MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (11 page)

“No. I waited for them to finish, just out of curiosity. I must admit, they did very well. They finished in under an hour, which is fast for that set of instances. Quite an accomplishment.”

Robert thought for a minute, looking out of the window at the rain. “At least that means that they weren’t doing anything they shouldn’t. And what happened after they finished?”

“Nothing, really. They broke up. Drimm went to Ogrimmar and bummed around the auction house for some time. He logged off after half an hour.”

“So what are we going to do now?”

“We’ll keep our eyes open. We must find out whether they’re terrorists who are using WoW as their secret place, or if they’re just innocent players with an unfortunate guild name and some strange behavior.”

He looked at her, softly tapping on the table with one of the peanuts that came together with the beer in a miserable little plastic container. “This means we’ll have to maintain around the clock surveillance. That’s quite something. There’s just the two of us!”

She looked unflinchingly back at him, holding his brown eyes for a second too long. “Yes, I realize that. You forgot to mention that I’m leaving for Edinburgh before long. This means that you’re going to have all the fun, because he’s your neighbour. We have to follow them in WoW, but also in the real world.”

That thought had occurred to him as well, but he hadn’t followed up on it until now. “Do you really think that’s necessary?” He heard the denial in his own voice and answered his own question. “You’re right. This is going to have consequences for my study, though. I mean, we’re talking about 24/7 surveillance, in and out of the real world.”

Suddenly he felt Rebecca’s hand on his own. He looked up. Her eyes were on his, carrying a serious look. “In a few days we’ll know whether our suspicion is correct or not. We saw them at Raynewood Retreat. We know something strange was going on there. This isn’t going to take months.”

He moved his head slightly to indicate his agreement. “I hope so. If what they were doing has any impact on reality, we’ll know soon enough. I’ll try to follow Khalid when he goes outside. Maybe we’ll learn more that way.”

“Just promise that you’ll be careful. If these are the people who blew up an entire train station, killing twenty people just to make a point, they’ll not hesitate to kill one more.”

At that moment the bartender approached. Rebecca hastily removed her hand and smiled at him. He was carrying Robert’s beer and also one more for Rebecca. Robert was quite sure that she hadn’t ordered another drink. He felt a flicker of jealousy and arched an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah, I know, I come here too often. Let’s just say that they anticipate my wishes.”

He laughed and raised his glass to her. “Here’s to anticipation and to wishes!”

Rebecca touched his glass with hers. “To anticipation and wishes!”

She drank deeply, draining the glass for one third. “I always get thirsty when I play WoW. Did I tell you that I joined a guild today?”

“Weren’t you in a guild yet?” he asked surprised.

This time, Rebecca really laughed out loud. People at the bar looked up trying to find out what was so funny. She wasn’t mocking him: it was just pure mirth finding its way out. She actually shook with it. When she had calmed down a little, she steadied herself with more beer.

“Did you really think that I just ‘happened’ to be on this server? Out of all those realms out there, I just happened to be on the same one as our friends?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well, let me tell you then. No, I wasn’t on the Sylvanas realm before. It’s possible to transfer to another realm, if you pay for it. That’s what I did. I moved two characters from my own server to the Sylvanas server.”

“Two? I thought you only had Killermage.”

She waved her finger at him, as if he were a naughty child. “Never underestimate a girl! No, Sir, I have ten different characters!”

With a deferential bow, he picked up her empty glass and walked to the bar. The bartender made eye contact with him and nodded when Robert raised two fingers at him. He sat again opposite Rebecca. “Why ten?” he resumed.

“Because there are ten different classes. I wanted to have one of each class.”

He thought back to the game for a few seconds, but couldn’t come up with so many. She saw him racking his brains.

“The available classes are priest, mage, warlock, shaman, hunter, rogue, druid, paladin, warrior and deathknight.”

He was impressed. “Maybe you’d better tell me a little more about it. But I mean a little more. My brain can’t hold much more information after today.”

“Okay, I’ll keep it short. The only important thing to remember is that every class has its strengths and weaknesses. A mage for example, can do a lot of damage in a short time. That damage can also be done from a distance. The drawback is that mages can only wear armor made of cloth, which makes them extremely vulnerable. The armor value of cloth is almost zero. That’s why mages are often called glass cannons. If the enemy gets too close the mage is as good as dead. On the other side of the spectrum you have the warrior, who wears heavy plate armor and can take quite a beating without dying. In between you have classes that wear leather, like rogues, and classes that wear mail, which gives even more protection.”

“And does heavy plate protect against magical spells?”

“Good question, and the answer is, no, it doesn’t. Resistance to magic is something else entirely, but let’s not go there. I’m trying to keep it simple.” Robert felt his head tumbling with all this information, but he nodded at her, not to disappoint her.

“In general, the classes are divided into three categories, according to the roles they fulfil when operating in a group. First you have the DPS’ers, which means Damage Per Second. They dish it out to the enemy. Second you have the Tanks. They are the people who close with the enemy, making them focus their attention and aggression on them. It’s their job to make sure that the enemy doesn’t go after the DPS guys who are actually killing him. The last category are the healers. They keep up the health of the rest of the group by casting healing spells.”

“I see. And what exactly is my hunter, Gunslinger?”

“A hunter is a damage dealer, no doubt about it. So they’re DPS. Hunters are strong versus cloth wearers, but pretty useless against plate wearers. Those bullets don’t worry someone wearing an inch of plate.”

He nodded, starting to see the logic of it.

After a big gulp Rebecca continued, “I also transferred my rogue. Rogues can make themselves invisible, which might come in handy. My rogue is Alliance by the way, so on the opposite side of the fence from your point of view. That makes it easier to sneak around. If she had been Horde, those guys from the Hammer of Grimstone could see her even when in stealth mode. No use hiding from friends, you see.”

She kept up his education for over an hour and two more large beers. Robert started to become confused over the different races and classes. In his head he repeated: “Gunslinger is a hunter, belonging to the race of the Tauren, like Drimm. Killermage is a mage, belonging to the race of the Undead. There are many different races and classes, but not every combination is allowed. Undead can’t become hunters, so if you want to play a hunter, you should choose from races like Tauren or .......”

After so much information about WoW Robert wanted to talk about other things with this nice girl sitting opposite. He also started to wonder why he had to know all this. When he asked her, she became dead serious again.

“I think you need the ultimate WoW crash course, because if those guys are who we think they are, you need to become an experienced player quickly. I can’t do it all by myself.”

“What do you mean, why are my skills so important?”

She fixed him with a penetrating stare. “First, because there are many areas where you can’t follow them if you’re not high enough level.”

She fell silent, looking out at a wanderer and his four-legged friend resisting the rain. He watched her in turn, a little unsure. When she remained silent, he started to fidget in his chair. Finally, she seemed to notice. Without looking away, she continued, this time speaking so softly that he could barely hear her.

“Second, because I think there will come a time when we’ll have to infiltrate their guild. In other words, we’re going to hijack an account. Khalid’s account. We’re going to pretend to be him, while doing things with The Hammer of Grimstone.”

He took another sip of his beer, letting it sink in. “So when I’ll be playing with the character named Drimm-”

“You really have to know what you’re doing,” Rebecca finished for him. “If you fumble and fail, especially in a complex raid, they’ll see through the subterfuge immediately. So that’s why I’m trying to teach you as much as I can.”

Suddenly, a thought came to him. “When exactly are you leaving?”

“In three days. As of Monday, you’re on your own.”

~~~

CHAPTER X

Robert
didn’t see or even speak to Rebecca for the next two days. She was out of town on a surprise farewell weekend organized by her colleagues from Barrera, the bar where she had worked for several months. He was amazed at how easy she had mingled with the locals, how popular she was. Although thinking about her, he wasn’t really that amazed. She was simply a very nice and spontaneous person. He decided to start working on his own social contacts himself soon.

While she was gone, he threw himself at World of Warcraft, becoming addicted like he never had thought possible. He played for more than sixteen hours a day, barely taking time to eat and sleep. When he did sleep, his dreams were filled with the game. When he went out to the supermarket, he realized that his thoughts were constantly returning to the quests he was doing. In all his enthusiasm, he realized this was scary. But he had a job to do, and incidentally this job was to become an adequate WoW player. So he pressed on.

He reached level ten after a little more than four hours of playtime on Saturday. He learned how to make use of the different skills the trainer taught him along the way. He developed a kind of killing routine which didn’t require him to fight prolonged close combat battles with his targets. He skinned all the animals he killed, and other dead animals as well. He quickly got the hang of the auctioning process, and soon he was making his first gold.

At level ten, he got a quest from the Hunter trainer that required him to tame and bring back an Adult Plainstrider by using some rod. What it came down to was that he had to stand motionless while the enraged animal tore into him, waiting for the taming spell to take effect. After two failed efforts because he defended himself, thereby killing it, he got it right. After that, he had to tame a ferocious wolf, which was followed by the task of taming a Swoop, one of the dangerous birds of prey.

When he’d finished these tasks, he was officially taught the skill of taming animals out of the wild to become his pet. The last thing the trainer did was send him on his way to Thunder Bluff, to seek out the trainer there. On his way to the big city, he tamed a Prairie Stalker, which nearly killed him in the process. After nursing himself back to full health, he amused himself by killing everything that came too close. This was a lot easier with the help of the sharp fangs and claws of the gray wolf that now walked by his side.

All this time, none of the members of The Hammer of Grimstone came online. When he went out at lunchtime to buy bread, he quickly put his ear to the door of his neighbour. The only thing to be heard was absolute silence. After looking right and left, he pulled a hair out of his head. He wetted it with his tongue and stuck it to the door at the point where it met the framework. If the door was opened, he would know. If it wasn’t, he would know as well.

With fresh cheese and tomato sandwiches next to the keyboard, he continued his adventures in Thunder Bluff. He picked up several more quests in town, some of which required him to seek out other people in Thunder Bluff. He started to appreciate the time Rebecca had taken to give him a brief sightseeing tour. Many of the things she’d told him now started to make sense. When he began to run out of work, he was sent to a place called the Crossroads. He realised that the sandwiches were still lying untouched in the same place next to his keyboard. At once he felt hungry and devoured the food.

The instruction was to follow the road to the east, then to the north. The walk took so long that he started to wonder if he’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. But he pressed on and eventually crossed a pass that took him out of Mulgore and into a new zone called the Barrens. The biggest difference was the level of the animals that wandered around. The wildlife in the Barrens was of a much higher level than that of Mulgore, so Robert kept Gunslinger precisely in the middle of the road with his wolf at his side. Still, he drew the attention of a level fifteen Savannah Prowler. The huge lion seemed to smell him from a distance and charged, roaring loudly. Even with the help of his pet, he didn’t have a chance. It was over before he could even hurt the animal. Cursing, he walked his spirit all the way from the graveyard back to his corpse.

Even more cautious he continued his journey. After a while, another traveller appeared around a bend in the road. Robert halted him and asked if he was on the right road to the Crossroads. The level eighteen Blood Elf confirmed that he was, and that he was almost there. Relieved, he continued. He arrived at the tented town soon after. Following Rebecca’s instructions, the first thing he did was to search for a flight path. No way that he was going to walk that stretch again! He found it close to the inn. Considering the multitude of quest givers around, he guessed he would be in this place for awhile. He set his hearthstone at the inn, feeling proud of himself.