For perhaps the thousandth time, Neriad was knocked over the head.

"Not again!" Neriad thought. "Where am I going to be sent this time? Ah, a land of trees. I must be back in my elvish homeland!"



"Strange," thought Neriad. "This place doesn't look familiar. And what is that human mausoleum doing over there?"



"What in the...?" said Neriad.

Looking down, she exclaimed, "My robes!"

Feeling her head, she cried, "My ears!"

Pulling strands of her hair in front of her eyes, she yelled "MY HAIR!!"

Neriad walked out of the mausoleum and found a robed undead undertaker named Mordo.

"About time you woke up," said Mordo. "We were ready to toss you into the fire with the others, but it looks like you made it."

"There's been a terrible mistake," said Neriad. "I'm a night elf. Night elves don't become undead!"

Mordo replied, "Speak with Shadow Priest Sarvis in the chapel at the base of the hill. He will tell you more of what you must know."

Bewildered, Neriad walked down the hill and entered the chapel Mordo had indicated.



Inside, she found a chaotic scene as undead of all kinds were being processed by the person identified as Shadow Priest Sarvis. It was clear that Neriad was only one of many who had recently discovered themselves to be undead. When it was Neriad's turn, Shadow Priest Sarvis began what was clearly a well rehearsed litany.

"Another of the walking dead, hm?" said Sarvis. "Must have been quite a shock, waking up in the crypt with only the cold and Mordo to greet you... I see the confusion on your face. Let me try to explain our... situation... to you.

"We have been freed from the control of the Lich King by our new leader, Lady Sylvanas. The Dark Lady guides us in our war against the hated Scourge and the holdouts of humanity who dog our every step."

"There must be some mistake," said Neriad. "I'm a Night Elf. We become light fuzzy wisps when we die. We don't wake up undead!"

But the chapel was too noisy and Sarvis was too busy to listen. Ignoring her statements, he quickly told Neriad that their present location, the village of Deathknell, was under siege by the forces of the Scourge and assigned her the task of killing 8 Mindless Zombies and 8 Wretched Zombies.

"Mindless and wretched zombies?!" cried Neriad. "Why, just last week, I was with a group of heroes who fought Onyxia herself! Ten times in fact. And we almost got her, too. Well, we got her to sixty-five percent, but that was pretty good..."

Sarvis pointed to the doorway.

"Right, mindless and wretched zombies," said Neriad, walking pitifully out the door.

With orders to deliver the Scarlet Crusade documents to Executor Zygand and to seek out Dark Cleric Beryl, Neriad bade farewell to Deathknell and left for the town of Brill. It was clear that no one in Deathknell was prepared to explain what had happened to her or to tell her how to undo it. Perhaps she could find someone in Brill who might give her some clues.

It felt strange to have helped this motley band of undead, but the Scourge and the Scarlet Crusade were the enemies of all. Neriad hadn't been asked to do anything she wouldn't have done anyway, so she could at least take comfort in that.

"As long as they don't ask me to do anything truly vile," she thought, "I can play along and see what I can discover."



As she passed through the bulwark leading to Tirisfal Glades proper, Neriad was stopped by a fellow named Calvin Montague who asked her to deliver a letter to the innkeeper in Brill. He said that he'd pay Neriad well once the letter was delivered.

"Sure," thought Neriad as she accepted the letter for delivery. "I could use the cash. What could be the harm in that?"

MongoJerry,Nov 24 2004, 11:12 AM Wrote:Earthon and I headed toward the camp where Samuel Fipps roams only to find about half a dozen other players gathered, waiting for him to spawn.  Ouch!  Another bottleneck.

While sizing up the grouping possibilities, Fipps spawned and was immediately tagged by one of the waiting players.  Other players joined in and helped that player kill Fipps, and I hoped that meant that several people in the camp were in the same group and would all get quest credit at once.  If so, I figured Earthon and I could invite the remaining people into our group and we could all kill Fipps on the next respawn.

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Tal,Nov 24 2004, 12:31 PM Wrote:I had a different experience. On the Alliance side of things in the Newb zones the respawn was very quick, almost too quick in some cases. For example while doing the grape collection quest I would frequently get attacked by a re-spawning defias as I attempted to start collecting the grapes. I would kill hte attacker and start again to collect the grapes. I would get to the end and just before it would open the loot pane I would get attacked by another respawning Defias.
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Ruvanal,Nov 24 2004, 01:29 PM Wrote:In similar vien I can report a situation similar to yours from the human starting area.  There is a quest to get the head of one of the defias in the area (Garrick Padfoot).  When I came up to the area to do the quest there were about 8 players all standing packed close together with a pile of corpses at their feet.  I arrived just in time to see Garrick spawn and everyone try to get him.  My thought was "hmmm... lets see how many pick up the head and leave.  Bet its only one."  I was right unfortunatly.  I then just started doing unsolicted invites to players there to see who was wise enough to take the hint on how to get the quest over with quick.  That got the quest done somewhat faster for the five of us in that group (except the item lag spike that choked us some).  But while waiting for the respawn, I was able to take a closer look at the corpses on the ground (the lag spike while looting helped in this reguard).  All the corpses on the ground there were of Garrick and there were at least 5 of them there.  For those more familiar with the respawn rates in the early to mid beta, any corpse of a killed mob would end up decaying prior to the mobs respawn.  But in this case, Garrick was respawning a greatly excellerated rate due to the very high player count in that area from all the players trying to get started on the first day (looked like on the order of 20 to 30 seconds at the time I was there).  That explained to me why I was having so much trouble moving through some of area around him with all the bandits that kept spawning next to me.  One area near the bridge has so many respawn points close together that 2 players could stand there and just fight continuosly due the steady rate of respawns on top of the players.

I am less sure of this point, but it also looks like the respawn rate of the mineral and herb nodes is also being dynamically modified by the player counts in the areas.  This was from the observation of the mining nodes in a couple of the areas during the last couple of weeks of the beta (with very low player counts in those regions) compared to prior to the stress test.

Feel free to split this out if you feel it deserves its own thread.
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LavCat,Nov 24 2004, 07:53 PM Wrote:If Neriad has not already heard, she will meet lots of sister undead night elves in Silithus.

Treesh,Nov 24 2004, 03:18 PM Wrote:And that's why you should avoid that overcrowded area known as the human newbie area and play a real race. ;) :D  There is more to the alliance than squishy humans. ;) :P
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MongoJerry,Nov 25 2004, 12:17 AM Wrote:Oh?!  I thought I was just pulling a story out of my behind to explain why I'm suddenly playing an undead priestess.  You're serious about this?  I looked briefly around northern Silithus in the open beta and only saw lots of bugs, worms, and scorpions.

It would be great if it were true.  Then, I could make sure to keep the mystery of how Neriad became undead going.
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