World of Warcraft®

In-game festivals (holidays, whatever you'd like to call them) are a wonderful time to have new kinds of fun. You get to add different dailies and activities to your usual routine; you get to meet new people--heck, holidays have been a time for my own guild to gain new members!

But as with anything, there are people who make it more fun, people who make it less fun, and people who make you wonder what they're on. During my various Noblegarden runs on multiple servers, I've gotten to observe a number of folks, whom I'll now describe for your reading entertainment...

The Clueless: We all know them; most of us once were them. They are the folks who are relatively new to the game. They actually serve a useful purpose: Reminding seasoned veterans of the holidays, mostly through their incessant questions in General Chat. "hey wats this i just fuond a egg" "lolol wats nobelgardn is that liek kiddygarden so ur all 5 yrs old?" "what do i use [Noblegarden Chocolate] for?"

Keepers of the Snipe: Some people try to help the Clueless, even to the point of dropping what they're doing in order to explain in minute detail every facet of the holiday and all of its related achievements. Not the Keepers of the Snipe. The Keepers of the Snipe delight in toying with the Clueless. They'll tell them that the Golakka Hot Springs are in Wintergrasp. They'll advise the poor souls that there's a major, secret treasure trove of Brightly Colored Eggs in the "other jail" in Stormwind (especially if the Clueless in question are Horde). They'll tell them to equip a [Shriveled Heart] and jump three times in the cemetery to summon a special vendor. There's no end of amusement the Keepers of the Snipe can derive from the sufferings of those too lazy to look things up for themselves.

Occupy Goldshire: Yes, you guessed it. These are the folks who pick a spot in the town and just sit there, watching intently for the eggs to spawn at their feet. Usually, they will set up shop in a place right between four or five spawn points and quickly claim anything that appears. The truly hardcore among them will literally sit in that same spot for hours, gathering enough eggs to buy themselves and everyone on the planet a Spring Rabbit's Foot (which they will then post on the AH at prices that would make a Nordstrom's manager blush with shame). It's a valid strategy, as they'll remind you and anyone else who mentions it--but the real joy they bring is when they leave, so those who have lives can now collect eggs in peace.

The Tagalongs: You're hopping along, minding your own business, when you notice there's someone right on your cottontail. It's cool; if you're running in circles around the town, there are only two directions you can go. But then you spot an egg, and just as you get close to it, suddenly your new "friend" hits their basket boosters and snags the egg before you can get it. You don't mind it the first three--four--five times they do this, but after a while of you finding eggs and them taking them, it starts to grate. This is the Tagalong, someone who is too lazy to do their own egg-hunting, so they'll let you do it for them--and they'll reap the rewards.

(Continued in the next)

The Shortsighted: On the other hand, there are people who appear to believe that all that they survey is their domain. You snag an egg from an Occupier, or hit your basket booster to arrive before some other random bunny. They will spend the next hour whispering you, cussing you out about how you took "their" egg and they had a right and you're a cyberbully and they'll report you for it and tell your guild leader and get you booted from your guild. Then, several days later when they join in a raid group with your guild, they are utterly mystified as to why they just got voted out.

The 1%: You know them, but you are not one yourself. These are the people who got a Swift Springstrider out of the very first egg they opened on Sunday. They're done with everything but the dailies now. You know it's irrational, but you hate them just the same for their sheer good luck.

The Entitled: These are the people who claim to have played this game for years--but when they logged on to do the Noblegarden activities, they were astonished to discover that World of Warcraft is actually a multiplayer game! As in, other people play it, too! They will then spend the next several hours in General Chat haranguing everyone else in the zone about how you should be in school/at work/taking a shower/anywhere but between the Entitled and "their" eggs. They will guilt-trip you to give (not sell) them that extra Spring Rabbit's Foot you picked up. They demand that you abandon your own plans so as to fly them all over Azeroth on your two-seater just so they can get the achievements. They complain about how nobody will help them, complain until their guildies flip factions and bring their female level-18 whatevers to come get "eared". Nobody wants to give them what they demand, but it's easier than listening to the incessant whining.

The Derisionists: You know that guy who sits in the channel and mocks everyone who participates in the holiday activities? That's the Derisionist. He doesn't take part himself in the festivities--not out of religious or political objections, nothing so serious, it's just that he sneers at the antics of the people with "nothing better to do with their time". This is usually a hardcore raider, who will run the same instance twenty times just to get the perfect piece of gear, who will spend literal days reading "expert opinions" on how to tweak his stats just so as to improve his healing by about twenty points, who will spam Trade for hours in order to get a port from Stormwind to Dalaran, who will...spend hours in the meantime doing nothing but making fun of other people with different priorities. This kind knows no season.

Karmic Retributionists: You may have camped ten spawn points and so prevented them from getting the daily done in less than three hours (you dog). You may have innocently snagged a few eggs they were after. Either way, it doesn't matter; they have your name on Their List. On a PvP server, they have a capped, geared member of the other faction and will track you down and camp you for the same number of hours you camped those egg spawns. In a raid, they will ninja your loot and then flee. It may take hours, days, weeks, months, but they will pay you back somehow. You will probably have forgotten about your sins by the time the reckoning happens, but they haven't. The worst part is that you have no idea who they are until you have incurred their wrath...

Postscript: This thread was created for purposes of humor only. Any resemblance to actual persons playing on this or other servers is mostly coincidental--since these are Based on a True Story--so if they feel like identifying themselves, that's their own fault.

If you have observed other species of Noblegardeners who deserve to be cataloged, please feel free to add on! Just remember not to name names or describe any particular person so that they can be identified without their consent.

*claps* bravo!

Though you've forgotten one... the griefer: this is the player that decides to use a mount to hide the eggs from another player (such as a large dragon or mammoth) while he or she spews vile comments between dismounting to snatch eggs and remounting to keep the spawns to themselves. This type of griefer will also use campfires to set on egg points away from the spot they are camping as to maximize their area.

((Does this have any relation with the species of RPers post that circulated a few years back?

Either way, well done, very funny.))

You mean "These Are the People in Your Roleplaying Guild", by Tarquin of Feathermoon? Good stuff, that one.

Yep, that served as inspiration--that, and being up at 2 am with nothing else to use my brain on.

Thanks, by the way. *grin*

You forgot about the tag teamers, though those are more common in pvp realms.

Basically, they're the pair of buddies who happen to have maxed out characters on both factions and they're good buddies, most likely on Real ID if it's a pvp realm, though it can change. One will choose a little town to start getting eggs, while the other attacks that town to cause a distraction towards other egg hunters, thereby giving his buddy a chance to grab the eggs. When one is finished with their eggs, they'll switch places so now it's the first buddy doing the attacks while the other is getting eggs in their friendly town. Bit harder to do lately considering lowbie towns are now quite well fortified, but it's still possible.

Oh, and don't forget the Temp. Temps are people who happened to get their free trial of WoW during a holiday and inexplicably get all the good stuff right away. They're exactly like the 1%, save for the fact that a Temp invariably ends up leaving the game. So worse than the 1%, really.