Warcraft Diary: Bouganvillea's Story/ Is That All There Is?

Today I didn't want to play for more than an hour or so, so I sat down with an alt of mine on Icecrown. Rozalind has so many things to take care of these days that there's just no accomplishing anything -- certainly nothing which would make any kind of progress toward levelling -- in less than three hours at a pop.

This alt is a troll, now level six. Her name is Bouganvillea, a favorite flower of mine, chosen with Jess's plan for a Horde guild called Flower Power in mind. She is not pretty, with bluish skin, a hatchet face and tusks protruding towards her beaky nose. Her limbs are awkward, and her gait is not made any more ladylike by the two-toed clodhoppers she has to run with. But she doesn't look angry, at least. And she has a fetching spray of bright pink hair to match her name.

I like my creation, but I'm beginning to develop a guess as to why various of my well-educated guildies and other friends turn up their noses at trolls as I play Bou's early quests in her hometown. Essentially, they're Jar-jars. They have over-the-top fake Jamaican accents and mannerisms. It really sucks. Here I choose a character for visual aesthetics, and find myself saddled with the slipshod isms of the developers. Again. My coarse rasta troll, and my snotty-news-anchor of a rogue. Thanks, guys.

Bou woke up today in the Den and headed south to seek her first shaman quest. Instead, she found herself on a high finger of rock overlooking a lake. Succumbing to ilinx, everyone's favorite overlooked play style, she flung herself from the rock. Nearly cleared the shore. Didn't. Took 121 points of damage, almost her entire life bar. No matter -- the lake was inviting, with its unplumbed depths and invisible distant strands, so she strolled into the shallows.

Where she was bitten in two by something unseen.

Bou came to in a graveyard in a county unknown. Her hometown was no longer on the map. Thinking she'd exploit the situation to her advantage, she asked the spirit healer to bring her back, gaining herself a few dozen points -- no small amount for a level five -- as she discovered Rachet, a moment of minor Columbian recapitulation. Not much to do in Rachet, but there was a boat at the end of the dock. (Not a dock I've ever seen before, having never been to Rachet. Where was the boat bound?)

Who can resist the call of the high seas, the best view around of polygonal islands from the high deck of a ship? Who would turn down the chance to gain a little experience by shuttling down the coast to a new coast, new scenery? Bou missed the first boat, but perched at the end of the dock, waiting, not bothering to ask anyone where the boat was going.

Not that there was anyone to ask. Only two gnomes, a male and a female, awaited the boat. Bou, being Horde, will never have an opportunity to learn Gnomish.

The female gnome spat on her. Right there, in a Horde port.

The gnome indicated, Kiss my ass.

Bou cried crocodile tears. The female, so high in level as to be utterly inscrutable, challenged her to a duel.

Bully. Bou emitted a horrified /e shudders at their smallness, the best defense being a sound insult.

The other gnome, a male, apparently took pity on her and threw down the glove with the female instead. They went round and round for a bit. The female won. She strolled over to Bou and hugged her. She declared her love for Bou, who skulked off to sit with a goblin at the other end of the pier.

Here was the boat, and Bou clambered up the rigging to get a better view. The boat sped out into open water

and the sequence cut to a red dotted line, tracing its way across the intervening sea to the Eastern Kingdoms.

The Eastern Kingdoms! Bouganvillea, defenseless at level five, was bound for a continent where almost no-one would speak in tongues she could understand. Travel was guaranteed lethal outside of settled areas.

On landing, she checked out the shops, deciding rather casually to become an herbalist. Later, she thought, she would become an enchanter. It sounded exotic, even if her friends said it was a drag.

She went to speak to the Alliance griffin master, who felled her with a single blow. I suppose that was pushing her luck.

She awoke in a strange graveyard for the second time that day. It was becoming increasingly clear who Bouganvillea was. The ice-cream slurping child who is not contrite when found by the side of a policeman after a long day lost at the fairground. A cat with nine lives and no care to stop curiosity from taking all of them.

She went north, and was pounded into the ground by a silver gorilla before a nearby level-60 tauren she'd engaged in talk had the opportunity to protect her.

Time to hearth. It was a full enough day.

* * *

See, this is the thing. Past about level ten I don't feel like there are stories like these to tell about World of Warcraft anymore. I haven't been writing this diary much for over a month now, and there's a reason: the grind is positively dreadful. It's not fun at all. While Bouganvillea is lost at the fair, Rozalind is a sarariman, a deadened functionary sent to track down missing papers and bring factory operators (not a metaphor, she's been doing Stonetalon quests) to accountability. Frankly, the game is boring, and I've been inclined to say digital games are stupid.

I've given the game a rest a little. I've been playing the new Katamari, and Nintendogs, and old Kirby games. Kirby -- now there's a series with some joie-de-vivre. If Mario is all about the jump, Kirby is the epitome of animated flesh, with all its abilities to stretch and transform and survive incredible accidents. I love the flexibility of the game. Like Katamari, it's a highly forgiving game for beginners, and yet provides novel and challenging puzzles for advanced players. I don't feel yet like there's so many ways to play WoW -- you get the gooey spider legs, you return them to Old Meggie, she sends you out for some fist-sized spinnerets instead. Grind, grind, grind. Is that all there is? Where did you put the hidden cousins in Kalimdor, Blizzard? What enemy can I eat to become a better, more resilient person?

Posted by Gus at October 03, 2005 11:48 PM