(I’m starting this off as a challenge to my fellow #WoWBlog30 bloggers out there. If you’ve ever done any role-playing (RP), what has been your favorite RP moment or memory?)
Mine begins during the pre-Wrath event, also known as the Scourge Invasion.
For those that came along during or after Wrath, there are some great write-ups about the event that I highly suggest you check out. The very abbreviated version is that back before data mining sites spoiled everything weeks before it happened, Blizzard managed to sneak an event that threw the game into an up-roar for weeks.
Innocent-seeming creates appeared in Booty Bay, and unsuspecting players would open the create to find that they had been infected with a disease. The disease spread like wildfire, killing off lower level characters faster than you could say “Leerooooooy Jennnnnnkinnnnns!” For anyone that was infected and made it back to a city, the results were devastating. NPCs did not die, but could be carriers for the disease. In time the Argent Dawn set up sentinels throughout major cities to shield players and give them a few safe havens. But out in the rest of the world, some players wanted to have fun griefing their fellow faction-mates. Our story begins in Southshore, before the Second Plague.
(I am looking for pictures on my old computer, but I’ll post one or two from the Old Hillbrad event in the Cave of Wonders, I mean Caverns of Time).
Oh Southshore! I don’t know of a zone that really brought back that feeling of playing Warcraft and Warcraft 2 like Hillsbrad Foothills did.
At the height of the invasion, lower level characters were the hardest hit. They died nearly instantly to the plague, and many sought refuge out in the less populated open world. In Ironforge, a call went out for help against the scourge. Being fresh from the campaign in Outlands and most recently on the Isle of Quel’Danas, Elysoun the Priest heeded the call a took the first gryphon out.
I had recently begun testing out a few strategies against the plague. I found that my dispel would generally work on other players, although sometimes it would get resisted. My only problem was that I didn’t have much success removing it from myself. That could be a problem.
When I landed, I found the town in disarray. It only took two players to infect the entire town, including the flight master and all quest givers – meaning that any unsuspecting adventurer would contact the plague by either turning in a quest or by trying to leave the area. And for characters at that level, they were essentially surrounded by much higher level zones.
I dispelled the NPCs and resurrected the dead the best I could, and then I found them. Typhoid Bob and Typhoid Jack. They were much lower level than I was but significantly higher than those questing in the area. It wasn’t hard for me to dispatch them, but they found a way to get reinfected and launched another attack.
By this time, most of those leveling in the area had gotten word that someone was trying to save them. For the most part, they knew to keep their distance and to run from trouble. Those that did get infected ran off to the side, but within range so that I could dispel them. But one lowly Paladin decided to help me out. He stood no chance if they got close to him, but somehow he was able to cleanse the plague off of me!
For the better part of 2 hours, we fought to save the town. I still remember the hill, which I’ve always called Elysoun’s Hill ever since, which was between the flight master and the town, but could also see into the graveyard where the invaders would come again and again.
We had losses here and there. Once or twice I fell to the plague when Bob and Jack got particularly crafty and my pocket Pally couldn’t save me. But eventually even trolls tire (after they whined about how I was spoiling their fun). The day was saved for at least a small corner of Azeroth!
A number of those players kept in touch with me over the years. I would see them out and about, and one even made a priest as a gesture of thanks. It was a great day for banding together and to remind ourselves that we have a choice between being the hero or the villain of our stories, and of others’ stories as well.
Parallel Tangents Blog 