Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Varian Wrynn needs killing

Those of you who've read my own rp pieces here will know I'm not a fan of the King of Stormwind, but only a few minutes ago, I finished watching the new Ulduar trailer at Gaming Diva's blog.

I honestly can't think of a character from just about any fiction that I've read who I've despised as much. I suspect Blizzard's aim in designing Varian as a character was to create someone who'd inspire strong emotion, and it worked. I've wished I could have the opportunity to kill Wrynn in-game practically ever since the character was (more prominently, in 3.1) introduced. I need to find someone raiding Stormwind for the achievement sometime, methinks; I also need to make sure I make it first into the throne room. ;)

I think, truthfully, it's because he's such a warmonger. When I first started playing this game, I was actually very peaceful. I played on a PvP server because I had friends who did before I got into the game, and later learned active PvP purely out of necessity. Back then on Jubei'Thos, it got so bad with my Mage that I literally could not quest at all in contested areas; so I had to roll this Hunter and learn to fight back.

I won't claim to be as pacifist as Rilgon is; I probably wouldn't have survived my experience with the education system if I was pacifist. At high school though, I learned to fight in such a way that if it happened, it only ever happened once; the recipient became sufficiently afraid of me that I never had to do it again. I didn't like that, either; I don't like intimidating people, but sometimes I would put up with bullying for close to 6 months before finally doing something because it wouldn't stop.

Wrynn and Garrosh are the primary antagonists within WoW at the moment, and truthfully I don't like either of them. By the time 2.4 came around, I'd got used to the idea that the two factions didn't fight each other much in-game any more, and truthfully liked it.

I still enjoyed the battlegrounds as much as ever, yes, but I considered that more of a sport; and it never had the sort of nasty emotional edge to it that world PvP was able to get. I also remember the truth that at release, WoW was, originally, at its' heart a PvE game, despite what the Arena revisionists have tried to tell people at times.

The war between the Alliance and Horde should have been allowed to stay over, IMHO, and Garrosh and Varian should not have been introduced. The battlegrounds and the Arena worked well enough for PvP in practical terms; in lore terms, I feel Blizzard should move on to other things.

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