GET BOAT

November 21, 2010 6:09 PM

Meet the bastard lovechild of Zork, Choose Your Own Adventure, Silent Hill, and World of Warcraft: You awaken in Razor Hill.

I felt reading the original thread linked above was a much more entertaining experience, but it has also been mirrored at this site for your convenience. World of Warcraft knowledge is recommended for maximum enjoyment of the in-jokes, but is certainly not necessary. Learn more: about YAIRH, about Tednugent, QAF. As of Cataclysm, the next expansion for World of Warcraft, an orc named Tednug (accompanied by his cat Scratchfever) wanders the continent of Durotar where YAIRH takes place.

posted by Evilspork (32 comments total)

NB: The World of Warcraft forums have moved to a new site and the old ones will be wiped away at the end of the month, breaking any links.
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 6:12 PM on November 21, 2010

Scratchfever is the mostest bestest kitty EVAR.
posted by The otter lady at 6:17 PM on November 21, 2010

To the south is that little Troll village you never remember the name of.

I like it already.
posted by frobozz at 6:19 PM on November 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

It was a big fad at my school to do text-based RPG's on paper and pass as notes during class. The fact that there is now a WoW one on the forums with such a tongue-in-cheek humor-style will make so many peoples' heads explode. I must not show this to any of them. After all, I have to keep what few friends I do have.
posted by MHPlost at 6:27 PM on November 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

For those of you wondering what the scr@ping is about: this is to avoid automatic obscenity filters, where 'crap' cannot appear anywhere in the message. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Metafilter for not having such silliness.
posted by persona at 6:34 PM on November 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh man, text adventure jokes. I should probably be ashamed that I find them so funny.

To the south is that little Troll village you never remember the name of.

I like it already.

I love Blizzard games, but knowing them, the village is probably named IceSickle Glades.

Also, the most accurate text adventure command of all time.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 6:34 PM on November 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's Sen'jin Village. I used to play on the Sen'jin realm, so for me it's the little village I'll never forget the name of.

Also, Durotar is a zone. The continent is Kalimdor.

...

I'll go quietly now, and be unspeakably nerdy elsewhere.
posted by dumbland at 6:47 PM on November 21, 2010 [3 favorites]

Man. I'd stumbled across this now and again for ages, but only bothered to read the whole thing a few days ago. It goes from lame (but well-written) Silent Hill gags to a fleshed-out, moving story, creepy in its own right.
posted by luftmensch at 6:55 PM on November 21, 2010

The fact that it's on the WoW forums makes me cringe by reflex, but I'll give it a try...
posted by Huck500 at 7:15 PM on November 21, 2010

I'll go quietly now, and be unspeakably nerdy elsewhere.

Yeah, nice try. This is Metafilter. You don't get nominated for the Unspeakably Nerdy Award, Category: Video Games without revealing that you once spent four months reverse engineering Zork into punch card format. And even then, you're still not the favorite to win.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 7:15 PM on November 21, 2010 [10 favorites]

this is outstanding!
posted by Bwithh at 7:17 PM on November 21, 2010

This is surprisingly compelling so far. Color me impressed.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 7:22 PM on November 21, 2010

This is wonderful.

An Orc wouldn't have to ever go to Sen'jin Village, but Trolls have to schlep their way back there to get their mounts, even though the closest flightmaster is in Ogrimmar.:(
posted by sawdustbear at 7:37 PM on November 21, 2010

Crap, I need to feed my Hungry Hatchling. I haven't logged in in a couple of days...
posted by Xoebe at 7:39 PM on November 21, 2010

I read most of this while it was being posted, but lost track of it before the end. Thanks for reminding me! And it's cool to see Tednug being added to the game. I'll have to go camp his sorry ass.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:40 PM on November 21, 2010

>kill nerd

What do you want to kill the nerd with?
posted by Justinian at 7:53 PM on November 21, 2010

Just dropping in to say 'bastard lovechild of Zork' would be a fantastic name for a band
posted by Throw away your common sense and get an afro! at 7:55 PM on November 21, 2010

Also, Durotar is a zone. The continent is Kalimdor.

You're right; I meant to go back and change it to peninsula but it slipped my mind looking for the NPC links. D'oh!
posted by Evilspork at 8:02 PM on November 21, 2010

>Write will

You leave it all to your little brother Hordrouge, a Rogue who only recently hit level 12.

How it pains you to think you may never see his innocent, smiling face again.

Ahhh, ha ha. I love this so.
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 8:17 PM on November 21, 2010

This is genius.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:46 PM on November 21, 2010

My favorite part:

Q u o t e:
> Attempt to go Super Sayan

You stamp your foot on the ground, crouch, screw up your face like you are giving birth to a camel through your rectum, and roar

hhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

There, you think one of your hairs turned blonde. At least one. Maybe its grey. Oh, it's just some dirt. Nevermind.

You slump you head, dejected. You'll never get to be a blonde.

stupid humans
stupid blondes

Scratchfever tilts his head. Not a great roar, but you can work on it.

posted by ShawnStruck at 11:14 PM on November 21, 2010

The Lurkers Support Me in Email: "NB: The World of Warcraft forums have moved to a new site and the old ones will be wiped away at the end of the month, breaking any links"

The complete story is also archived at http://www.thelittlestmurloc.com/
posted by ShawnStruck at 11:44 PM on November 21, 2010

I read "Bjork" instead of Zork and boy was I confused and/or excited.
posted by nzero at 12:53 PM on November 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

This story is great AND has a positive moral message! Well done.
posted by subdee at 1:59 PM on November 22, 2010

For those of you wondering what the scr@ping is about: this is to avoid automatic obscenity filters, where 'crap' cannot appear anywhere in the message. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Metafilter for not having such silliness.

It's not actually filtering "crap," but rather "rape" or "raping," or words containing that combination of letters. Thus, "scraping" gets the whole word filtered.
posted by Menthol at 5:47 PM on November 22, 2010

Zork, Silent Hill, and another videogame? Sounds like Ruby Quest.

"> Use Arcanite Ripper to play some sweet riffs"
"THE POWER OF ROCK COMPELS YOU."

Exactly like Ruby Quest, even down to the silly commands that ought to undermine the horror setting, but only make the helpless protagonists more sympathetic.
posted by marakesh at 6:26 PM on November 22, 2010

I laughed. I cried. (I'm serious!) This is the possibly the best link I have ever followed from MetaFilter. I enjoyed it far more than most novels.
posted by Jacqueline at 10:44 PM on November 22, 2010

Awesomeness. Complete awesomeness. I stayed up until almost midnight reading it last night, read through it today at work whenever I could, and finished it just now.

Oldschool snarky text-adventure writing + Warcraft = WIN.
posted by zbaco at 10:45 PM on November 22, 2010

I can't believe I've never read through this before. I've busted out laughing multiple times and I'm only on page 12 so far.

Fantastic!
posted by rachaelfaith at 12:51 AM on November 23, 2010

I can't believe I just read the whole thing. I've never even played WoW.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:43 AM on November 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Unbelievably good. If this man ever gives me a way to give him a modest amount of money it is his.

His site is borked, sadly.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:13 AM on November 28, 2010

Site's back up.
posted by cavalier at 11:49 AM on November 29, 2010