing over and over again isn’t it. When you’re on a legendary quest in a high-fantasy MMO, you should feel at very least enjoyment. Instead, you feel relief when it’s over. Who’s designing this stuff!? Do they ever play the game themselves?
Perhaps, stop punishing your players for trying to enjoy your game? Lord-knows we’ve given you chance enough to turn the game around. Perhaps, develop some sort of spine and try some new and bold ideas instead of doing a copy, paste and reskin of the same-old every 4 months?
The questline for Fyr’alath is sadly, par for the course for Blizzard.