Thanks to Izzy for the heads up on this story.

According to a Norwegian newspaper, a young boy and his sister were attacked by a moose, and the boy taunted the moose away from his sister and then played dead so that the moose would lose aggro and leave. “Just like you learn in level 30 in World of Warcraft,” the boy is reported as saying.

In World of Warcraft, level 30 Hunters can feign death for up to six minutes, which causes the attacker to lose interest in attacking and mosey on.

Which goes to show, gaming saves lives.

However, my level 23 Night Elf Hunter, Leafgarrett, would have been moose food.

Also however, if it had been a mountain lion instead of a moose, the strategy might not have worked.

Tags: aggro, feign death, gaming, hunter, life lessons, moose, norwegian, playing dead, world of warcraft, wow

Since I didn’t include these in my last post, here is a tour of my main World of Warcraft characters.

Leafgarrett was my first real character (the first one I spent any time on). He’s a Night Elf hunter. The bear (Shawn Cassidy) is his pet. I got him to level 23 and then got bored with the game and canceled my account. Blizzard didn’t delete him, though, and so he’s still there, waiting, stuck forever in Loch Modan at level 23.

Recently (about two months ago) I decided to give World of Warcraft another try. At some point at Star Farm I’m going to be working in some capacity on computer game and console game stories, and so I was determined to get at least one character to 60 and to start my own guild. I mean, I can’t say I understand this game world until I’ve seen how the upper half lives. So I created Monkifer.

Monkifer is a human Warlock. He joined a samurai-themed guild called the Shogunate, which suits my samurai-loving sensibilities. And the server (each World of Warcraft server is essentially a separate copy of the world) was focused equally on role play and player-versus-player, so I was able to see both in action. I soon got tired of samurai role play, though it was fun to see people altering their language into some stilted mishmash of Kurosawa film subtitles and Elizabethan English. So I recently moved Monkifer to a new server.

Monkbane is my most recent creation. He’s an undead Mage, and even at his low level, he’s already a proficient healer and pretty decent in mining and engineering (an awful fisherman, though). He’s a member of We No, though he’s not tough enough yet to participate in any of the big guild activities. But as of yesterday, he can make one heck of a Heavy Woolen Bandage, which should help out in even the most epic of scrapes.

More later on the adventures of Monkbane. And my perspective on the world of World of Warcraft.

Tags: characters, world of warcraft, wow

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft for a few months now. Not very aggressively. I’ve played about ten characters. I haven’t passed level 25 on any of them, and most of them are under level 10.

The best and worst thing about World of Warcraft is that it is so time consuming. Leveling up takes so much time. That’s fantastic for people who are comfortable losing themselves in the game for hours at a time, but I feel guilty doing that because there’s so much else I should be doing.

The solution, as with anything time-related, is multi-tasking.

So I tried to play while I was watching TV. I watch a certain amount of TV every week without feeling guilty because, hello, I work as a writer for an entertainment company.

I would try socializing on WoW, but my friends are all lame and don’t play. And my attempts to strike up friendships inside the game were less than fruitful.

Then I found out about Joi Ito’s guilds on World of Warcraft: We Know (Alliance) and We No (Horde). And I thought: hey, I can meet some interesting people doing interesting work while blasting away the baddies.

So I joined We No as an undead Mage named Monkbane. He’s only at level 10, but I’ve got serious plans for him. Monkbane is going places. All the way to 60, for starters.

Power lunching with wizards and warriors

Is World of Warcraft the New Golf?

Tags: networking, world of warcraft, wow