The little warrior rode her trusted Mechanostrider across the barren red wastes of the Blasted Lands, taking good care to skirt the roaming helboars and felguards. She followed the old and worn path through the crater rim and came to a halt at the inner edge of the crater.
The Dark Portal was ahead of her, green-glowing, carved in stone, leading to that other world, the Outland. Many had gone before her, many would come after, but this time, this one time, it was her turn to pass through the void, spanning the dimensions between the worlds.
She approached the other-wordly thing with trepidation, her heart beating fast and her senses all on maximum alert, thrilled and terrified at the same time.
The thing was huge, it loomed above her and she had never felt so small and insignificant in her entire life. The gateway itself swirled in greenish colours before her, almost hypnotically. She felt as if it was trying to lure her in, beckon her to come enter the glowing enticing mists of the portal, and suddenly she was not at all sure she wanted to go through.
What was on the other side? Was there really another world?
For a fleeting moment she considered turning back, riding back to her old world, never going through the portal. But then she took a deep breath, and without really making a conscious decision about it, her body leading and her mind tagging along, she stepped through the gateway.
The green mists felt oddly cold to the touch, the passage through them felt like it took forever, she was floating in space, time elongating and then snapping back in an instant as she stepped through on the other side.
The portal was high up on a stairway and the view of the new world was breathtaking. It was all different. The sky was red, streaked with nebulae and stars and planets never seen in Azeroth. It was beautiful beyond words and the little warrior was just standing there at the top of the stairs, looking in awe and delight and wonder at the new world unfolding beneath her.
All fear and worries and second-thoughts were gone, she was thrilled and excited about exploring this new world like she had the old one, one adventure after the other, and she ran down the stairs, giddily, happily, joyfully, ready to go find friends and quests and fame in this new strange place...
Friday, February 29, 2008
Through the Dark Portal
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Sad story
My gnome warrior Dizzie is happily lvling up nowadays. She is fury specced and its one of the cutest things I have ever seen, watching her charge away to a mob and start hitting the tall ugly thing with her glowing [Phantom Blade] (made for her especially by my adorable <3 husband) and some off-hand axe.
As she hit 44 she went to Tanaris to start questing there. Picked up the wastewander water quests and the ones that lead you into Pirate Cove. You would have thought she'd be 45 within some hours with all these easy questing and the rested bonus.
Well, think again. Tanaris seemed to be filled with sad no-life coward hordes and Dizzie spent more time running from the gy than actually getting any xp.
I never attack horde players when I see them, no matter what level or what they are doing. I just leave them be.
All (and I mean all, every single one I saw) of the horde players I encountered in Tanaris that day attacked Dizzie sooner or later. If they were of about equal level they snuck off when they saw her and waited until she was already in combat before they went for her, if they were some ?? lvl helping out some lower lvls they just attacked her on sight.
An all too frequent sight in the Tanaris desert :-(
(I know I am on a pvp server and should get used to it - I started playing here because the kids were playing here and by the time I found out that there were servers that didn't allow ganking I had too many characters and too many new friends on this server to really like the idea of changing servers. I think many people are like me in this aspect.)
Dizzie has crap gear. She sucks at pvp. She generally just ambles merrily along, picking up quests and doing them cheerfully, not bothering anyone. However, this constant running from the gy was beginning to get on my nerves and I decided to get some revenge.
I logged Tessy, my rogue, flew her off to Tanaris and parked her in the Pirate Cove. She also has crap gear, she also sucks at pvp but she is a lvl 70 subtlety specced rogue, she doesn't have to be good to kill lvl 50 wankers.
And kill them she did.
Some idiot lvl 51 priest, who did see Dizzie but skulked away and didn't start dotting her until she was fighting some freeboter. Shadowstepping rogue = dead priest. He got oneshotted twice and then he got the message and disappeared.
A group of three, some lvl 65 pally helping a 43 or so warrior and mage. Killed them all once and then one-shotted the warrior and mage some times, sapping the pally when he was trying to ress them.
A moonkin druid, same lvl as Dizzie and hadn't been trying to kill her at all so I was beginning to think it might actually be a human playing and not some sad loser al-quaida hangaround. But guess what, ofc he started spamming moonfire on her when she was fighting two mobs at the same time. This particular druid I followed all the way to Steamwheedle Port and made sure he didn't get to turn in any quests. Had to run from the NPC's a few times though, but hey, so what?
And then I asked myself...did this make me any happier? The sad losers were still sad losers, they were not gonna start acting like decent human beings no matter how many times I killed them. Dizzie was still dead and not getting any xp.
No, it was definitely not making me any happier.
It is said that revenge is a dish best served cold and I think I see the meaning of that proverb now. Revenge while being pissed off is not a good thing, it only makes you feel even more saddened and disgusted.
I just don't get it. Yes, its "only" a game and yes, its "allowed" to kill characters in the game, but do you always go around doing everything just because its "allowed"? CS is a game where the only objective is to kill the enemy players, WoW is not. You don't lose anything by letting enemy players live (ofc they may be sad gankers as well and come back and try to kill you, but that is not likely if you are of a higher level).
Ok, you might wanna do it for the honor (if ofc you even get honor, guess its more than probable that some of the morons don't realise that you don't get any honor when you kill players that are grey for you). So you get what, 5 honor?, for killing me. If you want honor go play one of the bg's, more honor there than you could possibly get by killing random world encounters.
Or maybe you want to show off how good you are at killing opponents? Well, if you think that its showing off killing someone several lvls below you or someone who is already engaged in a fight, you need your head examined. Maybe the results would show that you have a brain or at least some cognitive capabilities, but I really doubt that.
I think that those who go around killing other players in have the same mentality as those who don't help people with prams or wheelchairs get on the bus, they are the same kind as those who can't be bothered to hold the door open for you but rather let it slam shut in your face - hey! it would have taken me a few secs to wait and hold the door open, cba with that!
It just saddens and disgusts me that a game I like to play so much seems to be overflowing with such rude a***holes.
It's a good thing I have met so many nice and friendly people too, otherwise I'd have no hopes left for humanity...
