Remember your first dance at school?
The normally well lit gymnasium has been transformed into a cheap light show adorned with blue streamers and plastic punch bowls. A thirty-something DJ spits into the microphone, “Is everyone ready to have a good time!”, his beer tainted battle cry only answered by an overly enthusiastic english teacher guarding the door.
Two bodies of pre-teens stare at each other across the oiled wooden floor of the gym.
The boys huddle together like a defunct football squad: posturing, pointing, and pushing each other with sharp elbows, they stand together but alone, surveying the objects of their confusion across the empty dance floor.
Pockets of hair-sprayed valkyrie line the opposite wall of the gym. Each girl delicately painted with thick eye makeup, pink volcanoes of energy and laughter. They size up their awkward suitors. Most pretend not to notice them: naturally the girls have the upper hand in this stand off, but their obvious self-awareness forfeits any real advantage.
The music is absurdly too loud for the size of the gym, the volume is almost assaulting: “If you want it/Then you’ve got it/If you want it/Baby, you’ve got it (Just Bust a Move).
Both factions stare at each other, the music infecting the air between them, their eyes melting into hungry wet orbs, both sides burning to press their hips against each other and not entirely understanding why.
Suddenly the music ends and begins anew: this time a “slow song” by the artist George Michael.
And I’m never going to dance again/Guilty feeling’s got no rhythm.
Like zombies a few boys break rank, sluggish but urgent forward movements, “Want to dance,” one boys says to a girl, without making eye contact. His example is followed by others. Some not as successful, “Eww, gross, whatevah.”
Before the song ends the dance floor is packed with swaying pairs of young bodies.
There is laughter now, giddy clamor that somehow competes with the music. Tight lips stretched across teeth seem to outshine the spinning purple and red lights. Before anyone’s insecurity has time to call a general retreat: everyone is dancing and having fun.
The english teacher at the door begins to weep: the blue streamers were her idea.
—————
Am I the only one that recognizes the almost sexual tension between Order and Destruction?
This game is still so new and I think it’s only a matter of time before people get over themselves, their previous MMO baggage, the totally irrational desire to grind the fun out of a game, and finally begin to enjoy the true heart of WAR: open RvR.
RvR lakes are like an empty dance floors: both sides hear the music, we feel the pull of our mirror image enemies deep in our guts. Only the bloody orgasm of open war will squelch the fire that burns between us.
I will throw up my PvP flag and ride into the the RvR lake, scenarios be damned, and I will shout to the Witch Elf: “Would you like to dance?”
Maybe her parents will let her get some pizza afterwards.
/shrug
Level 1 Human 
You sir are way too optimistic.
Put two people in a room, one pile of cash in the middle. Conflict will happen.
Put two people in a room, a pile of cash in each corner, another in the middle, and a door to another room with another pile of cash, and you suddenly have two strategist figuring out which route will allow them to get the most money with the least amount of effort. Which most likely means one person goes to one room, and the other stays in the current room.
Of course, killing the other person guarantees both rooms for you, but why risk what you don’t need to? Sure there is some idiot out there that will risk it, but one against the zerg of enemies isn’t going to be anything more than a stain on the green carpets of Dragonwake.
By: heartless_ on December 31, 2008
at 7:25 pm