.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Dear Diary: You can’t strip naked when you’re dead
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.SUMMARY It’s getting worse. As we continue our report into the World of Warcraft, we begin to worry more and more about the sanity of our Great Leader of All Things Editorial.
.FEATURE
Dear Diary,
Apparently, you can’t strip naked when you’re dead.
Yesterday, I left the Tent Ghetto that has been my World of Warcraft home these last three days, and ventured forth, continuing my assault against all things PETA holds dear.
First, Fugly Ugly told me he’d give me some stale bread if I went off and killed some pretty little kitties. Anyone who knows me knows I love kitties, and my earlier experiments walking the fields outside Tent Ghetto told me that the kitties wouldn’t attack, if I didn’t go after them.
I went after them. I hunted them mercilessly until I had enough pelts to make Fugly all warm and fuzzly. Then I went and met some wackjob who lives in a tent, alone, in the hills outside town. With everyone else living inside Tent Ghetto, you gotta wonder just how bad this cow’s B.O. is to get him sent, Theodore Kaczynski-like, out into his own private Idaho.
Well, Teddy apparently wanted me to prove my strength by going forth into the prickly pears and killing some wild bores (was he suggesting I hunt Congresscritters?) and then some wild bored dudes. Apparently, if I killed off enough of these bored dudes, stole their belts (what is the fixation with belts in this world?) and returned them to him, he’d be all happy and not bomb some unsuspecting geek, or something like that.
Meanwhile, some other ugly cow, this time someone who called himself a lieutenant or something, asked me to bring back the head of the chief of the bored dudes. These "people" are lazy. They’re always asking me to do their dirty work for them.
Yeah, ok, fine. So I tried. And I died.
Dying is a trip here in World of Warcraft. When you die, a dialog box appears. This we will designate THE GREAT DIALOG BOX IN THE SKY. When it appears, you’ve got to wait six minutes, and then you can resurrect. No wonder Ted Kaczynskicow, up in the mountains, was cranky. After someone dies off, they’re back, lickety split, six minutes later.
Well, in practice, it’s not so smooth. You can also choose to resurrect right away, in which case you’re taken to some black and white, foggy world, pretty much like my brain looks before coffee in the morning, and some showy angel chick offers to sell you back your life for some bucks and some pain. Does this sound like anyone you’ve dated, ’cause it’s a snapshot of my whole adult life. Anyway, if you don’t pay her price, you’ve got to walk through fog town all the way back to your corpse, at which point you pop back to life.
If you wait the six minutes, you’re just dumped back with the crazy white goth chick, so it’s not really worth it. Just get used to walking in fog city. A lot.
And here’s where I started to experiment, like me and Amy Sue did back in third grade. Except I was alone. Ok, like I’ve been since third grade. In any case, when I was dead, I tried to strip off my Ugly Cow Clothes.
.BREAK_EMAIL Do you want to know what happened next? Yeah, well, read it anyway. Tap here.
Why did I decide to strip when I was dead, you ask? Have you not been paying attention? Have you not been watching my rapid descent from space plane pilot into the depths of ugly cow depravity? Did you not watch me kill ducks and then kitties, and then strip down to my purple G-string and prance my way to the chief of the ghetto?
And you want to know why I tried to strip while dead? ‘Cause it was there, and ’cause I’m losing whatever remaining sense of family values I once had. Because, g’damnit, I’m rapidly becoming a cow of loose morals, and even looser undergarments. Because I been bad, so whip me, baby!
Deep breath. Whooooosaaaaaah. Whooooosaaaaaaah.
OK, for the record, the goth chick who does the reviving won’t whip you even if you offer her a few extra coppers. I tried that, too.
Back to the story. So you die. Then hike through the fog back to your body, you respawn (with only half your health, damn those programmers!), and do it all over again.
Here’s an important safety tip: when you’re at a very low level in one of these worlds, do not storm the heavily guarded cabin where the bored dude chief lives, along with his shaman slave bitch. They, and all their bored dude buddies, are going to open a can of whoop-ass on ya.
It’s not pretty. A lot.
Meanwhile, an in-game friend named Baby Seal does a "talk" to me, in game. While I’m thrilled that Baby Seal wants to help, can you see why I might be a bit reticent, if not downright hesitant to talk to him? Do I need to spell it out? I’ve been out clubbing all night. I’ve been clubbing ducks, I’ve been clubbing kitties, and here Baby Seal wants to help out.
I’m goin’ to hell, Marge, I’m goin’ to hell!
In any case, Baby Seal was a big help, answering some questions and listening to me whine. Here’s an interesting observation. Apparently, the servers of World of Warcraft are wired directly into my wife’s brain. Whenever I was deep, deep into a fight and couldn’t take my eyes away from the keyboard, that’s exactly, precisely, to the nanosecond when she’d want my help. Right away.
I actually died once to protect my right to take out the trash. It was sixteen frickin’ degrees outside, Dear Diary, and I had to leave my perfectly good massacre to take out the trash. This is a server feature I’d like to turn off. To be fair, though, Denise is the most wonderful wife in the world and never complains when I want to play. Plus, she likes science fiction television. Just how cool is that?
OK, so anyway, Baby Seal wanted to help and offered to email me some pants. Now, there’s an offer you don’t get every day. Apparently, I have a mail box in the next town over. That’s right. There’s tents. There’s cows. There’s dead ducks. And there’s email. Who woulda thunk it?
Actually, I was pretty impressed, Diary. It was the first "wow, that’s cool" moment I had in the game. Apparently, you can email other players your in-game goodies. Friggin’ brilliant!
.BEGIN_KEEP
And so, I’ve seen more of the world. I’m still a little overwhelmed. But now I have a mission. I need to go find that chief bored dude and get his head. He’s killed me too many times. Pretty soon, it’ll be payback time. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to storm his fortress in nothing but the ugly cow’s purple G-string and get me that chief’s head.
Whooooosaaaaaaah.
That chief’s gonna die, sucka.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product information and resources
For more information on World of Warcraft, visit http://www.worldofwarcraft.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.END_KEEP
