…And they called him Thistlefizz
September 4, 2009 § 2 Comments
I ran out of time last night before I could finish this post, due to my weekly raid schedule. I knew it was coming, but I got distracted by that ‘new blog smell’ and kept tweaking this theme or that format instead of focusing on finishing that post.
Anyway, to continue my story from yesterday…ah yes, fate having other plans and all that.
I had been so determined to become the most annoying Gnome in all of Azeroth. But with a trial account, I couldn’t even whisper people.
To be honest, I’m still not really sure what ultimately made me decide that it would be totally fine to buy a regular account just to annoy people. I’d like to think by that point the annoyance factor was really just more of a justification. In truth, I was already completely hooked.
By the time my little Gnome had made his way up the hill from Coldridge Valley into Kharanos the game’s hooks had a complete hold on me. The game was so wonderfully immersive. I couldn’t help but get pulled right in. I remember walking past that busted siege turret thing on Coldridge pass; hearing my feet crunch in the snow and the wind howl through the canyon; and when I finally made it up to Ironforge…well boy howdy, that was it.
As I trekked up that long hill, the city started to come into view. I could see the magnificent stone bastions growing straight out of the mountain side. The city just kept getting bigger and bigger as I approached. I was completely in awe of the game as my little Gnome made his way under the massive main gate and towards the enormous stone Dwarf statue. Looking at that statue I could feel the majesty the dwarfs and the might of Ironforge!
I was in and there was no going back. That night I bought an account and the Burning Crusade expansion. It took all night to download it, and I was so excited to play it the next morning I could hardly sleep. I think during that first week I had the game I was on just about every waking moment. I was completely drawn in.
I didn’t spend long in Ironforge, but I was productive while I was there. I discovered the bank, the Auction House, and that dammed moat (you know which one I mean). I bought myself a shiny new ammunition bag. Then I discovered the pit again.
The Lunar Festival was going on, so I honored an elder and got a coin which I had in my bank for the next 6 months.
Eventually I discovered the Deeprun Tram (I called it the F train, because I live in NYC and for some reason it reminds me of a certain stop on the F train). My first tram ride was a disaster. I was having serious lag issues at the time and kept missing the tram car. After about the 5th try I finally got on it. I was enjoying the ride, trying to take in as much as I could as the scenery whizzed by.
Suddenly, I hit another lag spike and I found myself on the ground, watching the tram get further away from me. I was halfway through, right at the bottom where it goes from being the F-train to Disney’s Undersea Adventure. Seriously; it’s got the Loch Ness Monster, a sunken pirate ship, the works.
But there wasn’t anything left to do but walk.
By the way, for those of you who might be wondering, it’s a long walk.
Eventually I got to Stormwind. I was as awe-struck as I was by Ironforge, and I spent hours exploring every nook and cranny.
I spent my next 25 levels in Westfall, Redridge, and Duskwood, running about doing quests for these ridiculously lazy humans. (“Hey, go take this envelope to the guy 10ft across the room.” “Why thank you good sir! I have not talked to my friend 10ft over there in ages!”) I larked about, turning in quests, shooting prairie dogs, and trying to take out Defias soldiers with my awesome level 12 blunderbuss.
My roommate was kind enough to let me know that, as I was not a hunter, repeatedly shooting everything over and over was not exactly the best way to kill things. He also told me that it might be wise to give up the ammunition pouch for an actual bag.
It was around this time that I discovered some bad dude named Van Cleef was holed up in this crazy place called the “Deadmines.” I had quite a few quests there, and was excited to see what this mine was all about.
Ah, my first instance. It did not go well. At all. See, while my roommate and new guild (I’ll come back to them) had been quite helpful in guiding me around, no-one told me that these instances were not places I should be venturing in all alone. I made my way down into Moonbrook and finally found the secret passage into the mine in the back of that farm-house looking building. I must have come in right after another group had dispatched the mobs in the mine leading up to the instance because I only encountered a few enemies along the way and I killed them without incident. I found a glowy-swirly thingy and remembered seeing the same glow-swirly thingy when I went from Ironforge to Stormwind. Based on my previous disaster, you’d think I would have turned around and high-tailed it away from the glowy-swirly thingy all the way back to the Elwynn Forrest. But, at the encouragement of my roommate (I think he was determined to screw with me), I jumped right in.
I was dead before the loading screen even went away. Ok, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. I just couldn’t figure it out. I was able to kill all the guys outside just fine, but all these enemies seemed to belong to some crazy golden dragon cult, and they hated me. They really hated me. A lot. And to compound my woes, after about my 4th death, this little yellow man appeared in the corner of the screen. I think I made the little man angry at me, cause I started doing even worse, and then he turned red.
Finally, after an half hour of me yelling at the ‘crazy golden dragon-cult’ people, and the stupid angry yellow–now red little man, I gave up. My roommate of course, had been laughing at me the entire time.
I left the dungeon and hearthed back to Ironforge. Then in real life I went to the deli to cool off. Now looking back on it, while I was gone my roommate must have found a place to repair and had repaired all my gear for me because when I came back the little red man was finally gone. At the time I figured it was because I had left the place with the crazy golden dragon cult people. It was a long time before anyone was able to convince me to go in an instance again.
And that’s the story of how I got sucked into this crazy world. I thought I would be a stupid little gnome running around annoying the crap out of people. I thought I would be taking over the game. Instead, the game took over me. (Holy crap…that was an awful ending line. I was going to delete it, but I decided, no, I wrote it. I can’t un-write it.)
“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”
~Fizz
The Cranky Old Gnome 
Also, don’t forget the gold I gave you!
Yes, the ‘one gold’…it was so useful…