Clever use of game mechanics?
September 30, 2009 § 2 Comments
On Monday night I was working on leveling my tauren druid.
(Just a quick little back story on him: when I first created my troll shaman, I needed a bank alt, much like I had on the Alliance side. I had tried a night elf druid, but just couldn’t get past the fact that I hate night elves so much. But my hatred of Night Elves is best left for another post. Anyway–I needed a bank alt, and my roommate convinced me that I should try a druid; he suggested that the reason I never got my old one past level 10 and why I eventually deleted him was not because of the class but the elves. So I created him, and he stayed low level for a long long time. But once I got my shaman to 80 and started healing I discovered I really enjoy being a healer. And I also really enjoy being a tank. So the possibility of playing a class capable of playing both really intrigues me. So I’m now trying to level him to 80. And for those wondering, yes, I also have a paladin I’m working on.)
Anyway, I was working on a quest in Desolace which required me to go to the north-east corner and kill a bunch of Hatefury Satyrs. One quest simply required me to kill a certain number of various types of the Hatefuries. But one of them required me to get a scalp from a Shadowstalker. First I had a hard time finding Shadowstalkers. Then the ones I did find just wouldn’t drop the scalp. It was getting rather frustrating. But then I had an epiphany.
Thistlefizz to the rescue!
I switched to my little warrior and made my way to Desolace. As I recall I took my Ultrasafe Transporter: Gadgetzan, and was turned into a kobol, and then a trogg. So much for ultrasafe. Then I flew up to Nijel’s Point, and headed over to the Hatefury area. My plan was to kill every Hatefury that wasn’t a Shadowstalker (so the rogues, betrayers, tricksters, etc). I killed satyr after satyr. At first I was just going to kill enough to get 20 or so Shadowstalkers to leave for my druid. But after a while it sort of became an obsession. I wanted to get every mob in the area to turn into a Shadowstalker. I thought I was getting close until I discovered a secondary area with more Satyrs. *sigh* Ok, well, it shouldn’t take too much longer…after all I was only…two hours in. It became a pattern. Mount up, ride to a non-Shadowstalker, charge then shield slam, revenge, shockwave, or thunderclap. Then mount up and do it again.
It was sort of hypnotic. And I was lucky in that no-one else wanted to have anything to do with the area so I didn’t have to worry about the Shadowstalkers I was spawning getting killed. Everything was going great. I had finally converted some of the most stubborn ones in the area. There only remained 10 or so (out of 50-ish?), and I was ready to kill them good. But then this message flashed in my chat box.
Server restart in [15:00].
I…but…you just…they can’t….*urk*
I immediately switched over to my druid, which of course due to lag too me 12 minutes. Ok maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not much. I started killing shadowstalkers left and right with the clock running down. But no scalp. I was starting to panic. [10:00] Keep going! [5:00] It’ll drop off the next one! [1:00] Crap I need mana! [:45] Now I need energy! [:30] Ok I can get this [:15] last mob! Hey! There it is! Let me just click on the…[You Have Been Disconnected From the Server]
Dammit.
“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”
~Fizz
The Cranky Old Gnome 
Ohhh I hate that!
The valkyrs are one of my most favorite qeust. But if I remmber right, than it was the case that the head drop only from one special mob but 100% of the time.
It is litte bit more to the east on a small hill.
but nonetheless, nice story.