Bethany Massimilla Community Manager

Now Playing: World of Warcraft beta: Poultry.net Edition

A Chicken in Azeroth

I like World of Warcraft. I've been in the beta for nearly three weeks now. I play a human priest named Wibble. I have a nice, spiky mace and what seems like a metric smurfload of spells. I have been on many quests, ridden a gryphon many times, squished many monsters, collected many items, and have ended up with my face in the dirt because one of those damned black dragon whelps gifted me with a nice fireball in the back. I like World of Warcraft. I really do.

You couldn't ask for a more noble character portrait.

But on April Fool's Day, one of Blizzard's in-game Game Masters turned me into a chicken, and I've been polluted ever since. I still like World of Warcraft, don't get me wrong, but let's talk seriously a minute here--how many chicken RPGs have you played? (I'm not referring to that time you took your McNuggets and acted out a tragic opera in three acts before consuming all of the actors.)

Oh, a glowing sword, that's cute. Do you see this beak? Do you, pal?!

I'm used to schlepping around Azeroth, decked out in my priestly raiment, passing by scores of humans and grand night elves and stout dwarves and little gnomes who are likewise appropriately accoutered according to their profession--taking it all in with appreciation but also with easy acceptance. I'm no stranger to fantasy worlds with similar races, and I've seen swords and sorcery and chain mail before. I've quaffed potions before. I've initiated my avatar into dance animations at random before.

But April Fools' Day was the first time I played a chicken initiating a duel with a night elf. And I won. And it was totally awesome.

Chickens, 1. Night Elves, 0.

In my first chicken moments, though, I ran around without really knowing what to do. What were my capabilities? What were my limits? Do feathers confer unique armor bonuses? As I scuttled around the feet of the other characters clustered in the town of Lakeshire, the humanoid characters, my betters, I began to feel strangely empowered. Here I was in a world of carefully constructed pretense, and suddenly I was a simple creature without any pretense at all. I had clumsy little feet and useless little wings, and a beak. No one was paying me any mind. It was like I was playing another game entirely.

So I played it the only way I knew how. I turned in my sampling of liquors to an NPC barkeep who seemed strangely unconcerned to be paying his coin to a small fowl. I made the run from the Redridge Mountains down into Goldshire, occasionally fluttering my wings to skim along the earth. I joined forces with another poultry comrade, and together we pecked monsters out of the bucolic Elwynn Forest. We ran into the great city of Stormwind, intent on clandestine chicken business, through the Valley of Heroes, past the statues that make even a paladin seem tiny. Suddenly I wanted a statue of my own, fashioned in my own absurd little likeness. I wanted to do great deeds in the name of the other wretched, unnoticed little creatures of the realms. I wanted to be an avian hero. I wanted my own expansion pack with chicken art gracing the cover. I made a point of returning to Lakeshire on the back of a gryphon, perched proudly. Who says chickens can't fly?

As it so happens, my time as a chicken ended in a wholly unremarkable way--one of those damned black dragon whelps gifted me with a nice fireball in the back. I was attempting to heal a human that was fleeing it, and in falling, I returned to human shape myself, my feathers melting back into robes, my body assuming its normal frame. I've continued to play World of Warcraft in the way it was meant to be played, and I've continued to enjoy it. But part of me remains wistfully attached to the time I was a minute, feathered nobody in a great world, writing my own mythos, pecking and scratching my way into new, grand histories.