Tag Archives: games

A Week in the Life of an MMO Addict: Tuesday

Tuesday, 0017 hours
Soon, yes, so very soon, I shall be a fearsome level 50, the apogee of the game, a mighty and awesome achievement. I should prepare a speech or something. Let’s see… “One small kill for man, one giant level for mankind”… nah… maybe some Churchill. “Can I save money on my car insurance, oh yes, yes, yes.” Hang on, wrong Churchill. “This is not the end. It is not even the end of the beginning. But it is, perhaps, the beginning of the endgame.” That’s it. I’ll broadcast that in General, very stirring.

0029 hours
Last kill, here we go, broadcast: DING FIFTY WOOYAY LOL I AM TEH WINNAH!

0030 hours
OK, not quite the statesmanlike effect I was after. Not to worry. Now, back to the PvP zone!

0047 hours
Let’s see, who do we have here… Arragawn, level 27. I’m not even going to pause to report him for name violation, swoop in and SMITE! Bwahahahaha, one shot kill, I’m the daddy! Arrowgone, level 23, MAIM! Aragun, level 34, SLICE! Hrm. Still alive? DICE! That’s better, a triumph. Huge success. Oh yeah, I’m serving up the Typhoo now!

0134 hours
/tell Arugon: That’s open world PvP, you should have known what you were letting yourself in for. I’ve always said that what sets this game apart is the excellent implementation of open PvP, if you can’t take it maybe you should head back to World of Carebear.
Ahahahahaha, BURN! Ooh, I’m on fire.

0145
Dammit, I suppose I ought to go to bed. I’m on a final warning for turning up late to work. And a final warning for falling asleep at work.

0740 hours
Just five minutes, I can log in for five minutes over breakfast while I eat Sugar Puffs straight from the box…

0755 hours
Dammit, dammit, never mind, I’ll just get going and finish getting dressed on the way.

0807 hours
I don’t know why people keep sounding their horns, it’s like they’ve never seen anyone putting on a pair of trousers while driving.

1120 hours
… and then by using a shield, I could take the points from two-handed specialisation, and put them into deepening the casting pool instead… what? Yes boss, absolutely, just running off the copies now.

1554 hours
… altogether, that comes to seventeen gold pieces, please. Pounds! I meant pounds, seventeen pounds, please.

1629 hours
… 56, 57, 58, 59, HALF PAST FOUR, I’m out of here, GOGOGOGO, out of my way people!

1722 hours
GRAGH! TRAFFIC JAMS! Deep breaths, deep breaths, remember what the analyst said after that road rage incident with the foam LARPing sword… Put on the CD of the in-game music, visualise the setting. I am a calm, relaxed elf, strolling through the forests of Nrjohal. I am a calm, relaxed elf COME ON, YOU COULD GET A BUS THROUGH THAT GAP, MOVE IT forests of Nrjohal.

1750 hours
Ah, back in game finally. Who’s next to challenge my fearsome PvP skillz, then? Ariggon, level 30, SMASH! Awragan, level 28, FREEM! Arrowgun, Ranger Warmonk, level 42 (feel that slap bass), SLASH! HACK! POKE! Hang on, he’s fighting back, is that allowed? BASH! SWEEP! USE THAT FUNNY LOOKING THING FOR REMOVING STONES FROM HORSES HOOVES! He’s got me down to 75% health, t’ch. SMITE! BEAT! PUMMELL! Got him, that took ages, though.

1755 hours
“… in conclusion, Ranger Warmonks are reeduckyewlessly overpowered and must be nerfed at once so I can always one-shot kill them.” Click, post to forum.

2030 hours
Hmm, an invite to join a war-group from our Kingdom. Might as well hook up with them, see what it’s like.

2355 hours
Oh, man, this is amazing, we’re dominating the battlefield! Crushing all opponents, capturing outposts, laying waste to any who dare oppose us! This is the best game ever released, I’m totally playing this game forever. If only they had a lifetime subscription option, there’s no way I’m ever going to move to anything else, this is totally awesome, it’s got the depth, the graphics, it’s amazing. The devs are my favourite people ever, I think I’ll get some photos of them as posters. Maybe I could get enough to wallpaper the whole front room. I’m going to name my kids after them. Least, I will if I ever have kids.

A Week in the Life of an MMO Addict: Monday

Monday, 1322 hours
Huh? Where am I? What’s… man, I must’ve just dozed off there. What time is it? Half one, phew, only lost a couple of hours. /played time is… 70 hours 52 minutes? My god! It’s Monday! I’ve lost an entire day. Thank god it’s a bank holiday, I used up all my leave this year on the stress test. And that day where I stayed home refreshing the browser ever 2.3 seconds applying for closed beta. And they demand a signed note from the doctor after all that sick leave I took for the last game launch, it’s like they didn’t believe I happened to catch the Black Death and malaria the same week it launched.

1324 hours
Good news is, I fell asleep onto the keyboard, so with the continuous input at least my character wasn’t automatically logged out. Login time saved right there.

1326 hours
Even better news, I feel asleep onto the “turn right” and “attack” keys in the middle of an area with respawning mobs, and I’ve gained two levels in that time. By my calculations, the XP gain per hour improved by 4.3% in my sleep. Some might say that shows gaining levels requires no skill whatsoever and is merely a function of time spent in game, but it’s obvious that I’m so uber I don’t even need to be awake to show off my mad skillz.

1328 hours
Getting a bit rancid, maybe I should go for a shower? No way, can’t afford that much time. I’ll give myself a quick spray of deodorant.

1329 hours
Turns out I left the deodorant upstairs. Can’t spare the time to go and get it. Sprayed under my arms with the compressed air I use to blow dust out of the PC case, that’ll do.

1334 hours
Right, level 48, just two more levels, here we go now.

Montage ensues, to the soundtrack of..

Grinding, grinding, grinding,
Grinding, grinding, grinding,
Grinding, grinding, grinding,
Ecks Peeeee!

Grinding, grinding, grinding
Though the sun is blinding
Grab the loot I’m finding, Ecks Peeee,
Pick up fang and paw and feather,
Then skin ’em for the leather,
And onto the next bunch on the map,
All the things I’m craving,
Arenas, housing, raiding,
Are waiting right at that level cap,

Slash ’em up, loot the corpse,
Loot the corpse, slash ’em up,
Slash ’em up, loot the corpse,
Ecks Peeeeeee,
Kill the mobs, sell the trash,
Sell the trash, kill the mobs,
Kill the mobs, sell the trash,
Ecks Peeeeeee,

Keep slaying, slaying, slaying,
No matter what they’re saying,
The vendor keeps on paying, Ecks Peeeee,
Don’t try to understand ’em
Just stab, loot and frag ’em
Attack anything that isn’t tame,
My add-on’s calculating,
There won’t be much more waiting,
‘Til I’ll be a part of that end game,

Slash ’em up, loot the corpse,
Loot the corpse, slash ’em up,
Slash ’em up, loot the corpse,
Ecks Peeeeeee,
Kill the mobs, sell the trash,
Sell the trash, kill the mobs,
Kill the mobs, sell the trash,
Ecks Peeeeeee!

2359 hours
Level 49 and nine bubs, nearly there!

A Week in the Life of an MMO Addict: Sunday

Sunday, 0000 hours
Still grinding mobs for XP. Five levels to go.

0100 hours
Still grinding mobs for XP. Five levels to go.

0200 hours
Still grinding mobs for XP. Five levels to go.

0300 hours
Still grinding mobs for XP. Five levels to go.

0400 hours
Still grinding mobs for XP. Five levels to go.

0500 hours
Still grinding mobs for XP. Four levels to go.

0501 hours
Belay that, still five levels to go. Turns out it was actually church bells ringing, not the “ding” sound for level 46.

0515 hours
DING LEV… no, wait, church bells again.

0530 hours
DING LEV… no, wait, church bells again.

0545 hours
More church bells, well, they’re not catching me out this time!

0547 hours
Turns out I dinged level 46 two minutes ago.

0600 hours
Still grinding mobs for XP. Four levels to go. Haven’t slept for thirty hours, but no ill efefcts notiacble.

0700 hours
Stlil grindign mobs fro XP. Fuor levesl to go.

0800 hours
Stlil ginrdign mbso fro XP. Furo lveesl to og.

0900 hours
liSlt gdnriign smob rfo PX. ruFo lvesle ot og.

1000 hours
liilt gdnrSign sofb rmo Pu. rXFo lveoes tl og.

1100 hours
WWWWWWWWWASADWASDAWDWSDWADASWDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD[text buffer overflow]

A Week in the Life of an MMO Addict: Saturday

Saturday, 0000 hours
Just a couple more quests and I’ll be able to participate in open-world PvP… ahh, the cut and thrust of dynamic combat against a thinking, cunning opponent, that’ll be the stuff, none of this tedious, repetitive grind, killing ten rats, twenty bats, thirty gnats (tricky one that, until I found the Flyswatter of Insecticde), forty hats. I don’t know why they restrict it anyway, they should let anyone of any level join in! The whole world should be at war! Only cowards don’t want to join the glorious battle!

0047 hours
That’s the 50 Slightly Bigger Rats Than The Previous Set Of Rats Tails handed in to the NPC, DING LEVEL TWENTY ONE! To the zone with open PvP!

0051 hours
Zone loading… zone loading… here we go, oh yes, this is the life, watch out foul enemy, I’m coming for… what? I’m dead? DAMMIT stupid bug, I’ll just rez and… I’m dead again, huh? Combat log… Aragown hit you with a fireball for 5,407 points of damage? NAME VIOLATION REPORTED TO GM! /who Aragown… level 37? Already? What sort of sad case is level 37 already? Hm. Looks like he’s walking off, OK, I’ll rez and… Ouragon critically backstabbed you from stealth for 7,123 points of damage?

0134 hours
GM Neville: How can I help you?
STry1d3rrr: I keep getting killed!
GM Neville: By other players, in an open PvP zone?
STry1d3rrr: Yes!
GM Neville: I’m afraid that is working as intended.
STry1d3rrr: But… they’re higher level than me!
GM Neville: Yes, due to customer demand, PvP is totally unrestricted in this zone. Is there anything else I can help with?
STry1d3rrr: Well… the people who keep killing me also taunt me by then making a nice cup of PG Tips!
GM Neville: Yes, I suspect they’re quite surprised by the result of the /teabag emote as well.

0158 hours
“… in conclusion, the concept of open world PvP is reddikyouless, and the devs are idiots for including it.” Post to forum, click.

0243 hours
Thank god, I managed to get out of there while the gankers were occupied with another dumb schmuck who stuck his head in at level 21. Right. I’m going to get to the level cap in PvE, then I’ll show them.

0317 hours
60 Even Bigger Than The Last Lot Of Giant Bat Fangs handed in to the NPC

0442 hours
70 Quite Similar To The Last Lot Of Rats, Only Wearing Stilts So They’re A Bit Bigger Tails handed in to the NPC

0610 hours
80 Tails From Giant Rats Dropped Into Combat By Giant Bats and 80 Fangs From Giant Bats That Drop Giant Rats Into Combat handed in to the NPC

0723 hours
Dead rats, dead bats, what d’you think about that, huh? Fat cat in a top hat, thinks he an aristocrat, yeah, c’mon now.

0724 hours
Maybe I should lay off the ultra-caffeinated energy drinks.

0916 hours
The next quest line’s in the farmyard muck
Fetch the farmer a rabbit, a chicken and a duck
Feed the sows and the cows and the farmyard cats
Kill some hogs and some dogs and the farmyard rats
Jug the hares, catch the mares, grow a pound of pears
Sheer billy goats in hairy coats
You get a horse (of course) and a ton of turnips
DING LEVEL 35!

1438 hours
If there are 1,000 other players on this server, running the same quest lines, I calculate we will have wiped out the entire animal population of the world seven times over by the time we’re all level 25. Also, the bandit groups in Forest of F’tang must have had, at the very least, 97,000 members (assuming a consistent drop rate of one bandit badge per 2.78 bandits). No wonder the three members of the village militia need our help holding them off.

1515 hours
Level 42, oh yeah, feel that percussive slap bass.

1636 hours
Time since parking the car on the drive with the game: 28 hours, 16 minutes. /played timed: 28 hours, 9 minutes. Must work on that seven minute gap next time. Note to self for next game release: leave a front window open and remove windscreen from car. If I don’t wear a seatbelt, I can ram the car into the wall, and the momentum should fling me straight out, through the window and into position. Clear three minute saving.

1928 hours
Levelling really slowing down now. Quests getting harder to find, almost like the developers had concentrated more on the earlier zones in the knowledge that normal people would take three months to hit level 40 so there’d be time to patch more content in after release. Reactions also dulled by fatigue.

2345 hours
Ding… level… 45. Quests… totally dried up apart… from Mayor Placeholder… who requested… Set Quantity Here of Select Body Part Or Generic Possession from Choose Mob Type. Must… keep… grinding…

Hype.

If I read one more post about how forthcoming game X is going to be more amazing than Jesus jumping a shopping trolley over the Grand Canyon and landing on Elvis, I think I might just climb the proverbial clocktower.

Marketing departments deal out snippets of pure, distilled hype like baggies of crack cocaine, and it would be nice if we could develop some sort of rehabilitation clinic for all the addicts out there.

Only the most foolish of mice would hide in a cat’s ear.

I had a quick glance at the forum thread pointed to by Nerfbat’s Tales from the Tavern: Volume X, and didn’t see the setting for an MMO that is currently ping-ponging around inside my vastly empty skull, making my teeth rattle, and my eyes gyrate like the much abused trackball on a classic Centipede arcade cabinet. So I thought I’d post it here for the world, all three of you, to see.

A while ago Zoso introduced me to the wonderful comic Mouse Guard by David Petersen, and this would be my setting for an MMO if I were released from care for long enough to unleash my rabid brain at such a project. Like a face hugger the brain would clamp down on the minds of the developers, lay it’s fertile seed in their collective conscious and then fade into legend, only to be remembered too late at the last when it’s effulgent offspring would burst forth from the depths of the subconscious in a searing bright orgy of conceptualisation and gore.

If you hadn’t realised that my mind was like that by now there’s no hope for you I’m afraid, you’re already infected. Sorry.

Mouse Guard the MMO would be cool on so many levels; count them and I think you’ll find there are at least three levels, although fiercer proponents may convince you that they actually counted seven. Either way, there are a number of levels of cool and I shall explore just a few of them for you now.

The world within a world

The idea of playing as anthropomorphised adventuring mice lends itself instantly to the concept of playing in a world that is within world. This juxtaposition of worlds is a staple of fairy tales and children’s stories, we explore through narrative the world of these diminutive creatures, but we can’t escape the fact that this totally alien land in which they live is, in fact, part of our own world. To an adventuring mouse an overgrown lawn is a densely packed forest, fraught with lurking danger. A toadstool of any significant size is shelter from the rain and the gaze of flying predators.

I imagine epic battles that flow back and forth across dining room tables or the tops of refrigerators, over shed roofs and the backs of cows, precariously fought along telephone wires and high in the branches of gnarled oaks. I imagine a miniature horde of muridaen adventurers in their fustian livery with tiny swords and staves held at the ready, marching on the farmer’s grain store where it is rumoured that mountains of treasure lie, guarded by a sleeping beast with fangs the size of a mouse’s sword, and whose golden yellow eyes crossed with black slits stare out from the darkness, as the thrum-thrumming of its contentment rolls out from the darkness and strikes fear into all those who dare to approach.

Story

It’s the age-old story of survival in grim times. The mice have to fight not only their natural enemies of the world – cats, snakes, owls and the like – but there is also the internecine struggle between the various factions within their own society. I would also add to these struggles an overarching fear of the coming of the farmer and his plough, such that the mice also fight to prevent the destruction of their world as they know it, be it through sabotage of the farmer’s tools, or by adventuring across the vast unknown in the search of new lands. Anyone who has read Watership Down or Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH will see the potential for great story telling in such a world.

Art

World of Warcraft has proven that the cartoon style can appeal to players, hardcore and casual alike, and that a game needn’t be powered by the Unreal Engine with its plastic-looking uncanny valley mannequins. The fact that Petersen’s mice actually look like mice (none of that Micky Mouse or Danger Mouse style of comic character here) means that the worlds are deeply compelling, reminding me more of ’70s era Tolkien illustrations than anything maintream Disney has produced.

I think that Mouse Guard the MMO would be excellent, a slightly different take on the fantasy adventure MMO, with plenty of twists and hooks to make it stand out from the standards of the genre. There are stories from all over children’s literature that could be re-told from new perspectives, and with the players in control these stories could end up as feel-good tales along the lines of Beatrix Potter, or perhaps follow a darker route along the lines of NIMH.

So there you have it, my MMO setting. If you feel a slight tingling in the back of your mind, don’t worry, it’s nothing but the brain-seed bedding down. Just watch out for an irrepressible itching on the end of your nose, that’s the sign that it’s about to gestate.

Nice post. Tideyman’s?

Killed in a smiling accident is brought to you in association with Tideyman’s Carpets. Remember, nothing soaks in to a Tideyman’s!

Advertising. Its creeping, insidious presence is getting everywhere, it seems. Rest assured, though, this blog will always be a haven of product-placement-free tranquillity, and will return after these messages from our sponsor…

Tideyman’s Carpets: nobody walks all over us. Except people who buy Tideyman’s Carpets! And then walk all over them.

Last week, there was an NCSoft announcement introducing in-game advertising for City of Heroes. Needless to say, this prompted a brief, polite discussion on the forum for a couple of days before everyone returned to deconstructing Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. No, hang on, I’m thinking of something else there… It naturally prompted a wide ranging and frequently heated debate ranging over advertising, product placement, privacy concerns, the ultimate meaning of life, and whether one can, in fact, haz cheezburger.

I’m somewhat ambivalent myself. I can certainly see the point of the anti-advertising lobby (especially when articulated by the great Bill Hicks), but on the basis that the genie won’t go back in the bottle, I can generally live with product placement and adverts so long as they aren’t too intrusive; I don’t really mind what kind of watch James Bond wears, but pointing it out in dialogue is a bit clunky (the recent version of Casino Royale: “Rolex?” “Omega” “CHA-CHING”!) There’s a post about adverts in Brothers In Arms, a bit of a puff piece, but at least it shows they try and blend things into the environment; I can even buy the argument that they’re doing players a favour in making things more realistic. The City of Heroes adverts should be fairly similar, placed on billboards that already exist in-game. Sounds fairly reasonable, and there’ll be an option to turn them off if they turn out to be particularly garish.

Potentially more insidious than the mere presence of adverts in an online game is the possibility of associated data gathering. Now, in general, I like the idea of targeted advertising, so long as it’s based on information I volunteer myself and I know what I’m letting myself in for. If I search for hatstands on Google, it’s sometimes helpful when it pops up a sponsored “BUY HATSTANDS HERE!” link (as an option, if I want to look there). I think Amazon’s “My Store” is pretty nifty, suggesting things I might like based on what I’ve bought/rated, though it shows a distinct lack of imagination (“After buying a Radiohead album, you reckon I might like… every other Radiohead album? Steady on there, Amazon, let’s not go too crazy!”) It’s not a huge leap from there, though, to the looming shadow of the Panopticon, where the insurance company can check your online shopping from the supermarket and raise health insurance premiums because of all the high fat food you’re buying, and you lose out on a job because the employer found some embarrassing photos of you on Facebook. The recent revelations about Phorm in the UK (today’s exciting instalment) show it’s not exactly tin-foil helmet stuff, the amount you need to worry depending on how far you believe Phorm’s assurances about anonymity (general conclusion would seem to be: not very). Again, though, there doesn’t seem to be too much to worry about that in City of Heroes, I don’t believe it has any interaction with the rest of your ‘net use, so won’t run into the dangers Penny Arcade warn of…

I’ll give the adverts in CoH a go, if it means more money for NCSoft to invest in the game, so much the better, but I hope it’s not the start of a slippery slope, there’s nothing worse than terrible, blatant advertising, so don’t forget: when you think carpets, think Tideyman’s, the deep shag that really satisfies.

Moral courage so rare.

I’ve been reading a bit about Fable 2 and how Monsieur Molyneux wants to create a game that challenges the moral decisions of the player. You have to admire the stance, because I don’t know about you, but I only have to look out the window to see people being immoral, self-centred arses on a regular basis in real life, so creating a moral challenge that stands in the way of accessing areas of game play is probably about as effective as holding a small square of toilet paper over your head in the hope that it might provide a challenge to the piano that is hurtling down towards you from ten stories up. And we’re talking that awful, really thin paper that you get in public loos, rather than that double-quilted luxury paper that moisturises and provides a light, if somewhat unnerving, massage when you use it.

In MMOs it is almost a certainty that the majority of players will just pick whichever path provides the greater reward, whether that involves saving the kingdom from invaders, or selling their grandmother to the local sausage factory, as long as their decision gifts them ‘the shiny’ at the end of it all then as far as they’re concerned they’ve made the right decision. One envisions spreadsheets that have been carefully designed to work out the optimum path through the game for maximum reward:

Adventurer: “Sorry Kenneth I’m going to have to kill you now.”

Kenneth: “What? Why? You’ve been helping me for ages now, you’ve saved my entire family from starvation, you’ve rescued my daughter from bandits; I thought we were friends!”

Adventurer: “Well, according to my spreadsheet, doing quests for you was the best way to improve my standing with your village elder, and she had a really nice sword to give as a reward once I’d done enough good for you and your family. But I have the sword now, and I really would like the shield to go with it, and, well you see, the shield is given away by the local warlord, but only if I’ve been bad enough to ingratiate myself with him.”

Kenneth: “I don’t. I don’t understand. You were dating my daughter for crying out loud!”

Adventurer: “I know. I’m sorry Kenneth. But I’m going to have to kill you and your entire family, otherwise I just won’t be able to offset all the good I’ve done for you and your village, and the warlord will never speak to me. It’s all here in the spreadsheet, look.”

Kenneth: “Oh. Oh I see. Well, yup, that all seems in order, looks like you do indeed need to kill me. Can’t argue with a spreadsheet, as my mother always says!”

Adventurer: “I’m afraid I have some bad news, Ken, your mother is dead.”

Kenneth: “Dead? How?!”

Adventurer: “I killed her on the way over here actually, it was either that or help get her cat out of the tree.”

Kenneth: “What about the cat, did you at least get it down from the tree.”

Adventurer: “Of course, Kenneth! Of course! After all, I’m not a monster.”

Kenneth: “Well that’s some consolation, at least.”

Adventurer: “Yep, I got it down from the tree; then I killed it, skinned it, and sent its pelt to the local warlord, because…”

Kenneth: “Heh heh heh! The local warlord hates cats, I understand! Right, so how would you like me? Just standing here oblivious or in a slightly cowering posture pleading for mercy?”

Adventurer: “Oh, uh, just standing there will be fine, thanks.”

Kenneth: “Righty ho. Oh, and looking at this column on your spreadsheet, it appears you’ll get a decent boost to your evil reputation if you also burn my house down, so don’t forget to do that.”

Adventurer: “Really? Oh yes, you’re quite right. Dammit! I haven’t got anything to light it with.”

Kenneth: “Here, have my lighter.”

Adventurer: “Thanks! I guess it’s not like you’re going to need it any more, is it? Ha ha ha!”

Kenneth: “Ha ha ha! No problem, any ti… urk”

Adventurer: “Now I just need to go and find your wife and, well, you know…”

Kenneth: “Gurggle… yup! Hrng… mrrrgghh… don’t forget… to put my head on a spike… for the weekly warlord windfall… gaaaahhhh”

Adventurer: “Oh! Good point! Thanks Kenneth, you’re a real friend. Were a real friend, even.”

I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with trying to present a moral challenge to the player, you understand, but the basic problem is that to provide a moral challenge the player has to connect with the society in which they operate, such that its laws and its people have a meaning and depth to them that the player can relate to. This, among other things, requires a story and history to the world, one that involves the player intrinsically, and this is something that MMOs just do not, perhaps can not ever, provide.

I wonder, for example, how disappointed the developers of EQ2 were when they created the good and evil races, to provide these moral counterpoints in the game, only to find that the vast majority of players just see these factions as obstructions to grouping with their friends and getting to certain of those cities which they consider to have better quest zones. Given the option by Blizzard to switch your Alliance character, as is and in tact, over to the Horde, or vice versa, would players bat an eyelid at switching allegiance if they thought that the other side had the greener grass? I think not; there may be more personal reasons why people wouldn’t, there is no love lost between the players of Horde and Alliance themselves, but it would not be the abandonment of the moral stance that their faction honours that would stop them. The fact that most players still see Horde as evil and Alliance as good shows that there’s little understanding of what the real morals and beliefs of each faction really are.

Kenneths of the MMO world beware!

Wildlife strikes back.

It’s a curious thing: there I am playing a throwaway rogue alt that I had quickly rolled for that five seconds of fun, that quick hit of quintessential MMOness that one sometimes desires: mad levelling without honour or humanity, where you slaughter everything in the local area with wild abandon, with not a chance of it putting up enough of a fight to cause you anything more than a sprained fingernail or perhaps a fractured eyebrow, and where you gain levels so quickly that you’re in danger of meeting a lower level version of yourself and ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe. And all with the added benefit of not having to spend five hours flying across seven continents to get to your next quest, or having to wait for a group of fellow adventurers to gather and then spend the next fifty minutes coming up with the forward-thinking, radical plan that the tank archetype will tank, the healer archetypes should probably heal, and that the rest of the group should probably take up haberdashery, or DPS, whichever is easiest.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that sometimes it’s fun to roll a level 1 character, get them to level 10 in as fast a time as possible while enjoying all the basics of MMO game-play without any of the hassle, and then delete them and go back to one’s main character. Until the next time that the shakes occur, that is, and your MMO dealer is standing there furtively opening up the lining of one side of his coat to you, displaying the delicious alts within, that you could be playing right now for the low low price of your soul.

At any rate, trying desperately to drag this back towards some sort of point: there’s me, there’s a low level rogue, and there’s slaughtering, mainly of the wildlife variety. The curious thing, so briefly alluded to at the beginning of this post before it all went a bit Alliance PvP Tactics (waywardly running all over the place with little focus), occurred whilst fighting a deer; I say fighting rather than slaughtering because this fellow put up a remarkable struggle, including at one point parrying my attack.

A deer. Parried. My attack.

It wasn’t a simple miss, or dodge even, nope it was parried, as in “Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!” parry. A deer. How… with the… and legs that don’t… daggers… but that’s… isn’t… hmmmm.

So one has to wonder at just what sort of wildlife finishing schools they have around Ironforge, I guess they have to be pretty harsh, more like training camps, what with all the mad dwarves running around the area trying to kill everything with a pulse.

Badger :”I am Gunnery Sergeant Badger, your Senior Drill Instructor. From now on, you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be “Sir!” Do you maggots understand that?”

Wildlife recruits: “Sir, yes, sir!”

Badger: “Bullshit! I can’t hear you. Sound off like you got a pair.”

Wildlife recruits: “Sir, yes, sir!”

Badger: “If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training … you will be a weapon, you
will be a minister of death, praying for war. But until that day you are pukes! You’re the lowest form of life on Earth. You are nothing but unorganised grabasstic pieces of amphibian shit!”

Frog: “Hey, I resent that remark.”

One envisions huge camps hidden high in the hills overlooking Kharanos, where legions of boars march in unison across parade squares, while panthers crawl along under barbed wire as they make their way across various assault courses. Waves of owls drop from the sky into the rocky fortress, dropping off supplies and a vanguard of badgers and rats in a cloud of stirred-up dust and leaf litter. In the nearby forests, wolves and bears wearing shinobi shozoku slink from tree to tree, perfecting the art of the stealth aggro, and in the mountain-top retreats deer, raptors and clefthoofs master the sword fighting techniques that will allow them to defeat some of the greatest and best armed fighters that the Alliance and Horde have ever produced.

And this arms proliferation can only get worse; why just today I heard rumour that Age of Conan has shield-wielding hedgehogs that can block attacks, and that Warhammer Online will feature sheep armed with a main-gauche, such that they not only have a chance to parry but that they will also have a chance to break the weapon you’re attacking them with! Of course you’ll never actually see them wielding these weapons, and they’ll certainly never drop them as loot, but believe me when I say that you should keep a close eye on your combat logs.

The wildlife is striking back.