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(I’ll admit, the comic is a little angrier than usual this week. Sorry about that. I’ll try to swing back around to silly next week.)
Okay, so the game is just a little heavy-handed about what an awful thing we players did in Jade Forest. And yes, what happened to the Jade Serpent statue is pretty terrible, but we players didn’t do that. And I don’t just mean that we were up on a rock with Cho for the final quest, I mean there is absolutely no way in which we players can avert or alter the outcome. Blizzard set up the story and then wants to make us feel bad for how it turned out.
It’s part of a larger problem this expansion. “Oh, look, it’s crazy crazy Garrosh and warmongering Jaina! Don’t you just feel awful about the senseless war between the Alliance and the Horde? Now, go farm up some honor.” “Welcome to Pandaria, where negative emotions turn into slavering monsters. Aw, look at the poor innocent panda people whose lives you’re ruining every time you evoke the sha. Now, here’s a bunch of quests to go smash and slaughter things.” I’m getting a little tired of being Blizzard’s moral yo-yo.
And why is Blizzard a big blue dot? Dunno. I needed somebody Gord could talk to and that’s what came to mind.
Away From Reality 
Obviously Blizzard is an EVIL M&M. It just has to be that way.
On a more serious note, I really wanted to just sit down, look at my faction leaders, and ask them ‘Are you retarded?’ after that. My second response (playing a warlock) was to wonder… maybe I can use the sha too. Suddenly I didn’t care so much!
Comment by Robert — November 23, 2012 @ 5:52 PM
Well, that’s a better explanation that anything I can come up with, so we’ll go with that. The secret is out: Blizzard is an evil M&M. You heard it here first!
Comment by wowafr — November 24, 2012 @ 8:45 PM
I play a gnome. I look at it like this: the humans are uncontrollable, and The Chin That Sank The Titanic isn’t my king. Mekkatorque…well, he’s not my king either, really. He just wants to play with his toys and sometimes we get to as well. And then there are the orcs – The Shoulders that Sank the Lusitania With The Head The Size Of A Pecan likes to yell. Loudly. A lot. Repeatedly. So he sends in his lackeys to do everything else while he…um…yells. Seriously, what the hell? So anyway, I’m up there with Cho and I see this happening and I don’t feel badly about it. Instead, I feel disgusted with the tall folk and would like to declare my neutrality and defect to Panda-Land, but since I can’t do that, I may as well help clean up the mess those idiots started. I figure it’s because they’re so tall – all that blood has to come back to their feet and away from their brains while it does so, and that’s a long way to travel. That’s why we have the racial talent Expansive Mind (http://www.wowpedia.org/Expansive_Mind) and the tall folk don’t – shorter distance for the blood flow to travel before it’s re-oxygenated again.
Comment by David Watson — November 24, 2012 @ 12:43 AM
I would so love to have Alliance policy driven by the gnomes for a while. Once the Horde stops its relentless march to war to try and puzzle out why chicken-firing catapults with long-range elemental fire focusers tuned to perfectly soft-boil the eggs on their way down have suddenly appeared outside of Orgrimmar, maybe cooler heads will prevail and finally talk some sense into the warmongers on both sides.
Comment by wowafr — November 26, 2012 @ 4:40 PM
Yup. That’s pretty much my thinking, except my main is a Worgen. I see myself as a free agent who’s looking for adventure and wants to help out and make some gold in the process. I haven’t been human in a long time, so I don’t care about Stormwind’s stuff except there’s a bank and AH there. I jumped on the ship to Pandaria because “Hello, unexplored-by-us territory! (And sure, while I’m there I’ll help you look for little lost Princey – who, by the way, was given to me as a let-him-follow-you-around-town pet in the same quest-giving session as his dad asking me to go look for him lost at sea, so WTF.)” I don’t work *for* the Alliance and likewise felt disgusted by the faction leaders after Jade Forest. Defection sounds like a grand plan.
Comment by ButMadNNW — July 19, 2013 @ 2:31 AM
I swear, Anduin is turning into the new Corki. Next time I have to go looking for that kid I’m gonna tie a bell around his neck.
Comment by wowafr — July 20, 2013 @ 9:11 AM
“You brought your war here!” Yeah, not gonna hide behind we were out to save Anduin and all. I guess we did ‘bring the war’. But what was the alternative? Let the Horde steamroll the continent and get all the resources they want? Are the Horde gonna be ok with that and peacefully settle down? Between Garrosh exclaiming ‘PAINT THE CONTINENT RED!’ and with ‘Dominance Offensive’ coming in soon, I humbly submit the idea that the Horde is not here to play nice, nor do they intend to play nice later. Metzen said the Alliance was ‘lawful good overdrive’, and that’s fine if they want to write it that way, but I object to the notion that it has to be lawful stupid as well. SWTOR did a much better job of avoiding the Republic looking like a fresh-from-Woodstock flower child who couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag (it got boring later, but I digress).
Comment by SneaksyRanger — November 24, 2012 @ 6:10 AM
It’s fair enough for the Panda people to get mad at the Alliance and the Horde. There are serious geopolitical problems there. But I ain’t the Alliance. I’m just here looking for a kid who got lost on his way home from summer camp.
Comment by wowafr — November 26, 2012 @ 4:41 PM
Wasn’t Metzen the reindeer we rescue in the Greatfather Winter Holiday Special?
Comment by ~LC — November 26, 2012 @ 11:04 PM
That was pretty much my response to the end of the Jade Forest, as well. I rather liked it up to that point. I’ve completed it once on each faction (and they’re both just as stupid) and refused to after that. Partially because the phasing makes the area with the silkworms (around the Jade Serpent statue) unavailable to hunters if I decide to go back and tame one, and partially because the colossal stupidity of it all just pisses me off. I understand they have a story to tell and a point to make but FFS don’t make ME the bad guy in it. I wasn’t even part of the battle, why am *I* being chewed out? *siiiiiigh* *grumble* *kicks Blizz in the shins* (or, you know, a little higher to catch the thought center)
Comment by Ayshela — November 26, 2012 @ 8:37 AM
I’m with you. I’ve been so tired of the whole Alliance-vs.-Horde business pretty much since vanilla. Jade Forest is the first time Blizzard tried to make me personally feel bad about it, and that’s just low coming from the people who have been writing this tedious conflict for eight years. Enough, already! I’m ready to sign up with the Cenarion Circle or the Steamwheedle Cartel or anybody who isn’t gunning for a global gang fight.
Comment by wowafr — November 26, 2012 @ 4:45 PM
oh yeah. My DEATH KNIGHT is exalted with Cenarion Circle, and about thirty other people. Aaaaaaaaand, now patch dropped, and Horde-v-Alliance crap is getting thicker yet again. *siiiiiigh*
*siiiiiiiiigh*
Comment by ayshela — November 28, 2012 @ 10:47 PM
If Blizz and Omen got together, what would the big green offspring represent?
Comment by ~LC — November 26, 2012 @ 11:06 PM
Comment by ~LC — November 26, 2012 @ 11:10 PM
Aw, you remembered! How sweet! 🙂
Comment by wowafr — November 30, 2012 @ 10:20 PM
The add-on to Fallout: New Vegas actually has to nuke somewhere to finish a quest. You get to choose who you nuke but you don’t have the option of nuking no one. I always feels a little heartsick after doing it…
Comment by masercot — December 24, 2017 @ 12:42 PM