Episode III: Burgger Takes "nekkid" to the next level.

My next foray into World of WarCraft entailed a trip to the land of the Undead. Now apparently there's undead and there's Undead, which explains why a lot of the quests have you killing zombies and skeletons. I thought that was pretty odd, considering they should all be banding together for the good of all undeadness, but then again Humans tend to fight amongst each other at the slightest provocation as well.

My main problem with creating an Undead character was that all the faces looked pretty freaky, so it was hard to create those lecherous-looking faces like Burgerr the Gnome's. I at least attempted to create one which had a tinge of idiocy in its eyes. You know, like the zombie that gets stuck walking into a wall, or the face one might pullif caught at a timeshare sales event for eternity.

Where Burgger trumps all the other characters, though, is in his interpretation of naked. Yes, this one goes one step further.

This time the countryside was covered in Undead slaughtering skeletons and "mindless zombies". A metaphor for WoW players, perhaps? Yes, yes, don't go there, I know. Once again there was a quest that demanded you kill a certain number of skeletons, and the demand for these skeletons was so high it was hard to get to them in time before another player killed them. Not many people wanted to talk to me either, once again asking me only for duels. I came up with a standard refusal process and hoped it would jolt them into some sort of vocal activity towards me, but no luck. I would have even taken insults, but they just shrugged off all my rude refusals and went to duel someone else.

At this point I clicked Decline. One player was obsessed with noobs. I can only assume this was due to some insecurity on his part, because he kept yelling things about how anyone who was level 3 and killed by a level 1 could only be a noob (he used more o's in the word). In the end, however, he decided to jetison all superfluous words in his statements and reduced them to simply "noooooooooooooooooooob!" Not surprisingly, still no one cared. Least of all me, even though I like to taunt these kinds of players usually, but something about the Undead just didn't do it for me. It was a good area and everything, but I suppose when you're dealing with crypts and corpses and such there's just less room for wackyness. I did, however, find it amusing that all those putrid corpses feel the need to drink

I could just picture the ads too, panning from majestic snow-covered mountain peaks to a hand digging itself out of a grave, bottle in hand.

One of my frequent pointings was successful and the player stopped. I knew this was make-or-break time, so I started to dance.

Success!

Unfortunately, my attempt at communication failed, perhaps due to my choice of words.

Attempting to salvage our crumbling friendship, I at least tried to crush the enemy he was fighting by landing on it, just like Mario. No, you can't do that in this game, and it sent him running for the hills in the hopes that he didn't catch whatever I had too.

Time to crack out the Spring Water, then.

Frankly I was tired of being Undead. No one liked me and everyone was taking it way too seriously. I hadn't met one single other nekkid player, whereas it felt like every other gnome seemed to be in their underwear when I was in that area. I had seen a bunch of people running around with little freak minions. I quickly got to work on a quest to enable me to create a mini-burgger. Soon enough I summoned myself an imp. You can imagine my disappointment when I couldn't name him,although I must admit the name wasn't that bad.

This returned some of my enthusiasm for questing, but the next quest killed it dead. What was this supposed to be? What a stupid quest, ensuring everyone had clothing when they emerged from the crypt! I never had no clothing and look how I turned out.

No, this place was going downhill. Those free-spirited gnomes, they have the right idea. I had to get to the gnomes. I was getting out. I headed for the hills, my minion in tow.

Couldn't make it over the mountain, though. Nnnngh. Unnnggggh.

The pox on you and your invisible barriers. Nnnngggh. No good. I had to head back down and follow the road out. Frustrated, I pointed at my minion, spat on him, and set off.

I met a quest-giver at a crossroads who told me to go collect pumpkins, while a huge monster told me to collect some sorts of weeds. Frankly these Undead missions were starting to feel more and more like an MORshopping list. Granted, the pumpkins were being guarded by a bunch of redneck farmers and I barely survived the first encounter, retreating and letting the attacker tear my minion a new one. Gakkol kicked the bucket. It seemed I was going to need more backup than this.

Fortunately there was another player nearby. I asked him to join a party, and he did. Nice! I tried to roleplay a bit, but he was having none of it. My statement of "mmnuuugh kill farmurrr"wasmetwithsilence.We attacked together and collected some pumpkins and said player left the party the moment he had the pumpkins he needed, leaving me to deal with the angry farmers that had survived.There's the player population for you. Predictably, Gakkol kicked the bucket again because I high-tailed it out of there the moment I saw I was losing.

After resurrecting Gakkol and having a nice refreshing drink of Spring Water, I decided questing wasn't for me. I found a horse-merchant in one town and realised that the few coppers and silvers I had weren't going to equal 10 Gold for a long time. I really wanted a horse though! I wandered off into the wilderness, mumbling something, and stumbled upon the ruins of some human city. It seemed to be some sort of Horde hideout, because a lot of players were chatting about what they were selling and what they wanted. Someone wanted his stuff enchanted for free, someone else had a similar request, so I jumped in with my request: "want horse plz, give thx." No response. I suppose they figured if they showed any interest at all I'd never leave.

With no horse, no real friends, and no quests to entertain me, I started looking for somewhere to die. As usual. I found a river of green ooze, but it didn't seem to do anything.

I then came upon something that looked like a cross between a sundial and a ritual circle. There was a dead guy in the middle of it. Like the idiots who say "what was that?" and go explore the darkness in horror movies, I went to look at the dead guy. That there wasn't any enemies around should have given me a clue.

Ouchie! Gakkol was on fire now too, and that's how I left the game. Did Burgger survive? Who knows, but if he did he's probably still trying to make his way over to the Gnomes. Poor, misguided soul.

So what did I learn today?

Whoever said games weren't educational? Drink spring water, loot standing up. Noted.

Next: A human priest does a bit of PVP and then sets off on a nekkid marathon over hills and through valleys. It doesn't end well.