I Want To Be The One That Blows Up Stranglethorn

I've been doing quests in Stranglethorn Vale lately and I can say with no reservations that I hate Stranglethorn Vale with every ounce of my being. This is my fifth or sixth visit and I hate it more than ever.

I hate it because Stranglethorn Vale, or "STV", as the kids call it, is a kind of greatest hits collection of every mistake Blizzard made in designing their classic zones:

Way too big? Check.

Two levels worth of quests spread over twenty levels? Check.

Quest hubs inconveniently at the edges of the zone? Check.

Difficult to traverse because of lakes, rivers and superfluous ridges? Check.

Every part of the zone looks exactly the same so you never know where you are? Check.

Huge sections of the zone that only have one quest but are right in the middle of the zone so you end up running past them like ten times? Check.

Etc. It is everything you love about zones in classic WoW times a million. But at least the awful zone is a nice distraction from the terrible quests. These are some of my favorite STV quests, if they were named honestly :

• Get Lost In A Cave
• Swimming For Twenty Minutes Sounds Like A Great Quest, Right?
• You'll Have To Kill Like Eighty Trolls Just To Click This One Stone, And There Are Like Three Stones
• Spend Ten Minutes Going Across The Zone Just To Click Like One Thing
• (etc.)

That's why I want to blow up STV.

Blizzard had a minor event for the launch of TBC (just some demons coming out of the dark portal) and a huge event for the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, with a plague sweeping over the entire world, converting players into undead. Since Cataclysm involves Blowing Up Azeroth, Blizzard will really need the Launch Event To End All Launch Events.

The pre-launch event for Wrath involved changing players into the agents of the expansion's principal antagonist -- why not do this again for Cataclysm? I do quests in the game solely for rewards -- I don't really care that I'm helping to defeat the Lich King or whatever. In fact, I always love the "I tricked you into doing something evil!" quests, since I don't care that I'm evil in the game as long as I get XP.

But blowing up STV, and Azshara, and Stonetalon -- that would be a quest I could really get behind.