My nightborne rogue reached level 60 the other night and I happily took her out of Hellfire and into Zangarmarsh. I don’t know how other players feel about Hellfire, but I’m not fond of it and I only quest through it long enough to get flying and escape to the next zone.
One of the first quests in the zone on the Horde side asks for 12 samples of blood from the bonechewer orcs. The orcs are plentiful along the Path of Glory, but as I’ve discovered, apparently many of them are bloodless. I killed what seemed like 50 orcs for those 12 samples.
Fortunately, the orcs pop relatively quickly but there’s always other players from both factions killing them, so it can still take some time. Plus, the stupid orcs always “run away in fear” so my rogue had to shoot them, chase them, or both.
Quests such as these with a high mob spawn rate but low drop rate are nothing new to World of Warcraft. I imagine all players sort of expect them. Now that my rogue is in Zangarmarsh where she has to kill more mobs that don’t always drop the quest objectives, I’m remembering that this trend is just going to continue through Outland.
However, as frustrating as the lack of drops and sometimes shortage of mobs can be in Outland , I find it less annoying than what I’ve encountered in some areas of the Battle for Azeroth expansion. On both Horde and Alliance sides, there are zones where the mobs seem to respawn as fast as you kill them. Great if you’re farming something, not great if you’re low on health, trying to take a breather, or you’re done with the quest and trying to exit the area.
I’m sure every expansion has its pros and cons and I’m not hopping on the “BFA sucks” bandwagon. I just wish there was a happy medium somewhere. It seems like there’s got to be some sort of “magic algorithm” that could reveal what works best and then be implemented. Then again, algorithms can also ruin perfectly good systems, so perhaps it’s best to leave things be.
Regardless, I don’t expect any of the game play to really change and perhaps that’s the charm and appeal of World of Warcraft. You know you’re going to have grinding quests and that mobs are going to press your frustration buttons, but you play anyway because that bit of grumbling is part of the fun.
After all, it’s just a game, not real life, and you can turn it off whenever you want. Or you can use killing the bad guys as a way to blow off steam from real world issues. Either way, all quests eventually come to an end and fade into memory…well, at least until you’re leveling your next alt and it all comes flooding back. But maybe that’s just me. 😉
Srinity 