The puzzles of World of Warcraft have little to do with the game anymore. Most clues can be found through datamining. Is it still fun?
I love the puzzles of World of Warcraft. From the very first mystery surrounding Kosumoth to the long-forgotten hippogriff and the latest puzzle about the creepy pet Baa’l. However, the puzzles in WoW have lost their charm. It’s no longer about logical thinking and combining clues, but about datamining and extracting game data.
Datamining as a forced puzzle solution
The search for the pebbles: Especially absurd was the search for the numerous little pebbles needed for the Baa’l puzzle in Battle for Azeroth. To solve it, you had to click on thirteen small stones scattered throughout the world. The stones are only a few pixels large, making them almost impossible to discover randomly.
And this is where datamining comes into play. The exact process is quite technical, but simply put, the puzzle about Baa’l was solved as follows:
- It was found out which “item ID” the different stones had
- One then regularly checked the WoW cache file. This contains all data on objects that have recently been loaded in the game world, for instance because one was near them
- As soon as the corresponding ID appears in the cache file, one knows that the character is in the correct environment to find the item
This does not reveal the exact location of the stone, but it gives a rough idea of the 100-meter radius in which one needs to search. Finding the entrances to hidden caves, on the other hand, is cool and interesting. These are small, hidden things in the world, where at least there’s a chance of finding them.
Datamining consumes charm and immersion
Of course, datamining is an acceptable solution to master the puzzle and apparently also the way Blizzard envisioned – otherwise, the hiding of small pebbles cannot be explained.
However, puzzles are losing their charm. It is rare to decipher clues and find answers through logical combining. Occasionally, there’s an anagram to decipher and now and then a reference to Alice in Wonderland.
A large part of the puzzles is solved through “outgame” mechanics. And that bothers me immensely. It no longer feels like the puzzles are part of the game world but something that goes beyond it and forces me to break immersion and look at game data technically.
I think the puzzles are a cool idea, but they are drifting further away from what Warcraft means to me: a coherent game world with great mysteries – within the game.
What do you think about the whole thing? Do you find it good when the puzzles operate on multiple “levels”? Or should they only be solvable with information in the game?
