Project Gorgon is the type of MMO in which you determine your own goals and shoot for them. So when I logged in last night, I had one overwhelming desire to fulfill: I wanted to become a cow. I had heard so much about player cows and even seen a few, but for all my talk, I was still walking around on two legs. I shoved all other tasks to the side and made it the sole direction of the play session to attain bovinehood.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Apparently way back when, the cow boss was in the newbie cave, but after too many players got cow-ified, the devs moved it somewhere else. That somewhere else turned out to be a hidden cave underneath some “creepy crystals.”
To access the cave, I had to go through a quest series. The first step was to chip off red crystals, which then transformed and became angry stags. No worries, I am becoming a master swordsman with a minor in psychology.
I do not know what this giant statue / petrified guy is all about, but he certainly dominates the landscape.
The next step of the quest was to head out to the crypts and obtain some blue crystals. That was a fairly long run — my kingdom for a mount, or at least a faster run speed. The place was crawling with trains of skeletons and spiders, although I was two-shotting them left and right, so they weren’t a huge problem.
People in chat told me that dying is the quickest way to port back to town, and sure enough, it was.
With both crystals obtained, a fire mage elf gave me a secret password to get into the hidden cave. Whew, I thought, at least the worst is over.
Except it wasn’t. Oh no. For you see, the hidden cave is just crawling with poison slugs, and these suckers don’t mess around. I could maybe — maybe — take one out before the poison sucked away all my life, but it was slow going, especially with respawns. Eventually I decided to run for it and hope that I could make it to the boss before succumbing.
The above warning screen told me that the boss was near, and with a meager 10 health left, I dashed into the chamber. I’ve never been so happy to die.
Maronesa, the cow boss, charged right at me. She’s one of many experiments that Davlos, a mad scientist sort, made. She gored and trampled me right good, and I gained the curse that I wanted for so long.
What was interesting is that I wasn’t instantly transformed into a cow, but instead got a cow-ntdown timer telling me that I was transforming. When it hit zero, I traded my human body for a beautiful bull.
ALL SHALL MILK ME AND DESPAIR.
I gained two skills at the transformation: cow attacks and beast speech. Beast speech levels up the more you talk in chat, which is amusing because the chat kept putting “moos” instead of my words. I’m guessing that the higher I am in beast speech, the less moos come out.
Interestingly, I retained my psychology combat skills. So I guess I’m a cow that can psyche out pigs and skeletons. This will be interesting.
Back at town, Harry the Wolf finally talked to me — he’s a werewolf and has some limited sympathy for my condition. He even has a cure, although he requires a lot of materials for it. I’m in no rush to lose my cow status, to be honest. I would love some cow armor, though.
Oh yeah, there’s a cow /dance emote. It’s hilarious.
Syl finally realizes a long-held dream to cover Blade & Soul on Battle Bards. Truly, this is the highlight of her life, the apex of her existence, and the sunshine beams through her kitchen window. It’s pretty groovy for the rest of the bards, too, as the threesome enjoy this Asian soundtrack and vie for their favorite picks.
Bio Break 