#1 - June 17, 2013, 3:11 a.m.
Practically since the moment this game launched, there has been this insidious undertone to everything we do. It seems like NPCs never fail to make some biting, harsh little comment about how the factions share so many similarities. How, if we could just set aside our differences, Azeroth would be this lovely, shining place.
I don't deny the benefits of peace... but I also acknowledge two things:
1) This is a video game, and I shouldn't have to constantly get talked down to like real lives are hanging in the balance. You know what was wonderful about Warcraft I and II? It had this carefree, almost cavalier nature to it. I didn't have to give consideration to the 'horrors of war' because it was a cartoon. It reveled in its own pointlessness. We were there for the war. There were no messages of self loathing; no moment where we were implored to 'think on our actions.' It was stupid, simple fun. And it's gone.
2) Just as importantly, the game acts as if my character hasn't been here, occupying this little world for the past 8 years (and more, with the RTSes). My toons have been ganked, seen cities destroyed, seen families murdered, seen the Scourge arise out of the war-mongering of a former orc working in collaboration with the Burning Legion. Stormwind was smashed. Lordaeron invaded and ultimately tainted beyond recognition -- and all of these events happened within the lifetimes of most of our characters.
And yet, time after time, our good-natured fun is crushed and ground down under of the boot of real-life practicalities. Needless worrying intrudes into what remains a really dumb, shallow, and utterly fictional world. It's as if the powers that be think that applying a coat of paint changes the fact that the depth of this tale doesn't rival most birdbaths.
I realize that in the past decade that Blizzard, like much of America, has likely been taken over internally by the soldier-hating people who think war is a disease, and that no matter what the conflict is, there is ALWAYS a peaceful resolution that just barely eluded everyone. But why did that attitude have to intrude into every corner of the friggin' game?
What do you want from us, Blizzard? You hold all the cards. You say where the battles happen. You say what the results are -- we are allowed as players to determine nothing. And yet you never miss a chance to take a shot at us like we're the driving force behind it all.
I just want to know why Warcraft became Guiltcraft.
