Other than actually playing and enjoying the game for what it’s worth, my favorite thing to do with online games is to make other people miserable. Before WoW, I’ve played all sorts of different games. Sure, killing people is the easiest way to annoy them, but there’s tons of other ways to cause grief too!

In Infantry, I’d sabotage my own team by driving vehicles full of party members into deathtraps or destroying our own walls and bunkers. In MUDs, I’d find mazes or rooms with no exits and summon people there. You know, just so I wouldn’t be lonely. I also loved leaving poisoned food and explosive traps in newbie zones. When I was about to lose in games like WarCraft and StarCraft, I enjoyed sending my men to the most random parts of the map to hide and build worthless buildings. I’d make my opponent work for his win, forcing him to scan the entire map for me, which could take several minutes. Or even over an hour. Sometimes, playing “hide and seek” forced the other player to quit and hand me the win because he simply didn’t have the time to deal with my childishness.

I don’t know why I like to grief people. It’s just fun! And I try not to think about it. I’m sure there’s some deep sociopathic disorder associated with it.

Well, last Saturday, Miguel, Camron, and I were running around Mal’Ganis, doing stuff for the Fire Festival, when we arrived at the quest An Innocent Disguise. It started out as a crabtastic good time, but ended in screams, laughter, blood, and tears. Not particularly in that order.

It all started when I accidentally aggroed the mobs needed to complete the quest. They wouldn’t get off me so I nuked them. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Hell, I was spending most of my time chasing down and killing Alliance that wanted to get the quest done. Then I noticed more and more Horde appearing, waiting to finish the quest. I was ready to head out when one of them flipped out about the mobs being dead. Instead of taking off and continuing our Fire Festival journey, the three of us decided to stick around and see what happened if we kept killing the mobs.

The quest goes as follows: Use some orb to turn into a crab, listen to nagas talk about some evil plan, get out of crab form and warn the elders!

But with a bunch of dead nagas on the beach, all that’s left are a herd of angry crabs. When I [Drilnos] started killing the nagas, Camron [Sukophantes] joined in. This made Miguel [Sangre] laugh so much that he couldn’t help but play with us. In the process, we pissed off several people. How many exactly, I’m not sure. I did a “/who Ashenvale” and saw about fifty level 70’s nearby. Most of the time, Miguel and I stood back while our pets/totems did the work. Camron, on the other hand, kept stirring the pot, pointing fingers at random people and pretending that he was “one of them” and just there to finish the quest. We got so many threats, insults, and pathetic pleas for us to stop that I don’t even know where to start. Luckily, I took screenshots! Here, you can click on random ones and try to figure out the chaos for yourself. It’s in chronological order in case you want to watch the whole thing play out.

>> triplejerk.com/wow/crabs

After about two hours of holding people hostage at crab beach, Alliance eventually got the best of us. As someone pointed out, “STOP ATTACKING ALLIANCE! They’re here to kill the retarded griefers!” Which meant some Horde player called in his Alliance buddies to take us out. It makes me feel kind of popular and pretty good about myself that someone actually went out of their way to plan our assassinations.

We could have kept people there longer but Camron’s internet went bananas, and Miguel and I couldn’t run back to our corpses fast enough. We still had the last laugh. The same Alliance that someone brought in to help the Horde ended up slaughtering everything in sight! When we got back, all the remaining Horde were dead. It was so beautiful, so poetic! The cherry on top of our two-hour charade! I ended up logging off because it was impossible to resurrect without dying. When I came back thirty minutes later though, the Alliance were still there killing people. It makes me wonder which one of us was the lesser evil.

Throughout the entire thing, I had the Benny Hill theme song playing in my head. Well, that and the Mikado’s “Three little maids from school” song. It was just one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen in WoW. The incident left me in tears with a hurt gut from all the laughter. Here’s to hoping I’ll have a chance to do something so absurd again some day.

Anyways (as mentioned above), Midsummer Fire Festival is here!

I didn’t think I’d be so into this WoW event, but some of the prizes they’re offering are really cool!

Like Vestment of Summer, Sandals of Summer,

and the ever-pleasant Brazier of Dancing Flames.

I already collected all those items with my warlock because I’m a nerd with nothing better to do with my time. I’m slowly working on it with my druid.

Damn, I need to stop playing this game so much.

Old news, but I might as well post this now before I completely forget.

Last Friday, Dbow assembled four raids (over 120 people) to have an all-night dance party at Stormwind and Ironforge. Sadly, the all-night dance party lasted no longer than forty minutes, and everything fell apart by the time we reached Ironforge. At least we left Stormwind in ruins and trampled over countless Alliance in the process.

I spent most of my time playing the tourist and taking screenshots of everything around me. Hey, it’s not often that I get to see these rare sights as Horde. Enjoy!

For those of you interested in dumb WoW stories, here’s how everything went down: First, everyone was ordered to meet at Grom’gol. When I arrived, WoW froze up a few times. The lag was ridiculous. I’d never seen so many people in such a small area before. But I guess I got there right on time because no more than two minutes later, people started rushing out. We stampeded through Stranglethorn Vale, past Duskwood, and poured into Elwynn Forest, where we were commanded to stop. Of course, the stop didn’t last long. “Hordes” of us flooded into Stormwind, destroying everything in our path. I didn’t know where I was going and just kept following whoever was in front of me. It was a rush! And kinda scary since I’m sure that the people in front of me didn’t know where they were going either. Eventually, someone started yelling orders, telling us which paths to take. We followed those orders blindly, where we met Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, or as I like to call him, “some punk paladin”. It took a while, but we knocked the punk over, before storming into the tram area. Two or three people kept spamming the chat, telling us not to go onto the tram. Luckily, I listened to them, and waved goodbye to the few dozen that disobeyed them. We never saw those few dozen again. When enough of us arrived, we jumped on the next tram, cramming as many cows, freaks, and zombies that each cart could hold. We finally arrived at Ironforge, where everything fell apart. As I exited the area, I watched our army crumble as guards and 70’s tore us down. After we destroyed the first wave, I took a break to drink and replenish mana. Bad move. Soon, more Alliance came and overwhelmed me while I was away from the group. I ran back to my corpse a few times, banding together with whoever was around in a desperate attempt to fight our way back to the main group. Little did we know, the raid was already over. Some already hearthed, some disconnected, most were running back to their corpses, and only those with stealth and invisibility were able to survive. I logged off in Ironforge so people could pose next to my lifeless body.

If you ask me, the raid was doomed long before it began. For a successful Ironforge raid, we needed way more than just numbers. Leadership and organization would have taken us to the end. In my opinion, Dbow had the right idea but executed it poorly. He started each group on his own, then when it became full he’d assign a random person as leader while leaving the group to start a new one. What he should have done was have a designated few act as leaders under him. Then as each group became full, assign one of those leaders to direct the group with raid warnings. Dbow and the raid leaders could chat through a private channel or through vent to stay coordinated. But hell, I’m one to talk. I have all these “great ideas” for pugs [pick-up-groups] but I never have the incentive to follow through and see if they work. I hate dealing with people anyways.

Even though the raid ended so abruptly in sadness, I still had tons of fun and I wish that something like this would happen more often. Even if the tables were turned, I think I would have had a blast trying to fight the marauding Horde off!

>> Link to Raid Thread on Mal’Ganis Forums

What is going on in this town!

>> News from IGN

Well, the wait is over. I’ve been accepted into Guildhall.

It’s six in the morning and I’m disoriented and exhausted. I’ll add to this post later make another post about it later.

Camron finally got ahold of a computer that can handle WoW. With nothing else to do, I suggested we arena it up. Boy, what a blast. Nine wins, eight losses, with a 1485 rating. Not bad for his first arena experience. Or maybe this druid/lock combo works better than I thought.

It kinda makes me sad that certain combinations work better than actual skill. I’m not saying Camron’s not skilled, not at all. He followed all of my commands swiftly and without question, and was still able to think and act on his own. But my original 2v2 team was my restoration druid and Noel’s frost mage. We did arena side by side in the same room, so we didn’t have to use vent or anything else to talk. It was the best communication anyone could have and we still did terrible.

At the time, it made absolutely no sense. We were unstoppable in battlegrounds together, or we’d at least take down countless Alliance before getting killed ourselves. Arena and battlegrounds are two completely different worlds. In arena, whenever Noel ran out of mana, we were fucked. Whenever a warrior or rogue was on my ass, we were fucked. Hunters gave us trouble, priests were an Achilles’ heel, and it was an automatic loss when we were up against a melee/healer team.

The other day, Noel dropped our team to join up with a rogue. Their first week was seven wins, six losses, another great score for a new team. I guess druid/mage wasn’t meant to be. Anyways, I’m glad that Camron’s finally getting some arena experience in, and that I finally found a 2v2 team that works. Time to tear nerds down and finally get my rating up.

After months of emptiness, I’ve decided to finally work on my web site, triplejerk.com. There’s not much there now, but I’m hoping to make it 100% more interesting within the next couple of weeks.

I originally made it as a place to display my work, but I’ve decided to try and add an oekaki board for people to draw stuff on and an imageboard for people to upload stupid pictures to.

Now, time to figure out this whole web site thing again.

So I’m digging through my e-mail, trying to make some sense of the piles of crap that all these job search sites flood me with, when I stumbled upon this.

From: “gloria” <gloria.progqy@xuhprk.tuesdaycouldyour.info>
Subject: get figure now
Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 07:45:39 -0700

Name page may hand his.
Long heard has look could would very change.
Show no boys until under next into not need.
Called great hard end above still.
And night look help down old.
Going now boys for being important following heard always.

Three also day then now take know this.
Give has so feet four.
Thought off side life.
Three said had said important.

Along parts were began can for.
Into always below give.
Head following tell father keep days.
Before well days land left his.

What the fuck. I’ve received a bunch of weird shit in my e-mail over the past thirteen or so years, but this tops them all. I told Ryan, “I’m scared if I keep reading it, a witch is going to eat me when I go to sleep.” He replied, “Yet, I bet you’re still reading it.”

It just started raining. Yeah, tonight, I’m sleeping with a bat by my side.

Every day for the past week, I’ve been forcing myself to draw. It’s been pretty rough. In real life, unlike WoW, you lose skill points if you haven’t practiced your profession in a while. Boy, I wonder how many points I’ve lost over the past few months.

Five more days until my application and portfolio for Guildhall are due. That’s five days to get pictures of my paintings on a CD, five days to fill a small sketchbook with nothing but faultless drawings, and five days to — uh. Wow, I think that’s it. What am I stressing over? I’ve been to hell and back. This is nothing.

Helping me through this is the lovely Abby Travis. Her music does so much for my imagination, triggering something I haven’t felt since I was a child. “Cutthroat Standards and Black Pop.” I bought three of her albums, but that one is by far my favorite. I had it on loop as I finished the picture below. Just another random, bubbly world with a girl sitting in it. These girls and their bubbly worlds make me happy.

Drawn for Hung on Facebook’s terrible Graffiti application. More happy, bubble worlds to come. For now, I have to finish my sketchbook.

So “tomorrow” took a lot longer than expected. Anyways, I’m still playing WoW as much as ever, but I’m making time for other things too. Turned in about ten job applications today, actually went grocery shopping earlier, and I’ve been trying to exercise again. I’m actually determined to grow up and live some kind of functional life now. Still hard when you’re so addicted. I haven’t done anything art-wise lately, which depresses me greatly. I think about it all the time. Maybe “tomorrow” I’ll draw or paint something. Probably not.

(I wrote that back on March 5th. For some reason, it never published. So I published it anyways for the hell of it. Update? I still don’t have a job, I stopped working out, but at least I’m working on art again. And I won my soul back from Blizzard. For now.)

Jesus fucking Christ, I’ve thrown away three consecutive months on a fucking computer game. Sadly, even as I type up this post, I’m running the game in another window.

Anyways, that’s my excuse for my long absence. I’ve decided to start writing again, so I’ll post once a day every day, even if my posts are a few short, simple sentences, like this one.

See you tomorrow when I stop lying.