The Adventures of Neriad

[MongoJerry]

THE ADVENTURES OF NERIAD: GROUPING UP IN DARKSHORE

After completing a couple of fishing quests and fixing Buzzbox 827 in Auberdine, it was time for Neriad to venture into the unknown forests of Darkshore. Darkshore is considered Alliance territory on the PvP server, so technically Neriad was safe from attack from Horde players. However, unlike the relative safety of Teldrassil, Horde players can get to Darkshore fairly easily and mess around with the NPC's. (There is a way for Horde players to get to Teldrassil, but it's a little complicated and probably not worth the trouble, since the area tends to be rather empty of players to mock or grief). However, this was on the second day of the push, and Neriad was not far off the pace of the higher level characters on the server. It was likely that she would be able to hold up pretty well in a PvP situation, and there was some anticipation that she could see some PvP action at any time.

Neriad considered the quests she had been given. Lem had taken the boat east to dwarven lands (I think because he wanted to get and skill up in engineering quickly), so Neriad was alone in Darkshore. I had been warned several times prior to the push that people who solo on PvP servers are bound for trouble, and yet having to solo was the situation Neriad found herself in. In the previous push, I had built up a large network of people with whom I enjoyed playing. These were people I considered "good guys" who played their roles in parties well and who divided drops fairly. However, since Blizzard unaccountably allows one to add people to one's Friends list only by character name and not by account name, I had no idea how many of the people on my Friends list had moved over to the PvP server and also had switched to playing Alliance characters. (I played Horde characters all last push). Basically, I had to create my PvP server network from scratch.



So I considered the quests that sounded soloable and grouped them according to which ones could probably be done in the same trip. Three soloable quests sounded like they were in the same geographic area: One to trap a rabid thistle bear and bring it to town, one to fix Buzzbox 411 to the north of Auberdine, and one to investigate a strange blue light at the ruins of Bashal'Aran. I guessed that one would "investigate" the blue light by going there or getting something and that one would then have to go back to town to get the next quest in a quest series. I figured I'd go north along the road, quickly "investigate" the blue light, move west toward the shore to fix Buzzbox 411, and then trap a bear on the way back to town. It sounded like a good plan, but one of the things about multiplayer games is that one's plans are frequently (sometimes pleasantly) disrupted.

When Neriad got to the ruins of Bashal'Aran, she found them crawling with grells, skinny goblin-like monsters. She saw the mysterious blue light coming from a gazebo-like structure on a nearby hill, but to get to it, she'd have to work her way through several grells. Neriad was only level 12 at the time, so killing the grells wasn't an easy task. She could handle one grell at a time effectively, but she would get in trouble if she aggroed two or more at once. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. She tried to pull one grell, but a second one came along, and while she was trying to see if she could beat two at once (answer: no), a third grell respawned and joined the fray. As she was dying, however, Neriad saw a rogue, named Rylee, run by with several grells in tow. Clearly, she wasn't the only one having problems dealing with the grells.

While running back to her corpse as a ghost, Neriad laughingly whispered to Rylee:

Neriad: Heya! I noticed you're having problems with the grells, too. lol
Rylee: Yeah, this is a tougher zone than I remember, haha
Neriad: Hehe. How about I join you?
Rylee: great
Rylee has invited you to join a group.



Once we grouped up, grells started falling left and right. A rogue-priest two person party combination is an interesting one. If you had asked me before what were the best two-player party combinations, I wouldn't even have considered the possibility of the rogue-priest combination. But with the PvP server crawling with rogues (many people had visions of ambushing members of the other faction), I've recently had the opportunity to play in many priest-rogue groups, and I've found it to be an effective combination. Rylee and I developed our system quickly: I pulled using Holy Bolt. While the mob was running toward me, Rylee backstabbed it both to do a lot of damage and to pull aggro off me. Then I kept Rylee shielded and healed while dishing out some modest damage with Holy bolt, and Rylee focused on dishing out damage while also providing some mild tanking services with his better armor. We worked well as a team, and even when respawns had us fighting four grells at once, we were still victorious.

But the most surprising thing of our partnership happened before we had killed our first grell together. While I was healing up after getting my corpse back, Rylee popped up a trade screen and placed a Magister's Vest (+1 spirit) into it and hit "Trade." Considering that this was the second day of the push, this was a pretty nice item that could've been sold for some badly needed silver, and he had every right to keep the vest for himself. And yet, he was giving it to me free before we had killed our first mob together.

There are some people I've met who would "expect" this kind of behavior. That is, they would say that he had something that he couldn't use, and that item should go to a person he's grouping with who can. Such people get all high and mighty about what people should be expected to do and get very upset when people don't follow their code of ethics. I don't. I expect people to be looking out for themselves for their own immediate gratification, and when someone does something out of courtesy for another player, especially for a player not in their current party, I take notice. It's like that variation of Murphy's Law, "It's impossible for an optimist to be pleasantly surprised." The amazing thing about this beta test is how often I get "surprised."

What do I mean by people "expecting" certain behaviors? Let's take the example of a chest guarded by several mobs. Let's say you're soloing and have killed some of the mobs near the chest. While fighting the last one or two mobs, another player comes along. If that player opens the chest, a person who "expects" people to behave would get really upset, go into a tirade, call the other player names, etc. I don't. I just think to myself "Bah, jerk," and move on. But what if the other player does not open the chest but instead allows you to open it after your fight or even helps you finish off the mobs you're fighting? A person who "expects" people to behave courteously will think little of the other player's behavior, because after all the player is playing "as expected." Rarely will such a person even utter a "Thank-you" or acknowledge the courtesy that was given him or her. For this reason, I consider such people as greedy as those who steal drops, and I will quietly refuse to party with them in the future.

In contrast, when I see a courteous act, I take notice. In our hypothetical situation, if the other player doesn't open the chest, I'll give the person a "Thank-you" and make a note of their name. If the situation warrants it, I'll offer to party up with them, even if I had been planning to do some other things solo. This gives me an opportunity to observe how well the player plays in a group, to see if we mesh well as a team, and to give me opportunities to demonstrate my own courtesy to him or her. If we mesh well, I'll add that person to my friends list and ask him or her to party with me later. In this way, I start to build a network of people who I know are skilled and trustworthy. And when I'm level 45 and need a fifth to fill out an Uldaman instance group, for example, those are the people I will call on first. And alternatively, if one of those people needs a fifth for an instance group or help with a quest, then I'll make every effort to help them. In this way, a person who courteously lets me open a simple chest may lose a chance to get some silver and an item or two, but gains a chance to get far more treasure and experience points (and fun?) by being able to call on me for help in the future. And what about the person who does open the chest? That person may get some silver, food, and perhaps an item that they'll stop using in a couple of levels, but they will unknowingly find themselves on a "do not party with" list. The game world is smaller than many people realize, and if someone behaves poorly too often, that person will find it difficult to get in a good group by the time they reach the higher levels of the game.

So, needless to say, Rylee's gesture impressed me. But there was one small problem. I didn't like the look of the vest. :lol: My Sleeping Robes were so pretty that I didn't want to wear the vest, even though it had better stats than my robes. But how can I tell a guy I had just met, "Thanks for spontaneously offering this terrific item, which has better stats than my own, but your item looks ugly." I just couldn't do it. So I accepted the vest, enchanted it with +10 health, and put it on. And I carefully placed my old Sleeping Robes in a safe spot in my inventory.

Ah heck, the vest didn't look so bad, as you can see in the picture above. It did make Neriad look like she was wearing a softball uniform, though, and when she cast her Holy Bolt, it looked like was winding up to make a pitch.

Once Rylee and I partnered up, we had an easy time moving through the ruins. It turned out that the blue light we were to investigate emanated from a magical prison, shown in the first picture above, that had held an elf for more than a thousand years. (Why no one had investigated the mysterious blue light during that thousand years was not explained). When you talk to the elf, he tells you his tale, and asks you to help him escape by collecting grell earrings, which have some special magical properties. When you give him the earrings, he then tells you to get something else from some of the bigger mobs at the center of the ruins. So, in essence, this is your typical collection quest series, but at least the NPC one must return to is right there, so you don't have to make a special trip back to town after each step. Rylee and I quickly finished the quest series and freed the elf from his prison.



At about this time, Rylee received a message from one of his guildmates who wanted to look for Anaya. An elf NPC named Cerellean Whiteclaw on the Auberdine dock asks adventurers to find and kill his love, Anaya. I missed part of the story, but apparently thousands of years ago some warlock or wizard said he could give the elves of Ameth'Aran their immortality back, but it turns out that what he really meant was that he would turn them all into undead. Whiteclaw asks adventures to free Anaya's soul. He says that he would do it himself, but he doesn't have the heart to lift his hand against his love, even in her undead state.

Rylee and I traveled south to the ruins of Ameth'Aran to meet up with Rylee's guildmate (whose name strangely was never caught in any screenshots I have. There are some screenshots that I know I took that I couldn't find in the screenshots folder for some reason). In some bushes along the road near the ruins is another NPC elf, named Sentinel Tysha Moonblade, who asks adventurers to go into the ruins and read two tablets that describe some of the history of the War of the Ancients and report back to her. Also, another Auberdine quest had asked us to collect seven Highborne Relics off the ghosts in Ameth'Aran as a way to reduce some of the corruption of Darkshire's forests. It's always nice to be able to complete multiple quests at once.

Our party entered the ruins of Ameth'Aran and by some incredible luck found Anaya almost immediately. Judging by the messages in the Darkshore general chat channel, it usually takes a long time to find her, since she wanders the ruins and is a shadowy figure in a dark area. It was probably helpful to be in a group with two people who had been there before and knew what Anaya looked like. In fact Rylee and Rylee's friend (also a rogue) found and killed Anaya before I could react fast enough to take a screenshot. We then moved practically in straight lines to each of the two widely separated tablets. Rylee's friend was in a hurry and stealthed past all the ghosts in order to read the two tablets largely unmolested. However, as a priest, I didn't have that option, and Rylee stayed with me and escorted me to the tablets and back out of the ruins. Along the way, we collected Highborne Relics off the ghosts we killed, of course.



Once back on the road, we reported our findings to Sentinel Moonblade and hearthed back to Auberdine. Once there, we turned in the Highborne Relics and then gave Cerellean Whiteclaw Anaya's pendant. The last thing Cerellean asks is to be left alone with his grief, so I turned to leave. But then, some grey text began appearing in my chat window and I turned back to witness the following exchange.

Cerellean Whiteclaw says: Anaya...? Do my eyes deceive me? Is it really you?
Cerellean Whiteclaw says: That the fates should be so cruel as to permit us only this after a thousand years apart...
Cerellean Whiteclaw says: Do you hate me, my love? That I was forced to destroy your living form, that your spirit be released from bondage.
Anaya says: Let it not trouble your heart, beloved. You have freed me from slavery, and for that I love you all the more.
Anaya says: Sadly, even this must be cut short... The ties that bind me to this world weaken and pull me away...
Cerellean Whiteclaw says: No! Anaya... Anaya! Don't leave me! Please...
Anaya says: Farewell, Cerellean, until we are joined once again...
Anaya's soft voice trails away into the mists, "Know that I love you always..."
How, my love? How will I find the strength to face the ages of the world without you by my side...

(Kinda gets you right there, doesn't it?)

After turning in the quests, Rylee and I left town to go north to trap a couple of Rabid Thistle Bears and perhaps to do the Mushroom Cave quest, but halfway up the road, Rylee stopped and said, "know what... I didn't even realize it's 3 am lol. I should get to bed." So, with an exchange of enthusiastic "G'night!"'s, Rylee and Neriad parted ways.

And Rylee became the first person I did not know beforehand to be entered into Neriad's Friends list.

And Neriad quietly slipped back into her pretty Sleeping Robes.