A Rat's A Rat For All That

Rats. What is it about rats and MMORPGs? I can't say that I thought about rats one day in a hundred before I took up this hobby and now a day never passes. A dozen years ago, when I stepped out into Norrath, what's the first thing I remember? Well, alright, falling off Kelethin, losing my corpse and logging out in a strop but let's forget that, my own fault for making an elf. Cut me some slack, I was new and I knew nothing. We've all been there.

So then, forgetting that that the way I conveniently forget the first record I bought with my own money was a Gerry Anderson E.P. not, as I choose to tell people who ask (and it's surprising how often the subject comes up) "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by Joan Baez, my first MMO memory is... well it's chasing bats outside North Freeport. But the second! The second is rats. Big rats.

Roekillik au naturel

Rats get not one but two entries on GiantBomb. Kill Ten Rats is an MMO trope (and an excellent blog). At least one MMO has tried to define itself with a bold claim that it didn't have any rats at all. (It was Horizons and it had maggots instead, which really wasn't an improvement). Boars may get the "everywhere" hate but it's rats who have ubiquity down.

It's not just plain vanilla rats, either (and there's an ice-cream flavor to ponder. Or not). Giant rats and plague rats are all very well but as Orwell said, four legs good, two legs better and what's better than a very large, infectious rodent? An even bigger one walking upright wearing pants of course!

I believe I first encountered ratmen when I bought the Warhammer RPG. What a great book that was and what an excellent campaign. I must dig it out. Pen and paper gaming is the new black around here apparently, what with Tobold, Ardwulf and Tipa all getting their D20 on all over again. I can't recall exactly what part the Skaven had in the plot but I'm pretty sure they were in it up to their elbows. Assuming rats have elbows. Plotting is what ratmen do best.

Smoking jackets are in this season

Mythic inexplicably decided to leave the Skaven out of Warhammer Online. Hamlet without the prince. Everquest had ratmen, though. Had them from way back in Velious. Safely tucked away in Dragon Necropolis, where there was little chance of me tripping over them back at the turn of the millennium. It's hard enough to get there even now, as I may have mentioned.

What's that rumbling sound ?

It must have been somewhere in around 2003 that I finally encountered the Chetari. Ultra-aggressive, tall enough to look a dwarf in the eye, a race of white lab rats gone feral. They favor Donald rather than Mickey, dressing only from the waist up, but short of that idiosyncrasy they're all rat. There was much complaint, when EQ2 announced the ratonga, that Norrath already had ratpeople. I just hope when Dragon Necropolis comes to EQ2 as surely it must, we get a showdown. Forget the Roekillik and their incomprehensible plans for world domination, the Chetari are the real bad rats here.

Norrath may have the most upright rat races and Warhammer the archetype but love the Ratonga and Skaven as I do I'd still have to hand the crown to the Ksaravi. Are they the most fully-realized of all the ratfolk in MMOs? Not really. Sure, the Skaven have them beat paws down, offline. Sure, you can actually play a Ratonga. But did any of those rats build Ksaravi Gulch? No they did not!

Ksaravi Gulch is a work of art. Actually the whole of Telon is a work of art and should be preserved in some kind of online Gallery if and when the sad day comes but I digress. Even by the exceptionally high standards of Telon, Ksaravi Gulch is astonishing. Rats built it and it shows. From the scavenged materials to the treadmill wheels to the cages on stalks it's the rodent Fallingwater. I can't begin to do it justice with words and screenshots. It's worth downloading Vanguard just to see it.

I'm a cat person, really I am. But there's something about a rat in an MMO.

Does Guild Wars 2 have rats?

A Dragon In Ahgram: Vanguard

Today is the fifth anniversary of the launch of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, almost certainly the best least-played MMO in the world. For a long while it was my second-favorite MMO of all time. Now I'm not so sure. I think it might be my first.

No point rehashing Vanguard's story all over again. Anyone likely to be reading this already knows it. Did Vanguard start the trend of huge expectation verging on mania before launch followed by crashing disappointment and tidal waves of hatred after? I can't remember. It was a long time ago and now every MMO launch is something like that. All I know is that I loved Telon from the day I first set foot there and I love it still. If I could step through the screen and live there, I would.

Built with my own paws

And yet, how much time do I spend there nowadays? Not much. Not enough. A little diplomacy here, a boat trip there. I visit when I remember. Even my house is packed up and stored away. Telon is so quiet now. Lonely, almost.

So it was a joy to see the Festival Square in Ahgram filled with people for the fifth anniversary party yesterday. Well, it was a joy when I finally found it. I didn't know Ahgram even had a Festival Square. I spent nearly forty minutes running around the dusty sun-drenched streets and flying above the flat, white roofs looking for fireworks and listening for the sounds of people having fun.

What can I say? Even though I've arrived at Ahgram by river many times, I never noticed the dockside gate. I always came in from the Khal side, where the Riftway stands beside the shipbuilders and the bindstone. I thought that was the main entrance. In the end I saw a flaming pegasus spiral down and I followed. I found the party at last but it seemed they were having a bit of a problem...

Kotosoth reacts badly when asked if he brought a bottle

There was a dragon in Ahgram.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a real dragon in Telon. When the highest level a character could reach was fifty I had two of them, a Raki Disciple and an Orc Dread Knight. Now the top level is fifty-five I still have two level fifties. The ultra-grind, raid-focused endgame that SoE chose to go with doesn't appeal to me, although it was probably a sensible choice given the limited resources available and the hardcore residue that remained after the general population boiled out.

I'm under there somewhere

This dragon was Kotosoth, who I believe normally lurks in the Ancient Port Warehouse. My little Raki had a wonderful time kicking the big lizard in the ankle for ten minutes while a slideshow played. Reminded me of beating on a Keep door in Dark Age of Camelot in 2002, only a lot more fun. Finally the dragon fell over and the party started up again.

Your correspondent as a chicken

There were some marvelous party games. We all got turned into chickens. And camels. And skeletons. And ghouls. I went to the bank and got some sparklers and smoke bombs. I even found some snowballs to throw. Several people had invited Slappy the Cool so there was much dancing to actual music. Plenty of people came in fancy dress. I saw someone in the cat illusion from the Shidreth Mines and I wanted to use mine but I couldn't remember where I'd put it. Still, just thinking about the time I got it made me smile.

Evolution took a different path on Telon...

Half an hour after the dragon died the crowd had begun to thin a little. I saddled up Randolph the Controversial Reindeer and flew out, all the way back to EQ2. But a few hours later I was back in Telon, killing rats in Ksaravi Gulch with my level 18 Raki Sorceror. A kill 50 rats quest and I stayed up until one in the morning to finish it and relished every single rat.

So, happy fifth birthday Vanguard and here's wishing you many, many more. And I promise to visit a lot more often than just once a year.