Dear Blizzard,
I cannot stand the voices of the Niffen that you’ve introduced in the 10.1 patch for World of Warcraft. I can’t explain it. The world quest announcements have been annoying from the day you first introduced them back in Legion; but now that I have to wonder when the subject of toques and back bacon might emerge from these idiot moles mouths, another new race of intellgent(?) beings that we’ve somehow never met on Azeroth before, I just can’t take it anymore. Can you please, please, for the love of god, give us the option of turning off the voice announcements for world quests?
It’s annoying enough that we’ve hit that point in mid-expansion where you give us more work to do in game; as if there wasn’t already more to do in game than any sane person could be expected to do on a weekly, daily and monthly basis; but to pile on additional work while making me cringe each time one of these dirt-digging, ten gallon hat wearing furries asks me to go con the locals with some gimmick or other? That’s just one straw too many for this camel’s back.
So please, I’m begging here. Give me a toggle to turn off the quest announcements in game? Thanks.
Feedback sent to Blizzard
I cancelled my subscription over the Niffen debacle. I have no interest whatsoever in doing quests underground talking to moles, no matter how cute they are. Blizzard took an expansion that was all about flying dragons across entire continents at something like mach 2 or 3; and in the first patch for that expansion sent the players underground to talk to moles that want to sell timeshares to suckers while betting on snail races and other inane crap that I really don’t have time to fiddle with. I’ve not been writing enough since Dragonflight premiered. I think I’ll have more time for writing again in the near future. Thanks Blizzard?
In the first week’s end story, Fyrakk lights the entire underground city full of moles on fire and then Blizzard makes the player put the fire out, rescuing these silly creatures from the fate they so richly deserved in my estimation. I wanted to go one better than that. I wanted to get on my undead warlock and help Fyrakk burn them all to slag with shadowflame. Too bad they nurfed his shadowflame spell ages ago so that it doesn’t do the kind of damage that it should. If they hadn’t done that, warlocks might be properly feared in game. Oh, well.
This has to be one of the dumbest moves that Blizzard has embarked on in the history of this game. Dumber than Sylvanas Windrunner saying “I will not serve” to the Jailer who crafted her specifically to serve (Shadowlands) Dumber than having Wrathion set Garrosh Hellscream loose at the end of Mists of Pandaria so that we could all go to an alternate dimension Draenor (Warlords of Draenor) and be forced to save Gul’dan and the shadow council, thereby making the entire expansion of Legion possible. Dumber than the Burning Legion being everywhen and everywhere at once and yet still being incapable of knowing that we were going to resurrect Illidan Stormrage and launch him at their leader at the end of Legion.
…Okay, maybe not as dumb as all that, but definitely the last dumb straw for this camel’s back. I will be AWOL until at least the point where the next patch shows up in game. Like the distraction that was Nazjatar in the middle of Battle for Azeroth, the Niffen are just more make-work to keep the players busy for another year, extending the life of an expansion that was possibly the best thing to happen to World of Warcraft since Wrath of the Lich King came out all those years ago. Might have been the best, but definitely not the best now.
I love a good story, a good scene. Sylvanas’ moment with the Jailer, Illidan’s moment with the prophet, and so many other good scenes over 16 years of gameplay have all been moving moments; but the real story of World of Warcraft remains largely poorly told within the game itself and must be reinterpreted by the fanbase into something that means more than the dumb decisions made by the leadership at Blizzard. Watch those full Athelarius interpretations of the events that I’ve picked out. Read Christie Golden’s books about the same events. Then you might understand the full potential of the stories, the myths, that Blizzard is bastardizing in World of Warcraft gameplay.
I’ll be thinking of you, Blizzard, every time I get a headshot on a Murfree Brood in Red Dead Redemption 2. I have a lot of gameplay to catch up on in other places, as well as writing that I’ve put off for too long already. let me know when you get to 10.2, will you?
I blame Fargo for my current World of Warcraft predicament.
Every time one of those moles talks, I’m back watching this movie again; a movie that, while interesting, wasn’t the comedy that I was sold in the trailer. None of the Coen brothers films are really comedies. Most of them are tragedies and should be sold as such. Most American’s aren’t subtle enough to know the difference though, and advertisers are leery of introducing the concept of comic tragedy into the lexicon of the average movie viewer. So I’m watching this movie with these clearly fake accents in it and I’m not laughing. I’m listening to these moles with their fake accents, and I’m not laughing at them, either.
This is on top of the fact that the entire patch is just make-work to keep the players busy when the new raid gets stale; which it will, about three weeks after the final boss wing drops at the end of June. I’ll be doing something else by that point. This much is certain.
June 27 – I’ve completed RDR2. My subscription for access to World of Warcraft ends in about four days; which is good because I’ve basically done everything I’m interested in doing this patch already. With any luck I’ll save a few months of fees while playing Horizon: Forbidden West and waiting for the 10.2 patch to drop.
November 10 – I’ve played both HFW and HZD multiple times now. Contemplated playing an honorless Arthur in RDR2 just to experience the alternate ending of the game. I skipped that notion and started playing WOW:DF again. There will be a new raid in a few weeks, which gives me something to do for at least a month or two. I’ve also figured out on returning why I hate the entire cavern area of the game. I can’t find my way into it. Even using the taxi service I can’t look at the screen without almost having vertigo getting into the area. It’s just an appalling jostle getting in and out of that area of the game. No wonder I quit for six months.