"Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!"

[pyat]

Day two of the Conan MMORPG. I played for about 90 min, after the girls were in bed.

I had to fight my way past a herd of murderous gorillas before I actually got to the city gate. Every single one of them was carrying a bunch of bananas.

Now I, Pyatt, Priest of Aquilonia, carry many bananas.

I arrived at the gate and was informed that I cannot enter, since I am marked as a slave by my manacles. A kindly guard suggested that a blacksmith outside of town could help me. I found the blacksmith with a line up of escaped slaves waiting to get their manacles knocked off. He was quite happy to knock off my manacles, provided I went the quarry and brought him three bricks.

I got to the quarry and found bunch of other players fetching bricks. This marked my first in game interaction with an actual flesh and blood player.

"Huzzah, bricks!" I said.
"lol" said a thinly clad sorceress.

At that point a giant demonic bat appeared and tried to kill me for stealing his bricks. I killed the bat, returned triumphantly with the bricks, had the manacles bashed off, and returned to the city gates...

Tortage! City of Pirates and Mystery and Adventure! What wonders await inside?


Except there was a level 80 Jackass with a horse parked sideways across the gate, effectively blocking access for all the new players. In this screen shot, Pyatt, Proud Priest of Aquilonia, is lost amongst a bunch of skinless monsters who seem to follow around some of the evil wizard types. They're harmless, but they can clutter up the screen a bit. You can't see my character at all, but he's the one saying "Swell."

The Jackass on the Horse seems to have been bisected by the gate.

"lol just courch" said the Jackass. I think he meant "Crouch." And indeed, some more experienced players were able to crawl under the belly of his horse while the newbies milled about aimlessly, cursing.

Pyatt, Priest of Aquilonia, does not crawl.

No, really, he doesn't. Cause, like, I don't know how.

I wandered away from the gate and looked up the in-game manual, the control settings, and so on, and none of them told he how to crouch. I went back to the gate to, like... kvetch... or something. The Jackass had left in the meantime, happily.

Now, the adventure begins in earnest! Tortage! City of Delights! City where I can perhaps sell off all this crap I picked up in the jungle! And buy some trousers! It took me ages to find someone who sold clothes, and I had zero interactions with other players. They just seem to run from place to place, and did not reply to my Bronze Age halloos and "Hail Fellow'ing".


I sold my "Flaking Crocodile Skin Loincloth" and "Slippers Retrieved From a Pile of Elephant Dung," pawned the bag of gold teeth, and bought a frayed robe, frayed belt, a wooden buckler. Now I look more priestly. Or sissy.

I kept the bananas.

At this point, I quit the game. Thus far, the game most closely resembles that scene in the Conan the Barbarian film where he's chained to a mill wheel and doesn't talk to anyone for ten years.

Comments

[jesshartley.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think your new outfit looks more like you're getting married... on the bride-ish side of things...

Sounds like the folks had a valid reason for being angry/irritated/up in arms about the release, eh?

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

"lol just courch" said the Jackass.

I had just read this when a call came in. Thank you, for making me laugh at a customer in distress.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

Please do not stop playing this game, as your writeups are the funniest things I've read in awhile.

[firesign10.livejournal.com]

Could you have flung the bananas at the skinless monsters? Or perhaps made a banana skirt, a la Josephine Baker?

[relee.livejournal.com]

Crouch is probably either control, F, X or Z. Those are the usual suspects anyways. Also if you check the options of the game most of them let you change key bindings, and you can find out what is bound to what.

Your guy looks pretty cool, even though he's wearing a dress and has huge man boobs. ;)

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

Everyone except for me is asleep here and I keep shaking with silent giggles.

These posts and the comments following them are great fun. Thank you.

[katepufftail.livejournal.com]

This is all good and fine, but when do you get on with the best things in life?

I demand more lamenting women!

Pyatt, Proud Priest

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

Now I, Pyatt, Priest of Aquilonia, carry many bananas.

BWAH!!! I love the way you write about this!!!

Reminds me of my younger D&D days...

[kores-rabbit.livejournal.com]

A mouse with bananas. Oh, Armageddon is surely on the horizon!
The "robe" keeps making more snort with laughter.
When a character in a game does something to deliberately impede gameplay by abusing a feature (like your horsie in the gateway) it's called "griefing".
And now you know! The More You Know! .·:*

[paka.livejournal.com]

chained to a mill wheel and doesn't talk to anyone for ten years

... which I'm sure is part of why Gygax hated the movie. Are you going to travel to the east to learn mystical posing techniques?

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd quit the game at that point too. };)