World of Warcraft‘s test realms are a way for players to preview future content, and some of that content recently caused a stir among fans. An early draft of a quest in the upcoming Fractures in Time patch, scheduled for release on July 11, had players working to maintain the timeline. Unfortunately, for that task they had to arrange for the capture, torture and exploitation of one of their closest allies. Following fan outcry, Blizzard subsequently removed and updated this quest, replacing it with one where players instead help free this ally.
Wowhead follows changes in the test strings and they have the new quest text and dialogue available to read. The new content is written with a much more empathetic attitude and shows how player reactions to realm content testing can lead to much better iterations of in-game content.
World of WarcraftIt is a massively multiplayer game and each player is the protagonist of his own story. The supporting cast consists of the mightiest heroes and dastardly villains in the cosmos, and this presents an obvious narrative difficulty. The player can be an undead villain named Ganklordx, or a noble night elf role player, but either way, he will have a habit of slaying gods and rolling with a stable of mortal legends. Blizzard has to come up with opponents worth fighting, come up with dastardly plans with dire consequences.
In dragon flight, players will go to the Dragon Isles, a mysterious, long-lost continent where the noble dragons live. The dragons are divided into five flights (hence the expansion’s name), each led by an Aspect. Alexstrasza is the aspect of the Red Dragonflight, the Dragonqueen, and one of the oldest characters in the franchise. She is the billboard of dragon flight, a magnificent and powerful creature – and a rape survivor. And Blizzard has struggled in recent decades to handle the narrative weight of its story.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard launched a Public Test Realm (PTR) for the Fractures of Time update back in May, and one quest in particular didn’t fit. Chromie, a popular bronze dragon with time travel powers, teams up with the player to stop the nefarious Infinite Dragonflight from altering the timeline and creating a new future. This is quite common – we’ve gone back in time to help the Bronze Dragonflight before, helping countless villains in the process.
However, this quest is different from previous time travel antics as it deals with Alexstrasza’s backstory. The player must ensure that the Dragonmaw Clan does not misplace the Demon Soul, a powerful artifact that was later used to defeat the great evil dragon Deathwing. The Demon Soul was used by the Dragonmaw Clan to bind Alexstrasza to their will, pressure her consorts into impregnating her, and use her Dragonflight as warhorses. This is, needless to say, a lot of darker than most content in the Warcraft franchise. Blizzard has touched on this plot point since in a novel and a dragon flight quest, so it’s still canon and part of her character.
In the first iteration of this quest made available for players to test, Alexstrasza learns about the player’s actions, and grits her teeth noting that it had to be done, but she certainly doesn’t like it. The quest is otherwise light-hearted, with Chromie cracking the occasional joke and treating the venture more like a sitcom plot than a serious story.
A player with the handle Englavian posted an extremely thoughtful thread about the quest on the game’s official forums. They wrote: “Very little is shown to the player in the game about the weight of what you have just done. […] She needs to speak in a way that conveys her love for mortals, her infinite forgiveness, WITHOUT being apologetic or saying anything that could be interpreted as a statement that what happened to her was OK. She should shut down the situation instead of storming off after gritting her teeth, and it should be written with all the emotional weight it deserved.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Other fans criticized Blizzardcalling the content deaf and exploitative, especially in light of lawsuits filed against the company alleging that the developer fostered an environment of sexual harassment within its workforce.
Blizzard replied to the thread, sharing that the content would be changed. On June 16, a community manager replied to the thread with:
We’ve seen the comments in the community about some Chromie quests in Fractures of Time on the PTR, and we understand your concerns. We’ve reviewed and discussed all of these missions internally, and we’re in the process of modifying and removing missions. These changes will be available in an upcoming PTR build. Thanks for your feedback
This isn’t the first time Alexstrasza’s test row content has been edited. After all, posting this content and changing it based on player feedback is part of the development process. As the dragon flight story unfolds and Alexstrasza takes center stage as the main character, she hasn’t always come across as benevolent and brilliant as she should be. Players have previously criticized the character’s response to Sarkareth’s rebellion in Dracthyr, making Alexstrasza come across as a distant neoliberal focused on an unjust peace over violent revolution.
It’s an interesting contrast to previous expansions Shadow countries, where one of the common complaints from players was that the game’s character, Bolvar Fordragon, barely made an appearance. His sparse line count and slim presence equate to a fraction of the screen time given to Alexstrasza, who has been a much more prominent “main character” propelling the plot in dragon flight. While the extra screen time helps, mistakes like these can hurt a player’s investment in the story.
Englavian’s original post concludes with the following: “My biggest fear from this situation will be that the feedback Blizzard receives, or interprets as what people want, is that they should never touch grim, dark, disgusting subjects again. It would be horrible if they committed to it. What they should be committed to is being able to treat any situation like this with the seriousness it deserves, shutting the player down when they need to get involved, and staying consistent with the values of the characters that play a part in it.
Update (June 26): Blizzard has removed the original iteration of this quest from test streaks, and replaced it with a version that focuses on freeing Alexstrasza from her captivity by the Dragonmaw, rather than allowing her torment to continue. We’ve edited the article to reflect this.