MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (31 page)

“Welcome to Cataclysm.” He smiled at Rebecca. She had come to stand behind him and was looking at the underwater realm with a stunned expression.

“I’ll be right over,” she announced. “Three more of them have logged on and I think they’re departing for Mount Hyal now. They too are a team of DPS, healer, and tank. I think I’ll just follow them to make sure, then I’ll join you.”

Robert nodded and maneuvered Gunslinger to follow the three Grimstones unobtrusively inside. They had just completed the same quest as he already had. They were easy to spot among the many other players, because the color of their name tags stood out due to the fact they were in his friends book.

Copying the members of the Hammer of Grimstone, he talked to the same captain of the Ogrimmar forces who had been on board of the doomed ship. He had survived the ordeal as well. The character told him to go out and kill naga and search for food.

To his surprise, he saw that the objectives lit up on his map. How could Quest Helper have this information already?

“Quest Helper has all the data from the Public Test Realm,” Rebecca explained in answer to his query. “It’ll be imprecise sometimes at first, but basically it has all the information you need, just like you’re used to.”

Pharad, Drimm and Gilead watched the melee for a minute. Robert thought they were discussing where to start, which quest to do first. Suddenly they started moving, swimming over to where the naga were. He followed.

It soon became clear he needed Rebecca with him, if he was to keep up with the three Grimstones. The challenge wasn’t so much to kill the poor creatures, as well to find enough of them alive to kill in the first place. At least ten players were after the same prey. The three Grimstones had fanned out, covering a large area, enhancing their chances of catching the scaly humanoids. Being in a group together, they had the invaluable benefit of sharing the kills between them. A player alone actually had to kill each and every of the required number. In a group, the kills of each of the individual group members were added up.

When he saw the Grimstones return to turn in the quest, while he had only one third of the objective completed, he reached out and pulled the sleeve of Rebecca’s shirt.

“This group is definitely going to Mount Hyjal,” she said right at that moment. “Maybe I should follow them.”

“No way. I need you here, pronto!” he said urgently. “If you don’t help me now, we’ll never catch up with them!”

They met at the wrecked ship shortly after.

“They’re already off to another location, and you still have to complete the very first quests,” Robert said with a note of panic in his voice. “It’s going to be difficult to catch up.”

She scowled. “Sorry, I made a mistake. I didn’t realize how close this was going to be. Let’s get kicking then. I’ll do those quests you just finished. You look around and try to find out where they are now. We need to keep them in sight.

He couldn’t locate them however, so he returned to help Rebecca with her tasks. Soon, she’d caught up with him so they were at the same stage of the quest line. Unlike they were used to, the quests were all part of a linear chain. They were playing their part in the unfolding story of whatever was happening in this sunken land. It was impossible to skip even a single quest.

Their sojourn at the sunken ship ended with a battle against a host of naga that struck at the hideout in a coordinated attack. Unexpectedly, they were quickly overwhelmed by superior numbers. There were simply too many enemies attacking them at the same time. Right at the moment that Gunslinger would have died,. He was grabbed by an enemy. This was a new feature of Cataclysm. Every so often, at certain stages of a quest chain, the game took over and showed what happened next through a short movie. In this one, they were abducted by naga and taken away from their current location. Fortunately, they were saved by someone from a new faction called the Earthen Ring. They were brought to a location where more of these people were gathered. They had many quests to offer, which led up to them taming a sea horse and acquiring the animal as a mount after they succeeded. When they had completed all the quests on offer, they were sent to find another location, which proved to be the inside of some cave. Here, they found more Earthen Ring, a flight master, an inn keeper as well as Drimm, Pharad and Gilead. They were just leaving the cave when Robert and Rebecca entered.

“Let them,” Rebecca ordered, “we have to overtake them in their questing and we don’t accomplish that by running after them like headless chickens.”

At this point, many other people were more or less at the same stage as they were. But Robert and Rebecca, as well as the three people they were following, were working as a team and were outfitted with vastly superior equipment. This advantage was waning, however, because some of the gear they were receiving as quest rewards nearly equaled the epic gear they were wearing. It wouldn’t be long before they would discard some of their former gear in favor of new stuff. Nevertheless, they drew gradually ahead of the mob of ordinary people, and when their quests took them out of the starting area and into the wide open sea bottoms beyond, they had the world more or less to themselves. Vashj’ir was divided into three different areas, each of them easily as big as an entire zone as they knew it before Cataclysm. They had started in an area called Kelp’thar Forest, and now they moved into the Shimmering Expanse. Playing in this underwater territory was interesting in another way. Normally, a player was always on the ground when performing actions or fighting enemies. Flying mounts could be used for traveling, but apart from that, everything took place on the ground. WoW was a two dimensional game in that respect. Vashj’ir however, did away with the concept of flying. Everything happened in the sea water, at different depths, which meant that an extra dimension was added. This took some getting used to, but offered unexpected possibilities as well. Targets could also be attacked from above or from below. There were simply many more tactics a player could choose from.

At nine o’clock Robert became hungry. They had just wormed their way into the bowels, even the brain, of an enormous creature called Nespirah. The beast was so big, that it took up a significant part of the map. Except for the fact that walls were made of tissue, it was more like a monstrous building than like a living creature. It was clear that they were about to embark on a new series of quests aimed at saving the animal from some mutual enemies. The Grimstones were there as well, not more than a few feet away. They had been gaining ground on them slowly, and Rebecca estimated they were only two quests behind them now. One, Gilead, was looking in their direction.

“I wonder how long those guys can go without food?” Robert said, looking over at the monitor that showed Khalid. He was still in the same position as before. The other group of Grimstones had been joined by a fourth member by now and was busy in Mount Hyjal, the other starting zone. He imagined they were following the same protocol, blasting through the quests.

Robert’s question was answered sooner than he thought. Right before his eyes, the Grimstones sat on the ground, immobile.

“They’re logging off!” he exclaimed. To underline this observation, the monitor now showed Khalid getting up and walking to the door. One by one Drimm, Pharad and Gilead shimmered briefly, became transparent and evaporated. Rebecca stretched. She stood as well and bent her arms and legs.

“Let’s finish the two quests we’re behind and do the same,” she said. “We have to get a shower, and we have a phone call to make. Our official friends must be interested in what we have to tell them.”

They were. Robert talked to Fitzgerald while Rebecca was in the shower. The man was extremely pleased with the information they had gathered, but not so pleased with the risk they had taken. Robert pointed out that they had tried to contact them. He jotted down the email address he had to send the photos to. They agreed to meet the following morning. Right after the call ended, he emailed the pictures Andy had taken of the Grimstones to the email address.

Meanwhile, Khalid had gone out briefly. Robert met him when he himself returned from the shower.

“So, you went out to buy some groceries?” he asked, pointing at the plastic bag Khalid was carrying.

He got a nod in return. “Yes. Funny that I met you last night in Rotterdam.”

Robert hid his face behind his towel for a second, pretending to rub his wet hair. He thought furiously.

“Yes, it would’ve been nice if you and I had gone together. You see, I joined a guild a few days ago with many Dutch people in it. They said they were all going to the launch party, so I thought I should go as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any of them.”

“Ah. Well. Yes, that can be awkward.”

Robert produced a cough. “I think I caught a cold last night. That would be the perfect excuse to play for a few days.”

This got a smile in response. Again, Robert realized that Khalid seemed, in fact, quite nice. Incredible that this young man was a terrorist. He asked, “Have you started playing Cataclysm yet?”

“Yes, I started this morning with a few of my guild. We’re trying to keep ahead of the mass invasion that will start this afternoon.”

“I see. Well, have fun!” Robert terminated the conversation. “I’m getting a little cold like this.”

One hour later, they joined the Party of Pharad, Drimm, and Gilead. It happened quite naturally. They had been in each other’s way for some time, like two flights of golfers who were way too close to each other and were trying to play the same hole at the same time.

Half an hour earlier, in the magnificent Ruins of Vashj’ir, Rebecca had strayed a bit and been attacked by a band of Alliance players. These seemed not to be questing, but having their fun picking on solitary Horde players instead. She had a hard time holding her ground against the superior numbers, but the Hammer of Grimstone unexpectedly stepped in to help. Together, they drove the Alliance players off, killing three of them.

It was a natural act, as Horde players were supposed to unite against the Alliance whenever called for. Nevertheless, she thanked them for their support, and they acknowledged her politely.

After that, it happened three times in a row that one group killed an objective just before the other group could, making the others wait for long minutes for the mob to spawn again. Apparently, the three Grimstones had evaluated their gear and game play, and had decided that more could be gained by joining forces.

It was Gilead who addressed Robert, asking him to join their party. They shared a triumphant look between them. Rebecca put her fists in the air, like she had just scored match point in the Wimbledon final.

“Sure, better than being in each other’s way all the time,” he replied casually to Gilead.

The familiar sound heralded the invitation.
Gilead invites you to a Party
his screen read. He pressed Accept. A split second later, the same happened on Rebecca’s computer.

“Welcome,” Drimm said in the Party chat.

“Thank you,” Rebecca replied. “Now let’s go before all the losers arrive!”

All that could be heard was the sound of Pharad laughing.

~~~

Chapter XXVII

There
wasn’t much talk on the party channel. Not that this was necessary; all players were experienced and knew what they had to do.

Robert enjoyed doing the quests enormously. He was deeply impressed by the designers and programmers at Blizzard Entertainment who had succeeded in creating such a realistic world again. In Outland, he had sometimes felt that they had overdone the fairy tale texture of the surroundings. Northrend had been a lot better in that respect. Their experiences today were surpassing everything he had seen before. He shared his feelings with Rebecca, who nodded in agreement and gave him a smile.

“I noticed it, too,” she said. “It gives me the same vibes of wonder I remember from when I started playing a long time ago. Even though it’s different and clearly changed from the Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms as we knew it, they’ve succeeded in hitting the right note again.”

Robert didn’t have much experience with playing in a large group, but with Rebecca’s aid and advice he acquitted himself really well. They went through the various quests like a warm knife through a roll of butter. The afternoon was waning when they were finishing up the last quests that had taken them to the Abyssal Breach. They were almost at the end of their sojourn in Mount Hyjal. The story line they’d been following had just ended with a dramatic cinematic. Now, they found themselves on the sea bottom, staring down into an abyss that seemed to descend all the way to the core of the earth. Each of them had reached level eighty-two in the last ten minutes.

Pharad suggested they enter the Throne of the Tides, a new dungeon that was supposed to be located somewhere far below in the swirling hole they were looking into. Rebecca and Robert exchanged a look.

“It’s going to be late anyway,” she said with a shrug.

They swam out into the whirlpool and were taken by the current, to be sucked down with spectacular force to unfathomable depths. Yet, their perilous journey ended with them being brought uninjured right in front of the instance.

From the moment they entered, Robert had more trouble than before. After they had taken some kind of elevator, they entered a hallway crawling with naga and murlocs of the Elite kind. He was tasked by Pharad, who’d assumed the role of commander of their group, with using his traps to keep certain enemies, marked by him, temporarily out of the fight. He found it hard and failed the first times. His inexperience with raiding instances worried him.