Warcraft Diary, Day 1

Started playing Worlds of Warcraft today. I don't know what Jim Gee's talking about when he talks about how you don't need the manual to start a game -- he sure wasn't talking about piloting those Night Elves of his!

The screen is bloody complicated and the mousing and clicking patterns I developed in other RPGs don't have the effects I want. Clearly, SOME games could use a little manual help, and besides, it's all about learning styles -- I'd rather have a reference book which didn't take up screen real-estate when I use it. Sadly, the manual as written doesn't make an excellent reference book... it is actually kind of linear, and I've had trouble dropping into the middle of it.

I surprised myself by choosing a female human priest character with a sweet, surprised face. I'm more willing to play females these days. After fourteen years in a body which is inescapably female, after a childhood feeling quite genderless, I guess I've gotten used to it. Human was a must -- they get horse steeds, and that's really the reason I'm here.

None of my friends were on tonight, so I just sort of dicked around on a roleplaying server in the abby I spawned near. I killed a rabbit, which was traumatic, and was even more chagrined when it proved to have nothing useful on its corpse. Killed a wolf, which took more time, and yielded some poor-quality material -- even more wrenching, as the wolf was marked as "young" and had put up a good fight. Then I killed a deer. Good god. I'd just wanted to talk to or charm these animals, but I guess this game doesn't work like Neverwinter Nights... It occurred to me that there must be a "cry" emote, so I sat by Bambi's corpse and sobbed for a while. This made the game experience infinitely more satisfying.

But I still wasn't making any progress towards my horse. Time to read the manual. I found that when I was reading the manual and my eyes were off the screen, I wanted my character sitting down someplace away from where people might bug her. I tried to arrange her in some way which had a story to it -- kneeling at an altar, or sitting by a fountain.

OK. First task was to find an NPC who could give me a small quest and pay me for it. Back to the abbey. I heard hoofbeats... here came a line of nights moving at a walk. One sat a chestnut pinto charger, one a black, one a grey. They were so beautiful! They were accompanied by swordsmen, and from time to time the leader called out "HOLD THE LINE, KNIGHTS!" They were headed somewhere... I whispered, "Where are you going?" "Follow us and see," one said.

They went into the abbey, gathering more neophytes along the way. "What are we doing?" I asked. They kept stringing me on. "Recruitment parade," someone hinted. But for what? The leader told us to stand in a circle around the walls of the main hall. Being told what to do without reason didn't exactly leave me feeling comfortable.

"KNIGHTS," boomed the leader.

An avatar named Deadhawt across the circle from me began to do pelvic thrusts.

"WE ARE MIGHTY," boomed the leader.

I thought about kids in Africa asked to tote AK-47s in exchange for safety. OK, it wasn't that bad. Still, my avatar had attained all of one level, no more than what she spawned with. She wore a white dress and looked surprised and I found myself typing the /cry emote again, and then "I WANT MY MAAAAAAAA!"

Here I was on a roleplaying server, and while I couldn't buy into the leader's exhortations -- his title read "Private (Imposingname)," I had no idea what he was blathering about, and people kept falling on him from the rafters while Deadhawt continued to thrust, now standing at his side -- I found myself immersed in playing out the total comedy of a world in which everything has been made so lifelike and still fails to convince, the exact same story I play every time I pop Grand Theft Auto in the PS2. I walked up to the leader for a moment, thinking I'd kneel in front of him for comic effect, then realized I had no idea if he could kill me if I did so. I returned to the wall and knelt there.

"omg rotfl do u like to RP?" Deadhawt asked nobody in particular. People started asking who this clown was. (Honestly, what do you expect if you recruit any layabout who follows your parade?!) Deadhawt shimmied and flashed. "BOGY DOWN *@#%*#!@ES!!!!!1" he yelled, and suddenly was booted from the guild.

Bereft of his presence, the guild played out a meeting as contentious and fruitless as any local Pacifica station in a crisis -- no action, just a lower-ranking member accusing the leader of making the guild into a bunch of assholes. No dancing. It was time to move on.

I didn't know how, though. Been jumped into a gang, no way out, no understanding of the situation. Could I just walk away? Would I be shunned for life if I left? Would the guild declare a fatwa? /cry again. A player named Lilyblack /comforted me, and thank god was kind enough to give me the jump ship command and a few gold pieces.

Giddy on the way out, I whispered to Deadhawt, "This was not the place for us. We should be on a beach somewhere, dancing and drinking Mai Tais." "omg lolol wtf??!@??!@$" he wrote, the last I saw of him.

I found a stream of other players from this guild approaching or lingering outside. Lightheaded from my escape, I began to shout at them all. "Swords of Legend!" I called out. "Your people are inside! They argue tirelessly! Come with me, and we will drink Mai Tais and dance on the beach!" No response. They filtered in, and I was left alone. /sigh.

Venturing too far from the spawn point, I was beset by a cutpurse, and, not knowing any of the attack or defense commands, soon found myself dead. It is an alarming thing, to be dead. As in most historical death scenarios, you wander around looking for your corpse and are unable to have an effect on anything. You'd hope you'd have the ability to communicate with animals, at least make 'em put up their hackles or something, but I went to the Crazy Cat Lady's house and the cats just wandered around as heedless of me as they were when I was alive.

Everything is silvery and colorless when you're dead, and the air throbs like sound muffled by a womb. Giant winged figures stand ready to restore you to your body at the price of some damage to your avatar. Not that I read the manual for this. I just wandered around feeling frantic. I was just that much farther from getting my horse.

Eventually I found my corpse, I guess. I got revived, anyway. All this probably just to abandon this avatar for a more carefully chosen one once I find myself on when my friends are. Virtual bodies are cheap.

Posted by Gus at June 25, 2005 12:08 AM