WoW Fanfiction

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jul 1, 2008

Filed under: Nerd Culture 50 comments

This weekend, instead of writing my usual obsessive analysis of gameplay mechanics I wrote… fanfiction. World of Warcraft fanfiction. Some people write fanfic about their characters in WoW. I’ve decided to write some fanfic about the player behind a character I saw in WoW during one of my first excursions into the game. Which means this mess is some sort of reverse… meta fanfic… or something. Look, I have no idea. Just read it.

I was on Garithos – a PvP server – when I saw this person, and the following story came to mind:

Donny is sitting right next to the furnace in the “good” part of the basement. The part where the walls have been covered in battered old 70’s-style wood paneling. He hates having the computer here, but it’s better than when it was over at the foot of the stairs – next to the litter box – because the stench was so bad nobody could use it.

His mom starts pounding on the wall at the top of the steps and yells at him to go to bed. He yells back up that he’s right in the middle of a game, by which he means the computer is nearly done booting and he’s going to launch WoW.

He hesitates before logging in. He was kicked out of his guild – the guild he helped start! – because someone caught him swiping stuff out of the guild vault and selling it at the auction house.

This was an injustice and proof that most of the people in WoW are crybaby idiots who don’t even understand the game. He’s the the whole reason the guild is so rich, anyway. He’s the one who came up with the rule that guild members had to donate green items to the guild instead of just selling them. He didn’t actually do this so much himself, but lots of people did and the guild vault was overflowing. Donny was just cleaning it out a bit so the other members would have room to donate more items. Besides, it was going to be another whole week before he could afford his epic mount and so he really needed the money. And what kind of guild would this be if the officers had weak-ass mounts?

When they go on a raid, the rule is that all loot goes to the officer running the raid, and when it’s over that officer divvies up the loot he doesn’t want to make sure everyone gets their fair share. Sometimes the after-raid loot thing would take longer than the raid itself! This was work. He’d worked for the guild, and now that he tried to take a little something for himself as payment they kicked him out.

Donny frowns at the login screen. The whole guild will probably fall apart without him anyway. Idiots.

He’s been trying for the last few days to start another guild on his own, but he can’t get anyone to join. He’s got his epic mount now, but every time he logs on he’s got a dozen angry /tells from old guildmates, bitching him out. Instead of riding around Iron Forge in style he spends all his time arguing in whisper chat with a dozen pissed off crybabies that think just because he’s not their superior officer anymore they have the right to disrespect him.

Mom screams down the steps again. Her voice is starting to slur. It’s almost midnight and she’ll probably pass out soon. He ignores her.

Still, he misses the times of riding into Alliance territory with his posse and ganking lowbie players and then camping the bodies all night. Those were the days, man.

Suddenly Donny gets an idea. He can start over. He’ll move to a new server and start with a clean slate. Nobody will know it’s him. He hits the “Change Realm” button and scans the server list. (PvP only, of course.) He picks one at random. Garithos or something. Whatever. He decides to be a Tauren. A Shaman? Nah. Warlock! He hits “randomize” on the appearance and then settles back to think of a name…

What’s a good name? A name is like, your chance to say something to everyone you meet. You can’t talk to Alliance-side bitches in-game because of the chat filter, but they can see your name. He smiles and leans forward. He types in:

Yousuck

His hand hesitates over the enter key. This seems kind of long. It’s like… waddaya call it? Verbose? Yeah. He needs shorter.

Usuck

Perfect! He hits enter.

That name is currently unavailable.

Damn it! Someone took it already! How come all the good names are always taken?

The basement door slams open again and mom shrieks so loud the dog starts barking, but Donny can’t even hear her now. He’s too busy trying to figure out how he can have his chosen name. Now that he’s picked one, he’s not willing to compromise his vision just because some lame noob (probably Alliance-side) swiped it first. Then, a flash of inspiration:

Xusuck

Yes! The name isn’t taken! He enters the game.

This is going to be awesome.

I was a level one Tauren Shaman when Xusuck appeared at the starting village. When I saw the name I laughed so hard I had to stop playing for a minute. Sadly, it looks like the character is gone now, but I remember him.

The thought of someone who wants to be named “usuck” is delightfully amusing to me. And in fact there is no shortage of such people in the game. There’s the childish insult, the lazyness of the idea, the infantile replacement of “you” with “u”, and the idea that the kid was so enamored of the name that he’d put an “X” in front of it instead of thinking of something different.

At least, I hope it was a kid.

 


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50 thoughts on “WoW Fanfiction

  1. Oleyo says:

    Hah, I was there!

    By the way, characters don’t appear in the armory until they are level 10, probably to reduce the number of junk characters or name save characters that show up when you search. He may still exist! We can perhaps group with Xusuck some day!

  2. Teppesh says:

    Yeah, I know the type. When I feel the urge to be infantile, though, I try and create my own guild, which encourages others to join in on the infantile nature.

  3. guy says:

    That name wins the stupid funny award.

  4. Greg says:

    Interesting fanfic. I like it. Of course, the alcoholic mother thing was a bit depressing, but I’m sure there are even worse situations some WoWites are in.

  5. Mike Lemmer says:

    When I saw the name, I thought it said “Xusack”, an unholy mating between John Cusack and Xanatos. Or Xanadu. What disturbed ideas would fester within such an abscess?

  6. Cincinnatus says:

    I must say that your fan fiction, while not only being absolutely hilarious, is probably right on the mark. Right now a fellow named Donny is frantically checking his ceiling for the hidden cameras you must have placed to describe his life so thoroughly. ;)

  7. Sarah says:

    Namespotting a popular sport among the non-idiots and RPers of Azeroth.

  8. JFargo says:

    I’ve never seen a more meta fan-fic in my life. That was strange, and funny at the end there.

  9. Mari says:

    That guy is just one of many reasons I choose not to play MMORPGs. Well, that and the festering wellspring of misanthropy that lurks within me. I have no patience for the Donnys of the world.

    I crave reading more of this kind of fanfic, though.

  10. Kevin says:

    Yeah… this is why we have a guild of our own. You don’t have to BE an adult, but you do need to ACT like one.

    It’s not that hard to insulate yourself from actual interaction with these people, but it’s always funny to watch them. And occasionally, they’re handy to have around. (Like when someone from the Other Side is killing your quest givers or flight masters, just give a shout out and a dozen Xusucks will high-tail it to you in order to kill another player.

    How much fun is that?

    P.S. Hey Mari, if you are interested in that sort of story, head over to http://www.watchtheguild.com/. They’ve got a series of video podcasts called The Guild all about the players behind the characters. Felicia Day (Buffy) is the main protagonist, as well as the writer.

  11. Tryss says:

    that was fun to read! thanks.

  12. Lady Kat says:

    Hilarious. I only played WoW for a little while, but I always tried my best to avoid these types. I’ve never been very good at avoiding them in real life, though.

  13. corwin says:

    I think I used to play City of Heroes with Donny. :)

  14. Cybron says:

    All the more amusing because I know someone named Donny who plays WoW who exhibits behaviors disturbingly close to those you’ve mentioned (though with slightly less childish names).

  15. Heh. I dig it. I suppose that the mother’s drinking because her son has become a script kiddie.

  16. ngthagg says:

    In the terms of service for WoW, there are a restrictions on naming. For example, you can’t use leetspeak names like roflcopter. Imagine my surprise when I first set foot in Ironforge and saw a “rofflecopter” go hopping by.

    Of course, now that I know about the Armory, I can check and see that both rofflecopter and roflcopter are popular names these days.

  17. Freykin says:

    ngthagg:

    that reminds me when my friend named his character EightEqualsD and it let it go through, and in fact he made it level 50 something before anyone reported him on it.

  18. Derek K says:

    Actually, I was trying to make Usuck, but I missed the shift key, and hit x instead.

  19. m2 says:

    Do you also have an alcoholic mother?

  20. Hey Shamus! Great stuff. Always love your writing.

    One quick request…

    When you do a link, could you please add a [target=”_blank”] to your [a href=]? That way, when we click on the link, a new window will open and we won’t be taken off of your wonderful blog completely.

    Example: My website

    Thanks!
    PS Here’s another funny idea for your comic: When you first take up the profession of Herbalism, you often fail at your attempts to gather an herb. Exactly how does one fail to pick a flower? Are you such a klutz that you drop your pruning shears, stabbing yourself in the toe???

  21. SiliconScout says:

    EightEqualsD??

    I don’t get it.

  22. william says:

    eight equals D
    8=D
    emoticon madness!
    least i think thats what it means. if not, i’m as stumped as you are mate
    you could have characters like Colon Closebracket. which actually doesnt sound like such a bad name. maybe its just my particular brand of madness there though.

  23. Deoxy says:

    What’s wrong with “EightEqualsD”? I mean, 8=D is a form of smiley… it’s not lewd or obscene or anything.

    Or is there something I’m missing?

  24. Factoid says:

    I can’t tell if the comments above were sarcasm or not, and the correction-nazi in me can’t let it go.

    EightEqualsD is a phallus in emoticon language. That’s about the nicest way I can think to put it…trying to stay on the level here.

    The traditional method for doing big-mouth smiley is :D.

  25. Malkara says:

    Oh. Nevermind. I got ninja’d from above. Damn you factoid, DAMN YOU!

  26. Annikai says:

    Maybe it’s just the font of this sight but on other sites 8=D kind of looks like a particular part of the male anatomy.

  27. Donny says:

    shamus u promised u wouldnt tell my story!!!1

    U SUCK

  28. Derek K says:

    Technically, I’d think you’d want a number of equal signs, to make it obvious.

    And re: Herbalism – I’ve never gotten that.

    You fail to pick a flower because you did it in such a way that you ruined the properties of that herb, or you picked the wrong part. You were supposed to get the stem and leaves, you just got leaves. Or you crushed the seed pod pulling it off. Or something of that nature. I think that’s only a puzzle to you if you’ve never tried to actually pick herbs in the past. ;)

  29. Elethiomel says:

    Great story, Shamus. You can tell you haven’t been a high level player yet in the details, but the overall picture is so very nice.

    Now, as for one of the other posters:
    “One quick request…

    When you do a link, could you please add a [target=”_blank”] to your [a href=]? That way, when we click on the link, a new window will open and we won't be taken off of your wonderful blog completely.”
    Please do not do this. Everyone has a “back” button in their browser. New windows everywhere is just irritating.

  30. Jan says:

    Please do not do this. Everyone has a “back” button in their browser. New windows everywhere is just irritating.

    Indeed. If I want a link to open in a new tab, I’ll just middle-click it.

  31. Rod says:

    Long time lurker 1st time poster – i just had to share when i was in CoH there was a guy in my guild (supergroup.. whatever) who was called ‘Goto’.
    It totally broke the guild listings because the game considered his name a command :|

  32. Bryan says:

    This was hilarious. I remember seeing someone named “druiddidurmom” I think it was. Yet they made me rename my character whose name was “Sickbag.” I didn’t roleplay him a lot, mostly through coughing/hacking/wheezing emotes. But he had a personality. So I renamed him Generic. Personality gone.

    Anyhow, WoW is no different from the rest of the interwebs: a few (usually quiet) intelligent people and a great many obnoxious, rude people.

  33. Mayhem says:

    As soon as you said “PvP Server”, I knew what kind of player you were going to write about.

  34. Adam says:

    As soon as you said “PvP Server”, I knew what kind of player you were going to write about.

    If you think that kind of drama doesn’t go on in PvE servers, you’re sadly mistaken. :P

    PvP drama is big, noisy flame wars between members of opposing factions that can’t even communicate in-game.

    PvE drama is guilds full of people that spend hours of every day together. It’s like a job, but you’re supposed to be doing it for fun, and somehow this turns it into a powderkeg of emotional drama just waiting for something to go a little bit wrong.

    All sorts of things get said about the difference between the playerbases of PvP and PvE servers, but frankly I don’t buy much of it. Yeah, the PvP servers probably get a higher percentage of people who score as Killers on Bartle’s test, but that test is even more of a useless amusement than every other personality test.

    Wherever you go you’re going to find, for lack of a better word, shitheads. The fact that they can corpse camp you on a PvP server doesn’t mean they wouldn’t corpse camp you on a PvE server. But the same applies to the bastions of sanity and human kindness: they’re everywhere.

    That’s my opinion anyways, but maybe I’m just biased as someone who’s rolled on three different PvP servers. Or maybe I’m just a sociopath and don’t realize it.

    Oh well.

  35. Justin says:

    New rule: “you” is now “xu”!

    Example: Did xu know that Factoid is a ninja?

    More on topic, that’s a great start to an epic tale of WOW and ennui!

  36. Nick says:

    When you do a link, could you please add a [target=”_blank”] to your [a href=]?

    (Opera OR Firefox OR IE7) plus middle button = new window

  37. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Excelent story!

    But you know,naming your character like that in an online game isnt really that tragic.I remember listening to lewis black sketch where he talked about the names he encountered.People actually naming their children shithead,asshole and abcde is really,REALLY tragic.I also remember of an article about a guy that changed his name the day he turned 18,because his parrents named him garage.

  38. Scourge says:

    xXusuckXx

    is also fun *rolls eyes* Or any other variation of that.

  39. Helm says:

    This is the exact reason I tried the WoW free trial but lost interest after 2 days. I appreciate it has a huge player base and not every single one is an idiot but apparantly they are on at different times to me heh. It was either uber too cool to speak high level clique or lol u r teh suxxor wankers. Been playing CoH/CoV and have to say it’s a much more player friendly game. I can have a female toon and not have some spotty 14 year old dick trying to put his cyber hand up my cyber skirt, which is always nice.

  40. Slippery Jim says:

    CoH/CoV rocks. Been playing for 4 years…

    I tried WoW – got to level 40 before I lost interest.

    Still, it’s great to see Shamus’ take on it :¬)

  41. Damian says:

    xXusuckXx… *rolls eyes*

    When the film Men In Black was first released and I was driving a large, black, powerful sedan, I… I had the license plate X MIB X.

    I have no excuse. Sob.

  42. Pid says:

    Heh, you think that’s bad? I’m working in a drafting office that’s at the back of an internet cafe.
    I get to hear the xusucks, roflcopters, lolfags and… ‘clever’ swearers. All the time. From noon til I leave most days, but now it’s school holidays.
    I think I’ll probably break down and use the earplugs we got from the University Of Melbourne site vist a couple weeks back soon.

  43. Neil says:

    I play Horde side on Illidan, and either there are not that many of these sorts, or I have gotten so used to ignoring these people that I don’t see them at all. I found you can fail to pay attention to the 5% of jerks with ease, and having a highly rated buddy to clear corpse campers off of you every once in a while helps a with the 5% of enemy jerks. Most people are just trying to quest, just like you.

    First time poster, btw. Its nice to find a blog that has some intelligent commentary rather than just rants or regurgitation.

  44. Zukhramm says:

    Tauren Warlock?

  45. Factoid says:

    Rod: Your story reminds me of this XKCD.

    http://xkcd.com/327/

    Your friends name isn’t Bobby Tables, is it? You’d think Blizzard would be smart enough to cleanse its DB input. That’s a cheat waiting to happen.

  46. Jeff says:

    Right now a fellow named Donny is frantically checking his ceiling for the hidden cameras you must have placed to describe his life so thoroughly.
    This might be elitist, but I don’t think Xusuck is a fellow reader of the blog. :P

    I get to hear the xusucks, roflcopters, lolfags and… “˜clever' swearers.
    They actually say it out loud? I… well, the worst I’ve done is say ‘pwned’, and it’s usually in a game discussion.

  47. Zukhramm says:

    And a new genre is born. Meta-MMO-fan fiction, just pick a character at random, then write a small story about the player. I am seriously considering picking up WoW agian just to do this.

  48. WWWebb says:

    I just want to second Kevin’s recommendation of The Guild web series. I just watched it today…hilarious and a nice reality check if you think you’re getting too sucked in. Look for the baby eating the power strip.

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