Poisoning The Pest

Poisoning the Pest is the perfect quest for beginners. As a fresh recruit of the Wynn army you meet farmer Cevalus just outside the Ragni gates. You talk to him and he urges you, "Please help save my farm!". This is one of the player's first impressions of the Wynn province. Life is tough and troubles are plenty. Not only that, but the threat to his farm is his own father reanimated. Truly corruption is a sinister force that ravages the lives of people on a personal level as well.

Now moving on, poisoning The Pest is the pinnacle of game design. The curved path is perfect for introducing players to dodging ranged AI in an intuitive way. This is more important than people realize, as many players who would think to charge at it learn strafing subconsciously. Not only that, it foreshadows the first dungeon boss, The Witherhead, which uses the same AI. Without this well-designed experience teaching them, more players would be frustrated with the boss and leave the server outright.

The quest ends a dramatic 30 second long cutscene in which the father violently explodes into a shower of viscera. I want you to remember that we are witnessing this scene play out in Minecraft. Virtual Legos. So early in the game to be exposed to such a violent demise, again, sets the setting of Wynn. I believe the cutscene is of perfect length too, the tension is thrilling for any player who is actually interested in seeing what happens next instead of just wanting to move on with their life.

Many players criticize Poisoning The Pest, and many of those critiques are invalid for the sole reason that Poisoning the Pest is designed with new players in mind. This should be obvious as outside of completion for completion's sake players have no incentive to re-experience it. This quest's experience rewards are dwarfed by grinding mobs, and the money is irrelevant to an endgame player. The nonexistent material incentive screams at players "SKIP THIS QUEST".

In short, I think Poisoning the Pest is underappreciated, quite possibly one of the best quests in the entirety of Wynncraft, and more quests should be made like it.

 

yes. just yes.