Summary
World of Warcraft, as with any other RPG, is filled with quests that players must complete to fully experience the game. These usually involve epic journeys, battling dangerous foes, and rescuing other heroes, but some quests have gone down in history as the most difficult in nearly 20 years.
Some of these objectives inWorld of Warcraftcan take weeks of effort to finish or require the help of multiple friends. They might entail confusing riddles or secret encounters that players have to figure out for themselves, all of which can make for a frustrating, but hopefully rewarding experience.
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World of Warcraft’s Questing Experience Used to Be Much More Difficult
As one might imagine, the vast majority ofWorld of Warcraft’s most tedious questscome from the first few years of its existence. Back then, online resources were scarce and solutions were mostly passed on by word of mouth. MMORPGs as a whole were also in their infancy, so quest design didn’t prioritize a smooth and simple player experience.
One ofWoW’s most infamous quests is given by theorc Mankrik in the Barrens. Mankrik beseeches the player to locate his wife, as he fears she has fallen in battle to the quilboar. In the game’s early days, there were no quest markers or indicators to help players. Players would search high and low throughout the Barrens, one of the largest zones on Azeroth, until they recognized Olgra’s body and returned the tragic news to Mankrik.
Some of the most painstaking questlines inWorld of Warcrafthistory are Attunement quests, those required for players to enter raids early in its history. For example, theattunement required for Onyxia’s Lairwould take players across the whole of Azeroth, at a time when travel could be slow, expensive, and dangerous. The Molten Core, Karazhan, and especially the Naxxramas attunements are also fabled for the time and effort required.
Other tedious endeavors include escort quests, the design of which meant players had to keep pace with an NPC while being attacked, with no way to pace themselves or avoid danger. The most awful escort quest involved the robot chicken called OOX-17/TN. Helping this chicken took players on a trip that would constantly result in death and having to restart the entire journey.
Some class quests also merit a mention. For example, theWarlock’s Dreadsteed mount, the Druid’s Aquatic Form, and the Shaman’s Water Totem are all class abilities that required a pretty big time sink to acquire, making their rewards all the juicier when players finally achieved them.
With the aforementioned quests in mind, perhaps the most famous of allWorld of Warcraft’s player sagas is thequest for the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. With the coming release of its biggest and toughest raid yet, Ahn’Qiraj was going to get a whole legendary questline dedicated to its release. For one player to get this title and legendary Black Qiraji Battle Tank mount, they needed upwards of an entire raid group backing only them.
This search for the Scepter would take players through pretty much all the raids that had been released so far, includingMolten Core and Blackwing Lair. On top of entire raids, this questline requires expensive materials, an intensive reputation grind, and the killing of countless open-world enemies that can potentially be poached by other players.
One of the most decorated and hailedachievements inWorld of Warcraftinvolves not just completing this hellish questline of 32 individual quests, but doing it within a time limit. Players who finished the Scepter within 10 hours of the first player on that server to do so were gifted with the legendary mount, and later on, the title of Scarab Lord. Because of its length, difficulty, teamwork, expense, and mind-numbing grind, the Scepter of the Shifting Sands has to take the cake forWoW’s hardest quest ever.
World of Warcraftis available now for PC.
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