After playing World of Warcraft, the 12 year old boy knew how to cope when he was attacked by a moose in the forest.
In the article he describes how he first yelled at the moose, distracting it so his sister got away, then when he got attacked and the animal stood over him he feigned death. "Just like you learn at level 30 in World of Warcraft."
Now who says you can't learn useful stuff from WoW? All I have to say is - I am really really glad his skills at feigning death were not resisted by that beast. Imagine if it had been an immune elite...
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(Now, after this story was told to me by a friend long after it had made its way around the net for a while, I decided to google a little, to try and figure out how come I get all these comments suddenly. That's when I saw that people complain about the translation of "elg" into "moose". Yes, you are correct, it should be "elk" not "moose". The problem is that when ever I use "elk" English speakers ask "what's an elk"? Then I have to explain that it's the European version of moose, and that is what you will find in Norwegian forests. So, I picked moose rather than elk. Sorry about that, to all the elks out there, I know you hate being called moose just as much as Norwegians hate to be called Swedes.)
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
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16 comments:
In that case, were he a palladin, he could have just bubbled and hearthstoned out of there.
Good for him. I think it's likely that he will also make wise decisions later in life, when shopping for quality goods, when grouping with others to complete tasks, and when staying organized and efficient in his personal habits.
All these things are right there to learn in games like WoW...to paraphrase something I read earlier today.."Games don't have to prove themselves as an educational method, they're how we've always learned. Schools are the new, radical, untried method."
w00t. That is a great story. Was he totally unharmed? How long did he have to feign for?
:) I thought it was a very happy story, as it went so well. The boy was bruised, but as he had been hit in the back, his backpack took the brunt and he was not harmed. It does not tell how long he was still, just that he stayed totally quiet until the beast went away. It wasn't like he could check his watch.
And yeah, I wish the hearthstones would work outside the games. But imagine the inconvenience if you forgot where you set it, and found yourself at your previous hotel in Malmø when you should have been in Tokyo...
Interesting story! You never know when the things you learn might come in handy...
If only he were a druid! He could have sleeped the angry beast, and been home in time for the raid.
Sigh.
Has anyone praised this boy's tanking skills?
Feigning death? If I recall correctly that is a skill acquired by the hunter class. I'm not sure he could have been as fortunate were he to have been trained as a Warlock..
kelly: Yep, his parents are very proud of his tanking skills, as they saved his sister!
bioimmortality: correct, it's a hunter skill, which the boy also mentions in the interview. But yes, you are right, fear did not work, or the beast was immune, or just resisted. So those warrior/priest/warlock skills did not work in this case! (Also I suspect that the paladin bubble, the druid sleep, the mage iceblock or blink, the shaman stoneclaw totem or the rogue vanish would have been equally useless.)
DOROTHEE SAID...Moose are truly
terrorifying creatures & I have
even had them enter my nightmares.
Now with my gaming experiences I'd know what to do should I come across a live one! Robert asked:
"how long" did the "feign" last?
I'd say, for this young brother,
far TOO long.
Not quite. We have both moose and elk here in North America, too. Elk are usually found further south (e.g. Colorado) whereas moose tend to stick further north (e.g. Canada and Alaska, with occasional forays to Montana, Idaho, etc.)
I think one of my favorite memories was seeing a herd of 200+ elk outside Durango, Colorado in 1989.
And with this contribution, quoting Monthy Python without giving credit where credit is due, I'll start being strict on what comments I permit. The above has already been offered to every other place I have been able to find where this case has surfaced, so while a classic, at this point it's getting a little old.
Taking this as a sign that the jokes to this thread are wearing thin: if you want your comment to be published from here on, it had better be good enough to make me laugh or stop to think and reconsider.
Great article...thanks! I've seen a ton of moose and elk here in Colorado this year while riding horseback. Both are amazing creatures and their muscle mass is stunning.
Just wanted to say that your profile pic isn't scaling well. I was reading your story about the kid who feigned death in real life (loved it, like almost all the other people who commented.)
Your pic to the side looked all pixellated, though. The properties showed it to be a much larger pic, constrained by HTML to a much smaller size. Firefox and Internet Explorer both failed to do that well. Would you like me to re-process the image to the desired size? Wouldn't take me more than a minute or two, with Photoshop. I'm on vacation anyway.
I want to add that the terms vary from British English to American English. Moose unambiguosly refers to the correct animal. The British however call the same animal "elk", which in American English refers to an entirely different animal, the wapiti, which does not inhabit Europe at all.
Varghedin,
Norwegian linguist
As a WoW ex-addicted I laughed a lot ;)
Thanks for sharing.
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