« "Wanna listen to an old man wheeze into a microphone?" | Main | "A boat for the Pirate King!" »
July 25, 2005
"Hammer time!"
My good friends Archaeon and Moose, Brother Ray and Squirrel Bottom all play a game called "World of Warcraft" online. (As does Mr. Racetrack who stunningly abandoned his Everquest addiction.) All of them have played these games off and on for years.
After much prodding and poking by everyone involved I was finally nudged into giving it a try. It's fun and clever and this is the first time in a long time we'll all have a chance to "play" together in a long time.
The other night, when I first logged on, a couple of the guys were playing and came over to wish me luck. Moose was the first to ramble over and his giant blue troll with orange hair was a sight to behold. The fangs, very large, were a nice touch.
Then there was Archaeon.
Archaeon plays these games a lot. More than Mr. Racetrack. He's the power gamer of power gamers. His computer is screaming fast and he's got macros, new user interfaces, etc. He's got several characters for World of Warcraft that are already at the maximum of experience possible. At this point I think he's done everything there is to do at least a couple of times.
Archaeon's character the other night was a 60th level orc. When he walked up I started laughing because just looking at the character I knew instantly it was him: the orc had really nice armor, his weapons just oozed danger and he instantly came across as a bad ass. I'll not even get into his steed which was equally flashy. If there were style points for orcs Archaeon's character took first and second and then grabbed third because he could.
We chatted for a while and then, just as we were getting ready to leave he made his character dance.
This isn't unusual. All of these sorts of games have "emotes" to let you do things like bow, wave, yawn or dance in the game. It helps convey sentiment or gives you a chance to just have some fun with people. In World of Warcraft the races of man, gnomes, elves, orcs, etc., all dance differently.
How do orcs dance?
They dance like M.C. Hammer in the video for "U Can't Touch This!"
Watching Archaeon's Orc dance across the screen was a riot. Here's the orc of orcs, war leader and threat to all of the good peoples, spinning and dancing from side to side.
It was the next best thing to seeing Archaeon dance like that himself.
Oh, and before you ask, my main character is *******, a 12th level Rogue.
Posted by Jim at July 25, 2005 10:14 PM