Let me reveal a secret. Those pink pigtails - the doll-like cute little face if mine – is just a disguise. In reality I’m a full-fledged slaughter machine, always craving for blood.The more they bleed and scream, the wider is the smile on my face. It feels good to be evil!
Pygmy cravings
My true nature was revealed to me the first time I did the quest Thieving Little Pluckers in Uldum.
As I raised the Tehtret Dynasty Mallet, which is about the size of Larisa and smashed it into the living pillar of equally annoying and cute sand pygmies, and as I saw how they fell in all directions, blood flowing and yellow numbers filling my screen, I knew that I was lost.
I had to do this again! Please, please let me! I would do anything in my power – even level an alt if that was what was needed– to get the chance to just one more time pwn those little creatures and tear them into pieces.
Fortunately enough it turned out that someone at Blizzard knew about those darkest corners of the pink pigtailed mind. Of all quests in Uldum, they had picked this one for making a daily, in an effort to meet the needs of us addicts. And I pulled a sigh of relief. I could do this quest, over and over again, as many times as I liked. The flow of blood from smashed pygmies would never get dry.
And this was how it all began back in December. Many pygmies have died for my mallet since then and Ramkahen now are so pleased with my services as a smasher that they’ve given me a camel mount and released me from my duties. If I insist on keeping smashing pygmies, they let me of course, but the salary is set at a modest 7 g 85 silver, which I probably could earn quicker if I just gave AH 30 seconds of my attention.
From a strict goblin perspective, there’s no reason why I should do this daily again, ever.
But I do. Because I’m just like Raz the Crazed in Blackrock Caverns. I like to smash!
The joy of destruction
I frankly don’t know what it is about it that makes it so satisfying. There isn’t any challenge, no e-peen to wave and certainly no tasty quest reward awaiting.
And yet I love it, the same way as I enjoy stomping on the thin ice covering a ground pool an early winter morning, seeing the ice shatter into pieces as you pray silently that this pool was empty and not filled with dirty water. I think it’s something about the sound and the very sensation of breaking things. It’s the joy of pure, unfiltered destruction.
Bam, bam, splash! You’re so dead!
Blizzard may break their backs to provide us with all sorts of sophisticated quests with phasing, invisible vehicles, mystical mists à la Emerald Dram or crazy action filled cut scenes in the company of Harrison Ford. But we players are strange, ungrateful creatures. Sometimes we don’t want sophistication. Sometimes we just want to smash things and listen to the sound of screaming victims and flowing blood.
Thieving Little Pluckers. I think I already have a good candidate for when it’s time to nominate the best quest of 2011.
To all fellow smashers
My Friday night toast goes to all my fellow pygmy smashers out there. Maybe you find reasons to hide your addiction, putting up a façade that you prefer quests to be challenging and intriguing. But even so, don’t feel ashamed for your secret cravings.
You’re not alone!
Cheers!
31 comments:
I confess: I rarely stop at 30. In fact, I try to be as far away from the quest giver as possible when "complete" the quest, so I can continue smashing as I hurry back to collect my reward.
For a time, you could actually take the mallet with you and smash it anywhere in Azeroth you liked. You could even macro it to abilities! It was a wonderful time that unfortunately, was soon hotfixed. Now you can only use the mallet in Uldum.
Still, I greatly look forward to popping over to the desert and smashing some pygmies. A great stress reliever!
A WUGGA WUGGA WUGGA
My daughter hears those noises, looks over at me, and rolls her eyes. "Oh, Mother."
I wonder if that's a typical day for a tauren paladin.
It's the silly sound they're making, true story.
bit worrying isn't it - add silly sounds to the most awful scene of destruction and everyone goes 'mwah mwah', lol.. -.-
I am also crazy for this quest. It's the most satisfying daily ever. Gnome Smash!
Mmmm! I'd love a taste of the Emerald Dram! Jamesons all round!
I liked the idea of hitting evil things with a mallet, but the pygmy race implementation and the quests relating to them just creeps me out. Just a little too close to caricatures of middle-eastern and african stereotypes for comfort.
The quest other than that is fun.
I tend to do the wildhammer dailies, just something about flying while drunk makes me giggle.
Much like Syl, for me it's the sounds they make when I smash their pudgy little faces. Big mallett, simple pleasures.
There are many joys to this quest, but the best, by far, is being a ranged damage dealer and being required to walk up to somebody and smash them right in the face, or is it their belly-button? Can't be too sure as the sure joy of doing this daily clouds my vision. Imagine, who would've thought us huntards would have come full circle and be required to melee to complete a quest!
Have a good-weekend, all! Cheers
Everyone else beat me to it, but I have to chime in here. It's *definitely* the sound! :D I wade through piles of them with gleeful abandon.
Without a doubt, this is my favorite daily quest ever by a long ways. Glad to see others agree.
I totally agree!! This is the best and most satisfying quest ever!! And the fact that it is a daily makes it even better!! I always do this quest to get my WOW frustrations out! Beats the heck out of banging my head on my keyboard! LOL!
Karot acknowledges and understands this darkness within you. Karot approves.
Karot SMASH!
I can only add my voice to the choir here. I'm actually glad the Ramkahen don't have any good reputation rewards for me, because that gives me a good excuse to just stick to that daily while working on that rep instead of speeding things up with a tabard. It's just too much fun!
Not only do I love doing this quest (only daily I have religiously done) but I like to imagine that the pygmies are a certain annoying guildie who whines in our Vent every day about her unhappiness with Blizzard about this nerf or that buff. If there were a mod that changed the pygmy to her NE hunter in looks I'm fairly certain I would never have time to raid.
I agree I love this quest. and I don't generally stop when I have all the ones I need. I just keep going until my thirst is filled for the day. >:)
I don't really like dailys (it's one of my problems with WoW that I don't like repeating things). However, smashing the thieving little pluckers is just soo much fun that I can't help myself. I wouldn't worry about the darkness within. They had it coming!
I just wish they'd make Gnomageddon into a daily. Seeing those gnomes stuck to the flaming ball as it keeps on rolling...
I don't like this daily, because of the way the trees interact with the camera. It zooms in and out as I move around. If I just zoom the camera most of the way in, I get a nearly first-person view that I just don't like.
Allow me to chime in to say I love this quest as well. The noises they make made me giggle when I first did it, and it was one of the few dailies I kept doing after I had finished my first time around (the only other one that comes to mind that fits that category is Bomb Them Again! Good times, good times.)
I have to say, that quest is one of my favourites in the entire expansion :) Probably up there right beside the one where you have to roll over 1000 gnomes as a giant ball of flame :D
I did wonder if it was a Mage thing and our insatiable appetite for destruction that gave me such pure, unadulterated joy at smashing unkempt pygmies with giant malletts. Judging by the number of comments however it appears that the enjoyment of smashing small people with large objects is not limited by class or race - it's something the whole family can enjoy.
@Kestrel: Neither do I! I always do some extras. I’m sure the questgiver doesn’t mind.
@Rades: oh it was you who did that lovely little video of it wasn’t it? A shame I missed to try it out. And yes, it’s still wonderful when you do it as intended.
: Hehe I play with headset in my efforts not to draw too much attention to my geekery.
: Oh I bet it is! The rest of us have to settle for the substitute.
@Syl: I agree, I think the sound is an essential part of it. And the splashing blood. It’s a lovely combo.
: Gnomes? Oh noes. Pygmies!
@Dàchéng. Cheers!
@Pewter: You think so? I honestly haven’t seen it that way. To me they’re just small and funny mobs that go splash when you smash them.
I have yet to try out the wildhammer dailies.
@Gronthe: Yep. Simple and delicious.
: I normally don’t like to do melee stuff; I tend to be hitting in the wrong direction, constantly. But those are so meleefriendly and easily smashed that even I can enjoy them. Possibly they’re trying to convince me that melee isn’t so bad as I think?
@Vidyala: It’s a lovely sound! I sometimes play without headset to be more available to communicate with my family, but if I do this q, it’s headset on!
: We’re a huge club!
@Ali: Oh, it’s the perfect cure after a sucky raid night!
@Karot: SMASH!
@Shintar: I’m afraid I had a pair of boots waiting so I put the tabard on. But this doesn’t prevent me from doing the q anyway. It’s not about the rep. It’s about the pleasure.
: Haha, that’s lovely! Pygmy therapy ftw!
@Akycha: 30 are definitely not enough for my cravings!
: No, very few dailies have grabbed me. They’re mostly done out of duty rather than pleasure. This is the one exception.
@Kazark: I agree completely about that one. Actually I’ll probably post about it.
: That sucks. I wonder if it has to do with your settings?
@Ardol: Bomb them again, was that the one in Hellfire peninsula? It was awesome. I love bomb quests as well.
@We Fly Spitfires: It’s a good candidate. Alongside with the giant ball of flame. I think people who like this q are very likely to love the ball.
: I think this desire is more about mentality than what class you play. We’re a special bloodthirsty kind.
Larisa - seems there is a dorf inside eagerly waiting to come out!!
Since i played the goblin starter zone with the pymgies in them, i have loved the mobs. So primative, so simple but so much fun ... to smash with a giant mallet. I happily hold my hand high, proud in the fact that pymgies all around Uldum should quake at the sight of one Dorf and his mace.
It is most definitely the noise that makes you want to grind them to dust, unlike the god-awful murloc cry that makes you want to kill anything that comes near you (on the PC or in the same room), the pygmies have that cathartic feel to them.
Ooh, I wish the rolling-over-gnomes-in-giant-ball-of-flame was a daily :o I'd be first in line. Mind you, I also wish the "save the wee animals" quest was a daily. I play warriors. They tend to have a "me stabby stabb- ooh, cute fluffy thing..." streak. Go figure.
Anyway, off to Uldum later to find te pygmy quest.
@Grumpy Dorf: It's a dwarf thing to punt pygmies? I didn't know! I didn't know there were pygmies in the Goblin starting area. I definitely need to check that out. One more thing on my ever-growing to-do-list.
@Rebecca: I agree about that quest too. In fact I'm starting a campaign for it. Post incoming soon!
I love to smash, but there is one quest that tops this for pure goonery in my mind. As you go through Hyjal, when you need to join the twilight cult to get the inside scoop, you do a quest where they give you a blackjack.
You calmly walk over to the group of would-be recruits, tell one of them that you need to talk to them about something, walk away with that recruit and then, "Inflict severe head trauma on a twilight recruit." I love it.
I love this quest, too, and do it daily.
This reminded me at first of Mario Bro. and I immediately thought about the 3-D joust we got in Hyjal. Not only that, but the Plants vs. Zombies that came out just before the expansion ...I'm seeing a nice little nod to other video games and I like it.
In my opinion, the thieving little pluckers are what every daily should be: something fast, fun, and humorous. There were other quests along the way that I thought would've made for excellent dailies (though they escape my memory at the moment) and they all had those three important qualities.
WoW could have more entertaining dailies to do. Hopefully when they open the dailies in Hyjal, we'll see more like the pluckers or hopefully get to play more joust ...the quest where you had to climb a tree where the 'bounce' achievement is would be good, too.
Haven't made it that far into the expansion, but sounds like fun... I always wished the quest in storm peaks where you hunt mammoth with a goblin bomb was a daily, instead of the mine field... Every time I bring an alt through Northrend I get all excited and then laugh a most demented laugh when the mammoth blows up into messy meat chunks. (or when I blow myself up by not getting the bomb to a mammoth in time)
When I first did the quest on my dwarf, after hitting the mallet for the first time, I immediately thought something was missing...
Then I put this on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtM4DdLYFfI :P
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