The Drama of Christmas

It is Christmas Eve, I guess I should write down a Christmas story.

I played WoW back in 2005, and I finally achieved my High Warlord status on December 26th, the day after Christmas. Anybody who played World of Warcraft back in 2005 knows what getting High Warlord means, and how achieving it on the 26th means I should have given up my Christmas.

I didn't give up my Christmas. I just made myself a huge vat of drama to drink with it.

At the beginning of the Christmas week I knew that I would have to PvP through Christmas. It was my last week, my saga was finishing. I could feel the rewards that were coming for me at the end already. It had been a long battle, and it was almost finally over. All I had to do was beat the rest of the server one more week and I would be the High Warlord.

But that was the problem. This was Christmas week. I had already flaked on my family for Thanksgiving because of my WoW habit, and they weren't going to let me pull a repeat offence. Plans had been made, and I was obligated to visit my mom's house for Christmas. We lived in the same city, so I didn't have to leave behind my PvP for days or anything, but it was still gonna put a big 8 hour dent into my gaming.

So I tried to figure out some way that my character could continue PvPing whilst I hammed it up with the family on Christmas. Eventually I decided to ask a girl I met online to play Ayedee for me. She lived in Australia, and said it would be no problem as it wasn't even Christmas there. I was stoked, I had it all planned out.

I got a good 5 hour sleep that night, which was just about average considering the PvP hours I was holding. I gave the girl all my info so that she could take care of me while I was out, and I headed to a very akward Christmas. Remember, this was about 98% through my 3 months without a shower, I smelled a bit gamey. Still, it was a fun Christmas, I got a couple gifts, we had dinner, and I headed back to home base.

I took off my shoes, got comfy in my chair, and logged in.

This is going to sound maybe a tad bit sexist, but I just need to be real about this here. This is the problem with making plans with Australian chicks that play online games. You can't count on them to do any important shit in any important game when they're supposed to. Sure it's nice to have them around. They sound cute when they talk on the mic, they make female characters and flirt with the sea of nerdy dudes around them; useful purposes in their own right. If they're the ones that 39 other people are counting on for healing, or have to defend themselves against swathes of player enemies, or are supposed to play somebody's character on christmas, they suddenly choke and everyone suffers.

This was reiterated to me in a most brutal fashion, as when I logged in I discovered that nothing whatsoever had been done to my character while I had been away. There had been no PvP, there hadn't even been any logging in. It had been hours of prime PvP time, and I had been idle the entire time.

If I didn't need to get rank 1 on the server that week I wouldn't have worried, but this was my last week. If I didn't get rank 1 that week, it would have become harder and harder to convince people that I'd be finished soon. It would never happen. I needed to get more kills than anybody else on my side of the server, and I was 8 hours behind.

I started PvPing. Hard. The people that I had arranged PvP deals with on my side were furious about my disappearance. They couldn't slow down for me, I had to speed past them. There is no negotiating with PvPers. No matter how long they've faught with you, no matter how many times you epic'ly saved them impending doom, they will leave you behind. There is no room for slowing down, the rest of the server could breeze by you without you even knowing. Not to mention that my PvP group at the time had very little trust for eachother.

And so, Christmas night, when peace and love was supposed to sweep across the land with a soft breeze, I was pleading with my stubborn ass PvP mates who wouldn't slow a pace for me on Ventrilo, while murdering player after player in the game.

It was an Alterac Valley weekend, meaning that winning or losing in the Alterac Valley battleground gave extra honor points. I made it into a few good winning games, but I wasn't catching up kill-wise. Not by a long shot. I begged the leaders of the two opposing groups of PvPers to just let me have this. I didn't have the time in my life to keep PvPing, and physically I didn't think I could take any more of it anyways.

I forget the names of the two leaders of the opposing PvP groups, I shall call them BB and WW. BB had a long standing relationship with me as he had been raised in the same PvP group that I was. WW was normally opposing our group as we had started out, but I had a lot of friends in his crew and held some sway with what his group did. I knew that I would need the two of them to sleep for a couple hours or I would never be able to catch up, so I called for all of us to meet on Vent.

BB and WW hated eachother, and were both extremely suspicious. Neither wanted to sleep for fear that the other one would stay awake and take their spot, and it took a good deal of convincing, but I finally got them both to agree to sleep for about 4 hours. My chance had come.

WW logged off, and I waited for BB to log off too. I kept waiting. He didn't leave. I asked him what was up, and he said that he didn't want to sleep. He wanted to beat WW. He wanted to be done too.

I almost started crying. I explained to him again that if he didn't leave, I'd never be able to catch up. It didn't matter to him. He wanted, almost as badly as I did, to just finish this PvP mess forever. It was halfway through a pissy sounding plea that WW logged back in and saw BB still around PvPing.

Now there was no trust. Neither of them were going to stop. Not for me, not for anyone.

That night was one of the worst nights in my life. I begged, I screamed, and there was nothing that I could do. I wasn't going to make it. Still, I kept at it. I never once stopped PvPing from the minute I got back. It was into-a-game, out-of-a-game, and back again until the sun came up the next day. My roomates wished me good luck and went to work. Good luck wasn't going to help me. Nothing could help me. I was fucked.

That afternoon, 3 or so, BB and WW came to me together. I was surprised, wary... but I hoped beyond hopes that they did exactly what they did. They both agreed to sleep for a couple hours. In the middle of the day. For me. This time, they both left.

I tore the shit out of some players for the next 4 hours. I must have killed more people in those 4 hours than in the rest of the previous night. I knew I was tired, I knew I was hungry, and I knew that this was it. My only chance. I was dotting and shadowbolting and generally the biggest bad ass warlock in any AV I had ever taken part of in my life. I wish I had frapsed some of it, it was truly epic.

BB and WW came back, as prescribed, at exactly 7. We checked our honor together. I had caught up. I felt a weight that had buried down into my spine suddenly lift. I was removed from the world for a second in what can only be described as unmitigated bliss. I knew that finally, finally, without a doubt, it was almost over.

I couldn't stop, of course. I had to wait until 3am the next day for the honor of the week to tally, and if I stopped PvPing before then I'd fall behind again. So I kept at it, not even realizing that I had been awake since 9am the previous day. I just kept fighting and fighting, and then someone let me free with two words on vent: "honor's reset." It checked it, it had.

I quit the game that I was in. I hearthed my way to Kargath, mounted up, rode my warlock to the Ironforge gates, and passed out in my chair. The next day, I woke up refreshed, rejuvinated, and a High Warlord.

I think that night was the most stressful Christmas I'll ever have.