World of Warcraft

Several months ago, I dared/bet a friend to take his orc rogue into Stormwind City. He used stealth to get in and took screen shots for proof. I paid the 10 gold reward.

Just for the fun of it, I thought I’d try the stunt with my 70 orc hunter. Hunters don’t have stealth abilities, so I figured to just ride my epic mount in past the guards and see how far in I could get. It’d be cool if I could make it to Deeprun Tram.

So I traveled to Elwynn Forest and sat on my mount outside the Stormwind gates. “Here we go,” I said. I rode straight past the guards, who immediately pursued me on foot, and right through the gate. By the time I reached the main city square, I had six or eight guards chasing me. I continued running through the city and by the time I’d made it to the Dwarf Quarter, the guards were no longer pursuing me.

Oddly, some of the patrollers in the city didn’t bother with me. I ran right through a couple of them and they didn’t change their walking patrol. The standing guards always came after me when I passed, but the walkers didn’t care.

I continued on through the Dwarf Quarter, to the tram entrance. I picked up a couple of new guards along the way, but once I entered the tram instance portal, I lost them.

The tram terminal was empty except the couple of low-level NPCs who hang out in there. I noticed that my PvP flag was turned on by entering the human city — an unexpected, but logical situation. So any PCs I encountered could attack me. While I waited for the tram to arrive a the station, a level 70 draenei shaman came in the terminal. We looked each other over for a few moments, sizing up the challenge.

I really didn’t want to fight. In fact, I didn’t even have my keyboard and mouse arranged for normal playing. Usually, for play, I have my keyboard sitting on top of my desk, at an angle so my hand and fingers can easily, without looking, reach all the necessary keys. And my mouse sits in a nice big open area, with no pad to limit my movements. At this time, because I only intended to run through the city until I died, my mouse was on its small pad, and my keyboard was still on its tray under the desk. I had the keyboard tray pulled out just far enough to put one finger on the forward button to move. If a fight broke out, I’d be screwed more than just by my lack of PvP experience and skill.

The shaman started dropping totems around him. I backed off and ran to the other side of the station. Then a tram showed up and I boarded. While waiting for the tram to leave the station, an Alliance warlock came into the station. The shaman and warlock both boarded the tram, too. And then the tram was off.

I was on the third, and last tram car; the Alliance guys were on the second, middle car. I had the feeling that the were going to jump me at any moment, so I tried to get off the tram. It was frustrating, reaching under my desktop, trying to move around and jump off the tram — guard rails prevented me from leaving the easy way.

Eventually I managed to figure my way off the tram. I fell down into the tram tunnel, just started running back to the Stormwind end of the tunnel. I toggled auto-run and just let my hunter run straight down the tunnel. I only half paid attention to my monitor while I shuffled stuff around on my desk. After a minute or two, I noticed my hunter was hung up on one of the spotlights on the tunnel floor. I grabbed my mouse and tried to shake my guy off the obstacle.

At that moment, the Alliance duo showed up. They had apparently jumped off the tram, too. I was below half health before I managed to pull out my keyboard tray and get my fingers on the keys. I think I fired one shot and then noticed my health was at 200-something. I tried Feign Death, but they didn’t fall for it. I died.

It was a rather embarrassing death. But up to that point, it was a fun little excursion through Stormwind City and into the tram system.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com